After sending the members of the Waterway Faction away, Jin Cheonhee took a moment to be alone.

It really is exhausting.

Providing treatment was certainly not an easy task, but what was more difficult was dealing with people. It was something he had often experienced back on Earth. Treating people meant that he had to constantly meet people. Fundamentally, someone who disliked people themselves would have a hard time becoming a good doctor.

Patients with various circumstances and their guardians with diverse personalities. The political situations within the medical department. The dilemma of whether to prioritize a patient who would be beneficial for a research paper or one who immediately needed a specific treatment. Choosing between an existing drug covered by insurance and a new one with fewer side effects that wasn’t covered.

He had to make choices at countless crossroads, one after another. And the responsibility for those choices was a duty the attending physician had to bear entirely.

It’s not so different here.

In any case, the fact that dealing with human beings was more difficult than treating them was the same. The one thing that made the modern era slightly better was… at least people didn’t brandish knives demanding he hand over a patient…

Ah, wait. That did happen.

There was a time when a family had fought to an extreme, trying to secure the inheritance a patient would leave behind. The elderly patient had Alzheimer’s, and in front of their father, the children fought over who would be the legal guardian. The police eventually had to get involved.

Is that also just a part of the human condition?

The interesting thing was that not a single one of the children genuinely wished for their father to get better. For them, their father had to be terminally ill. And when the father returned to his senses, he refused life-sustaining treatment, saying he wanted to die as soon as possible. As a doctor, he had been deeply troubled back then.

That’s how it was.

A doctor’s job is to help sustain life by treating a person’s illness. But people live within a web of relationships from which they cannot be separated, and there are times when receiving even a simple treatment can be an overwhelming burden.

Gong Yu-bing’s situation is the problem now.

Thanks to Jin Cheonhee’s timely intervention, the Blood Sect had been forced to abandon the Blood Poisonous Pearl, which they nearly obtained, and Thieving Phantom’s corpse. But if they just clicked their tongues and went back, saying, ‘Well, well, we couldn’t get it, so it can’t be helped,’ they wouldn’t be the Blood Sect.

By now, everyone in both the Orthodox and Unorthodox Factions knew what she looked like. Thieving Phantom, true to her moniker “Eccentric”, was more than capable of taking care of herself, but her young granddaughter, who hadn’t learned martial arts, would not be able to endure.

Now, Gong Yu-bing would either have to spend her life wandering around wearing a human-skin mask or be kidnapped by someone from the martial world and used to blackmail Thieving Phantom. If she was unlucky, a martial artist with a grudge against Thieving Phantom might just kill her.

Her body was healed, but the patient’s reality was only just beginning. The very thing Thieving Phantom feared and wanted to avoid most had become a reality.

Wouldn’t it be better to suggest she get a job at the White Dragon Medical Pavilion?

Since Gong Yu-bing was a minor character who died quickly in the novel, she had even less of a role than Thieving Phantom. He didn’t know what her particular skills were, but the White Dragon Medical Pavilion had a system in place to protect its members’ families. If Thieving Phantom took a job there, they could protect Gong Yu-bing as well. No matter how much of a demonic master one was, if they declared they were washing their hands of their past and took refuge in a major power, there wasn’t much anyone could do, was there?

If we hide her inside the Medical Pavilion, it’ll be fine.

He was confident that if they taught her disguise techniques and changed her appearance over five years, or had a physician alter it little by little, then even the Hao Sect or the Beggar’s Sect would be unable to find her after about five years.

However… the problem is whether Thieving Phantom will accept.

Once she joined the Medical Pavilion, stealing would no longer be possible. Of course, she might secretly borrow(?) a few items, but that would be strictly an ‘unofficial’ duty. Her official responsibilities would be transport-related tasks, like escorting patients and transporting medicinal herbs.

That’d be a big thank you for us, isn’t it?

Transporting patients was often fraught with difficulties, as even a sect leader in his sixties could have a mountain of grudges. Since enemies couldn’t directly attack the White Dragon Medical Pavilion, they targeted the transport routes. But what would happen if Thieving Phantom, who could walk on air and skip across water, joined the escort?

…Right. This is the Murim version of a drone.

Following the human motor, now a human drone! He had no intention of starting an industrial revolution in a world with Qi and the Five Elements. Wasn’t this a world where grinding up humans was far more efficient than burning coal?

But she’d officially have to stop her thieving ways, so I don’t know if she’ll be okay with that… Hmmm.

Maybe if he gently persuaded her while talking about her granddaughter. That way, he could also guarantee the patients’ safety…

She’s someone who values the Way of the Thief…

***

“Of course, that’s great! I’m all for it, in fact.”

“Pardon?”

Thieving Phantom answered before Jin Cheonhee could even finish his sentence.

“You wouldn’t be able to continue your work as a thief…”

“…Officially, that is. But does it matter? After all, I was the one who stole Daji’s divine treasure from the Wudang Sect last time.”

“Pfft!”

Jin Cheonhee spat out the tea he was drinking.

Cough, cough.

After coughing for a good while, he asked, “You’re the one who stole it, Thieving Phantom?”

Back when they had brought back ‘that item’ related to Daji from Wudang, his master had calmly told him:

—Three Seasons Tiger gave us great help. She, her friend, and her friend’s friends were of great assistance.

So, Three Seasons Tiger’s friend, or friend’s friend, was Shadowless Thieving Phantom… was she?

Jin Cheonhee mumbled for a long time in bewilderment.

Wow, the martial world is so wide, yet so small.

A mystery from the past was solved just like that. Indeed, even if the Wudang Sect’s main forces were away, stealing a divine treasure would have required a great deal of effort. What was more frightening was that they didn’t even realize it had been stolen until after the fact. At the time, he had just thought that Three Seasons Tiger had impressive connections. He figured that the ‘friend of a friend’ network among wanderers was truly fearsome.

…And that was all he had thought. He never imagined she was connected to Shadowless Thieving Phantom.

She continued speaking. “I had an old debt of Favor with the Blood Scaled… no, the Divine Doctor White Dragon. As for Three Seasons Tiger, her earnest desire to find her younger sibling was touching, so I helped her a few times, and that led to a connection. Well, stealing is my specialty, isn’t it? The hardest part is what comes after the theft. Since the Divine Doctor said he would take care of that, it wasn’t something I couldn’t do.”

“…I… I see.”

She continued her story calmly. “Growing old as a thief has made me think a lot. About what The Way truly is. This Eccentric, though a lowly thief, has her pride.”

“What kind of pride is that?”

“The pride of one who covets objects, but not human lives. Is it not the job of a Gentleman on the Beam[1] like us to bring out items that are stored away in treasure vaults, covered in dust? In that process, the instances of staining my hands with blood were extremely few.”

It wasn’t that she had never killed at all. It seemed there were times she had resorted to lethal force when her own life was on the line. However, those instances were few enough to be counted on ten fingers. Usually, she would give up the item rather than kill someone.

“If I officially give up my work as Thieving Phantom, my grandmaster would probably be aghast, saying I’ve abandoned the Way of the Thief. But I believe my master would have said otherwise if he heard, child.”

“…”

In the small tea room, the sound of a wind chime tinkled with the breeze.

Within the brief silence, the tea room, occupied by only two, felt completely full.

Savoring the deep aroma of the tea, Thieving Phantom spoke. “For a Gentleman on the Beam, the very essence of The Way can be said to be the moving of objects from one place to another. In a broader sense, moving people and transporting medicinal herbs can be said to be in the same vein.”

She smiled.

“Of course, five years from now, if my granddaughter wishes to leave the Medical Pavilion after she’s grown, this old woman may leave with her. Or perhaps… I might stay. But for the next five years. Yes.”

She narrowed her eyes. Her face was clearly that of a young woman, but her eyes were those of a seasoned martial artist. And that gaze was shining brilliantly.

“…For that much, I wouldn’t mind joining you as a Retainer[2].”

A Retainer. It was a system that, on Earth, had existed since the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Influential families would take in retainers, providing them with food and money in exchange for their services as guests. Of course, these retainers would usually just laze around, but when the time came, they would accomplish their tasks, even if it meant risking their lives.

A famous story is that of Lord Mengchang’s Crowing Rooster, Thieving Dog[3] from the Spring and Autumn period. The phrase literally means a thief who is good at crowing like a rooster and acting like a dog. It seems Lord Mengchang actually had retainers who were skilled at these things. When this Lord Mengchang was working under the King of Qin and things went sour, he found himself in danger of being killed. He managed to save his life thanks to these retainers who could crow like roosters and act like dogs.

Didn’t the story go that the retainer who was good at acting like a dog stole the king’s fox-fur coat to give to the king’s favorite concubine to secure his release, and then as they were escaping, the retainer who was good at crowing like a rooster helped them?

When he perfectly mimicked a rooster’s crow at dawn, the gatekeeper thought the morning rooster had crowed and opened the gate. Thanks to that, they were able to escape through the gate, or so the story went.

The names of the kingdoms and people involved are slightly different here, but true to it being a Murim world, the same idiom and retainer system existed. Since that story originated, it wasn’t just officials or powerful families who took in retainers. Large sects and families in the martial world also had a tradition of doing so. However, perhaps for slightly secular reasons, it was difficult for sects rooted in religion, like the Nine Sects One Faction, to implement. Instead, clan-based sects like the Eight Great Families, or large, neutral powers founded on escort services or merchant guilds, actively used the retainer system.

As a result, it was common for those who were known as masters but had no particular affiliation, and no great ambition in the martial world but seemed useful in some way, to become retainers.

“Of course… if you take this Weirdo in as a retainer, the other sects won’t just stand by.”

She spoke with difficulty. She knew what the name Thieving Phantom meant in the martial world, and what it would mean for a sect to take her in as a retainer.

Jin Cheonhee nodded calmly. “The roots of This Pavilion[4] are not so weak as to be shaken by something like that. If we were to be swayed by such a trifle, it would only be a reflection of my own shortcomings.”

Jin Cheonhee was lost in thought for a moment, then smiled faintly and added a word. “I am aware that you’ve sold off quite a few treasures, but I also know that there are many artifacts and divine objects that have not yet been leaked to the outside world.”

“Those are things for which a price cannot be paid. Things that would cause a storm of blood if they were to find their way out into the martial world.”

Secret manuals, elixirs, and ultimate treasures. Some could be sold as stolen goods, but if an item was valuable enough to cause a storm of blood, it became difficult to dispose of even as contraband. The Golden King of the Golden Blood Chamber was an individual mad for money. But she also had the self-control to refuse a deal without hesitation if the management cost outweighed the potential profit.

Furthermore, the reason Thieving Phantom herself didn’t leak those items was partly due to her own sense of aesthetics as a thief. She was a thief, not someone who created storms of blood.

“Yes, it seems you will have to return those to their respective sects.”

“I don’t know if that will be enough to wash my hands of it all.”

Jin Cheonhee nodded. “The White Dragon Medical Pavilion will handle the aftermath.”

It was strange. When this young man with blue eyes smiled, for some reason, it felt as though everything would truly be all right.

Yes. This must be why medicine (醫) and madness (狂) coexist within him.

Thieving Phantom found she quite liked this young man. Perhaps it was because her path and his had much in common. Especially their sense of aesthetics.