Chapter 13
Chapter 13
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Clinic Heo Pung-gae - [4]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yi Pung's explanation went like this.
The man he'd roughed up last night was the owner of a call-girl service. The kind of pimp who arranged paid dates or supplied women to shady establishments.
The woman with him was from Thailand and had been working at his operation.
Foreigners coming to Korea to do sex work usually arrived on three-month tourist visas and headed home once they expired.
Some stayed on past their visa dates to keep working, of course—which made them illegal overstayers. Their already vulnerable position became even more precarious.
The call-girl boss was ruthless enough not to miss that opening. He refused to let the woman go now that her visa had lapsed and she was beyond legal protection. He confiscated her passport, stole her cash, then saddled her with debts for living expenses and rent, exploiting her every step of the way.
By now, she just wanted to wash her hands of it all and go home. But she couldn't.
When she caught a sexually transmitted disease on top of everything, the guy only pretended to get her treated. Taking an exploited illegal immigrant to a proper hospital was too risky for him.
So he'd dragged her to some back-alley acupuncture clinic, only to get taken down and tortured by Heo Pung-gae.
Seeing her pimp neutralized, the woman decided to bolt.
Heo Pung-gae chased after her. His instincts were sharp. Spotting her frantically hailing a taxi, he instantly pegged her as a woman desperate to escape an abusive pimp.
He stepped in to help, and last night, the two of them had gone back to thrash the call-girl boss.
"So what happens to the girl now?"
Yi Do-hyeok's question drew a response from Yi Pung.
"We'll get her to a decent hospital for the STD treatment, return the money and passport that bastard took, and send her back to Thailand. He'd even swiped her friends' phone numbers back home to hold over her. I warned him we'd come down hard if he ever tried anything later."
Handling the aftermath too? Yi Do-hyeok was impressed.
"You guys really take responsibility, huh?"
Yi Pung grinned, gums flashing wide.
"Of course we do. We're chivalrous wanderers with deep traditions, you know? Ever heard of us? Descended from the legendary Heo Pung-gae, the righteous doctor of the colonial era..."
Truth be told, Yi Do-hyeok didn't feel all that great hearing the story of how they'd helped the woman.
It didn't strike him as purely altruistic. He suspected their main goal was less about aiding her and more about strong-arming sales of those 700,000-won monthly talismans.
The woman was staying on the third floor of the mixed-use building. Yi Do-hyeok climbed the stairs to check on her.
Once he reached the third floor and met her, that's when Yi Do-hyeok finally felt like he'd done a good deed last night.
Recognizing him, the woman spoke in halting Korean.
"Thank you... really, thank you."
She clutched his hand, murmuring it over and over. Thank you.
Yi Do-hyeok held her hand in return, a swell of emotion rising in his chest.
Yeah, so what if they made some money off it? If the person helped was grateful, that was enough.
Right now, it hit him: last night, he'd done the work of a true chivalrous hero—a righteous act, just like the Invincible BB Bullet.
"So, how was she? You meet her?"
"Yeah."
"You look brighter. Feeling proud?"
Yi Pung added that they'd even secured a monthly tribute from this job, but the financial gain wasn't huge. They'd spent more on the woman herself.
Was that true or not? Either way, they'd properly helped her—that much was fact. And for Yi Do-hyeok, right then, that was plenty.
He wanted to share this swelling sense of fulfillment with someone. Who would be best?
His quiet, aloof master. The young expert who'd handled almost the whole thing solo last night.
Just like the Invincible BB Bullet's disciple, he'd performed a righteous act. Yi Do-hyeok would tell him how rewarding it had been. That ought to make him proud too.
Yi Do-hyeok went to Heo Pung-gae and said,
"That girl kept repeating 'thank you' over and over, even though she barely speaks Korean. I'm no smooth talker myself, but I patted her shoulder and told her to hang in there, and she just burst into tears."
"Is that right."
"Why don't you go up later and give her some encouragement?"
He seemed reluctant. Heo Pung-gae replied indifferently.
"What's there to encourage?"
"Something like, 'You've been through hell, but it's sorted now, so push through from here'..."
"Do I have to?"
Surprisingly, Heo Pung-gae seemed annoyed at the idea of comforting the very woman he'd rescued.
Yi Do-hyeok, who hadn't seen that coming at all, faltered.
"After all that, you don't feel sorry for her?"
"Sorry for what? She earned good money, but got greedy, overstayed illegally, and ended up like that. She reaped what she sowed. Just treat her and send her home—that's it."
"But last night, you said we were helping her out?"
"Yeah."
"If you don't feel sorry for her, why help?"
"Not feeling sorry means I won't help?"
Yi Do-hyeok faltered again.
"Uh... isn't helping because you feel sorry for them?"
"Does a firefighter save the homeowner only if they're a good person? If the house is on fire, you save it first."
This analogy was off too. Unlike firefighters, being a chivalrous hero wasn't a job. It was voluntary—so shouldn't you help because you felt compassion? Acting like there was some bureaucratic checklist made no sense. Otherwise, last night wasn't driven by righteous passion but just knocking off a "worthy" task.
Yi Do-hyeok muttered,
"Master, you're different from Grandmaster after all..."
"Grandmaster?"
"Heo Pung-gae the Righteous Doctor. The Invincible BB Bullet's master. He was the passionate type who'd storm a drug den to save one kidnapped youth, right?"
Hearing that, Heo Pung-gae thought: Me, storming a drug den to save some youth?
He vaguely recalled it.
Turned out the guy was just a street-level drug peddler.
A bit more time passed, and clearer memories surfaced.
It was during the Japanese colonial era.
Heo Pung-gae had been wandering as a self-styled doctor and fixer. Some frantic middle-aged woman showed up begging for urgent help—gangsters had burst into her home and kidnapped her son.
He wasn't skilled enough back then to call himself a master. Taking on a violent gang solo was daunting. He'd wanted to refuse, but she clung to him wailing, so he steeled himself for a brutal fight. He charged into their den and barely dragged the son out alive.
But once the dust settled, there was zero satisfaction in the rescue. The kid was a drug dealer caught slinging on the organization's turf, muddying their waters—no innocent victim. Better off gone from the world, really.
The realization left him utterly deflated.
Whether the mother knew her son's line of work was unclear. In any case, she spread the tale far and wide that her kidnapped son had been saved by the Invincible BB Bullet—without the messy details—so it became a heartwarming legend.
What Heo Pung-gae learned that day was this: if you're playing the hero to rack up merit as a Taoist, better not get emotional about it.
If you're doing good deeds as a Taoist, just do them. No need to chase fulfillment from it.
Like some old doctor half a century past his Hippocratic Oath, numb to the passion of medicine but still practicing—what did it matter? As long as the treatment worked, it benefited the patient and paid the doctor. Good enough.
Night fell, and Heo Pung-gae unfurled his Merit-Demerit Ledger in his room.
He tallied the points he could record from this job.
Rescuing a woman from a scummy live-in pimp: 25 points.
Not bad for one night's work. Enough to offset the previous penalty and then some. One step closer to immortality.
As Heo Pung-gae cracked a faint smile, Yi Pung was beaming openly in the office.
"You're sticking around?"
Yi Do-hyeok nodded at Yi Pung's question.
"Yes. Looking forward to working with you, boss."
Yi Pung was genuinely thrilled. In this line of work, even finding someone for grunt tasks was tough. No way he'd let a obedient pushover slip away.
"Smart choice! Work here, train your martial arts, learn the ins and outs of the martial world, become a chivalrous hero—yeah!"
Yi Do-hyeok nodded.
Yes, he would become a chivalrous hero. Like Heo Pung-gae the Righteous Doctor, who rescued his great-grandfather despite mortal wounds. Like the Invincible BB Bullet, who saved him as a child from that locked container on Children's Day.
If he could be a hero like those from his youth, he could bash heads with a baseball bat or play the thug too.
And of course, he could hang with his master's less warm-hearted disciple just fine.