The Butterfly
An additional opportunity to accumulate holy power!
Yuseong, who was obsessed with holy power, was delighted whenever a patient appeared.
And wasn’t it only right for the patient themselves to finally get a chance to be treated by Yuseong?
“Hey! Come on, snap out of it!”
A friend who looked like he was shaking the cheek of a man who had collapsed again and again.
Physician Cha shot up first, shouting louder than Yuseong ever could.
“I am the physician!”
He had just earlier been boasting about how he was studying medicine from Physician Yang with great enthusiasm and finally felt a surge of confidence.
Yuseong quickly beckoned to him.
“Physician Cha, I’ll handle this.”
“Even on a day like today, you should rest. I can manage this much.”
“Yeah, I’ll leave it to Physician Cha to rest a bit. You’ve worked hard enough.”
Physician Cha and Tang Harin were showing their consideration for Yuseong.
But Yuseong shook his head firmly and rushed over to the patient, calling for Physician Cha to check the pulse.
“Physician Cha, I’m the one best at seeing patients. Let me take care of this.”
The man, who had been checking the pulse, secretly withdrew his hand.
His face clearly showed disbelief.
“You say you’re good at treating patients? Is that really true?”
“Yes, so I’ll handle it.”
“You truly… have much to learn. But then again, at your age, you must have amassed quite the skill.”
Physician Cha shook his head and stepped aside.
Yuseong examined the patient who had fainted and lay on the floor.
He performed a proper pulse check, inserted needles into the chest to inject holy power,
and finally the patient’s head tilted slightly.
“What? Why?”
Physician Cha asked, puzzled.
“…Just a moment.”
Yuseong went through the process once more.
“Is the condition very serious?”
Watching Yuseong’s face gradually harden, Physician Cha’s expression grew serious as well.
To Physician Cha, Yuseong was a man who knew no incurable diseases and could heal anything.
How could he look so grave?
‘Is the state really that critical?’
If he had loudly claimed he could cure patients until the end, wouldn’t he be in big trouble?
“Is that man a relative of the gentleman? From when he was staying at the Luoyang Medical Pavilion…”
“Oh, when was that? Now he’s at the Martial Alliance. They call him the Divine Physician.”
“Right, the Divine Physician. This fallen man is truly lucky. The Divine Physician is right here!”
“Once you’ve treated him, I’d like to ask for your help too. My shoulder’s been hurting since the Luoyang Medical Pavilion. I was planning to go anyway.”
The conversations coming from the surrounding people carried the expectation that Yuseong would definitely cure the collapsed patient.
‘Wait, what if the Medical Pavilion Chief couldn’t be cured? Wouldn’t that tarnish his reputation?’
Thinking it over, he himself couldn’t cure the patient, but Yuseong could not be allowed to fail.
Compared to his own negligible reputation, Yuseong’s reputation held far greater value.
‘Should I make up an excuse and send Physician Cha while I claim to treat the patient?’
With no reliable backup, Physician Cha was seriously pondering how to send Yuseong first to protect Yuseong’s reputation.
Yuseong stood up and spoke to the fallen man.
“You may rise. I know you are perfectly fine.”
“No, Physician Cha. Why are you acting like this?”
“This person is faking an illness right now.”
Having experienced this twice before, Yuseong’s voice carried absolute certainty.
At that moment, everyone witnessed the man’s tightly shut eyes fluttering.
Yuseong shook his head and walked back to his position.
“So it really was an act? Why bother?”
Yuseong’s words were absolute.
Physician Cha shook the man to wake him up.
“Rise! What kind of act is this!”
The man, who had awkwardly risen a moment later, started making excuses.
Tang Harin’s face turned ferocious.
‘…Did they put poison in the food?’
But she had already warned them not to act rashly, so they wouldn’t do such a thing.
While Yuseong kept shaking his head.
“I… Divine Physician. I’m sorry, but could you spare me just a little?”
“Me too!”
“Could you only treat me?”
Several people rushed over, eyeing him suspiciously.
Among them was someone who had visited Yuseong at the Luoyang Medical Pavilion before.
‘I’ll just treat him a little.’
After the Medical Pavilion matters at the Martial Alliance were settled.
He had not considered traveling around treating people, but he had deliberately avoided it considering safety and the Luoyang Medical Pavilion’s connections.
He always wanted to see more patients.
He always wanted to accumulate more holy power.
Today, since some people had come with him, he decided to treat only those on the same floor as him.
Yuseong, who had missed the chance to accumulate new holy power due to the act, told the gathered people.
“I’ll treat you one by one.”
People with bright smiles began to pour out their symptoms one after another.
“Mine is a stiff shoulder.”
“Mine is a headache…”
“My cough won’t stop even for a few days now…”
“Blood from my gums…”
“My toes feel a bit uncomfortable…”
“Recently, my eyelids keep twitching…”
Patients complaining of various symptoms.
Since they had almost no chance to receive treatment from Yuseong, they listed every trivial complaint they could think of.
Some needed needles, while others with specific wounds found needles unsuitable.
Yuseong treated the patients without pause.
His hands moved without hesitation.
And the skill that never betrayed him!
“Ah! Thank you! How could the suffering I’ve endured for days vanish so quickly!”
“I never thought I’d meet you again after leaving the Luoyang Medical Pavilion, but today is my lucky day. Haha!”
They marveled at their suddenly improved condition and repeatedly thanked Yuseong.
Holy power accumulated.
A feeling that always brought joy.
But.
After Yuseong finished treating the last patient, he suddenly felt empty.
“Didn’t anyone see my needles?”
“Hm? Needles? They’re right here.”
Physician Cha held up the needle case on the side table.
Yuseong quickly examined it. Ordinary needles were packed inside.
But the most important one was missing.
“The one I always use, right? Not something else.”
Besides Physician Cha and Tang Harin, two expert bodyguards who were martial artists were also present.
Even they had not noticed that the needles made of Heavenly Meteorite Stone had simply vanished.
“Looks like you lost them.”
“The long, shining needle I mentioned earlier, right? Let me look for it.”
People frantically searched around.
On the table, beside it, between the plates.
Some even checked their own pockets, but nothing appeared.
“No way…”
The man who had faked the illness and his companion were nowhere to be seen. They had probably left while Yuseong treated the others.
“It can’t be…!”
The amplification effect of holy power.
Even if the skill’s power didn’t change, it amplified the limited holy power to allow seeing more patients.
In fact, since the Heavenly Meteorite Stone needles appeared, Yuseong had never run out of holy power during normal medical activities.
Losing such a precious item.
One of the bodyguards stepped forward.
“Should we capture the ones who fled?”
“Please!”
Since they had just used the needles, they couldn’t have gone far. If the culprit was among them, they would find the needles quickly.
One bodyguard hurriedly went downstairs.
“What? You tried to steal the needle I cherish most? Just wait until I catch you!”
Tang Harin, her face twisted in anger, shouted.
But not long after the bodyguard descended, two arms grabbed him and pulled him back up.
“Eh? So soon…?”
Physician Cha muttered.
“We found them on the lower floor calculating something, so we brought them up.”
The man who had faked the collapse trembled all over and spoke.
“I-I’m sorry! I only did what I was told because they promised me money. Please forgive me just this once!”
“Money?”
“It… really, there was a person who said he’d give a huge sum if I just pretended to be in pain for a moment. I had no idea what they were up to! I had no intention of plotting anything—please believe me!”
Not even in their pockets had the needle been found, and it turned out they were merely poor people pretending to be wealthy.
“Who was that person? What did he look like?”
One of the men said.
“He… was a young woman with a slight burn on her face. We don’t know who she was exactly…”
A woman?
Yuseong suddenly recalled the woman who had faked an illness a few days ago. Aside from Jegal Yeong-yeong, those who faked illnesses were rare.
But her face had no burns, even though she was disheveled.
‘No. If it wasn’t her real face?’
There were people with such skills.
From those skilled in disguise to those who used the mysterious artifact called the Ghost Mask on the jianghu to imitate others’ faces.
Yuseong recalled other characteristics of the woman.
He asked the man.
“Have you ever seen the woman’s hands? Was there anything unusual?”
The men exchanged glances.
They must have remembered something odd.
“It was a bit unusual. The woman’s fingers were…”
“Right. When she handed over the money, I definitely saw them.”
“What were the fingers like?”
One man answered Yuseong’s question.
“They were thin and long. I had never seen fingers like that. We even talked about it earlier.”
Fingers that felt like spider legs—thin and long.
They had accurately remembered the characteristic, as if it had left a strong impression on Yuseong’s mind as well.
‘So that woman was deeply involved.’
Since there was the distinctive feature of unusual fingers, one option was to ask the Hao Men or the Open Pavilion to investigate the woman.
But since she could freely change her face, it would take a long time to find her.
If she deliberately hid her hands, it would be even harder to track.
Yuseong looked at Tang Harin.
There was one more thing to rely on.
“Can we find them?”
Tang Harin nodded vigorously upon meeting his gaze.
“Of course. Let’s go back first. We have to go to the An-gap.”
The needles made of Heavenly Meteorite Stone were coated with the Thousand-Li Tracking Scent that Tang Harin had newly improved, and the An-gap had a spiritual object that could sense its scent.
While Yuseong was heading down to the lower floor of the inn, he noticed something drawn on the handrail of the staircase.
‘A butterfly?’
A butterfly that hadn’t been there before had been drawn in ink.