THUD.

A dead weight, heavy as waterlogged cotton, crashed down upon him. This was no jest.

“Master…?”

Jin Cheon-hee struggled against the crushing pressure, shaking the body that pinned him.

“Master!” Yoo Ho’s voice ripped through the air, sharp with panic. “Wake up! Master!”

Zhuge Rin had lost consciousness.

***

Cold.

An agony so profound it felt as if blades of ice were shearing his heart to ribbons. And yet, for Zhuge Rin, it was a familiar sensation.

—He will not live long. Therefore, should he not consider how he wishes to live what time he has?

That had been the verdict of the clan’s patriarch after taking his pulse.

The first time the pain had struck, the young Zhuge Rin had screamed for his life. But it was an agony that no one in the Zhuge Clan could cure. A serving girl, her hands trembling, had offered him a poppy-based medicine. It was a potent balm for pain, but fiercely addictive—a draught given only to those with a foot already in the grave. The young Zhuge Rin had accepted it with a placid calm. His own parents did not intervene. He was the child who would soon vanish, and this was their final, desperate gift of comfort.

But the medicine had no effect. The torment in his heart continued, relentless.

He studied the medical arts, tempered his body, and even defied his severed meridians to accumulate Qi, but the pain was a constant shadow. There was only one time it had ever ceased. Once, and only once. When disaster struck his clan, when every soul he called family was turned to ash. In that wasteland of ruin, as he swore an oath of vengeance, the pain had vanished.

It was a bitter irony. Zhuge Rin of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, the one destined to die first, had become the last survivor of the Zhuge Clan.

One never grows accustomed to pain. One simply learns to endure it. The boy who had once howled like a beast was now a withered tree, awaiting the final fall. His already twisted sensibilities, warped further by the crucible of his own genius, had spiraled into something unrecognizable.

Perhaps that is why the boy seemed to shine so brightly. He possessed something I never had.

He had never even known its touch, so there was no room for envy. He was simply mesmerized, a creature of the dark seeing light for the first time. It was an admiration born from the knowledge that it was something he could never possess.

Today… the pain is less severe.

Was that the reason? Drifting in the mists of unconsciousness, Zhuge Rin felt the agony recede, more so than it ever had before.

***

Zhuge Rin awoke half a day later.

The first thing he registered was a soft warmth enveloping his hand. He turned his head and saw a small, fern-like hand clutching his own. The child lay beside him, radiating a gentle heat that filled the entire space. It was a sensation he had only ever felt while soaking in a hot spring, but this was warmer still.

“Master, you are awake.”

“Is that you, Yoo Ho?”

“Yes! It is I!”

Zhuge Rin’s gaze fell upon Jin Cheon-hee. “Why is Hee-ya here?”

Yoo Ho shot a resentful look at the sleeping boy. “He was being stubborn, making the absurd excuse that he was practicing the Five-Elemental Cultivation Art. But Master, this is all that young master’s fault—”

He fell silent. Zhuge Rin had raised a hand, silencing him, his eyes fixed on Jin Cheon-hee’s sleeping face. His gaze was filled with a profound tenderness.

It is like trying to fill the ocean with a ladle.

The small amount of Five-Elemental True Qi the boy had channeled into him would have made little difference. And yet, the pain had lessened. It must have been because the boy’s energy was constantly nurturing the shattered balance within his own body.

This time, I expended a great deal of Fire, Metal, and Wood Qi.

The Five-Elemental Cultivation Art that Zhuge Rin practiced was a higher form of the art, the Five-Elemental Divine Art, a technique that relied on the delicate harmony between the principles of generation and restriction. A normal practitioner would not collapse from such an imbalance; a technique so flawed could never be called a divine art. But for Zhuge Rin, it was perilous. The very balance of the five elements was what held his illness at bay.

As he circulated his own energy, he felt another Qi within him, similar to his own but purer, smaller—the energy of a novice. He gently lifted his young disciple and laid him down on the bed.

“Master?”

“Shh. Be quiet.”

Taking Jin Cheon-hee’s hand, he focused his mind. The boy’s internal energy was depleted by the amount he had given. The imbalance was there, but it was minuscule, a pebble next to the mountain of his own. Zhuge Rin began to pour his own refined Qi into his disciple. He watched as the tension in the boy’s sleeping face eased, and a contented smile touched his lips.

For the first time in a long time, Zhuge Rin wanted to live. He wanted to see his disciple grow into a man, to watch him step out into the Gangho.

***

A strange but pleasant warmth roused Jin Cheon-hee from his sleep. He opened his eyes to find his master gently stroking his hair.

“You are awake.”

Would this be what it felt like to have a parent? The thought surfaced, unbidden, and he shook his head to dispel it. He had grown up in an orphanage, or a nursery, as they had started calling them. Some children had never known their parents; others knew them all too well, yet had been left there all the same. They had become each other’s friends, each other’s family, but there was always a hole in the center of his chest, a strange and unquenchable thirst.

“Master, are you alright?”

“You must have been very frightened when I collapsed.”

Frightened didn’t begin to cover it. His mind had gone completely blank. He had stood by the bedside of countless patients, a witness to the endless procession of life and death. But never had he faced the death of family. Zhuge Rin was the first person in his life he had ever felt that way about. He had frozen, a statue of ice, unable to do anything. All his medical knowledge had evaporated. Nothing came to mind.

Until that moment, he had only ever seen the strong, composed, noble warrior. He had never truly grasped that his master, too, was a sick man.

“I was terrified,” Jin Cheon-hee admitted honestly. “I was so, so worried.”

A faint smile touched Zhuge Rin’s lips. “The human heart is a treacherous thing. I am sorry to have worried you, and yet, to know you worried so for my sake… it brings me a certain joy.”

He was beginning to understand why the old sect elders sometimes feigned illness in front of their disciples. Men in their eighties and nineties would come to the White Qilin Medical Pavilion, complaining that their old bones ached, that they had no appetite, that their time to meet their ascended senior brothers was nigh. They would vex their disciples to no end, then secretly ask him to play along. The moment their disciples were gone, they would be up and about, practicing their sword forms, unleashing torrents of Sword Qi. 

I cannot grow old like this, they would declare. I must reach a higher realm, achieve Reversion to Youth before I go!

Old fools, Yoo Ho would grumble. But now, Zhuge Rin understood. So this is what it feels like to have a disciple, he thought.

At that moment, a cough escaped his lips. It started small, but quickly grew into a wracking spasm. When he pulled his hand away from his mouth, it was stained with dark, crimson blood.

“Yoo Ho!” Jin Cheon-hee cried out, scrambling up. “Master is—!”

Before he could finish, Yoo Ho burst through the door and retrieved an elixir from a drawer by the bedside.

“He seemed to be doing so well for a time… Aigoo…” Yoo Ho sighed, handing the medicine to his master.

Watching them, Jin Cheon-hee realized this was not the first time.

The situation is far more serious than the novel ever let on.

He had been complacent. In the book, his master was a minor character who disappeared early on. The Heavenly Demon, Yeo Ha-ryoon, had only met him during a time when he was well enough to see people.

A novel… is not an encyclopedia. The reader is bound to the protagonist’s perspective. No matter how great his master was, he was still just a supporting character. The author would never have wasted many pages on him.

“I am… fine,” Zhuge Rin rasped. He swallowed the elixir and began to slowly circulate his Qi. His ragged breathing gradually evened out.

“Hooo.” Yoo Ho let out a long sigh, pressing a hand to his chest.

“What is his condition?” Jin Cheon-hee asked.

“I am fine,” Zhuge Rin repeated.

“Before I am your disciple, I am also a physician, as you yourself have said. There is no one in this pavilion who does not know that there is no greater folly than hiding an illness.”

“…”

Zhuge Rin let out a small sigh. Even those elders who feigned sickness would hide their true illnesses until it was too late. I never wanted to understand that feeling… A disease that could have been cured was often concealed until it was beyond remedy. Humans were creatures of contradiction.

He extended his wrist. “Let us take this opportunity to learn pulse diagnosis.”

“You’ve already taught me the theory.”

“But this is your first time performing it, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“You and I use the same type of Qi. Even if you make a mistake, it is unlikely to cause a major accident. You will not find a better subject for practice.”

Jin Cheon-hee took his master’s wrist. It was the strong, hard arm of a warrior, but it was unnaturally cold to the touch.

“Close your eyes. I will recite the incantation. Follow it and circulate your internal energy. Do not open your eyes or speak until it is done.”

His master began to chant in a low voice. Jin Cheon-hee followed the incantation, channeling his Five-Elemental True Qi into his master’s body.

‘An… an ultrasound…?’

He could feel his master’s interior. It was like a low-resolution ultrasound image. His internal energy moved along his master’s Qi channels. He knew that with greater enlightenment, this sensation would become clearer, sharper.

So this is diagnosis through Qi. This is what it means to develop a Qi sense.

And then, he reached the source.

It’s truly serious. Even I can feel how bad it is.

Following his master’s final words, he drew back his energy. The circulated Qi returned to his own body. The diagnosis was complete. Jin Cheon-hee slowly opened his eyes.

His master gave him a bitter smile. “Well?”

“It is worse than I thought.”

“Yes. You have seen correctly.”

Jin Cheon-hee’s fists clenched at his sides.

“I will cure you.”

“I thought you would be frightened. Instead, your resolve has hardened.”

“I will cure you,” he repeated, his voice cold with determination.

His disciple’s words resonated in his own chilled heart. Feeling that warmth, his master nodded.

“Yes. Let us strive together.”

***

Arc 5: Shattering Evil, and the Afflictions of the Mind

A day later, Zhuge Rin and Jin Cheon-hee visited the patient’s room.

Wang Gak-yeon, Phantom Archer’s daughter, was resting in bed, with her father tending to her.

“Thank you! White Qilin Divine Physician! Young Hero Jin!”

Phantom Archer prostrated himself before them. Behind him, the patient, his daughter Wang Gak-yeon, sighed.

When she had first regained consciousness, the first thing she saw was her father’s face, half his hair turned snow-white. He had clung to her, his face a mess of tears and snot, sobbing, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” over and over. She had no idea what was going on. He was holding her so tightly it hurt, and only when she told him so did he startle and scramble away to a corner, though he did not stop crying.

Wang Gak-yeon slowly began to circulate the Qi within her own body.