Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 880

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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 880
Now that I think about it, there’s been gossip lately that Ju Wang keeps parading renowned beauties from the Gangho before Princess Sobaek.
Some point fingers at him as a dissolute king teaching refinement to his unmarried daughter.
But she’s always been a free spirit who never cared for political marriages in the first place.
Moreover, having renounced succession, there’s no benefit in cultivating power, so the gossips say this too is the political maneuvering of a king.
Here, Sama Hyeon offers a different perspective.
‘What if he simply hopes his daughter’s first love will fade away on its own?’
From what Sama Hyeon observed directly.
Ju Wang didn’t seem like the type who worried much about the Emperor’s opinion.
Just look at how casually he admits to squeezing money from his younger brother—doesn’t that say everything?
‘Forget political maneuvering. What if he’s just trying to talk her out of it?’
Yes. If the other party is his older brother, that would make sense.
I offered a silent prayer for Princess Sobaek, who must be walking through hell.
First love is always bitter.
While the two brothers made dumplings, Sama Hyeon read aloud from the letters.
“They say tenant farmers are flooding in to apply. The recruitment is for five thousand households, but there are ten thousand applications.”
“Are there really that many poor?”
“Still plenty. The entire population of Gangso Province is estimated at several million.”
“That’s serious.”
“But you only oversee Baekrin, so you probably don’t feel it as acutely~”
….
Jin Cheon-hee falls into thought.
Yet my hands kneading the dough moved like a living whirlwind.
Soon I began tearing off pieces the size of my fist.
“So what are you going to do, hyeong?”
“What else? Hire them all. As many as we can.”
“Aren’t you producing too much? What if grain prices drop and we end up with losses?”
“Grain has many uses. We can buy it cheap at the inns and sell food. If needed, we can take it to Damjin and sell it there too.”
“Ah, I see.”
Come to think of it, hyeong has opened up another trade route, hasn’t he?
And quite a substantial one at that.
Jin Cheon-hee continued.
“That region is so barren that grain is more expensive than salt. There was even chaos once due to a livestock plague.”
Salt cheaper than grain. Unimaginable in the Central Plains.
“You’ve thought this through completely~”
“What about Hao-mun?”
“Of course we’ll join in~ We’ll reassign some of the debtors to the farms. Some of them aren’t suited for inn work anyway. If we send those types to farm, they’ll do what they were doing before, so they’ll do well~”
“I see….”
Cheonwoo suddenly interjected.
“If things go well, it would be nice to have Mudang Faction warriors stationed there.”
“Then that would be welcome. But I doubt Jang Mun-in would approve so easily… Isn’t he rather particular about such things?”
The Mudang Faction.
True to the Righteous Faction’s nature, their expansion of martial halls proceeded with considerable caution.
That’s precisely why everyone clamored to join the moment a martial hall simply bore the Mudang Faction’s insignia.
Cheonwoo nodded.
“Well, there’s also the connection with Baekrin Medical Guild, and if the medical hall is nearby, I think Jang Mun-in would welcome it. If someone gets injured at the martial hall, they can go straight to the medical hall.”
A rather elegant arrangement for mutual benefit.
I spoke suddenly.
“Cheonwoo, you’ve grown well.”
“Pardon?”
Cheonwoo’s eyes widened slightly.
I ruffled his hair with my flour-dusted hands.
“You’ve grown so well! You’ve already risen to a position where you’re making such proposals at the Mudang Faction?”
“Oh, hyeong! Stop, stop!”
His large frame with his reddened face made quite a comical sight.
Yet he didn’t seem to dislike it, as he didn’t lift his head until I finished ruffling his hair.
That’s when Sama Hyeon asked.
“By the way, hyeong.”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“About the next letter. What’s this plan about land reclamation work using martial artists?”
The very terminology carried a hint of madness.
I spoke cheerfully.
“What do you mean? It’s a method to achieve two goals with one stone.”
Thwack!
The cut dough formed a perfect circle.
Thin, delicate petals of dough descended as dumpling wrappers.
* * *
While I was preparing dumplings to present to Princess Sobaek.
A martial artist who had originally thrown himself into the delivery business was chopping wood.
The warrior Jang O.
Baekrin Medical Guild had made him an offer—wouldn’t he like to learn a different martial art?
A survival-specialized martial art.
Baekrin Medical Guild called it that and offered to transmit something called the Earth Dragon Technique.
The Earth Dragon Technique was a form of external cultivation that increased strength, raised stamina, and simultaneously allowed minor wounds to heal on their own.
It prevented easy fatigue and simultaneously accelerated recovery from exhaustion.
Since it was a form of external cultivation, it didn’t matter what internal cultivation method one was already practicing.
‘Judging by the description alone, one can sense the intent to work people like beasts of burden…’
Wasn’t learning even a single plausible external technique harder than plucking stars from the sky for a third-rate martial artist of the Gangho?
‘I’ve learned the Swift Shadow Footwork, so next comes external cultivation!’
With such determination, Jang O accepted Baekrin Medical Guild’s proposal.
And now, as he trained in Jirong Gong—a form of pupil technique that allowed him to cultivate even while moving—he swung his axe with powerful strokes.
However, once one mastered Jirong Gong, they would need to work in land reclamation for at least a year, or so they said.
Of course, one could learn the martial arts and flee, but those who tried to cheat the system were advised to forget about receiving treatment from Baekrin Medical Guild.
Unfortunate that the opponent wasn’t Pyo Guk, but the Medical Guild itself.
‘A wanderer’s life means you never know where you’ll catch a blade and fall.’
I had no intention of cheating the Medical Guild.
The others felt the same way.
Unless one was a hopeless case who’d buried their bones in the Black Heaven Medical Guild, everyone conducted their dealings honestly.
Of course, the monthly wage being better than expected helped too.
‘I’m making more than I did with deliveries.’
Delivery work was dependent on the times, you could say.
There were huge differences between busy periods and slow ones, but here they paid an average rate regardless.
I liked that.
Stability, you might call it.
Whoooosh—
Crack!
With a single blow, a third of the sturdy tree was cleaved away.
Jang O withdrew the axe with a satisfied smile, then swung it again.
Whoooosh.
Crack! Splinter!
With the next strike, the tree toppled.
“This muscle! This strength! Magnificent!”
It felt as though even my brain had turned into solid muscle.
Mastering Jirong Gong granted the ability to endure against even the most skilled martial artists, buying precious time.
‘One is light movement technique, the other seems to be external cultivation focused on regenerative power.’
There were limitations, though.
While it helped preserve one’s life, it wouldn’t be particularly useful in life-or-death duels or formal martial contests.
For those, profound swordsmanship or assassination techniques would be far more valuable.
‘Once I become a martial artist under Baekrin Medical Guild, they’ll teach me then.’
Everyone knew how exceptional Baekrin Medical Guild’s archery was.
I’d heard in the martial arts city that their swordsmanship and mental cultivation methods were different too.
Becoming a martial artist who protected Baekrin Medical Guild.
In the early days, one could have entered with just a tenth of the effort currently required. But year after year, more and more martial artists sought out Baekrin Medical Guild.
Now the competition was fiercer than threading a needle.
‘I never imagined Baekrin Medical Guild would grow this much.’
Originally, medical guilds weren’t considered particularly attractive to martial artists.
Of course, if offered a position, one would accept. But if forced to choose between becoming a gatekeeper for a major family or a core martial artist of a medical guild, most would choose the former.
That was because the families passed down portions of their exclusive martial techniques.
‘Even if some mock it as merely branch-level techniques.’
Anyone who’d lived by the blade knew that even branch-level family techniques were worlds apart from what street-level martial instructors taught.
In the end, it comes down to martial prowess rather than life itself.
For a warrior, martial prowess was both the reason to live and the reason to die.
It was everything in the world, and sometimes nothing at all.
That was the life of a warrior.
‘And Baekrin Medical Guild shattered that notion.’
They demonstrated that martial techniques taught at the Medical Guild were not inferior to those taught at the great families.
First came archery.
Most warriors lived as swordsmen, and archery typically led one to join military ranks.
Being skilled with the bow was admirable, but ultimately, when an opponent closed the distance with lightness technique, archers fell—wasn’t that how it always went?
However, Baekrin Medical Guild’s archery instruction proved there was far more to it than that.
Then came footwork, internal cultivation methods, and spear techniques.
As they systematically transmitted these teachings—each comparable to the secret arts of the great families—to their affiliated warriors, Baekrin Medical Guild had now risen to a position that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the great families themselves.
‘Of course, there are still many who would choose to serve as gatekeepers for the Namgung Family, Gongseon Family, or Hwangbo Family….’
The strength of tradition didn’t simply vanish.
But Jang O treasured his family.
Thwack!
With each swing of the axe, trees fell one after another.
‘I once thought land reclamation was tedious, but applying it to martial training makes it quite different.’
One lesson with each swing of the axe.
The quality of these lessons was no inferior to what I had painstakingly learned through self-study.
‘This is good. Very good.’
Jang O wiped the sweat from his brow and continued felling trees.
A smile played at the corners of his mouth.
Beside him, another colleague began moving a felled tree by himself.
“Heave!”
His expression was equally bright.
‘Wasn’t he said to be a third-rate warrior?’
He lacked talent in lightness technique and would have been quickly eliminated from the ranking competitions under normal circumstances.
But when he heard about the land reclamation project, he was the first to rush forward and sign up.
A third-rate warrior surviving to this age in Gangho must have sharp instincts.
“Where are you taking that?”
“To the lumber processing facility…. Eventually it will arrive at the fertilizer production plant.”
“I heard that place is busy too?”
“They’re building it using methods that didn’t exist before, so the carpenters are sweating blood over it, I hear.”
“Can’t they just dig the ground and pile manure like they used to?”
“Apparently traditional compost relied mainly on fermentation, but now heat processing is involved too. I don’t know all the details, but they say they teach basic heat cultivation techniques. However, it didn’t suit me, so I didn’t volunteer for that.”
“Hmm…. I don’t think it would suit me either.”
“That’s how most think, so there aren’t many volunteers for that work.”
Jang O nodded, and the warrior continued.
“Truth be told, that’s the harshest work. They call it fertilizer, but it’s really human waste, cow dung, rice straw—the filthiest, most humiliating work imaginable, isn’t it? Did we learn martial arts just to burn shit!”
Warriors live by their pride and die by their pride.
No matter how much coin one offers, there are things a true warrior simply won’t do—that’s the nature of a warrior’s heart.
“Even if the Yeolyang Duke is as precious as gold, I cannot bring myself to go.”
“The ones who actually went to learn that—now those are truly ruthless men.”
Jang O clicked his tongue in disapproval.
Yet part of him couldn’t help but wonder.
Just how much were they paying for people to actually go through with it?
‘Or perhaps this Yeolyang Duke they speak of possesses some extraordinary secret technique or profound knowledge?’
* * *
And so the seasons began to turn.
Near Hong Taek Lake, a village finally started to take shape.
‘Though it’s still too early to truly call it a village.’
I was employing martial artists for the labor, but truthfully, their pace of land reclamation lagged behind what the tractors could accomplish.
Carpenters and stonemasons, after all, were merely commoners.
We had only just completed the basic earthworks.
Now we were at the stage of beginning to accept actual residents.
Still, we had managed to establish a water and sewage system to some degree, and I had stationed administrative officials and guards.
‘The merchant guilds and logistics hubs will likely only begin operations come autumn this year.’
Moving according to the harvest ultimately meant moving with the seasons.
I stood upon a hill, gazing down at the newly completed village.
More precisely, a hill where nameless graves gathered.
I didn’t know who owned them. But even if the village were to vanish, the graves would always remain.
Traces of someone occasionally visiting and tending to them were visible.
Perhaps someone who once lived in this village was being remembered by another, even now.
‘This spot overlooks the entire village.’
That’s why they built their graves here, it seemed.
So they could watch over the village even in death.
For the people of this era, a hometown was precisely that.
A place to be born, to grow, and to die.
And the end of those ruins.
Only burnt ash remained, and the people had departed.
Yet still the graves watched over that village. For such is the nature of death.

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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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