Chapter 111
Chapter 111
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 111
Chapter Title: Fake
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The bandits lost their will to fight in an instant.
From the moment the young man approached with a single sword at his waist, something had felt off, and then he displayed footwork they could never imitate.
His calm expression was burdensome too. It was as if he wasn't entirely convinced that swinging their blades a hundred times over wouldn't reach him. Only fools swung their swords again in a situation like this, and they didn't live long.
The bandits had been able to act so boldly up until now because of the Strange Physician, renowned as a peak expert. But the Strange Physician they trusted had his head grabbed from behind by the young man, his face smashed into the ground, unable to even rise.
There was no way a young man like that could take down a peak expert in one blow, so nine times out of ten, the Strange Physician was a fake.
One of the bandits spoke up.
"See? I told you, damn it. That guy's been weird from the start. He looked kinda easy to take down..."
The bandits, with no loyalty to speak of, hesitated and backed away step by step, and Dang Mujin didn't stop them. As soon as some distance opened up, the bandits spun around and bolted.
Dang Mujin squatted down beside the fake Strange Physician's head. His nose must have broken when his face hit the ground, blood pouring from it.
"Hey. Any guess why I'm doing this?"
"Heh, I can imagine. Who are you?"
"The disciple of the man you're impersonating."
"Disciple? Did the Strange Physician even have one... Didn't know that much."
The brazen attitude grated on him, so Dang Mujin stomped on the man's left hand. Channeling internal energy into his foot, he felt several finger bones shatter through his heel.
It had to hurt like hell, but the fake Strange Physician just sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth, not screaming. Whether he had great endurance or was just used to pain, who knew.
Either way, it didn't sit right with Dang Mujin. The fake should have screamed, repented his wrongs, and died.
"How long can you hold out?"
Dang Mujin was about to stomp the man's left hand again when his thoughts turned to Dan Seolyeong, who was watching from behind.
She knew Dang Mujin wasn't all sweetness and light. But separately from that, he didn't want to show her a side of him raging in fury.
Dang Mujin let out a small sigh, stood up, and called out toward Namgung Myeong and Dan Seolyeong.
"I'll handle this and catch up, so rest up first!"
Namgung Myeong didn't even rise, just waved lazily in response, and Dan Seolyeong, seeming to understand his intent, didn't follow.
Dang Mujin dragged the fake Strange Physician into the village ahead.
Just like he'd done with Baek Chaseo or Ban Yonggwol, he planned to lock him in a house and administer poison.
No matter how patient he was, screams would come out eventually.
Dragging the fake half along as they walked through the village, Dang Mujin felt the villagers' gazes.
The plague was rampant, but not everyone could leave. Reasons varied.
Some couldn't because officials ordered them to stay, others feared leaving home.
Some couldn't abandon family suffering from the disease, others were too sick to move.
In the end, it amounted to the same thing. Everyone would catch it, and only the truly lucky would survive.
Proof was in the people Dang Mujin saw—none looked healthy. They'd missed the window for treatment and were simply dying slowly.
Even if Dang Mujin stepped in, he couldn't save many.
So he didn't approach the patients.
As he poked around for a house tightly sealed enough to contain the poison, more gazes turned toward him and the fake. Some even trailed after them hesitantly.
The fake waved them off, shooing them back inside. He thought he'd done it discreetly, but he couldn't escape Dang Mujin's notice.
Unlike the others who shuffled away, two followed Dang Mujin and the fake: a pair of tiny siblings, not even reaching Dang Mujin's waist. Together, they couldn't have been more than ten years old.
Dang Mujin rummaged in his robes and tossed them two pieces of jerky suitable for kids.
They took the jerky but didn't turn back, still following.
Messing up the fake in front of children wasn't appealing. Dang Mujin told them.
"I even gave you food. Go on home."
"But it's our turn..."
"Your turn for what?"
As the kids hesitated without answering, the fake spoke to Dang Mujin.
"I know I'm not in a position to say this, but could you give me a moment? I have a promise with those kids. It won't take long."
"Trying to run? Don't try it."
"How far could a cripple get? Even if my legs were fine, I know I couldn't shake someone like you."
Dang Mujin pondered briefly, then sighed deeply.
It wasn't the fake—it was the two kids trailing behind that tugged at him.
Dang Mujin glared at the fake, then slightly turned his head. The children's faces brightened a bit.
Dang Mujin and the fake followed the kids. They led to a small house reeking of decay.
When the kids opened the door, the stench intensified several times.
Inside lay a corpse—an adult's, dead for days at least.
The fake went into the attached shed, fetching a mat and sack.
He rolled the body in the mat and stuffed it into the sack. Despite his broken finger bones limiting his left hand, his movements were practiced, as if he'd done this many times.
Slinging the sack on his back, the fake headed out, muttering.
"The great light transforms into the duty watch, becoming an endless day, and within that day, all the deeds of the Buddhas in the three thousand great thousand worlds are reflected and manifest..."
Dang Mujin didn't know the sutra, but the Buddha references confirmed it was a Buddhist scripture. He let it flow in one ear and out the other as he walked.
Unlike the solemn tone of the chant, the fake's appearance was eerie yet comical.
The sack wasn't long enough for a full body, so the corpse's legs stuck out. With each step, they bumped the fake's head from behind, like the body keeping rhythm to the sutra.
"...That sound expounds the three dharma seals and all the paramitas, and praises the forms of all Buddhas. From the wish-fulfilling gem, light rises, transforming into birds of a hundred colors flying everywhere..."
The four reached a small clearing behind the village.
Dozens of fresh mounds dotted it, with a sturdy-looking shovel propped between them.
The red soil, perhaps from old farmland, looked soft and loose.
Despite his limp and useless left hand, the fake dug with impressive speed. His sutra chanting never stopped.
"...That light shone so dazzlingly it couldn't be fully seen, incomparable even to a hundred thousand millions of refined gold. Five hundred transformation-body Buddhas simultaneously extended hands in praise..."
The fake buried the sack, piled up a mound, and tamped it down with the shovel. As the grave finished, the chanting ceased, and he straightened his back.
He resembled a wandering monk who performed funerals for the dead, a bone-burier monk.
The two little siblings clasped their tiny hands in imitation of adults, forming a prayer gesture, and offered the fake the two pieces of jerky they'd just gotten from Dang Mujin. It was their greatest show of gratitude.
The fake accepted without refusal, then handed them to Dang Mujin.
"This is my thanks."
Dang Mujin unwittingly took the jerky back.
As the kids toddled off, a few villagers in poor shape approached hesitantly, eyeing the fake and Dang Mujin.
The fake avoided their eyes and urged Dang Mujin.
"Let's go."
Dang Mujin stared at the jerky that had come full circle to his hand in two steps. It was hard to put the feeling into words.
After a few steps leading the fake, Dang Mujin locked eyes with a hunched old woman. Her illness was beyond obvious—death shadowed her face.
Dang Mujin stopped before her without thinking. A faint smile crossed her face, pushing back the pallor of death just a little. He felt an inexplicable dizziness.
The fake glanced at Dang Mujin, then seemed to understand, following the slow old woman. Dang Mujin trailed them.
They reached a place where an elderly man's corpse lay, as aged as the woman. Their relationship was obvious without asking.
Fortunately, this body was less decayed than the parents', laid on a mat.
The fake wrapped the old man's body in the mat and chanted again.
"By contemplating this, when you discard this body and are reborn in the next world, you will attain the unproduced dharma-nature before all Buddhas. Thus, the wise should bind their minds to one place..."
As before, the fake shouldered the body, grabbed the shovel, and headed behind the village.
Dang Mujin stood a short distance away. He watched the fake dig, bury the body, and mound the grave.
Struggling with the effort, the fake's pace was slower than before.
When the second grave was done, a few villagers still watched Dang Mujin and the fake. Dang Mujin pointed to a nearby middle-aged woman.
The fake nodded and moved toward her. After a few limping steps, he turned back, realizing Dang Mujin wasn't following.
Dang Mujin stood holding the shovel the fake had set down.
"What're you doing? Hurry up and go."
At Dang Mujin's gruff words, the fake nodded and followed the woman.
Dang Mujin drove the shovel into the ground and dug. With his trained martial arts body, he excavated quickly. It wasn't a deep hole anyway.
Soon, the low chant and footsteps of two people returned. The fake naturally took the shovel from Dang Mujin, finished digging, and buried the body. With help, it went much faster.
After repeating this several times, no one remained watching Dang Mujin and the fake. They seemed to be the only living souls left in the village.
"Feels better now."
The fake twisted his scarred, pockmarked face into a grin.
As a physician, Dang Mujin recognized the wounds on the fake's face and skin. Scars from surviving all manner of diseases with his own body.
The fake rose and said.
"Waiting was kindness enough, but helping too? Thanks. Now to finish our business."
The fake limped off, but Dang Mujin didn't follow. Instead, from behind, he asked.
"Who are you?"
"Who else? A fake trying to steal someone I met once."
"Then why play physician, herb gatherer, bone-burier monk? If you're going to do that, why steal a name at all?"
When he'd heard of someone impersonating the Strange Physician, Dang Mujin imagined a profiteer. But the fake's actions were far from that.
"Reason? So people believe me."
The fake habitually raised his left hand to scratch his chin, winced in pain, and dropped it.
"My martial arts are third-rate, my medicine third-rate. No, less than that. Half my skills are patchwork learned from herb gatherers. No one comes if I claim to be a physician under my own name. People would rather suffer than see a quack."
"So you stole the Strange Physician's name?"
"Yeah. Does a physician have to diagnose by grasping a wrist? Cure in one night? Third-rate quacks have uses too, even if scorned."
The fake muttered.
"Sometimes you need someone to boil porridge after three days bedridden and starving. Or wipe a sweat-soaked body. Or mimic a bone-burier monk when family dies, half-learned as it is. Wanting that much use—is that greed?"
Dang Mujin nearly said yes, but closed his mouth.
The villagers clearly needed this man's help.
And those he'd met in Cheongwon never said the fake's treatments worsened their conditions, only that they didn't help much.
Yet this man had undeniably sullied his master's name.
As a martial artist, Dang Mujin thought he should cut the fake's throat. As a physician, he couldn't draw his sword.