Naturally, his benevolence was not without a price. As he did now, he took what he could, measuring value not always in silver, but in potential.
If they possess outstanding talent, I can arrange employment. There is always work within the Medical Pavilion itself, but even small hands are needed at the White Qilin Convenience Stores or the Escort Agency.
It was a virtuous cycle. It was certainly far better than merely scattering coin and manpower onto the ground for the sake of appearances, only to vanish like the Hwaju Medical Pavilion had. He needed to build a system. If he succeeded, these people would become the absolute foundation of the White Qilin Medical Pavilion; its influence would take root for ten years and bloom for a hundred.
Jin Cheon-hee’s eyes shone with a calculative blue light.
In Jiangsu Province, they had secured influence from the top down. They had negotiated with water bandits, established branches, and seized logistics—a method honed through cooperation with the Gongsun Clan. It flowed like water, from high places to low. The calculation had been sound, and the Pavilion’s influence in Jiangsu now eclipsed what other sects had achieved in thirty years.
Jin Cheon-hee closed his eyes, visualizing the map of Hangzhou.
But here, we go the opposite way. From the bottom up. Like planting a tree and nurturing it toward the sky.
Helping the common folk, granting them livelihoods, and giving them a future. This influence would spread like bamboo roots, unseen but unbreakable, eventually covering all of Hangzhou.
On the evening of the third day, Jin Cheon-hee detailed this strategy in a letter to his Master. It was his own refinement of their grand design. However, Jin Cheon-hee’s meticulously laid plans were about to face a significant deviation.
Because an unexpected, ugly reality was approaching him abruptly.
***
“Brother is going to count to three. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Three!”
Crack.
A sickening crunch echoed, followed immediately by a shrill, tearing scream.
“Aaaaaah!”
Ignoring the cry, Jin Cheon-hee’s hands moved with practiced speed, performing a manual reduction on the young child’s arm. Fortunately, the break was clean; no surgical intervention was required. After aligning the bone fragments, he checked the pulse.
“Mm, it’s set well. We just need to wrap a splint like this. You are very lucky.”
As he spoke, he deftly applied the splint.
For a poor family, a surgery was a catastrophe that could collapse the household. It was a stroke of fortune that the bone had broken in a way that could be fixed by hand. If a steel pin had been required? That family would be finished. They had no energy to shuttle between the medical shop and their home, and no time for a guardian to watch over a bedridden child.
That was the nature of poverty.
There is a limit to how much I can help. Unless I become a god, I cannot save everyone from their circumstances.
Jin Cheon-hee placed a prepared Tanghulu into the sobbing child’s mouth. The treat was a ripe persimmon coated in hardened sugar syrup; the moment one bit down, the sugar shell would shatter, and the soft, sweet fruit inside would burst forth.
“…?!”
The child stopped sniffling, his attention entirely hijacked by the sudden sweetness. If one is poor, sweets are a rare luxury. One must savor such moments. The child, despite his tender age, already understood this harsh truth.
“Come to think of it, you received treatment on the first day too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
The child nodded, his mouth full.
Usually, a physician seeing hundreds of patients might not remember. However, aided by the Profound Primordial Complete Foundation Divine Art and the Sacred Jewel, Jin Cheon-hee recalled the boy’s face clearly without needing to consult the register.
“How did your friend get hurt?”
“…”
The child clamped his mouth shut like a clam. Then, suddenly, he began stuffing the Tanghulu into his mouth with desperate urgency, as if terrified it would be taken away if he failed to answer.
“No, no, keep eating. It’s yours. You can eat slowly.”
Despite the reassurance, the child did not trust him. He forced the candied fruit into his cheek, swallowing with difficulty, nearly choking in his haste. As Jin Cheon-hee patted the back of the coughing child, a heavy sigh escaped his lips. He could guess the environment that had fostered such behavior.
To this child, the broken arm and the delicious treat were secondary. The most critical rule of his life was that he must never speak of how he was hurt.
“I’ll give you one more.”
This time, the boy shook his head vigorously.
Is he not allowed to receive more than one? Or…
It was clear he wanted to eat it—his eyes betrayed his hunger—but his refusal was absolute. Something was wrong.
Sending the child away, Jin Cheon-hee signaled for Man Seon.
“Can you investigate that kid?”
“He likely got hit by his parents for causing trouble. It happens.”
It was an era where corporal punishment was considered natural law. Even if a child’s limbs were broken, the village would likely click their tongues and say, ‘You must have caused great trouble to anger your parents so! Stop rotting their insides!’
“Umm… I don’t know if it’s just my feeling,” Jin Cheon-hee murmured, wiping his hands. “But the injury looked like it was inflicted by someone who has learned internal energy.”
“Could it be martial arts training?”
“I thought so, but there are no traces of internal energy within the boy himself. And if he were a formal disciple taken in by a martial family—even an Unorthodox faction—wouldn’t they clothe him properly? He was in rags.”
“That is true, but…” Man Seon paused, falling into thought before bowing her head. “If the Young Pavilion Master cares, there must be a reason. I will find out as soon as possible.”
“Aren’t you trusting me too much?”
“No. We are not unaware of your track record, Young Pavilion Master. Even things you treat as trivial often return as great typhoons.”
Is that an insult?
As Jin Cheon-hee stared at her intently, Man Seon added urgently, “It is a compliment! Without the Young Pavilion Master, how many of us would be alive today?”
It is a compliment, right?
Jin Cheon-hee nodded slowly. “Then please bring me the report when the investigation is finished.”
“Your command!”
Man Seon answered sharply, slung her fishing rod across her back, and vanished, utilizing her lightness skill to merge into the shadows.
***
That evening, after the medical treatments had concluded, Man Seon presented her findings.
“The child is an orphan owned by the Black Dragon Sect.”
“Black Dragon Sect?”
He didn’t ask for clarification because the name was unique; he asked because it was absurdly common. It was the generic staple of Unorthodox naming conventions. Jin Cheon-hee knew of at least six different groups calling themselves the Black Dragon Sect.
“Yes. One of the twenty-one sects in Hangzhou, a gathering of low-level Unorthodox thugs. They have about a few dozen members. The Sect Leader is said to be merely a second-rate martial artist.”
“Hmm…”
It was a place no different from the back-alley gangs that had tormented Sama Hyeon in the past.
Man Seon continued. “Usually, they extort protection fees from street vendors or force orphans to pickpocket. The child’s arm… it seems it was broken as a punishment for failing to fill his daily quota. They made an example of him.”
The child stuffing the Tanghulu into his mouth in desperation.
Obsessing over sweets is an instinct for any young creature. However, refusing the second Tanghulu usually meant one of two things: guilt, or a conditioned trauma regarding greed. But could eating two pieces of fruit really be called greed?
“Then even if I treat this child, they will beat him like that again.”
“Yes. Because he failed to fill the quota. And since he has already been made an example, they will likely continue to torment him to keep the others in line.”
“…”
Jin Cheon-hee pushed his chair back—screeech—and stared up at the canvas ceiling of the medical tent. His long hair cascaded down his back.
“Hahaha. Truly, I knew it in my head.”
His Master had ordered him: Beat up the Unorthodox and Unorthodox Path factions and confiscate their assets.
His Master had known something like this would happen. Right, this was the Murim.
I must have thought too idealistically.
Having lived in the elite system of modern Korea and then within the safe birdcage provided by his Master, perhaps it was natural that he had failed to look into the mud below. But if he wanted to pull people up from the mire, he had to be prepared to get mud on himself. Reality was a dirty business; systems alone were insufficient.
Tap.
Jin Cheon-hee kicked off his seat lightly, flipping to his feet.
“The rest of you, guard the Pavilion. Squad Leader Man Seon and Cheon Woo… actually, let Cheon Woo sleep. I worked him too hard.”
“Where are you going, Young Pavilion Master?”
At Man Seon’s question, Jin Cheon-hee replied calmly.
“I’m going to give that kid a second Tanghulu.”
Man Seon spun her fishing rod in her hand. “Originally, the second Tanghulu is always the tastiest.”
“Yes. Living without knowing that sweetness is a waste.”
He reached for the Ice Clarity Sword, hesitated, and left it. Instead, the physician picked up a simple bamboo stick, split at the end—the kind used to skewer the very fruit he had given the boy.
***
The Black Dragon Sect was peaceful today, as usual.
Save for the fact that a few brats had slacked off and failed to fill the quota. They had broken an arm to set an example, but the boy had returned with a splint, claiming to have been treated by Little Physician Jin Cheon-hee of the White Qilin Medical Pavilion.
Even to the eyes of the Deputy Sect Leader, Black Snake, the skill was undeniable.
“A famous physician is a famous physician, indeed. And a pushover, too. A crazy bastard treating people almost for free… Well, it’s good for us.”
Having eaten his share of ‘Murim rice’ over the years, Black Snake could tell by the neat splinting—and the fact that the kid was already scratching at an itch beneath the bandages—that the medicine applied was high quality.
“Then we can keep breaking the limbs of those who can’t collect money, right?”
At Black Snake’s query, the Sect Leader, Black Earth Dragon, grinned. It was an answer befitting their base and despicable origins.
But why Black Earth Dragon? Why was the Deputy named Black Snake, but the Leader named after a worm?
It was a stain from the past. An Orthodox martial artist had once beaten him senseless, claiming it was arrogant for a mere Unorthodox thug to use the grand character for ‘Dragon’ in his name. Since then, he had been forced to call himself Black Earth Dragon—an earthworm. He had kept the ‘Dragon’ character out of sheer spite, refusing to remove it even if it killed him.
“That is right,” Black Earth Dragon laughed.
Among Unorthodox factions, some captured suitable children to teach them martial arts and mass-produce subordinates. The Black Dragon Sect did not. It was obvious that a child raised that way would eventually grow up and stab them in the back. Only large factions with the power to suppress betrayal could afford such risks.
In the first place, Black Earth Dragon was barely a second-rate warrior, and his internal energy was shallow. He had no skills to teach.
“Still, we robbed quite a few coins this time.”
“Because there are people lining up at the Little Physician’s tent. While his arm is broken, I ordered the brat to steal from the waiting lines, too.”
“That bastard should have done it properly when told with words; does he always have to break something to work quickly? Tsk.”
Clink, clatter.
Counting coins was always a joy. One coin per sip of alcohol. Days where they picked up even a silver coin felt absolutely divine. Rings were good; ornaments were better. Kids were simply money that breathed.
It was then.
BOOOOM!
A terrible explosion, sounding as if a Heaven-Shaking Thunder had detonated just outside, rocked the compound. The entire building vibrated, dust falling from the rafters.
“What!? What is this sound!?”
Before they could react, a massive crash rang out from the main gate of the Black Dragon Sect. Black Earth Dragon looked toward the entrance, his face flushed with alcohol and confusion, unable to comprehend the storm that had just arrived.