“Please, lower your words, Prince Consort. I don’t know where to put myself.”

When Jin Cheon-hee grinned bashfully, the Prince Consort shook his head. “Not at all. I may be called Prince Consort, but I am of lowly birth. Please, speak comfortably to me, Sir Physician.”

To use such honorifics with a child this young… My goodness.

Jin Cheon-hee wondered what on earth Wangya Ju saw in this man. She was not a woman who would be ignorant of the fact that a strategic marriage to a man with power would have been far more advantageous. She could have seated this man as a concubine afterward, or even carried on a secret affair, and no one would have cared.

She was a woman who had dominated battlefields with overwhelming martial might. In an era where “heroes are fond of women,” it would hardly have been a flaw.

But the man she had seated as her consort…

Well, he is certainly outstandingly beautiful. Though, a little less so than my Master. And he seems somewhat kind.

But that was all.

Wangya Ju had given this man her heart. She was prepared to give him every precious thing in the world. Her favor was truly something special.

What in the world did she fall for?

Jin Cheon-hee shrugged. “It seems you have learned martial arts.”

“Yes, I learned self-defense arts. I also learned the Three Talents Footwork.”

“The Three Talents Footwork is a fine art, isn’t it?” Jin Cheon-hee grinned. Then, in a slightly brazen tone, he said, “This will be over quickly, so just take a nice long nap and you’ll be up in no time.”

“Sir Physician, will I… will I be able to continue living as an artist?”

What does dance mean to this man? Jin Cheon-hee couldn’t understand it. But he did seem to understand one thing: that sometimes, a person could be possessed by a single thing. And that it was like an addiction, a thirst that neither wealth, nor fame, nor even love could quench.

But seeing it in person, rather than just reading it in the book, felt a little strange. It was as if a puzzle piece was missing.

“Is there perhaps… something you haven’t been able to tell me?”

“…”

“Once we’re ready, you’ll be entering the operating room, and then it will be too late. You must tell me everything, even the trivial details.”

Why was this? His memory from the book and his instincts as a doctor were colliding.

In the book, this man was an artist who lived for dance and died for dance. The man he saw before him was exactly that. Having lost his legs, he died, unable to eat a single meal, from the fact that he could no longer dance. That’s what the book said. That’s what the man’s appearance suggested.

But he couldn’t shake the chilling feeling at the back of his neck.

The Prince Consort said, “I have told you everything I can remember.”

His smile was bewitching, like a red flower. A smile that made one understand just why Wangya Ju cherished him so. A fragrant voice colored the air, and Jin Cheon-hee nodded.

“I see. Understood.”

This bastard… is incredibly suspicious.

One second, he was “Sir Physician, please save my leg!” and the next, he flashes a practiced, welcoming smile at a simple question? What was that about?

At the same time, Jin Cheon-hee realized: He’ll die on the operating table before he ever tells me.

This was the most exhausting type of patient.

Don’t tell me the Murim is full of patients like this?

People who held beliefs that were, from a doctor’s perspective, completely incomprehensible. People who would toss their lives away like chaff to protect a secret. The kind of extremely rare people you’d almost never meet in the modern world.

Right. Where else would such people exist but in the wuxia world I’m in… Hahahaha…

He was going to lose his mind. And just like that, Jin Cheon-hee had a fresh realization of the truth of his new life.

He spoke to the Prince Consort. “There is nothing in this world more precious than your life.”

“Y-Yes?”

“I’m saying that no matter how grand your conviction, nothing is more precious than your life. It’ll be too late by the time you realize that.”

When a doctor speaks, just listen!

***

The Prince Consort said nothing more.

Jin Cheon-hee, having expected this, examined his pulse two, three more times. Worried he might have missed something, he called in other physicians to examine him as well.

Nothing new emerged.

Jin Cheon-hee shared this part with his Master before the surgery.

“Hmm. A difficult problem. But it is also one we will encounter endlessly from now on.”

It wasn’t just the Murim; the Imperial Palace had its secrets, too. And imperial secrets always walked hand-in-hand with conspiracy and intrigue.

“Hee-ya, a secret,” his Master said, “is sometimes kept to protect oneself. But there are also times when one stays silent to protect the one who is listening.”

Jin Cheon-hee let out a small sigh. ‘Right. As long as it’s not related to the surgery, it’s none of my business.’

Still, he felt a lingering unease. His doctor’s intuition was insistently poking him in the back of the head. But it wasn’t as if he could interrogate the Prince Consort, and if the man himself was determined to keep his mouth shut, what else could be done?

His Master’s eyes gleamed. “More importantly, this is a new surgical method.”

His expression was as serious as ever, but his eyes were like those of a child tearing the wrapping paper off a present.

High enthusiasm was a good thing. But at times, it was chilling.

Maybe Phantom Archer was right… the expression that ‘he doesn’t see people as people.’

The longer they spent together, the more clearly Jin Cheon-hee felt it. His Master lacked the fear that came with handling a life. To him, a human was like a puzzle. Once the pieces were perfectly assembled, the interest faded.

This couldn’t be a simple desire for fame; the patient was Wangya Ju’s consort. If the surgery failed, the consequences were obvious.

“The stakes are high, and yet you seem to be enjoying this, Master.”

“Hmm. So that’s how it appears in your eyes.”

And yet, this man intended to proceed. Without a single look back. The thought occurred that perhaps, to the White Qilin Divine Physician, the sanctity of life wasn’t actually that important. Perhaps patients were just saved as a byproduct of his own intellectual madness.

I suppose this, too, is a form of talent…

Zhuge Rin said, “When I was young, the former Patriarch told me. That since I was fated to not live long, I should think about how I would live. Perhaps that has become a habit.”

He smiled. The smile he gave with his eyelashes lowered was so holy, like that of a god, that it stole the breath of the beholder.

“The stakes do not matter, Hee-ya. What matters is how much one enjoys it. Is not the effort to live one’s life doing only, as much as possible, what one enjoys, the most important thing?”

That was Zhuge Rin’s way of life.

Jin Cheon-hee thought, ‘He said that before I came, he wouldn’t even eat. That he would just swallow a Grain-Abstinence Pill every few days.’

Yoo Ho had said it was because he had no will to live. But Jin Cheon-hee’s thought was different.

‘What if it was because… eating wasn’t fun? What if he simply… hates doing things that aren’t fun…?’

What an absurd hedonist.

Jin Cheon-hee finally shook his head. ‘No. That’s just my conjecture. I’m just over-interpreting his intellectual curiosity.’

His thoughts stopped there. Like cutting off a reptile’s tail, he severed the useless speculation.

“First, regarding the external fixation.” Jin Cheon-hee quickly shared the surgical plan with his Master. It included the medical knowledge he had written and taught the Pavilion, but naturally, it also contained much that was new.

The time given was short. They had to use it as efficiently as possible.

All preparations for the surgery were complete. Perhaps because they had done it once before, the preparations were even faster than last time. The patient was on the operating table, and the Pavilion physicians were preparing the anesthesia.

Jin Cheon-hee put on his surgical gown. “These are better than last time.”

Yoo Ho replied, “And whose fault is that.”

The shoddily stitched-together cloths were gone. A properly made surgical gown was now complete.

“We’ll need to make a lot of these, won’t we?”

“Yes, I’ve already put in the order with the workshop. I only made yours and the Master’s by hand.”

So that’s why the embroidery on my Master’s gown was so delicate. It wasn’t large, in consideration of the surgery, but it was clearly done with great care.

Jin Cheon-hee said, “Yoo Ho.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have even had the resolve to treat the patient.”

At the candid thanks, Yoo Ho was momentarily speechless. After a pause, he said, “…If you’re so thankful, will you reduce my workload?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then I’ll be taking back my thanks.” He grumbled, then reached behind Jin Cheon-hee to pull the collar of his gown and tie the strings. “What color embroidery would you like? I’ll take your opinion for the next one.”

Jin Cheon-hee replied, “The same color as the Master’s.”

“Dammit. I knew you’d say that.”

Jin Cheon-hee let out a small chuckle.

“Alright. Let’s begin, Yoo Ho.”

***

An orthopedic surgery room is a very different scene from what most people imagine.

When people think of surgery, they think of scalpels, forceps, and sutures. Of course, orthopedic surgery uses those tools as well. But a few more are added to the list:

Hammers, drills, screws, and metal rods.

Tools you would be more likely to see on a construction site are used as well.

Since this was a world without electricity, they wouldn’t be using a power drill. Instead, they had decided to use a gimlet, powered by internal energy.

When he entered, the patient was lying anesthetized, and the Pavilion physicians were monitoring his pulse in real-time.

“This one will take a long time. Everyone has eaten beforehand, correct?”

All the physicians’ eyes were fixed on Jin Cheon-hee. He stood calmly before the operating table. This was only his second surgery in this world. Even so, the equipment was far superior to before, a testament to his steady preparations.

“We will begin with irrigation.”

Normally, this would be a low-pressure irrigation with saline solution. ‘Saline solution’ sounds complicated, but it’s really just salt water. Yoo Ho meticulously began the low-pressure irrigation with the sterilized salt water.

‘He’s so damn useful.’

“Basic irrigation complete.”

At Yoo Ho’s word, Jin Cheon-hee picked up the scalpel.

Debridement.

This meant the removal of contaminated or dead soft tissue. Subcutaneous fat and fascia, in particular, were areas that blood rarely reached. They were prime breeding grounds for bacteria, so it was best to remove them as thoroughly as possible.

‘Usually, you check the muscle based on Scully’s 4Cs: consistency, color, capacity to bleed, and contractility…’

But in clinical practice, judgment tended to vary from doctor to doctor, even on the same wound. It was a realm that couldn’t be learned from books or photos alone.

For Jin Cheon-hee, however, the judgment on this part was simple.

‘The patient ingested the Five-Elemental Elixir until the very end.’

Jin Cheon-hee sent Fire Qi into the fascia. He could feel the level of contamination in the muscle by following the flow of his jin-gi. The areas where the Fire Qi clashed strongly were contaminated tissue. Conversely, the areas the Fire Qi wouldn’t go were dead tissue.

‘So it can be applied this way, too.’

It was an application method he had learned while mastering the Five-Elemental Divine Art. By combining it with his surgical art, he could ‘see’ far more clearly than with his eyes alone.

Jin Cheon-hee’s fingertips began to move as if divinely possessed.