Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Non-Union
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Non-Union
"Is it really broken?"
Jang Rok, who had grown close to Wi Sowol while cooking together, whispered ever so softly in her ear.
As the seventh assassin of the Assassins' Gate, his keen eyesight had reached a profound level.
On top of that, he had mastered the unique eye technique of the Assassins' Gate.
The Assassins' Gate eye technique, designed to pierce through physical discomforts and exploit weaknesses, was particularly exceptional at detecting injuries.
Even so, Jang Rok was still unsure whether the arm of Daoist Yujin was truly broken.
"Yeah. It is."
Wi Sowol hadn't noticed it at first either.
Daoist Yujin's movements had been far too natural.
Just like Jang Rok, she wouldn't have known from simply looking.
Wi Sowol had sensed something off only because she detected an uneven flow in Daoist Yujin's energy.
'But... is calling it "broken" even accurate...?'
Normally, when people say a bone is broken, they presuppose that the bone itself is still there.
In other words, a fracture means the bone exists but has snapped.
'It looks like there's no bone at all?'
She hadn't examined it yet, so she couldn't be certain, but that's how it appeared to Wi Sowol's eyes.
"First, let's get a clear look at the condition."
"Please do."
At the Weird Physician's words, Daoist Yujin smoothly extended his arm.
"Inside."
"Ah, I was too hasty."
The place where Daoist Yujin resided was a hermitage used by Elder Yulhan Zhenren, disciple of Pure Void Daoist and the one who had taken Yujin as his own disciple. The name plaque read Hwasun Hermitage.
Having finished his examination, the Weird Physician gave Wi Sowol a look.
Wi Sowol approached Daoist Yujin.
Daoist Yujin silently extended his arm to her as well.
Wi Sowol was still wearing her beak mask even then.
Feeling that visual inspection alone wasn't enough, she took hold of his arm.
"I'll perform a pulse diagnosis for a moment."
Having dealt with so many patients, she had grown quite accustomed to speaking politely to them.
Wi Sowol's pale white fingers rested atop Daoist Yujin's wrist.
Pulse diagnosis, one of the four methods of examination.
It was the last one performed, but nothing was as reliable as it.
As Wi Sowol infused her pure yin energy from the Great White Light True Qi, Daoist Yujin's eyes twitched faintly.
"My apologies. It might feel cold."
"No, it's quite refreshing. I like it."
Perhaps because he was a Daoist, he had a remarkably good temperament.
When she had taken pulses from the villagers on the way to Mount Hua, plenty had made a fuss about how cold it felt.
But contrary to Wi Sowol's simple assumption, Daoist Yujin was genuinely pleased with the pulse-taking.
A cool yet somehow comforting energy swept through his arm, melting away the throbbing pain that had tormented him relentlessly until now.
"Your energy is exceptionally pure and clear. Though you're the physician's disciple, it doesn't seem to be the Wu Medical Academy's heart method..."
"We're done."
"Ah, forgive me. My mouth ran ahead. I apologize."
Daoist Yujin awkwardly withdrew his arm.
'I shouldn't have spoken. It felt so good just like that.'
Leaving the regretting Daoist Yujin be, the master and disciple pair shared what they had discovered.
"It's strange. It feels like the bone is hollow. I'm not sure if we can even call this a fracture."
"No, you nailed it."
Jang Rok was usually silent, but this time he cautiously spoke up, as if something had clicked for him too.
"Poison, perhaps?"
"Hm."
Jang Rok let out a small sigh of realization before quickly switching to mental transmission.
[Aside from Bone-Dissolving Powder that melts flesh and skin, there's Bone-Eroding Powder that dissolves even the bones. It's a poison specially made by the Assassins' Gate. Once it reaches the bone through a wound, it melts the bone while the victim is still alive.]
Ah, that stuff.
Wi Sowol had experienced it herself.
Back then, she'd blasted it away with scorching yang energy, evaporating it.
'Impressive, Jang Rok. Quite knowledgeable.'
Wi Sowol nodded, convinced by his guess.
Even a dog spending three years at a schoolhouse learns to recite poetry, so Jang Rok, who had traveled with the Weird Physician for several years, was bound to open his eyes to medicine soon enough.
Wi Sowol sent back a skilled mental transmission of her own.
[Is there an antidote?]
[No. The Assassins' Gate isn't the type to make poisons with antidotes in mind.]
[Never seen any treatment method?]
[No. The best course is to amputate the entire area before the poison spreads further.]
So, should they cut off that young Daoist's arm too?
He looked barely past thirty, with a bright future ahead.
[No need. It's not that.]
Not that?
It was hard for Wi Sowol to understand, but the Weird Physician knew the true answer.
"This is what's called non-union."
Non-union did exist.
It referred to a fractured bone that showed no signs of healing even months later.
But it was so rare that medical texts barely mentioned it, so it was no wonder no one here knew of it.
"Failure of bone regeneration. The bone that should grow to reconnect the break simply doesn't."
Pure Void Daoist himself admired the Weird Physician's diagnosis of non-union and bone regeneration failure for Daoist Yujin's condition.
But the Weird Physician continued indifferently, ignoring the admiration.
"This wouldn't happen from an ordinary fracture. The injury must have been bad enough for the bone to protrude."
"Yes. My forearm was completely torn open. This is the scar."
"And you survived that?"
The Weird Physician seemed genuinely incredulous.
Of course, martial arts experts had bodies far sturdier than ordinary people.
This applied not just to physical toughness but also immunity to disease.
Yet even for such experts, unless they were transcendent masters in a realm beyond mortals, surviving such a severe injury and regaining use of the arm was exceedingly rare.
"It's not a simple fracture. When the bone tears through the flesh and protrudes, it's called a compound fracture. Unlike simple fractures, it's often fatal. Amputating the protruding limb actually offers a better chance of survival."
And yet he'd recovered fully?
Was this guy truly immortal?
The Weird Physician eyed Daoist Yujin with a meaningful gaze.
It was the look of a hawk staring down at prey blatantly exposing itself.
The beak mask he wore made the gaze all the sharper.
As Daoist Yujin flinched, Pure Void Daoist, who had been watching from the side, spoke up.
"I gave him a Purple Firmament Pill."
The Purple Firmament Pill was Mount Hua Sect's proudest spirit medicine.
It fell short of Shaolin's Great Return Pill but was still among the world's finest.
"I see."
That made sense.
A Purple Firmament Pill could indeed work that kind of miracle once.
"But is this Daoist's talent truly that exceptional? Enough to use a Purple Firmament Pill just for treating an injury?"
"It's not the sect's decision. I gave it to him."
Pure Void Daoist was an elder of Mount Hua Sect and a master who had upheld the sect for decades.
Mount Hua had recovered somewhat now and regained its prosperity, but during Pure Void Daoist's youth, it had teetered on the brink of destruction.
He had played the greatest role in enduring that dark era.
In gratitude and respect, Mount Hua had gifted him a Purple Firmament Pill—one he could use freely, without permission from the sect leader or council of elders.
"You fed him that."
"Simply feeding it wouldn't lead to this. I'd like a detailed account of how you handled it."
Pure Void Daoist's explanation went like this.
The arm had broken with the bone protruding. The physician wanted to amputate, but Pure Void had stopped him.
As a compromise, they'd sawed off the sharp bone tip, aligned the arm as best they could, and sutured the torn wound.
"Where's that physician now?"
"Not here. We urgently summoned one from a nearby village."
"A famous one, that guy. He got lucky."
Sawing bone required Pure Void's assistance, but physicians capable of surgery were exceedingly rare.
The mainstream medicine of the era focused on internal medicine.
Surgery was looked down upon, so even if the Weird Physician lived properly and treated incoming patients for free, his moniker would still be Weird Physician.
"By the way, where's your disciple?"
The Weird Physician knew propriety.
No matter that Pure Void was the grandmaster, how could he hide his disciple's condition from his master, who was like a father?
"He went to Mount Song."
"To the Medicine King?"
Medicine King Jeong Ryeo.
One of the Six Great Physicians alongside the Weird Physician, and the pinnacle of healing monks boasted by Mount Song's Shaolin Temple.
Desperation—that Yulhan might save his disciple from becoming armless—must have driven him to cast aside Mount Hua's face and all else.
"Yes."
"Even Purple Firmament Pill failed, so he's hoping to obtain a Great Return Pill?"
The Weird Physician spoke as if it were absurd.
But Pure Void calmly admitted it instead of getting angry.
"That's the plan."
"Futile effort."
Shaolin wouldn't hand over a Great Return Pill for one Mount Hua disciple.
The Medicine King himself would have to come in person.
And even then, the Weird Physician was confident he couldn't heal it without using a spirit pill of that caliber.
Tsking his tongue, the Weird Physician said,
"I've seen plenty of fractures, but this is only the fourth case like this."
"You've seen quite a few?"
"Because I've treated that many patients. But an arm is a first."
All previous non-union cases the Weird Physician had seen involved thigh bones.
Yet he immediately pinpointed why Daoist Yujin's arm bone had failed.
"You. You trained in martial arts before it fully healed, didn't you?"
Yujin answered forthrightly.
"Yes. I have never skipped a single day of training."
"Boastful. And idiotic."
Even now, he swung the arm around pretending it was fine, without so much as a splint.
Even lying still offered only a slim chance of the severed bone regrowing, yet he'd moved it vigorously—enough to halt any growth.
As the Weird Physician openly tsked, Pure Void chuckled softly and probed gently.
"So, did those patients recover well?"
After all, if he'd seen three others, surely Daoist Yujin could be treated somehow.
Good is good, so Pure Void defended Yujin as he asked, but the Weird Physician's reply was ice-cold.
"No. They all died."