Chapter 16
Chapter 16
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Rebirth
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'He's dying.'
The mystery was solved.
The reason she hadn't been able to see this young man in her previous life.
As expected, he must have died right here.
If even the Weird Physician couldn't treat him, the only faint hope was the Divine Physician, renowned as the greatest in the world—but the Divine Physician never left Suzhou.
No matter how desperately the two supreme masters pushed their innate true qi to race there, he'd be dead long before they reached Suzhou.
'What a shame.'
The moment that thought crossed her mind,
Wi Sowol's eyes widened in shock.
She did?
Regretting the death of someone she'd never even met before?
'Is it because I said I hoped he'd live?'
Words carry power.
Just as those unfamiliar with martial arts shout technique names at the top of their lungs to heighten their focus.
The words one speaks aloud echo within their own heart, leaving faint traces behind.
So it was only natural to want to make those words come true.
"How will this surgery proceed?"
"Normally, we'd resect the pus-filled intestines and suture them. If an abscess has formed from the accumulated poison, we'd drain it first to prevent leakage into the abdomen during resection. It's not a difficult procedure... but this case is different. The intestinal abscess has already ruptured, and the poison has leaked out. Cases like this are called 'pus rupture,' where the poison spreads to the peritoneum, turning it into abdominal suppuration."
The Weird Physician pointed to the translucent membrane enveloping the abdominal organs.
It was already tainted with the poison there.
"So we give up just like that?"
"No."
The Weird Physician gripped his scalpel tighter.
Even if he thought it was hopeless, a healer had to move their hands.
Even if death awaited at the end, they had to do what needed doing.
"We'll deal with the intestinal abscess first."
Removing the source of the first crisis.
It was done simply.
Even in the worst conditions, the Weird Physician's hands, channeling the Dazed Haze Hand, precisely carved out and extracted only the abscess.
"Suture."
His hands moved swiftly.
As if compensating for all the time wasted so far, they danced in a dazzling display.
Wi Sowol channeled her inner power through the acupuncture points around her eyes, maximizing her visual acuity to capture every moment from start to finish without so much as a blink.
"Now comes the crucial part. We have to wash away the poison from the peritoneum and everywhere else it's touched. At the same time, we need to eliminate the pus poison flowing through the meridians."
The key was the Weird Physician's reserves of inner power.
The Firm Chastity Heart Method prioritized purity over quantity, refining its energy to something closest to innate true qi to bolster patients' vitality—sacrificing capacity in the process.
While the Three Disasters Heart Method yielded a full cycle's worth of power after sixty years of cultivation, and peerless arts built the same in a mere ten,
the Firm Chastity Heart Method might barely accumulate half a cycle after a century of training.
To achieve that purity, its practitioners couldn't indiscriminately consume spirit medicines, abandoning everything for that one goal.
His inner power was woefully insufficient to cleanse the peritoneum, contaminated areas, and every blood vessel.
It was tantamount to attempting full-body marrow washing.
"Can't we just wash it out with alcohol?"
"He'd die from alcohol poisoning before the pus poison. Alcohol is poison too."
Inner power was the answer.
Nothing else would do.
Wi Sowol had considered the issue of quantity, but the Weird Physician worried over finer details.
'The problem is the blood vessels.'
Acupoints and blood vessels.
Channels for qi and channels for blood.
They were different.
Inner power cultivation strengthened acupoints naturally alongside heart method practice.
Blood vessels, however, were fragile.
Purifying poison seeped into acupoints with the Firm Chastity Heart Method was one thing.
But poison that had flowed into blood vessels and clung to the blood itself? How could it be cleansed?
Not only was his power limited, but unlike meridians, could he even wash every drop of circulating blood?
'Even bloodletting has its limits.'
In the Central Plains, bloodletting was a foundational therapy based on the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon; in the Western Regions, a core medical technique.
For all its grand explanations, it was simply drawing blood.
When blood clotted or was tainted by poison, bloodletting sought to treat it.
'Can he endure it?'
Simultaneously operating on the three major vessels and performing bloodletting.
It would squeeze both patient and healer to their extremes.
"We have to do it anyway."
No one knew how far the poison had spread.
It might have reached other organs.
The blood might be entirely corrupted, rendering bloodletting meaningless.
Still, they would try.
"The poison has seeped into the blood vessels. We'll need to do bloodletting."
In a surgery that already demanded maximum speed to minimize bleeding—and with the abdomen fully open—he resorted to this extreme measure.
Complications were inevitable.
"Master, his breathing is unstable."
Not the Weird Physician's.
The patient, Mok Ja Un, had begun gasping raggedly.
"How are the lungs moving?"
Wi Sowol placed her hand on Mok Ja Un's chest.
"Weakly."
It's fine. Still within expectations.
The Weird Physician spoke.
"We'll incise the trachea."
"The trachea?"
"We'll cut partway through the throat to open an airway. It happens often during surgery. We'll make the incision, insert a reed tube into it to keep the path to the lungs open. Meanwhile, check how far the poison has spread."
Using inner power to cleanse the contaminated peritoneum and meridians, while incising the throat and inserting the tube by hand.
The Weird Physician's face was soon drenched in sweat.
Sweat dripped from his chin onto Mok Ja Un's body.
Mok Ja Un's body was now soaked in sweat no one could claim ownership of.
"Lungs' status?"
"They're working again. Seems the poison only reached the peritoneum and blood vessels."
"It entered the vessels recently, at least. Small mercy."
No, was this a mercy?
The Weird Physician's inner power was already nearing depletion.
Washing a body with inner power was grueling.
Full-body marrow washing wasn't the exclusive domain of prestigious sects producing supreme masters for nothing.
It was that difficult.
Beyond total quantity, it demanded immense focus to control the flow.
The Weird Physician had done all he could.
Removed the abscess, cleared the airway.
Performed bloodletting from the tainted vessels and inner power cleansing of the peritoneum.
He'd tried everything possible.
This must be the will of heaven.
"...His heart."
The heart, once pulsing vigorously, began to weaken.
If life was a candle flame, this one now flickered on the verge of extinction before a fierce gale.
"Stop the bloodletting. Close the abdomen. Control the bleeding first. We'll build up inner power again and tackle the blood poison later."
But could Mok Ja Un hold on that long?
Wi Sowol knew the answer.
He couldn't.
Honestly, he'd only lasted this long because he was a martial arts master.
Through the palm still resting on his chest, Wi Sowol fully felt the flame of his life guttering out.
'He's dying.'
She felt anew the weight of death, eroded and forgotten by the passage of time.
She had wanted to save him.
The Weird Physician had truly given his all.
Wi Sowol had watched every effort up close.
Despite near-total exhaustion of his inner power leaving him drained, he thrashed desperately for one last resort to save this patient.
The crossroads of life and death.
The tug-of-war between the reaper claiming the departed and the healer refusing to let go was tipping to one side.
'What about me?'
She who'd only ever killed with her blade had vowed now to save lives.
She had witnessed the resolve with which a healer gripped that blade.
She had prayed to that patient's father for his son's survival.
'So I have to save you.'
Now, truly, she would become a healer.
'Master's treatment was sound.'
It had simply been beyond his reach.
His inner power reserves.
His innate martial talent.
'So I'll do it instead.'
"From now on, begin."
Old man, come forth. Heavenly insight, come forth. As on the day she met the Weird Physician. I need you now—come to me at once. A flash of enlightenment pierced her crown like moonlight in the darkness.
"Thus, I live through the cultivation I have built myself."
The words of the Nether Luo Sect Lord filled her mind. Trust in the cultivation you have built yourself. Judging the world solely by one's own practice, for that practice is the way to face the world. Breathe with the heart method, stand with the body technique, move hands with the manipulation arts. And within them lies qi. A upheaval raged in Wi Sowol's mind. The mind is principle; principle is qi. The mind sets the principle, and qi follows.
"O Moon. Pity the sufferings of all beings, and with your cold light, revive all things."
"Those seeking tranquility, take refuge in you; those banishing fever, draw on your grace."
"Day and night illuminate each other, harmonizing heaven and earth. Universal light returns all to oneness."
⟨ Great White Light True Qi ⟩
The pure yin qi of the Great White Light True Qi had always been cold.
Utterly cold.
The moment she tempered that energy, what dwelled in Wi Sowol's heart was icy killing intent.
A cold will to harm others had defined the nature of its inner power.
But now, Wi Sowol felt compassion.
Not to kill, injure, or erase—but to save. Following that heart, the Great White Light True Qi sprouted a new hue.
The pure yin qi no longer suppressed yang energy.
Instead, it clasped hands with it.
The principle of yin-yang mutual generation that Wi Sowol suddenly recalled took root in the Great White Light True Qi.
Snow fell.
Over Mok Ja Un's peritoneum, his incised throat, the meridians flowing with inner power, the blood vessels pulsing with blood.
The Great White Light True Qi's power, once as cold and sharp as a winter castle, was no more.
Now, like large snowflakes bringing warmth amid freezing winter, it enveloped the wounds with coziness.
Bright red blood, murky yellow pus, pale white peritoneum—all blanketed in pristine white.
And when the Great White Light True Qi had caressed the abdomen once and returned to Wi Sowol,
the Weird Physician beheld it.
The body of immaculate white, purged of all poison.
Seeing that,
the Weird Physician had only one thing left to say.
"...Suture."
And so, the man who should have died lived.
And a new healer was born.