Jin Cheon-hee was managing the relief station again today. While the flood of patients remained constant, the fighting had subsided ever so slightly, and best of all, their workforce had finally expanded; the physicians from headquarters had arrived.

His shoulders twitched in a suppressed dance of joy.

Finally. I can cut back on the overwork.

The labor had been so intense that even Cheon Woo, that mountain of muscle, had shed weight around his waist. It wasn’t as if the guy starved himself; despite being a Taoist who claimed to practice vegetarianism, he grazed with the voracity of an elephant. Even with the occasional meat Cheon-hee slipped him for energy, his staple remained greens, yet the fat had melted away, proving just how grueling the labor had been.

In such a dire situation, the arrival of a new slave—err, ‘worker’—was a joyous occasion for the factory own—no, for the Young Pavilion Master.

“Benefactor!”

“Hye-ah!”

“Hehehe, I volunteered as soon as I heard the news, Benefactor!”

Sama Hye’s cheeks were flushed with excitement.

Hangzhou was not only Sama Hyeon’s hometown but hers as well. Having passed the physician’s exam at the top of her class, she had proudly become an Intermediate Physician and chosen the path of orthopedics. It was a natural progression; the illness that had tormented her for so long required orthopedic treatment, and as she went through rehabilitation and recovery, her interest in the field had blossomed.

Come to think of it, it’s quite common for children who suffered severe illnesses to grow up and become medical professionals.

Becoming a Senior Physician, however, would be an arduous journey. From that point on, advancement depended entirely on performance records and research papers. Textbooks only took you as far as Intermediate Physician. A Senior Physician had to not only utilize that knowledge but push beyond it, whether by discovering something new or building an exceptional track record in their specialty.

Though, I admit, the standards for Senior Physician have become much stricter since I took over.

In the past, an Intermediate Physician was automatically promoted to Senior status after a certain number of years. Now, the bar was set far higher. In exchange, the title of Senior Physician of the White Qilin Medical Pavilion’s Surgical Arts Department had gained enough prestige to feed a person for a lifetime.

It’s certainly treated better than a modern PhD.

After all, PhDs are churned out by every university, but a Surgical Arts Department Senior Physician is produced only by the White Qilin Medical Pavilion. Now, every clan and government official clamored for one.

Sama Hye’s gaze drifted to the familiar surroundings.

“On the way here, I saw a familiar inn. The alleyways look just the same, too.”

“I thought Hangzhou changed constantly. That’s unexpected.”

“The slums don’t change much. It’s the port and the main boulevards that change quickly.”

She gazed at the scene with moist eyes before turning her attention to the tent.

“That well must be the same, too.”

“Since it’s an old well, you’re probably right.”

Just then, the sound of something shattering—Crash!—echoed nearby.

“Hye-ni?”

When Sama Hye turned around, a woman her age was standing there, a broken water jar at her feet, staring blankly at the young physician.

“Uh…?”

A faint blue light flickered in Sama Hye’s eyes as she studied the woman. Thanks to cultivating a mental art—not quite the Profound Primordial Complete Foundation Divine Art, but a derivative step below it—her memory far exceeded that of an ordinary person.

“Dong Wol?” Sama Hye asked.

“You changed so much I wasn’t sure, but it is you! You’ve completely…!”

The friend rushed forward and crushed Sama Hye in a hug. Sama Hye returned the embrace, patting her friend’s back gently.

“You’re alive. I missed you. You’ve been well…”

In that sentimental moment, Sama Hye suddenly snatched her friend’s wrist.

“Your bad habits… they haven’t changed a bit, have they?”

Dangling from the friend’s hand was Sama Hye’s ornament.

“Ouch! Hehe… As expected of Hyeon-oppa’s little sister.”

“Trying to swindle a friend you haven’t seen in years already?”

Oh… Hye-ah gets a bit rough with her childhood friends.

She had always shown Jin Cheon-hee a quiet, calm, and mature demeanor, but meeting an old friend seemed to exhume her past self. Surprisingly, Sama Hye forgave the attempted pickpocketing quite easily. It was likely a unique camaraderie understood only by those who had survived life at the bottom.

“Anyway, you’re a physician now? You’ve really made it!”

“Made it? Hardly. It’s all thanks to the Benefactor.”

Sama Hye and her old friend exchanged pleasantries and parted ways, promising to meet again later since Hye would be staying at the relief tents for a while. As she returned, Sama Hye’s cheeks, already rosy, were now flushed even deeper.

“Meeting, parting, and meeting again…”

It seemed she felt strange reuniting with an old friend. Perhaps she was happy to show her healthy self to someone who remembered her sickly childhood.

It’s a good thing. Definitely.

She looked as if she were floating on air.

“Did you eat?” Jin Cheon-hee asked.

“Yes. I ate before coming.”

“When?”

“Maybe one or two sijin ago? I had a rice ball then.”

“You must be hungry. I’ll give you a meal. I need to feed Cheon Woo, too. He’s probably in the middle of breathing exercises.”

It was true. Jin Cheon-hee hadn’t realized it earlier, but Cheon Woo’s weight loss wasn’t simply due to the hard labor at the relief station. Since they were together, Jin Cheon-hee had suggested solving Cheon Woo’s depth perception issue caused by his single eye. He had taught the Taoist a unique training method, and Cheon Woo had been diligently practicing it alongside his work.

Laboring at the relief station was exhausting enough; adding intense training on top of it explained the physical toll.

“Cheon Woo! Hye-ah is here. You remember her?”

They had crossed paths a few times in the past, though only briefly. Back then, Cheon Woo had only known her as Sama Hyeon’s younger sister, but now she had come as a fellow colleague—an Intermediate Physician.

Cheon Woo set down his firewood and greeted Sama Hye warmly.

Sama Hye nodded in return, but her gaze suddenly drifted to Cheon Woo’s chest. Her face turned an even deeper shade of crimson, and after stammering a few hurried words, she quickly drifted away. Watching her retreat, Jin Cheon-hee wondered for a moment if the rose-colored spring of youth had arrived for them, but he quickly shook his head.

Ah, right. Cheon Woo is a Taoist.

Taoists were supposed to distance themselves from carnal desires.

Since we’re in Hangzhou, I should get Cheon Woo a new set of robes.

He kept tearing them, so there was no telling how long a new set would last, but Jin Cheon-hee was slightly worried about him exposing his pectoral muscles in broad daylight when men and women were supposed to maintain propriety.

***

Sama Hye began to adapt to the relief station work faster than expected. Above all, she had a home-field advantage.

“Hye-ni? Wow! It really is Hye-ah!”

“Chun Man, is your leg okay? What happened to the other one?”

“Hahaha, lost it fighting the Unorthodox Path scumbags.”

Chun Man’s mother, standing beside him, interjected sharply. “Nonsense. He got bitten by a dog and we couldn’t treat it, so it had to be cut off. What kind of Unorthodox Path would he be fighting?”

“Mom!”

Indeed. Sama Hye had become the Star of the Slums.

“I’ll make you a prosthetic leg that fits perfectly. Don’t worry.”

In a slum like this, there weren’t many ways to succeed. Even if one learned martial arts to rise up, the standard path was to learn Unorthodox Path arts, live as a thug, and die as one. Unless a very rare stroke of fortune passed by, it was extremely difficult to find a decent job and live a respectable life. This was even more true in an era without social welfare.

Most residents were illiterate, and without knowing how to read, entering a merchant guild was impossible. At best, they could become day laborers. Consequently, most inhabitants resorted to irregular menial work, or fell into things they shouldn’t—theft, fraud, prostitution, or sometimes selling drugs.

So, the fact that Sama Hye, whom everyone thought would die young, had returned as a respected physician brought an indescribable emotion to the people of this alley.

“Wow, Grandfather. You’re still hale and hearty.”

“Hale and hearty, my foot… look at you, your back is straight now…”

Although she had eventually become too sick to move, in her early childhood when her spine was less twisted, she seemed to have had proper interactions with the neighbors.

“Yes. I’m all better. Grandfather, looking at the ingredient list for the medicine the Young Pavilion Master prescribed, thankfully, there aren’t any expensive herbs in this one. You need to brew it like tea and drink it slowly three times a day after meals. Don’t think of it as gulping it down—Gulp, gulp—but rather, sip. Like that.”

Sama Hye explains things better than I expected.

The hardest part of a physician’s job was dealing with people. Interestingly, a physician was both a blue-collar and a white-collar worker. On top of that, it was a service industry job involving constant human interaction. Fortunately, this wasn’t an era that demanded excessive kindness, but still, rattling off difficult medical terminology meant nothing to the patient. It was far more important to explain simply how to get better.

Sama Hye was quite good at that. More than anything, meeting people she knew seemed to boost her self-esteem. And rightfully so. In this moment, she was a star. But because she knew how these people looked at her, she seemed to be pushing herself too hard.

“Hye-ah.”

“Ah, Benefactor?”

“It’s time to close up. Also…” Jin Cheon-hee’s voice turned firm. “Let’s rest a bit. You’re going to make yourself sick on the very first day.”

He forced Sama Hye to take a break. He felt he understood exactly what emotions she was experiencing right now.

When you get into medical school, they hang banners at your elementary, middle, and high schools.

He didn’t know how it was in modern times—perhaps individualism had changed things—but it had been like that in his childhood. When those banners went up, you felt good for a moment. You thought, ‘I guess I am pretty great.’

But before you knew it, people started leaning on you more and more. Instead of going to the local clinic, they started texting you at dawn. If you could cut it off at a certain line, you were lucky. But the kinder the kid, the more they tried to live up to those surrounding expectations. At the end of that struggle, you woke up to find you’d poured everything out, leaving nothing but an empty shell of yourself.

He hoped Sama Hye wouldn’t end up like that.

After sending everyone away, Jin Cheon-hee announced, “Tonight’s dinner is spicy stir-fried pork rice!”

“…?”

“Uh… So, you thinly slice pork, stir-fry it with spicy seasoning…”

Only after explaining every step did Sama Hye’s eyes finally light up.

“That sounds delicious! Benefactor.”

“Good. That’s the attitude. It was worth the deliberation. I think I spent a good two hours just worrying about what to have for dinner in the back of my mind.”

“Somehow, Benefactor, you always worry immensely about food, even if nothing else.”

“Of course. Why work if you’re going to eat tasteless food?”

He answered a fundamental question with a fundamental truth. Sama Hye blinked her eyes for a long moment, as if the answer was unexpected.

“You can’t work if there’s no tasty food?”

“I can’t. Why do humans earn money? We earn it to eat delicious things.”

“…?”

To explain it further, primitive humans procured food through hunting and gathering. They hunted game, caught fish, and ate that to survive. In the agricultural age, they farmed, planted fruit trees, and harvested fruit. They performed agricultural labor instead of the hunting labor of the past.

“And what about in a more complex society like this? Your job is treating people and receiving payment. That is your hunt.”

“Then, are you saying that eating a meal is the process of enjoying the game you’ve hunted?”

“Exactly. That’s why if I eat a terrible lunch, my mood is ruined for the rest of the day. I start wondering why I’m performing this labor just to eat trash.”

“Hmm.”