Jin Cheon-hee chuckled, the sound light and unburdened.

“It’s nothing grand. I simply plan to barter for the milk of the cattle and sheep the nomads herd, process it into dried cheese, and eat it with potatoes.”

It was a simple desire, born of a specific, mouth-watering craving. He wanted steaming hot potatoes, smothered in melting cheese and rich butter. And he wanted to eat a mountain of them, as cheaply as possible.

That was the extent of his ambition.

“From that point on, however, you would have to speak with His Highness Eun.”

“Either way,” Zhuge Rin noted, his tone contemplative, “that trade will only be possible with tribes friendly to the Empire. And once those tribes start cultivating potatoes, they will, by necessity, partially abandon their nomadic ways.”

The Khan had said it himself: to subjugate other tribes, commensurate achievements were absolutely necessary. Among the scattered tribes of the steppes, there were certainly those who did not support this madness of conquest. Why not start with them?

“And some of those tribesmen will come to learn our language to earn more silver,” Jin Cheon-hee added. “If the Hua Empire hires them, pays them a salary, and dispatches them back as diplomats or educators…”

“That is… truly a peculiar method of exchange.”

It wasn’t quite imperialist colonization. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the opponent’s military power was far too formidable for such heavy-handed tactics. The Hua Empire could never defeat the full might of the steppes in the open wilderness.

If I had to put a name on it, it’s capitalist trade.

Just as it had worked on Earth, could peace be maintained here by binding enemies together with the chains of profit?

That’s thinking too far ahead… Let’s just look at the practical things in front of my eyes. And I’ll pocket some money in the process.

Jin Cheon-hee grinned. “One thing is certain.”

“Hm?”

“The White Qilin Medical Pavilion will make a fortune acting as the intermediary. And we’ll get tons of delicious potatoes. Ah… Jerusalem artichokes… They taste freaking amazing.”

“If you are talking about the small tubers, they have another name… But you call them Jerusalem artichokes—pig potatoes?”

I’m telling you, they look really similar.

They were the same tuber native to North America back on Earth. Small, knobbly, and delicious whether roasted, steamed, or boiled into tea.

I’ll let you taste it. You’ll see what it tastes like with butter melting on top. Keuhahahat!

He laughed maniacally, mimicking Tang Ah’s chaotic tone, which only made him suddenly miss the little troublemaker.

Of course, he would see her soon enough. The Victory Banquet awaited. Since the war had ended, it was standard procedure to hold a grand event celebrating the merits of the victors. Several martial artists who had distinguished themselves were invited, including Jin Cheon-hee, his Master, his sworn brothers, and friends like Tang Ah and Wang Gak-yeon.

Hmm… And His Highness Eun seemed to know something about my birth.

Jin Cheon-hee’s mind drifted back to the heat of the battlefield, to the cryptic words the Prince had spoken.

A royal with the ability ‘that does not grow’.

It was a specific, cutting description. His Highness Eun had spoken of it while looking directly at Jin Cheon-hee. Assuming the worst-case scenario… No, seeing that he had come all this way to say it, the probability was high that the royal in question was the Prince himself.

No wonder no one recognized me, even when I won the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly and Sama Hyeon sold my portraits like crazy.

Becoming this famous, usually, even parents who had abandoned a child would reappear, claiming kinship. If not parents, then at least distant cousins aiming for scraps should have crawled out of the woodwork. But for Jin Cheon-hee, there had been nothing. Silence.

Even the fact that my Baekhui acupoint was already open when I tried to open my Upper Danjeon.

He didn’t know the history of this body. When he met the Condor Dragon underground, he had been told he was a descendant of Fuxi. There were too many clues pointing in one direction.

Hmm… If I’m not careful, His Highness himself might not be the problem here.

If His Highness Eun had known all this time and pretended otherwise, what was the reason?

And then there was the memory of the Eunuch Admiral.

—Long live the Emperor. Long live. Long live. Han Gwang, holding the position of Eunuch Admiral, greets the benefactor.

—Indeed… This old servant made a mistake. Hehe! I must have been too eager to meet the benefactor who saved the life of the one I serve.

That damn sly old snake. Putting all the pieces together, that slip of the tongue was obviously a calculated move to test his reaction. The scariest person in the palace wasn’t the Emperor; it was that old man.

***

It was only after finishing the grueling cleanup that Jin Cheon-hee and his Master were able to depart for the Imperial Capital and the Victory Banquet. They granted vacations to every physician, stuffing thick bonuses into their pockets so they could return to their families.

The trauma of war—what Jin Cheon-hee knew as PTSD—was not exclusive to martial artists. Physicians bore witness to the gruesome aftermath, and their scars were internal. In a sense, late-onset trauma was the most terrifying, and it was precisely this kind that haunted Physicians.

A middle-grade physician had shared a story about it.

“Such things are usually… resolved by a child’s kick.”

“Yes?”

“They headbutt my stomach, asking why Dad isn’t waking up when I’m sleeping, the little rascals. Wow… When they hit hard, my insides shake… I thought I was dying of pain.”

Another physician standing nearby had chimed in with a weary laugh. “My kid pulled my mouth and eyelids, screaming at me to wake up… Amidst the anger and shame, I couldn’t even get mad because it’s my own child; all the worldly desires and emotions just come flooding back.”

“Hahaha, that much is fortunate. I even had the experience of being trampled on the stomach because the kid wanted to step on my back while I was sleeping. He remembered that I asked him to step on my back because it was stiff before. The kid grew a lot, so having him stomp on my stomach with that weight while napping… I saw the afterlife for a moment.”

“My kid just stomps, asking why I don’t wake up. The moment they learn to walk, they don’t walk. They run, and run, and step on their mother too.”

Isn’t the path of a parent ultimately the path to becoming a Buddha through endurance?

“I endure it because it’s my kid. Whew.”

“Still, you feel better after that.”

“There’s no time to think about bloody history or nightmares when you’re being used as a trampoline.”

“Well, it’s not like I don’t think about it at all. Still, the difference between having family by your side to force you into the present, versus being alone with your thoughts… it is huge.”

Then what should physicians without family do?

Jin Cheon-hee recalled his past life. Succulents had greeted him when he returned to his empty apartment. But while plants made for excellent interior decoration, they did not communicate. They did not pull at his eyelids or demand he wake up.

“What if you don’t have parents or children? Then maybe an aunt or maternal grandmother…”

The physicians shrugged as if the question were strange.

Uh… True, that makes sense. Since it’s an agricultural society. Big families are the standard here.

“Still, what about the kids from the Hundredfold Benevolence Foundation?” Jin Cheon-hee asked.

Physician Ha answered. “Us? We have, well, brothers to feed, and kids who came in as complete orphans sometimes fall for each other and get married too.”

Hmm, since marriage is early in this era, that’s possible.

It was only the single Master Zhuge Rin or Jin Cheon-hee himself who were the anomalies. Especially Master—marriage and family seemed alien concepts to him. Leaving logistics aside, he was a person who found humanity itself annoying; it was hard to imagine him playing house.

“Still, aren’t there physicians who aren’t married and are completely alone?”

“Ey, still, there are people we grew up with, right? Just going to the dorm where the Hundredfold Benevolence Foundation kids gather is so noisy. I actually envy the kids who can be alone. Haa.”

It was so. This was an era where words like solitude or loneliness were distant concepts. In a world without machines, manpower was the most critical resource, and humans were necessarily connected to other humans. It was a society where everyone knew how many spoons their neighbor possessed.

Jin Cheon-hee scratched the back of his head. He had meant they should seek counseling from the Medical Pavilion if they struggled, but the physicians didn’t understand the implication. It was an era without psychiatry, after all. Jin Cheon-hee had to rely on metaphors like Qi Deviation or Fire Illness caused by repressed anger.

After ensuring the mental well-being of his staff, he went through the grim process of burning the wilderness where the corpses lay.

Crackle… Whoosh!

Fire spread, expanding voraciously over the dry grass of the plains. He roughly excused it as clearing land for slash-and-burn fields, but the truth was grim: epidemics would run rampant due to the bacteria breeding in the decaying bodies.

I have to do everything I can. If it still doesn’t work, it can’t be helped.

With this, the fate of the Suksin tribe and the Mongol army diverged. Perhaps the history of epidemics would change, too. However, that was not something preventable by the power of a single person. Still, as the Young Pavilion Master, he intended to do whatever was within his reach before leaving.

Only after cleaning up the battlefield did he board the carriage. Master looked at him with a fed-up expression.

“You will be the first in Imperial history to handle the aftermath of war in this way.”

“Because epidemics usually run rampant after wars. We have to try what we can.”

Epidemics do not care about borders, people, age, or status.

Jin Cheon-hee grinned. “If we can prevent a plague from spreading by handling it like this, I plan to compile the data separately and send it to the Imperial Palace.”

“Hmm. How did such a guy become my disciple?”

If he wanted to make money, or desired status or honor through this report, it would be within the range of ordinary understanding. But Zhuge Rin knew that wasn’t what this disciple wanted. He simply hoped that the next person would solve this problem in the same, or perhaps a better way, after the next war ended.

An infinitely benevolent and self-sacrificing genius. That is my disciple.

Still, it was okay. This time, at least, Cheon-hee had preserved his own body much better than Zhuge Rin had initially anticipated. In exchange, his brothers’ bodies were ground up alongside him, but it seemed he had finally understood the meaning of fighting together.

This disciple learned complex arts easily but was infinitely slow in grasping these simple truths of self-preservation. It was not easy being his Master.

“This monster will not ride the carriage.”

“Thieving Phantom, you are just going?”

“Horses are not good,” the Thieving Phantom grunted. “Slow and frustrating. And they shit on the road.”

I see. The Thieving Phantom found horses annoying.

“I received the bill of exchange well, so that is done. Do not forget the ‘Star Instructor’ promise. If you fail to teach properly, there won’t even be soup for you next time.”

Master answered calmly. “I will treat you to the best. Do not worry.”

“Hmm, good. On the way back, I should buy something my granddaughter would like. What do kids like these days… I heard they play Red Jade a lot…”

Jin Cheon-hee’s eyes widened in alarm. “Red Jade? That’s not a game kids should play…?”

Isn’t that the brutal life-simulation game where you start as an Imperial Palace maid and smash heads one by one to rise to the rank of Noble Lady or Consort? Why were children playing such spicy content?

“There is Blue Jade too, so please buy Blue Jade,” Jin Cheon-hee interjected urgently.

The Thieving Phantom waved a dismissive hand. “They are getting tired of that. No, well, it’s not like they are actually killing people, so what does it matter? The guys appearing there are all villains anyway, so who cares if they really kill them?”

That’s because it’s K-drama spice level!

Is that so? Is the standard of wholesomeness different here? Indeed, Jin Cheon-hee had seen child soldiers shooting arrows in this world. The Unorthodox factions sometimes severed heads and displayed them at village entrances as warnings. It was an era where such violence was natural. Wholesomeness, it seemed, was relative to the environment.

Still, just in case, he hoped the game didn’t include the lewd content. Among the stratagem cards, there was definitely one for ‘Adultery Exposure’.

“By the way, I heard you talking about Shu Brocade; does high-quality silk come to the White Qilin Medical Pavilion too?”

“I will send it as soon as it arrives. You will give it to your granddaughter, right?”

“Of course! She likes pink these days. Her second favorite is black.”

“Black?”

“The Blood Whip Queen is popular with kids these days.”

Hmm… Tang Ah does have some star quality.