Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Intestinal Abscess
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In front of the inn where Wi Sowol and the Weird Physician were staying.
A menacing atmosphere hung in the air.
Two massive sects vying for dominance over southern Shanxi Province.
Mount Hua Sect and Nether Luo Sect.
They were locked in a standoff.
"We can't let them take the Weird Physician away."
The Plum Blossom Sword Master Jong Yeom, Mount Hua Sect's pride, declared resolutely.
"We've finally seized the advantage. Now's the time to drive it home."
Ever since Nether Luo Sect claimed hegemony over Shanxi.
It had been a long, drawn-out conflict.
How infuriating it had been when Nether Luo Sect seized southern Shanxi after the great earthquake devastated the province entirely.
Even Mount Hua Sect, adherents of Daoism, were ultimately a force in the martial world.
To endure as a major sect in the jianghu, they needed territory to match.
And Shanxi was Mount Hua Sect's one and only answer.
Located at the edge of Shaanxi, they competed with the central Chungnam Sect and also vied somewhat with Kongtong Sect along the Gansu-Shaanxi border.
Competition was inevitable, but they couldn't engage in life-or-death struggles with fellow righteous faction members over territory.
Their rivalry had to remain a friendly one, without bloodshed.
Nether Luo Sect was different.
One of the Twelve Black Seats forming the backbone of the evil factions.
Nether Luo Sect's downfall meant Mount Hua Sect's ascension.
And this plague was a heaven-sent opportunity for Mount Hua Sect.
For Jong Yeom as well.
"Martial Uncle, there are rumors that the Nether Blade Divine Demon himself is on the move. Is it true?"
His martial nephew's concern was something Jong Yeom knew all too well.
"Hard to dismiss outright."
The Nether Blade Divine Demon, Mok Geon Pyeong.
Nether Luo Sect's sect leader, acclaimed as Shanxi's foremost master by all.
Even Jong Yeom would struggle against the prowess of this transcendent expert who had reached the pinnacle.
He should be guarding Taiyuan under normal circumstances, but with this crisis, anything was possible.
"Don't worry, though. Even if the Nether Blade Divine Demon moves, he won't risk all-out war with us, or he'd have no choice but to retreat."
In a full-scale war, Nether Luo Sect would suffer the greater loss.
They had poured immense wealth and manpower into combating this plague.
Mount Hua Sect, though rebuilding from the ground up after the earthquake, had preserved its foundations and revived.
The momentum was clearly on Mount Hua's side.
'Nether Luo Sect must be desperate too.'
Jong Yeom, one of the Plum Blossom Sword Master's elite, sensed defeat more than victory against the powerhouse known as Nether Luo Sect's second-in-command, the Fighting Ghost Gu Yang Ho, who glared from across the way with bulging eyes.
Gu Yang Ho had long served as Nether Luo Sect's vanguard in the strife with Mount Hua Sect.
Unlike before, when he avoided full confrontation at all costs, now he exuded a resolve to fight to the blood if needed.
As Nether Luo Sect showed signs of impatience.
Before their patience fully snapped, the annex gate finally swung open, revealing the man they awaited.
A beak-masked figure in flowing robes.
A middle-aged man of middling height.
The Weird Physician.
'But what's that?'
Jong Yeom's eyes caught the small child beside the Weird Physician.
The clothes and beak mask mimicking his master made her look like a miniature version.
'Taken a disciple?'
He'd never heard of that.
Time to tighten discipline in Mount Hua's intelligence wing, the Plum Fragrance Pavilion, Jong Yeom thought as he stepped forward.
The Weird Physician, spotting him, spoke as if he'd expected it.
"It was you."
"Long time no see, Physician."
Jong Yeom and the Weird Physician were old acquaintances.
A rather deep bond, at that.
"Your successor's holding up decently. I could tell his loyalty to you runs deep."
In the past, Jong Yeom had served as the Weird Physician's bodyguard.
After shedding his novice status and becoming a seasoned jianghu man.
Having received aid from the Weird Physician, Jong Yeom spent a year as his protector.
Though brief, their connection was no shallow thing.
They had saved each other's lives and gladly rolled up their sleeves to resolve each other's grudges, giving and receiving aid.
"You look radiant. Healthy. Made progress in your cultivation?"
"Still lacking in learning. But I've grasped the thread."
"Mount Hua keeps you so busy, hard to settle into training."
The remark seemed a slight jab at the situation, but Jong Yeom laughed it off cheerfully.
"Tell me about it. So hectic. I often think the days roaming the jianghu with you were better."
First calling Jang Rok his "successor," now invoking old memories—each word built toward one goal.
Just as he once had, Jong Yeom made his request.
"Come to Mount Hua. Someone there needs your medical skills."
While listening to the Weird Physician converse with Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword Master, Wi Sowol eyed the Nether Luo Sect side.
'Fighting Ghost Gu Yang Ho. Flowing Sword Wanderer Jong Yeom. Nether Luo's putting more weight behind it.'
Jong Yeom was somewhat famous—even past-life Wi Sowol had heard the name once—but Fighting Ghost Gu Yang Ho carried real heft.
Wi Sowol remembered.
The ferocious martial arts he unleashed.
'Bone Realm.'
The Weird Physician had treated her injuries from the fight with that Gu Yang Ho.
Who knew they'd meet like this.
'Sixteen exchanges.'
Gu Yang Ho's right arm severed by her sword, ultimately yielding his head.
For peak masters, it was an astonishingly brief clash.
Yet packed with intense, intricate maneuvers.
Like the Weird Physician, Gu Yang Ho looked far younger than in her memories, stirring odd feelings.
'How did the Mount Hua-Nether Luo war end?'
Mount Hua won, she recalled.
But that victory sparked future blood feuds; Nether Luo, recovering from the plague, plunged back into war with Mount Hua.
The Weird Physician seemed acquainted with Jong Yeom, so he'd likely gone to Mount Hua.
Did that sway the outcome?
'Or maybe this meeting never happened.'
Her intervention might have already altered the timeline.
'Anywhere I can perform surgery would be fine.'
To be honest.
Wi Sowol was captivated.
By the Weird Physician's exquisite bladework.
By the suturing that anchored a doomed soul back to life.
By the allure of surgery.
'Can I do it too?'
Wi Sowol fidgeted her small hands, mimicking the procedure he'd shown.
The bold incision carving out the wound.
Washing the meridians with inner energy.
Finally, grafting skin over the site with sutures.
She could surpass him in pure cutting.
But judgment on depth of excision, wound covering and suturing finesse, instant crisis response to errors—
She fell short overall.
'I want to see more.'
Of his surgeries.
Of the blade that saves lives.
'First, refine the Great White Light True Qi.'
This surgery taught her something.
Focused on overcoming Nine Yin Absolute Meridian, Great White Light True Qi wasn't suited for bleeding patients.
What she did for the Ban Clan Boy was desperate triage.
His impurities demanded it, or necrosis was certain.
But to sweep a patient's channels mid-surgery like the Weird Physician, she needed to temper its chill.
'Incorporate the mysteries of Gathering Yin to Bolster Yang.'
Where there's yin, there's yang; yin nourishes yang, yang nurtures yin.
'Study Daoist bedroom arts?'
She was clueless there.
She could discern and master martial arts by observation, but had never seen such arts.
'Maybe at Mount Hua.'
Mount Hua embraced relations between men and women, so they'd have useful techniques.
As Wi Sowol's heart raced at the thought of refining Great White Light True Qi at Mount Hua.
A voice doused her hopes.
"Weird Physician! Hear us out too!"
Fighting Ghost Gu Yang Ho's gravelly bellow drew all eyes.
"It's urgent—a matter of life and death! We're prepared to pay any price. Though our sect lord heads the evil jianghu, we've poured more into this plague than any other sect!"
Gu Yang Ho pleaded with fervent eloquence.
"Our deputy sect lord fell ill after tending the people. Please consider his efforts!"
The Weird Physician's beak pointed at Gu Yang Ho.
"What were the symptoms?"
"I'm no expert, but our physician said damp-heat congealed in the intestines. Severe abdominal pain, chills, fever."
"Cough?"
"Not... particularly."
"Vomiting blood or black rashes?"
"...No."
"Pain exactly where? Right lower abdomen?"
"Y-yes."
The Weird Physician diagnosed curtly.
"Not the plague."
"Not the plague?"
"Intestinal abscess."
"Wh-what's that? Will it heal if left?"
"Hardly. In some ways, worse than plague. Bad luck."
The plague was deadly.
Countless commoners died; some Shanxi towns stood empty.
Oddly, it spread poorly among martial artists.
The Weird Physician attributed it to their breathing and heart methods.
Resembling lung disease, martial artists' fortified constitutions let them shake it off more often than civilians.
Thus, Heng Mountain Sect and Nether Luo Sect handled quarantine despite imperial efforts.
These symptoms fit abscess over plague.
A death sentence.
"Untreated, he'll die in days."
Gu Yang Ho's face darkened further.
Suddenly, Nether Luo warriors parted.
Mount Hua men sighed in dismay.
"...Nether Blade Divine Demon."
The sect leader arrived.
Wi Sowol's first face-to-face with him.
Truly, the bearing of one of evil factions' twelve overlords.
Each step heavy, ferocious.
No leaking aura, yet overwhelming presence fit a ruler.
His massive frame exuded grandeur as the evil sovereign asked.
"Weird Physician. Can you heal him?"
A transcendent expert nearing medicine's apex.
Even to Nether Luo's sect leader—one of the elite— the Weird Physician stood firm.
"Nothing I can't."
"Name your price."
Bluntly, the Weird Physician hurled a grim query.
"What if I want your arm?"
"Take it."
No hesitation from the sect leader.
No bluff.
He was ready to give it.
"Have it."
He thrust out his arm.
What trials forged it?
Even Wi Sowol couldn't easily gauge the endurance etched there.
"Never mind. What would I do with a severed arm."
Dismissing it with a wave, the Weird Physician's beak swung back.
"Jong Yeom. You knew."
"...Physician."
"Saw this as your chance. Deputy dead, succession shakes; sect leader might succumb to heart demons. Amid the chaos, Mount Hua solidifies southern Shanxi control."
"Our sect has injured too."
"Not at death's door."
Jong Yeom fell silent.
He'd shared a year with the Weird Physician.
He knew him better than Nether Luo did.
If Mount Hua truly had a critical case, he'd have gone there.
"...If personal ties could secure our sect's greater good... I had no choice."
"I see."
No comforting words of understanding.
The Weird Physician wouldn't appreciate them.
"Jang Rok, Sowol. Prepare. We're going to Nether Luo Sect."
Where the dying lay, savable only by surgery.
There the Weird Physician would be.
"Sect Leader. Ready wine and payment."
Surgery time for the master healer.