Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 91

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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 91
“…!”
The sentry’s body went rigid in an instant, unable to comprehend what had befallen him.
“Based on your guard skills, you seem capable enough?”
The moment confidence bloomed within me, the sound of a beast’s bark pierced the air.
Clang!
A massive dog appeared. Behind it stood Jin Cheon-hee with a crooked expression.
“As the saying goes—the virtuous do not come, but those who come are never virtuous.”
The Chinese characters meant precisely that: good people never visit, and among those who arrive uninvited, none are righteous.
No one boarding a boat in the dead of night could possibly be a virtuous person, so Jin Cheon-hee had already assumed a combat stance.
Jin Cheon-hee asked.
“Perhaps you could tell us who you are? What is your purpose here?”
“What good will that do you!”
In that instant, Ilseong and Iseong simultaneously hurled throwing needles at Jin Cheon-hee.
Samseong drew his blade and launched his attack in succession.
The Three Assassins’ famous coordinated formation.
Though they were mocked as rats, when the three united, they were formidable!
Faced with a barrage of throwing needles filling his vision, Jin Cheon-hee felt genuine admiration stir within.
‘Impressive—they have real skill!’
With that thought, I released the tension from my sleeves.
My sleeves, infused with the subtle mysteries of wind energy from the Five Elements Divine Art, billowed and swelled as if torn, creating a wall of wind.
Whoosh!
‘My Master would have executed this with far more elegance.’
Had it been Jegalling, rather than deflecting the needles with wind, he would have employed the suction principle of wind energy to draw all the throwing needles into his sleeves.
But the crude method of deflection was all I could manage at present.
Yet it proved devastatingly effective.
Clang!
The moment the barrage of needles vanished, Hwang-gu bit down on Samseong’s groin.
“Ughhhh…!”
From the dog’s eye level, it was the most accessible vital point.
Samseong collapsed forward without even managing a scream.
In that opening, I employed the Three Disasters Footwork to manifest my form directly before Iseong’s eyes.
Crack!
My palm strike lashed across his eardrum.
The sound of his eardrum rupturing tore through Iseong’s mind.
As Iseong’s body staggered, Ilseong drew his blade and swung it.
“Not so fast!”
I seized Iseong’s arm and positioned him before Ilseong’s blade.
“Damn!”
The moment Ilseong’s blade halted, my pale hand coiled around his wrist.
My hands, coiling like vines, wrenched Ilseong’s wrist at an unnatural angle where the bone protruded.
Crack!
“Aaaahhh!”
A dislocated wrist.
In that opening, both my palms struck Ilseong’s eardrums.
Smack!
Even striking one was difficult, but when both palms came down together, Ilseong lost his vision.
In that instant, my hand seized Iseong’s shoulder and dislocated it.
“Arghhhh!”
It all happened in a flash.
Ilseong lost his wrist, Iseong lost his shoulder, and Samseong lost his manhood.
The first two were simple dislocations that I could reset with my abilities, but the third one—I myself wasn’t certain if I could save him.
Growl…
“….”
Samseong didn’t answer, foam flecking his lips.
Whether he still had consciousness was unclear, but his spine trembled in rhythm with Hwang-gu’s jaw movements.
“Hwang-gu. Let go.”
Growl!
Hwang-gu shook his head in refusal.
As Hwang-gu shook his head, the manhood he held also swayed along with it.
* * *
“Did you see? Seo Baek-ryong, the Sohyeop, used a palm strike!”
“I saw it too. But isn’t palm strike something only peak masters can use? Could he already be at the peak realm? At that age?”
“Even Namgung Un, the young Gaju, is at the peak! Since he’s the direct disciple of the Baekrin Uigak Master, he’s naturally at the peak.”
Deep into the night, the sentries rose and bound the three assassins.
All of them had pressure points sealed by me, making it difficult even to move, let alone circulate their inner energy.
As they bound the assassins, the sentries discussed my martial prowess.
It was only natural that they made a fuss about a new dragon of Gangho appearing.
Moreover, Baekrin Uigak was one of the fairly powerful forces in Gangho.
Since their interests differed from other martial sects and their faction’s nature was distinct, even though they rarely deployed force in Gangho, no one denied that they were a powerful force.
Thus, it was natural that their attention turned toward me.
Even as they chattered away, they did their duty.
Samseong still hadn’t regained consciousness. Or perhaps he had, but lacked the strength to speak.
He didn’t seem to be dead, but blood pooled between his legs.
The sentries glanced once at the blood between Samseong’s legs, then at the blood around Hwang-gu’s mouth, alternating their gaze before turning away with pallid faces.
And even I, watching from afar, thought as I looked at Hwang-gu:
‘Gaebang has raised an extraordinary… spiritual creature.’
Despite being male himself, Hwang-gu showed no mercy. As if that place alone were the vital point, he charged in a straight line and tore into it.
Moreover, even when I commanded him to release, he stubbornly refused to obey, insisting on fulfilling his duty.
It was the hunting instinct of a hound—once a target was marked, it had to be thoroughly eliminated.
‘The rowers—this slave, the third, the fourth… they look fine, but….’
I approached Samseong and took his pulse.
Ilseong and Iseong held their breath, waiting for my diagnosis.
For some reason, even the sentries watching were genuinely invested in the results of my examination.
* * *
The next day.
My first rower, the Bearded Middle-Aged Man, rose to take his place at the front row and row.
On that first day, the moment he began rowing, he finally understood why the Gae-bang-do members had looked at him with such pitying expressions.
He knew intellectually that being a first rower was the last resort for debtors.
He had also heard that they often filled the position with slaves because it was so difficult to find volunteers.
But.
He hadn’t known that curses would erupt involuntarily every three seconds.
Within just one hour on the first day, he had invoked Buddha, the Jade Emperor, and the Primordial Celestial Worthy, and within two hours, he had cursed me, my parents, and all my ancestors in succession.
By the third hour, he wondered if death might be preferable.
Normally, three workers sit together in the front row to row.
But the Bearded Middle-Aged Man was alone.
He was essentially doing the work of three men—grueling, dog-like labor—by himself.
By the fourth hour, tears streamed down his face like a waterfall.
The boat’s bottom was bitterly cold, and the work was brutally hard.
The slightest delay brought harsh reprimands.
‘I hope the wind direction favors us today.’
I pushed myself to row faster, determined to gather the medicinal herbs my Master needed.
Even if the wind direction was favorable, the position of first rower wouldn’t disappear.
But perhaps it might become slightly more bearable… I clung to that threadbare hope.
After a hasty breakfast where I couldn’t tell if I was eating or just shoving food in my mouth, two men were sitting in the front row.
“This is my seat. Who are you?”
Ilseong and Iseong answered.
“We are rowers sent by Seo Baek-ryong.”
“….”
He had vaguely heard there had been a fight on the deck.
The Bearded Middle-Aged Man asked.
“May I know your names?”
“Gangho calls us the Three Assassins.”
Since there were only two of them, he couldn’t immediately recall their epithet.
“Where did the third one go?”
Ilseong and Iseong answered calmly.
“Samseong… stands at a great crossroads as a man.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask no further. We can only say that he stands at a crossroads as a man.”
Though he didn’t understand, the somber expressions on their faces prevented him from asking more. Yet the simple fact that he would now row from the second row instead of the front row was enough to make the Bearded Middle-Aged Man happy.
Even Ilseong and Iseong, who cursed once every three seconds, sounded like sweet melodies to my ears.
* * *
‘I fought better than I expected.’
The boat slipped out of Hongtaek Lake and entered the Yangtze River.
The boat cut across the ink-black waters of the Yangtze, as if it were filled with liquid darkness.
The current was sluggish and the wind offered no assistance, so the oarsmen must have been suffering terribly.
For the Bearded Middle-Aged Man and Samseong, it was decent compensation.
I sat at the bow of the boat like a cat, absorbing the surrounding landscape into my eyes.
Simultaneously, with one corner of my mind, I replayed the battles I had fought against Samseong and the Bearded Middle-Aged Man, piece by piece.
‘Since it wasn’t my first time, I wasn’t nervous and it went well. The Xuanyuan Instant-Step Divine Art helped too, but yes, that was quite satisfactory.’
The Xuanyuan Instant-Step Divine Art.
In Gangho, it was famous as a divine art for refining the five senses. Of course, that was the most representative effect, but it was only part of the whole.
Since the mind-qi body concentrated on the heart and qi, its practical combat effectiveness was also strong.
The greatest effect was the Unshakable Heart.
Even in urgent, life-threatening situations, it kept my mind from wavering.
When the mind was calm, the head naturally spun faster. With the mind and head moving that way, the body followed suit.
‘It’s truly the divine art that suits the Five Elements Divine Art best. Since I can combine the five elemental true qi of the Five Elements Divine Art to draw out martial techniques. It’s convenient because the goal isn’t simply to kill the enemy, but to make the situation itself favorable.’
Perhaps because I had devoted myself to medicine in both my past and present lives.
I felt reluctance about killing people.
If I had to commit murder to survive in unavoidable circumstances, I would accept it as the fate of a martial artist, but otherwise, I preferred to avoid bloodshed if possible.
‘Now that I think about it, Master said my nature would have suited the Daoist path too.’
He said the Wudang or Shaolin paths wouldn’t have been bad either.
But I was particularly drawn to the Five Elements Divine Art.
What appealed to me was that it wasn’t just useful for sword practice, but also in reality and daily life. And I liked that with the Unshakable Heart and the Five Elements Divine Art together, it was possible to subdue without killing.
Just like this time.
‘Still, there were parts I regretted. Next time, I’ll be able to bring them down more cleanly.’
I had brought down the combined assault of three first-rate masters of Gangho quite effortlessly.
Even considering that Hwang-gu had helped with one of them, it was quite a respectable achievement.
‘It was because medical knowledge was combined with it.’
I knew where the human bones, muscles, and nerves were located and combined that knowledge with martial arts.
Without even drawing a blade or spear, I could subdue someone simply by twisting and breaking the weakest points of the human body.
‘How could I handle opponents even faster.’
The longer a battle lasted, the easier it was to sustain and inflict fatal wounds.
Combat experience accumulated as data, layer upon layer.
On the other hand, I also calculated where I should attack an opponent with when wielding a weapon to subdue them most quickly.
Being able to review two or three things at once was all thanks to the Xuanyuan Instant-Step Divine Art’s capabilities.
‘I’m becoming a true martial artist of Gangho now. Thinking about things like this, I feel…’
I chuckled softly, then finally admitted honestly.
‘I’m afraid of dying. I hate killing. And I don’t understand why I have to do these things.’
If I had been born in the martial world and educated there without the memories of my past life, the modern Earth, would things have been different.
At that moment, a Namgung Family Warrior approached me.
“Please accept this, at least.”
When he unwrapped the cloth bundle, it revealed an abundance of honey cakes.
“Oh, thank you so much.”
“Not at all. We should be thanking you.”
“There’s no need.”
“Your reputation as Seo Baek-ryong spreads widely among us. They say you subdued the Three Killers so effortlessly and now employ them as servants.”
“As a doctor, I try to avoid taking lives whenever possible.”
At those words, the Namgung Family Warrior’s face flushed with admiration.

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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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