The human Jin Cheon-hee and the doctor Jin Cheon-hee were at war.

—Then kill them cleanly, right then and there. So cleanly that a physician has no room to even try. You’ll never know the feeling of trying to fix someone you know can’t be saved.

Hadn’t he just said those very words to Yeo Ha-ryoon a short while ago?

Is it really impossible to fix?

Jin Cheon-hee sank into thought, wringing out every clue he could remember from the novel.

“…”

His clenched fists turned white.

But even White Qilin, a prodigy among prodigies, couldn’t cure his own constitution. Can I really do it? The Nine Yin Severed Meridians isn’t just some disease; it’s a martial arts novel constitution. Can modern medicine even apply here? This isn’t a simple trauma case or a disease like syphilis.

White Qilin simply watched the conflicted boy in silence. Finally, Jin Cheon-hee spoke.

“Please, just promise me one thing.”

“And what is that?”

A smile touched White Qilin’s lips. He seemed to find Cheon-hee’s earnest deliberation as endearing as that of a son. But his smile vanished at the boy’s next words.

“Please, do not give up on living.”

“What is the meaning of…”

“I know you have an illness. No, strictly speaking, it’s a constitutional condition. But if I’m right, a cure isn’t impossible. So…”

Zing.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. It was a sensation he had felt before. When the future Heavenly Demon, Yeo Ha-ryoon, had opened his eyes. The feeling of facing a tiger.

Is this what they call killing intent?

His gaze instinctively darted to one side. Yoo Ho was standing there. An uncontrollable killing intent was pouring out of him. His face was a blank mask, but that very lack of emotion was what made it so terrifying.

Ugh, he’s unbelievably scary! Wasn’t he just an extra who was mentioned a few times in the first volume?

“Yoo Ho. That’s enough.”

White Qilin raised a hand, stopping him.

Hooo…

Jin Cheon-hee let out an internal sigh of relief as the suffocating pressure vanished.

Yoo Ho opened his mouth, his face still devoid of expression. “Is this little brat not insulting you right now, Master?”

I did not reply to Yoo Ho’s words. I knew. I knew better than anyone what a form of torture it was to tell a terminal cancer patient who had already accepted their death that a new treatment had been found, that there might be a chance.

And yet, I had to fight. If there was truly no hope, then one should give up and focus on hospice care. But if hope existed, it was a doctor’s duty to inform them. That was my job. However, I also knew that there was nothing crueler. Sometimes, hope is crueler than despair. Hope makes people desperate. It makes them cry out. It does not allow for a beautiful death, a clean and tidy ending.

But what does any of that matter?

I thought. Even if the treatment is hard and painful, even if the chance of survival isn’t one hundred percent, isn’t a doctor forbidden from hiding that fact? Even if the end is ugly, painful, and makes you howl like a dog in agony… if you can be cured, you must fight. Life was possibility. It had to continue. To speak that truth was my calling.

“I will not simply receive,” I said, my voice firm. “And I will not let you give up. I will not let you die peacefully.”

“You are insane,” Yoo Ho hissed. He opened his slit-like eyes slightly. Pupils filled with murderous intent stared back at me. I now truly understood the trope that when a slit-eyed character opens their eyes, their impression becomes terrifying.²

Thump.

Yoo Ho took a step forward from behind White Qilin. “Say that again.”

Kugugu—

The killing intent rolled off him once more, thicker this time, a suffocating presence that wrapped around me. It was different from the Heavenly Demon’s, but just as deadly.

Eeek, this is no joke… and seeing as Zhuge Rin isn’t stopping him this time, he must be seriously angry…

Mustering every last ounce of strength, I opened my mouth. My face was drenched in a cold sweat, but my expression was filled with resolve as I spoke, enunciating each word.

“I said there is a way for you to live.”

“Interesting. Do you wish to die?”

Kigigigik—

A sound like an invisible beast dragging its claws across the floorboards echoed in the room. The floor around Yoo Ho’s feet actually began to crack.

“Enough.”

At White Qilin’s single word, the pressure vanished in an instant. It was a strange sight. The cracks spreading from Yoo Ho’s feet stopped precisely at the edge of White Qilin’s robes. Zhuge Rin, the man called the Divine Physician, had apparently blocked Yoo Ho’s aura.

…White Qilin knows martial arts? I had never seen him fight. Even Gongsun Yeong-noona couldn’t do that. To be capable of this, one had to be at a level higher than the Peak Realm. In that moment, I confirmed a part of the story that had never been written.

The smile had completely disappeared from White Qilin’s face. He stared at me with a cold, hard expression. “For a mockery, this is quite an elaborate one.”

“It is not a mockery.”

At my answer, Yoo Ho shot back, “A mockery? If not that, then you’re planning some grand scam.”

“You have already offered to make me your disciple. What more could I possibly want?”

I, Jin Cheon-hee, was not a child who backed down. In front of adults, I had always been good-natured, smiling and acting cute. I showed flashes of intelligence here and there, making myself a child to be doted on. It might have seemed like I knew how to charm people. But my current self was the complete opposite.

White Qilin, lost in thought, finally opened his lips. “I will hear you out.”

“Master.”

White Qilin ignored Yoo Ho. “However, if your conclusion is a jest at my expense, I will retract my offer to make you my disciple. Do you understand? I will never see you again.”

The weight of his words was crushing. But if I backed down here, everything would be for naught.

“Yes.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. It’s okay. This is a familiar feeling. It was something I never wanted to experience twice, but as a doctor, it was a duty from which I could not run.

“In my opinion…”

***

Yoo Ho had intended to kill Jin Cheon-hee. He knew what a great burden it was for his master to even consider taking a disciple. And now, that child was trying to insult him. The reasons to kill him were sufficient.

But until Jin Cheon-hee’s story was finished, Yoo Ho could not kill him. Every word the boy spoke was painful, yet utterly captivating.

When he was done, the boy simply said, “—I believe you will need some time to think. I will be outside.”

Strangely, his words sounded perfectly natural. A sword and a word are similar. Just as a long-cherished weapon becomes polished by the touch of a hand, a word, too, becomes natural in its intonation when used often. The boy’s intonation was that of someone who had said these things not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of times. It was worn smooth by experience.

“I expected him to spout some nonsense like a Yin-Yang Union,” Yoo Ho muttered.

“Hahaha. There was that one fellow, wasn’t there.”

—The Nine Yin Body is caused by a deficiency of Yin energy! All you need to do is woo the young lady Gongsun, who possesses a Supreme Yang Physique! You have the looks, Divine Physician, and the physique! You can just supplement your Yang energy through a Yin-Yang Union, but you can’t even do that? The Divine Physician must be impotent or a eunuch!

It was a terrible rumor. As soon as Yoo Ho heard it, he had ridden without rest and found the source within a day. It was a physician, one with a decent reputation in his town. Yoo Ho had buried him up to his neck on a remote mountain.

“A Yin-Yang Union is not some panacea. If it could cure everything, what need would there be for physicians? It is merely something the sages of old created to promote a healthy sex life to maintain the body. Simply put, it’s a form of Qi gymnastics.”

Later, he found out that the physician had quite a few victims. He would demand exorbitant fees from his patients, and if they sold their homes to pay him, he would fail to cure them and claim that life and death were in the hands of heaven before skipping town. A so-called quack doctor.³ A particularly vicious one at that. Yoo Ho had punished him in various ways, bringing him to the brink of death without letting him die, before handing him over to the local authorities.

“You are still holding onto that incident, Yoo Ho.”

“If you had not stopped me, Master, that man would be dead.”

“You made his life worse than death. That was enough.”

He had crushed the man’s limbs before turning him in. He had also made sure to inform the bereaved families of his victims. The authorities had given him the maximum sentence, confiscated all his assets to return to the families, and ordered him to pay additional compensation.

“…”

After that, Yoo Ho had needed a long time to accept his master’s impending death. Just when he thought he had finally made his peace, ‘that child’ had appeared.

“What will you do?”

“I must accept it.”

“And if it fails?”

“Did he not say he would not let me die peacefully? As he said, I will not have a peaceful end. I will fight my illness painfully to the very last.”

“So, what happens if it fails?”

“A physician grows when they save a person, but they also grow when they kill a person. Sometimes, they grow more from a death than from a life saved. At that time, he will become a Divine Physician who surpasses even me.”

White Qilin—no, Zhuge Rin—spoke of his own death as if it were someone else’s story.

“You will become fertilizer for him?”

“As a teacher, what greater reward could there be?”

“What part of that child do you find so pleasing? I understand that he is intelligent and charming. I have seen it with my own two eyes. Yes, I also understand that he knows a peculiar medical art. But there is no need for you to go this far, Master. What is it that has so captured your heart?”

“That child… he said this to me.”

—Who goes to a doctor to die? Even if the treatment hurts, even if the process is agonizing, a patient comes to fight, to win.

—Yes, of course, all people die someday. Human strength cannot overcome the power of death. I can say that with certainty. We are beings who are fighting a losing battle.

The boy had declared it so. That our battle is one we will someday lose. That death comes for everyone. But it was the next words that had shaken White Qilin’s heart.

—We may be fated to fall, but still, aren’t we here to fight to win, just this one time? So, Divine Physician White Qilin, I will not let you die peacefully.

—Accepting me as your disciple means your ending will be anything but peaceful. I ask you.

Time is relentless. All humans die.

—Divine Physician White Qilin. Are you prepared to fight?

All humans will die someday, but still. Would you not fight to win, just this one time?

The boy had asked him with such audacity. And at the look in his eyes, White Qilin couldn’t help but smile.