Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Physician Immortal
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The Jeyuan branch chief of Salmak paced restlessly around the narrow room.
The sun had risen, yet the assassins who left yesterday had not returned.
If things had merely gone slightly awry, at least the scout would have come back to report the situation.
But none of the seven had returned. The mission had clearly failed.
'Did the Baek family head set a trap?'
No, that couldn't be.
Baek Chusu was neither a figure with the power to antagonize Salmak nor did he have any reason to. They had coexisted in Jeyuan for decades without issue; it wasn't as if some belated sense of justice had suddenly erupted.
If one or two assassins had died, the branch chief could have swept it under the rug.
But all seven dead? That was beyond what a mere branch chief could handle.
In the end, the branch chief wrote out the full account and released a messenger pigeon.
*
The branch chief assumed the small note tied to the messenger pigeon's leg would be resolved at the mid-level manager's desk. But contrary to expectations, it passed through higher-ups and reached the hands of Salmak's leader, Black Butterfly.
Black Butterfly read the note.
Target: Yi Gyun. A swordsman disguised as a physician.
Failed to eliminate with six low-tier assassins armed with paralysis poison daggers. Even the scout perished.
Black Butterfly immediately knew who the target was.
'...The Strange Physician Yi Chung.'
The reason he thought of Yi Chung without hesitation was simple. Among countless martial artists of the Central Plains, Yi Chung was the one with the most assassination requests.
Even off the top of his head, Black Butterfly recalled seven such commissions. The man must have racked up an insane amount of grudges; he seemed to wander as if offering his neck on a platter.
Yet Salmak had never managed to take him out. It was purely a matter of cost-benefit.
Yi Chung was an eccentric freak even among absolute peak experts, making it hard to gauge his true capabilities. Salmak had once sent two elite assassins after the Strange Physician and ended up hauling back two corpses.
Sending more manpower wasn't feasible either.
Gathering high-tier assassins from across the regions would disrupt their commission schedule.
Even if successful, the math didn't add up—and there was always a chance of failure, however small.
If the reward had been astronomically high, he would have thrown caution to the wind. But the clients' offers weren't anywhere near that.
In the end, Black Butterfly chose to decline the requests and simply keep tabs on the Strange Physician. He was a capable assassin, but above all, a leader who prioritized profit.
'This time, though, the payout is substantial.'
According to the Jeyuan branch chief's report, the Baek family head was prepared to pay handsomely. At least two kwan of gold, at minimum.
Two kwan of gold was a fortune, but still insufficient to kill the Strange Physician.
What mattered was the accumulation of past requests for his head.
Black Butterfly tallied the previously offered rewards atop the gold proposed by the Baek family head.
Then he weighed the risks of taking out the Strange Physician.
Now the equation finally balanced.
Black Butterfly finished his deliberations and summoned a subordinate.
"Black Cat."
A figure slithered out from what had appeared to be an empty wall.
"You called?"
"Check every outstanding request on the Strange Physician's head. Confirm which clients are still willing to pay. And send someone to the Baek family head in Jeyuan to probe how high he's willing to go."
"Understood."
Salmak swept up the long-accumulated pot.
*
On a gentle mountain path in Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province, an old man trudged through the autumn rain.
The old man's head bore not a single black hair—only white—and his exposed skin was etched with deep wrinkles.
An age when most would have laugh lines around their mouth and eyes from watching grandchildren at play.
Yet the old man's lips remained stern without a hint of mirth, his eyes filled only with stubborn resolve.
The white-haired elder's steps led to a grave midway up the deserted mountainside.
The grave of his son, whom he had buried fifteen years prior.
The old man's son had died young. If it had been illness, it might have been less unjust—but it wasn't.
The old man's son had left home and opened a clinic in a fairly distant town.
For the first few years, he spent fulfilling days tending to patients. The trouble came suddenly with the Righteous-Orthodox Great War.
Martial artists from righteous sects and unorthodox paths swarmed the area, clashing blades among themselves. The old man's son stumbled upon a few dying men, gasping for breath, and treated them, ultimately saving their lives.
What the old man's son didn't know was that those he saved were unorthodox warriors.
Thanks to that, when the unorthodox took over the village, there were no issues. The problems arose after righteous sect warriors drove them out.
A few righteous warriors tracked down the physician who had treated the vile unorthodox, and slew the old man's son with a single stroke.
Such was the madness brought by the winds of bloodshed.
After months steeped in the stench of blood, even the usually dignified righteous warriors and the swaggering unorthodox thugs alike turned their eyes bloodshot.
Unnoticed, the world divided into "us" and "them," and infinite cruelty descended on anyone not "us."
Like his son the physician, the old man was also a physician.
Cradling his son's corpse, he lost faith in the world and sealed his heart. The aged physician no longer treated patients.
When the war ended, righteous warriors came seeking him.
They apologized for the past and presented the head of the man who killed his son.
"Elder, won't you please treat patients again?" they begged.
Of course, the old man refused even then. His son buried in the grave hadn't risen.
The old man pictured his son's face as he climbed the ridge, step by laborious step.
Occasionally overcome by fatigue, he paused to catch his breath.
After walking some distance like this, the old man sensed footsteps approaching from behind.
Go on ahead if you must. Thinking that, he didn't look back.
Yet the footsteps didn't pass him; they matched pace at his side.
The old man glanced sideways.
It was a middle-aged man, aged somewhat from memory but still familiar.
The middle-aged man—the Strange Physician Yi Chung—spoke.
"Master. It's been a long time."
"Yes, Chung. Indeed it has. Have you been well?"
The old man's name was Yang Hyeon. The world called him the Physician Immortal.
Whether he still deserved the title after fifteen years without treating a soul was debatable, but people remembered him as one of the Three Great Divine Physicians of the Realm.
"I've been fine."
"You don't look it. Your complexion is poor, your eyes dull."
"Your eyes are as sharp as ever."
Thirty years ago, the young warrior Yi Chung, ignorant of medicine, became the Physician Immortal's disciple and learned the healing arts—until the day the old man's son returned as a corpse and the Immortal sealed away his skills.
"Where have you been staying lately?"
"The usual. Wandering here and there."
"Nothing special?"
"There was."
The Strange Physician smiled softly.
"Don't be surprised. I've taken a disciple. Well, not exactly a disciple... but I think of him as one."
"That's good. Has your heart wound eased a bit?"
The Strange Physician shook his head, and the Immortal nodded. A parent's grief over a lost child doesn't fade easily.
"A pity. What brings you all this way?"
"Master, I hear you still haven't practiced medicine."
"Correct."
The Immortal's disappointment in the world ran too deep. But he was merely a powerless physician, unable to overturn it.
Occasionally, martial artists would drag their suffering kin to him, begging for a single look.
Each time, the Immortal silently turned away, hoping they might grasp even a fraction of his pain.
The Strange Physician asked the Immortal,
"Do you have no thought of practicing medicine again?"
"No."
"I see."
The Strange Physician nodded and shifted the topic.
"Master, not long ago I passed through a small village and saw something wondrous."
The Immortal didn't reply, nor did the Strange Physician expect one. The two walked steadily through the rain.
"It was a barren land unfit for farming, with no game to hunt. Yet no one starved. All thanks to a massive peach tree at the village center. It bore endless peaches like those of the Queen Mother of the West. But the tree stood a hundred zhang tall—no ladder could reach its fruit."
"Those with ladders set them up, the nimble climbed them to pick peaches, and those with baskets caught them below. From ancient times to now, the village survived that way, generation after generation."
"But one day, the ladder owner smashed it—the village's sole ladder, passed down for centuries. When people raged against the hunger, he said, 'It's my ladder; I do with it what I will.' What do you think of the ladder owner, Master?"
"There must have been reason to destroy it."
The two walked in silence for a long stretch.
"Medicine wasn't created by you alone, Master. It began with Emperors Huangdi the August and Shennong the Flame, built layer by layer with knowledge and experience from countless souls. That one branch reached you doesn't make it yours to hoard. Inheriting the art is a choice; once inherited, wielding it and passing it on is duty."
The Immortal let out a deep sigh.
"I didn't abandon people. They abandoned me."
"What does that matter? Even if they forsake us, we must stand firm and heal."
The Strange Physician was an exceptional disciple. Mild when mild, slick when slick; in over a decade of study, their views never clashed.
Except once, when the Strange Physician flew into a rage at the Immortal.
The day the Immortal clutched his son's corpse and vowed to seal his arts.
The Strange Physician insisted he must not, but the Immortal refused.
He pleaded again: If you won't practice, at least pass on all your knowledge.
The Immortal refused once more. People of this world didn't deserve healing.
That day, the Strange Physician left his side.
The Strange Physician said to the Immortal,
"Master, my disciple is sharp. He may not grasp ten from one lesson, but what he learns sticks. He pities all the afflicted and has a pure heart."
"Why suddenly boast of your disciple?"
"Because I'm certain: compile all the world's medicine and pass it to him, and generations of sufferers will reap the benefits."
Blocking the Immortal's path, the Strange Physician asked,
"So I ask: where have you hidden the Book of Ten Thousand Diseases?"
The Book of Ten Thousand Diseases was the medical tome handed down through the Immortal's house for generations.
Its vast, intricate contents had earned his family the title of Physician Immortal across ages. None would bear it henceforth.
The Immortal fixed a stubborn gaze on him.
"You think I'll tell you?"
"Master, aren't you underestimating this disciple a bit?"
The Strange Physician twisted his lips in a grin.
"I'm a martial artist too, you know. I know a few ways to pry open sealed mouths."
"Yi Chung, you've become a monster."
"A monster for the weary and suffering of the world. What's there to be ashamed of?"
*
Five days later, the Three Great Divine Physicians of the Realm became two.
But that meant nothing to the Strange Physician.
The Immortal's arts would pass to Dang Mujin—and to future generations.
The Strange Physician took the Book of Ten Thousand Diseases and left Fengxiang.