The Genius Doctor of the Mount Hua Sect - Chapter 2
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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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Hwasan Sect’s Medical Prodigy — Episode 2
But there was no time to make sense of it all.
“Cough! Cough, cough!”
A sharp pain erupted from deep within his chest, and a violent coughing fit seized him.
At the same time, he tasted blood—that bitter, metallic tang.
Hwa Seomyeong spread his fingers, dreading what he’d find.
His palm, reflexively clamped over his mouth, was smeared with dark red blood.
‘Hemoptysis?! What state is this child’s body in that he’s coughing up blood?!’
He could only stare in horror.
Not only had he died and awakened again—he’d somehow found himself inside a dying child’s body. The sheer impossibility of it all left him reeling.
But then—
“Master!”
An urgent voice called out from somewhere distant.
Hwa Seomyeong lifted his head toward the sound.
It was a woman with her long hair tied back.
She wore a dobe embroidered with plum blossoms—the mark of Hwasan Sect—and her face was etched with worry as she rushed toward him.
“Are you all right? Going out in this condition at dawn—what were you thinking? Ah! Master!”
The moment she saw the blood at his lips and on his hands, her face went pale.
She swept him into her arms and unfurled her Lightweight Skill, carrying him swiftly toward somewhere.
“Cough! Cough!”
The coughing continued relentlessly all the while.
Chest pain and hemoptysis.
On top of that, fever and vertigo—he felt as though death itself were creeping near.
The woman set him down in some pavilion and spoke with a trembling voice.
“What do I do?! Un Sang is out gathering medicinal ingredients right now… I’ll run down to the main gate and bring back a physician. Just hold on a little longer.”
“Wait, just a moment—”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Needles. Acupuncture needles. It doesn’t matter whether fine or thick—just bring me needles.”
“Needles?”
“Yes.”
The woman looked at him with confusion.
It was plain she had no idea what he was thinking, but there was no time for explanations.
Seeing the desperate plea in his eyes, she nodded.
“Understood. I’ll fetch them from the Medical Pavilion right now!”
“My thanks.”
She bolted from the room.
Moments later—
“Here! I brought Un Sang’s Needle Case.”
She held out a case filled with acupuncture needles of various sizes.
Hwa Seomyeong selected one of appropriate gauge and drove it directly into the Kongzui Acupoint.
“Ugh!”
A faint sharp pain bloomed where the needle entered.
And in that same instant, he felt a substantial volume of blood rising up from within.
He spat it out without resistance.
“Heave!”
“Master!”
The woman rushed forward in alarm, but Hwa Seomyeong raised his hand to stop her approach.
Once he’d expelled the blood, the scalding sensation in his chest subsided somewhat, and breathing came easier.
Then, as the tension drained away, he released a long sigh.
“Ahh…”
“Are you… are you all right? What did you just do?”
“Don’t be alarmed. I simply needled the Kongzui Acupoint to force out the stagnant blood.”
“The… Kongzui Acupoint?”
“It’s a vital point that clears heat and moistens the lungs. Stimulating it arrests acute hemorrhage of the lungs and stops both the cough and the bleeding.”
Of course, this was merely emergency treatment.
Once time passed, the symptoms would surely return.
Hwa Seomyeong calmly felt his own pulse and looked inward.
Drawing upon the meager Internal Energy this body possessed, he could perceive its true condition more clearly.
‘There’s pus accumulating in the lungs, fever coursing through them. It’s undoubtedly a lung abscess.’
Given that, one could say his emergency treatment had been reasonably sound.
The acupuncture would have cooled the fever in the lungs somewhat.
But to achieve full recovery, this alone fell far short.
‘Somehow I have to drain the pus from inside the lungs and bring down the heat. Which means…….’
Hwa Seomyeong turned to the woman and spoke his prescription.
“Could you possibly obtain some platycodon root?”
“Platycodon? What for?”
“Platycodon has properties that expel phlegm and soothe the throat. Beyond that, I’ll need a few other ingredients…….”
He glanced at her expression, gauging her capability.
The way her eyes kept darting about suggested she wouldn’t manage to procure the materials properly once he named them.
And even if she did fetch them, brewing the decoction was another matter entirely.
In the end, he rose to his feet.
“Forgive me, but could you guide me to this Medical Pavilion? I’ll reward you properly for it.”
“Uh, yes. Understood. But Master, why do you speak that way? How don’t you know where the Medical Pavilion is?”
“…….”
Hwa Seomyeong didn’t answer, stepping outside instead.
The woman wore a skeptical expression, but she dutifully guided him to the Medical Pavilion.
“Normally Un Sang should be here, but he’s gone out to gather medicinal materials now. I’m not sure what you’ll find.”
“I’ll have a look.”
He began searching through the Medical Pavilion’s interior.
‘Licorice, trichosanthes, orange peel, platycodon, Chinese angelica, lily bulb, fritillaria, astragalus…… fortunately, everything I need is here.’
Hwa Seomyeong soaked the medicinal herbs in water and arranged them methodically in the Medicinal Decoction Vessel.
Then he tended the fire carefully as he simmered the ingredients.
“Good. If I just let it brew like this…….”
But then it happened.
A sudden vertigo washed over him, as if his head were spinning.
‘What now? This doesn’t seem to be from the lung abscess…….’
But before he could discern the cause, a heavy drowsiness pressed down upon him.
Hwa Seomyeong felt the thread of consciousness slipping away as he barely managed to speak.
“Let it simmer for about half an hour, then douse the fire…….”
“Wh—yes! I understand!”
With only those words left behind, he collapsed right there in the Medical Pavilion.
His consciousness sank into profound darkness.
* * *
In his dream, Hwa Seomyeong witnessed the entire life of another.
It was the life of a child named Baek Hyeon.
Baek Hyeon was a second-generation disciple of the Hwasan Sect, a boy afflicted from childhood with a sickly constitution.
By rights, his body was so frail that he should never have been admitted to Hwasan at all.
Yet there was something special about him.
The head of the first-generation disciples and successor to the position of sect leader, Cheong Jin, had personally taken the young boy under his wing and raised him.
Because of this, though he never properly mastered martial arts, he was allowed to remain in Hwasan rather than be cast out.
But his body grew steadily worse.
Until at last, he contracted lung disease itself.
Unfortunately, Un Sang, who oversaw the Hwasan Sect’s Medical Pavilion, was not particularly skilled.
He had inherited the post reluctantly after the previous pavilion master died suddenly without naming a successor.
So Baek Hyeon drew closer to death with each passing day.
Even surrounded by the warm care of his senior disciples and the adults of the sect, he foresaw his approaching end…….
‘I went to a remote place so they wouldn’t have to grieve for me.’
Yes.
Baek Hyeon died.
But somehow, Hwa Seomyeong’s spirit took root in his body and brought him back to life.
Now he was both Baek Hyeon, second-generation disciple of Hwasan, and Hwa Seomyeong, a soul from elsewhere.
A strange occurrence that defied every explanation known to the martial world.
Yet it was undeniably real.
When he fully accepted this truth, Hwa Seomyeong—no, Baek Hyeon—opened his eyes.
“Master, you’re awake?”
“Your eyes are open. Baek Hyeon.”
“My teacher… and Un Sang.”
The first person Baek Hyeon noticed was the woman who had saved him earlier—Yu Cheong-ah.
Among the disciples of his generation, she was the one who cherished him most, like an elder sister.
And beside her stood a kindly-looking man of middle years—Un Sang himself.
He was the Master of the Medical Pavilion, the heart of the Hwasan Sect.
Both of them gazed at Baek Hyeon with warm eyes.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Yes. Much improved from before, thank you.”
“Thank goodness. If something had gone wrong while I was away, I don’t know what I would have felt…”
He trailed off, his voice thick with emotion.
It was not a desire to escape responsibility, but genuine affection for Baek Hyeon showing through.
And Yu Cheong-ah felt the same way.
“I’m really glad too. That emergency treatment you did must have worked.”
“It was only thanks to you, teacher. Without your help, I would have struggled much more.”
“Hmm? Your speech—it’s back to the way it used to be?”
“I wasn’t quite myself earlier because of my condition.”
After waking, formal speech had begun flowing from his lips easily enough, even toward children much younger than himself.
It must have been Baek Hyeon’s memories reasserting themselves strongly.
Yet it felt neither awkward nor strange.
It showed how deeply Baek Hyeon trusted and followed these people.
“But Baek Hyeon, what exactly do you mean by emergency treatment? And how did you prepare the Platycodon Decoction?”
Un Sang murmured the question with a puzzled expression.
Right.
Baek Hyeon couldn’t help but feel a moment of alarm.
The Baek Hyeon they knew would have been incapable of such emergency measures—he understood that much.
But since Yu Cheong-ah had already witnessed him do it, there was no way to deny it.
So he decided to brazen his way through.
“Some time ago, my teacher introduced me to someone who taught me medicine, and I simply followed what he taught me.”
“Taught by Cheong Jin?”
“Yes. My teacher’s close friend, the Divine Physician Hwa Seomyeong, once took time to teach me medicine.”
“What—what did you say?! The Divine Physician? He taught you?!”
Both Un Sang and Yu Cheong-ah stared at Baek Hyeon in astonishment.
They clearly found it hard to believe.
For Hwa Seomyeong, the Divine Physician, was a figure of considerable standing—a match for Cheong Jin, the leader of the Plum Blossom Sword School.
In fact, in some ways his influence was even greater than Cheong Jin’s.
Yet here Baek Hyeon was claiming to have inherited his medical knowledge…
It was staggering.
Indeed, both of them were watching him now with expressions of doubt and wonder.
“Then why have you stayed silent until now? How could you let your condition deteriorate like this?”
“That was…”
Baek Hyeon hesitated for a moment.
Then he drew upon the emotions the original Baek Hyeon had carried and answered.
“Because I didn’t want to use the medicine he taught me.”
“Ah… yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
Yu Cheong-ah nodded in understanding.
According to Baek Hyeon’s memories, Hwa Seomyeong, the Divine Physician, was the person blamed for Cheong Jin’s death—the future leader of Hwasan.
‘The people of Hwasan don’t know that we stopped the Blood Demon Resurrection.’
So they believed that Cheong Jin, Hwasan’s future leader, had simply died trying to rescue Hwa Seomyeong from the Blood Cult’s captivity.
Even if the mind knew it wasn’t his fault, a trace of resentment could remain.
Especially since Baek Hyeon had followed his master Cheong Jin as if he were a father.
Without knowing the full truth, finding Hwa Seomyeong’s medicine distasteful was, in a way, only natural.
Of course, in reality, this entire excuse was nothing more than something he had improvised on the spot.
‘I knew Cheong Jin had a disciple, but he never taught him medicine.’
“That must have been hard. I’m sorry for bringing back such painful memories,” Un Sang said, releasing a heavy sigh.
Baek Hyeon shook his head.
“No. I’ve overcome all of that now. I’ve come to my own conclusion.”
When Baek Hyeon spoke with firm resolve, Un Sang tilted his head curiously.
“A conclusion?”
“From now on, I won’t hide the medicine I’ve learned. I want to use what I’ve mastered in service to the Hwasan Sect.”
Still, promise me this. If I survive this ordeal, you’ll look after the Hwasan Sect.
That voice still echoed in his ears as if it were yesterday.
If he was being honest, he still didn’t understand how any of this had happened.
Waking up in someone else’s body—no medical science could explain such a thing.
But now that it had come to this, Baek Hyeon resolved to honor Cheong Jin’s request without reservation.
This was the plea of a sworn brother who had stormed the Blood Cult itself, wagering his own life and future solely to save him.
How could he possibly ignore such a thing?
‘Cheong Jin, my friend. Rest easy now, sleep in peace.’
He would restore the Hwasan Sect to its former glory, whatever it took.
And he meant to ensure that the people of Zhongyuan would come to know what a magnificent warrior Cheong Jin had been, what extraordinary deeds he had accomplished.
Without him, the Blood Demon’s master would have been resurrected, and a catastrophe beyond measure would have befallen them all.
“Cough, cough!”
Dwelling on these thoughts, a fit of coughing seized him again.
This time no blood came up with it, but his chest felt tight and congested.
“H-hey, Baek Hyeon. Are you all right?!”
“I’m fine.”
Baek Hyeon raised a hand to stop Un Sang, who had rushed toward him in alarm.
Then he spoke in a measured tone.
“Could you bring me the medicinal decoction we prepared earlier? I believe it will help with my condition.”
“I’ll fetch it at once.”
Un Sang returned with the Platycodon Decoction that had been simmering in the Medicinal Decoction Vessel. Baek Hyeon drank it down without hesitation.
Gulp, gulp.
He felt the medicinal qi contained in the decoction spreading through his body, bringing relief and ease.
The true efficacy of the medicine was beginning to take hold.
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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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