Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 843

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 843
The moment I returned to the Medical Guild, unpacked my belongings, and settled into my office chair, a tremendous clatter erupted from somewhere.
“M-M-Master, you’ve arrived!”
He was covered head to toe in flour.
It appeared he was in the midst of training to win a dumpling competition.
Jegalling dropped his pretense and spoke.
“Hope, on my way here I passed through Baekrin County—it was nothing but dumplings everywhere.”
“Ah, yes, we’ve arranged a dumpling competition. This unworthy disciple has foolishly committed the Jegallim Family’s honor to accepting such a challenge.”
His face already bore the unmistakable signs of anxiety—the worry that his defeat would bring great shame upon the Jegallim Family.
“I see. A dumpling competition? Well, the Jegallim Family cannot afford to lose at dumplings.”
Gulp—
I watched Jin Cheon-hee swallow hard.
The weight of his disciple’s burden had just tripled.
His mind was already conjuring images of himself failing the dumpling competition and performing ritual repentance before Master Kong Myeong’s memorial tablet.
That was simply his nature.
Jegalling observed his disciple’s rapidly shifting expressions with great interest.
“I would like to hear what happened.”
“W-well, you see, it happened like this….”
Jin Cheon-hee explained everything that had transpired, not even bothering to brush the flour from his clothes.
Once he finished his explanation, his expression crumpled into despair.
He was clearly worried that his actions would utterly destroy the family’s honor.
Jegalling spoke.
“I understand. Continue your training with full dedication.”
“Yes, yes, Master!”
“There is no time to waste.”
“Yes, of course, Master. This unworthy disciple shall return with dumplings prepared at once.”
Jin Cheon-hee dashed out once more.
Clatter clatter clatter!
Jegalling watched with amusement as the one disciple who never lost in lightness of movement bounded away like a rolling stone, then briefly concealed his face behind his fan.
“….”
“Aren’t you laughing far too much, Master?”
“In my twilight years, I’ve taken on a single disciple and witnessed every manner of spectacle. Why would I refuse such entertainment when he provides it so willingly?”
“He’ll choke on dumplings before this is over.”
“That too would be amusing.”
The ill-tempered master had found joy for the first time in ages.
And well he might have.
Not long ago, Jegalling had witnessed aberrations that should never have existed in this world.
He had to constantly predict their movements and calculate how humanity should fight against them.
Blood, flesh, death.
The stench of someone’s flesh burning and the anguished screams of those poisoned and writhing.
And the dark, profound madness that tests human wisdom.
Wasn’t this a path that reminded me of when I was Hyeolrin in the past?
At the end of that journey.
Upon returning home, my disciple was already presenting the finest gift to his master.
“I suppose I’ll be eating dumplings until my belly bursts for a while. How troublesome.”
“Yet you seem pleased about it.”
“….”
Jegalling did not answer.
He merely concealed his face behind his fan.
He was that delighted.
To Yoo Ho, this appearance was both familiar and strange.
Jegalling before and after Jin Cheon-hee’s arrival were the same person, yet entirely different.
Just as he was savoring this happiness of returning home, Dokgo Junghu entered.
“Patriarch, did you have a safe journey?”
“I completed the task without incident. Martial Arts Guild Master.”
“I have come to make a report.”
“Please, speak.”
Jegalling offered him a seat.
However, the Martial Arts Guild Master remained standing in that spot.
As if he dared not sit in the same place.
A declaration that he would fulfill his duty.
Though he constantly pestered to be allowed retirement on the surface, his true nature was as steadfast as any man could be.
Jegalling did not press further.
Only then did Dokgo Junghu speak.
“The Previous Generation Gol King is coming.”
“He is coming? Ho, could it be that he is unwell…?”
“That is not the case. The pretext is for exchange with the Medical Guild, but in reality….”
“Dumplings, I presume. Indeed, he has always swept up dumplings from every grand feast in the realm.”
“Sadoryeon’s Sool-je is also coming. The surface purpose is exchange with the Golden Blood Hall’s Sobangju, and….”
“…That one is also after dumplings.”
“Yes. It seems he is particularly eager to come, having tasted the cooking of the Soggakju in the past.”
“That fellow’s cooking is indeed addictive.”
“Yes. It appears…. Only the Soggakju can properly prepare such extraordinary cuisine.”
Those who had once eaten meals prepared by Jin Cheon-hee had attempted to recreate that food, yet it was extremely rare for the taste to come out exactly the same.
“Hehe, indeed.”
Following Jegalling’s laughter, the Martial Arts Guild Master Dokgo Junghu continued.
“I cannot fathom why everyone has become so carefree when the Righteous-Heterodox Great War has only recently ended.”
“Is that not the nature of Gangho?”
At Jegalling’s words, the Martial Arts Guild Master eventually nodded in agreement.
“True enough. So then, how much blood debt have you collected during this time?”
“Well, it seems I’ve managed to secure about half of it now.”
Half.
It could be considered much, or it could be considered little.
However, since it was Jegalling who spoke, Dokgo Junghu believed it was precisely half.
Suddenly, the eye beneath the eye patch began to ache.
Ever since he had sacrificed one eye to protect him back then, there were moments like this when a sharp, stinging sensation would pull at the socket.
“Will you continue? The matter of extracting the blood debt, that is.”
“I’m not certain about that either. I’ll have to see how circumstances unfold.”
“….”
That is what the Kang Ho-in says.
That when Hyeolrin Gwangssal became Baek Rin-ui-seon, he forgot the past.
But half was true, and half was false.
Jegalling had not forgotten the grudge.
He had merely come to understand how fleeting it all was.
The moment the surname Jegalling was attached, he does not forget those days when he hunted down and killed not only direct descendants but collateral branches as well, even newborn infants of blood.
A child of merely three years old had his throat cut simply because he bore the surname Jegalling.
There was even a village that had to perish for the sole reason of sheltering young Jegalling.
When Jegalling returned, he stared at the burning village for a long, very long time.
Because of the trackers, he could not descend from beneath the tree.
They would be waiting for Jegalling to emerge in rage.
So all that young Jegalling could do was wait until the flames of the burning village were completely extinguished.
What use were apologies to those already dead?
Young Jegalling simply curled his body and waited for the trackers to give up, until all traces of life had faded away.
The trackers cursed, saying that even as a child, Jegalling had left without looking back, calling him a heartless bastard.
The little Jegalling simply listened to their curses.
For waiting until those men retreated was all a child could do.
A very small slash-and-burn farming village with fewer than twenty people.
A place not even recorded in the government offices—truly a last refuge for commoners fleeing oppressive taxation.
When that place burned, young Jegalling realized that his mere existence could sweep away even such good people to their deaths.
His mind had known this. That was why he had been careful.
But his heart had not known it. And that was when his heart came to know.
‘I wanted to stay just one more day. Just one more day.’
Because he loved that landscape, he loved those people, his body ached so much, and compounded with the life of a fugitive, his illness only worsened.
Just a little longer, just a little, stay a little longer.
This was the result of a child’s whining.
A burning village.
He had intended to catch a rabbit at least and earn his keep before leaving.
Was he fortunate, or unfortunate?
Jegalling survived once more.
Until the burned village became nothing but ash, young Jegalling gazed upon that sight, again and again.
Only after every last grain seed of the commoners had burned to ash did Jegalling finally accept reality.
After confirming the trackers had vanished, only then did I descend from the tree.
I cleared away the charred remains and dragged out the bodies of the villagers.
I couldn’t afford a proper funeral. I had to flee again.
I knew that even this simple burial would bring the trackers back to search for my traces.
But still, someone had to bury them.
At that time, I wished I had grown taller.
A trivial wish, if you could call it that.
Dragging the corpses of the villagers was simply too difficult.
I do not forgive those days.
Those days when they called themselves public enemies of the martial realm.
Those days when they framed the Jegallim Family and declared that not a single seed of our bloodline should remain.
It wasn’t only the Heterodox Faction that committed such atrocities.
Even the Righteous Faction, which called itself the righteous path, participated in those deeds.
But at the same time, I could not forgive the experiments my father, the Gaju, conducted upon me.
My father was conducting experiments as if being hunted by something.
Experiments that required even sacrificing his own son.
I still cannot know what my dead father was being hunted by.
Still, still.
There are marks in this world that remain no matter how much time passes.
Among them, bloodstains last the longest.
Dokgo Junghu, who understood that rage, spoke.
“Even so, it seems worthwhile to take on a disciple and live. So this old man will say no more… but wouldn’t it be acceptable to live for yourself from now on?”
“I am already living sufficiently for myself.”
An immediate answer.
Dokgo Junghu didn’t bother to refute.
The Jegalling before his eyes was indeed the happiest he had ever been in his life.
Yet despite that, recently there was one family among those that had quietly exterminated entire clans—the very families that had hunted down and killed even a three-year-old child back then—and this troubled him.
There was no evidence.
Most of the reasons for these clan extinctions were merely families that had foolishly destroyed themselves through their own greed.
But somehow, he remained worried.
“…If the Gaju says so, then it must be so. In that case, I shall take my leave.”
“Please do.”
As the master’s command fell, Dokgo Junghu left the study.
Click—
After the door closed and some time had passed, Yoo Ho spoke.
“Certainly a man of remarkable ability. The smooth operation of the Cheonmok Hall since its establishment proves it.”
Cheonmok.
The Eye of Heaven.
A sort of intelligence agency under the Baekrin Medical Guild.
The Martial Arts Guild Master concurrently holds that position.
Jegalling snapped his fan shut with a decisive gesture.
“Without him, I wouldn’t be alive today.”
“Is it proper to work a benefactor so relentlessly?”
“What are you saying? He enjoys doing it.”
Did he truly?
Even if I knew little about humans, I understood what chronic fatigue was.
Yoo Ho gazed at the unscrupulous superior who drove people to exhaustion while brazenly claiming it was mutual agreement, his expression one of weary resignation.
“Regardless, everyone seems quite interested in our Hope’s dumplings.”
“That’s only natural. It’s rare for something to be discussed throughout Gangho for reasons other than bloodshed.”
“Precisely. Since we’ve come this far, wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to make a proper spectacle of it?”
Jegalling’s eyes gleamed like stars as he spoke.
* * *
A month flew past like an arrow.
At last, the infamous dumpling competition commenced, and crowds began gathering like clouds.
“Ah! King! How did you manage to travel such a distance?”
“By horse and lightness technique—how else? I departed the moment I heard the rumors.”
All the gourmand Kang Ho-in gathered, and wealthy merchants hired escorts to journey to Baekrin County.
“Hehehehe. Sim Haksa, you’ve arrived?”
“Man Haksa is here too. Where’s Jang Haksa?”
“That fellow already claimed his seat.”
The three scholars who had bestowed upon Jin Cheon-hee the epithet “Ilgwang” also came to participate in this greatest culinary event of Gangho.
“Every time I visit Baekrin County, I’m struck by how remarkably clean the roads are.”
“It’s not just the roads. The number of thieves has definitely decreased.”
“I heard the Heterodox Faction members say it’s unbearable here.”
The security of Baekrin County was incomparable to other counties.
As a result, commoners with time to spare also paused their work and began gathering like clouds.
“Ah, some warriors are beginning to recognize us now.”
Several warriors nodded respectfully to the scholars.
The epithets these scholars bestowed became famous throughout Gangho.
To obtain a respectable epithet, it was best to make a good impression on these connoisseurs.
And the figure these connoisseurs found most entertaining was Ilgwang.
They wondered what he would accomplish this time.
“If Ilgwang loses this time, I’ve already decided what epithet to give him.”
“Ho, Sim Haksa, you’re quite ruthless.”
“There’s nothing ruthless about it. Isn’t this precisely the joy of living for connoisseurs like us?”
“Hahahaha. True enough. Besides, his opponent is the champion of the Greatest Housekeeper Tournament. Ilgwang won’t have it easy.”
“Where should we go?”
“The outdoor special cooking grounds. There were too many spectators, so they moved outside. They say you need to buy tickets to watch, but fortunately Jang Haksa, who went ahead, purchased ours as well.”
“How fortunate. Truly fortunate.”
Suddenly, I noticed people carrying bamboo skewers laden with fried dumplings.
Some were even selling what appeared to be squid tubes stuffed generously with shrimp and meat.
Gulp—
The aroma of soy sauce made me swallow involuntarily.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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