-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Physician Heo Pung-gae - [1]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1852. The invincible British army marched across the Middle Kingdom.
They annihilated 140,000 Ming troops in just two battles before pressing on to the capital. Nothing could halt the advance of the world's strongest army.
The Ming Emperor abandoned the capital and fled, but he never surrendered. One could praise that choice as a noble stand of resistance, or condemn it as an irresponsible flight that prioritized pride over reality.
To the British, it was the latter. The cities of Ming left behind by their emperor and officials were abandoned along with their inhabitants.
The British entered each city with ease. A few that resisted fiercely required exemplary shelling, but most fell without bloodshed.
Yet they could not hold those cities as their own.
In the cities abandoned by officials, the martial world launched an endless holy war against the invaders.
Demonic Cultists flying the banner of "Resist the British, Save the Ming" would spring from alleys to ambush unlucky soldiers at the drop of a hat.
Those who charged squads while clutching bombs couldn't be stopped by one or two bullets. They had dosed themselves with near-lethal amounts of opium first.
Beggars on the roadside served as lookouts tracking the soldiers' movements. Monks and Taoist priests gathering in inns to drink and play games, bandits too—all were enemies of the garrisoned troops. They were the so-called vigilantes of the martial world.
Those ragtag vigilantes could neither defeat the world's mightiest army nor inflict tactically significant damage.
But they could wear them down.
Martial artists lay in wait endlessly for openings, raiding garrisons. They could torch supply depots, poison rations, sneak into buildings to plant bombs, or assassinate the local collaborators the British had painstakingly recruited.
And they could keep it up for decades.
Despite the escort units the British stationed, those ragtag vigilantes succeeded in hundreds of raids.
It was impossible. Sentries and officers were harshly punished each time, but the attacks didn't stop.
At last, the British began attributing all those successful raids not to lax discipline, but to the attackers' abilities.
Their formal investigations revealed that the vigilantes who relentlessly harassed them without tiring weren't driven by mere chivalry.
Those vigilantes truly possessed superhuman traits that made the impossible possible for humans.
Muscles that vaulted walls several times their height. Stamina that let them sprint dozens of kilometers nonstop, shaking off even mounted pursuit. Reflexes that read a soldier's trigger finger and dodged the shot just in time.
In rare cases, they even batted away fired bullets with swords—clearly transcending human limits.
The martial artists themselves called it martial prowess.
The British dubbed it magic, in the sense of unnatural feats beyond human bounds. No matter how you sliced it, such physical enhancements couldn't come from mere training.
And a few martial artists went beyond mere physical extensions into true sorcery that left no doubt.
Swords exhaling plum blossom fragrance, or mere postures freezing onlookers in place—unreal harmonies like that.
One was even witnessed conjuring fire from his hands. These harmonies seemed utterly unrelated to martial arts or even physical ability.
Not every martial artist wielded such supernatural magic. Even among them, only a rare few reached what they called peerless realms and were revered...
In that era when common sense—that magic didn't exist—was flatly refuted, a few wealthy men enthralled by newspaper tales of Eastern mysteries crossed to China to learn "Eastern magic."
The gifts they offered their martial arts masters provided real support for the vigilantes' activities.
...
As the fugitive emperor continued rejecting all negotiations, the conquest of the Middle Kingdom had long devolved into a money pit swallowing endless funds.
The three great powers withdrew their armies from every city but Hong Kong...
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Good lord, isn't this a real peerless master? The criteria for peerless master... It's gotta be pulling off stuff that's more magic than martial arts, right? Like Plum Blossom Fragrance Over Ten Thousand Miles, or Emperor's Sword Form, or True Samadhi Fire—y'know, that kinda thing."
Heo Pung-gae nodded at Yi Pung's words.
"Yeah."
"True Samadhi Fire was the hand-fire one, right? Doesn't seem any less impressive than spitting electricity..."
A spark of electricity danced at the tip of Heo Pung-gae's index finger. Yi Pung couldn't tear his eyes from the supernatural display.
"Yeah. I'm a peerless master now. Still just rank four, though."
Yi Pung's eyes rolled with every spark. After admiring Heo Pung-gae's Thunder Technique for a good while, he spoke up.
"It's incredible... But why so nonchalant?"
"What's to get excited about?"
"You became a peerless master?"
"Too late. Way too late. That bandit pulled it off at fifty, President Park at forty. Moon Lady did it before thirty. And me?"
"Even if it's past sixty, that's something! The old martial artists would be green with envy and throwing fits. Say that out loud anywhere and you'll get chewed out!"
Yi Pung ranted excitedly, but Heo Pung-gae didn't react.
And of course, there was no feast to celebrate the milestone. Waste of time.
Heo Pung-gae started the exact same day as yesterday. He wolfed down the utterly tasteless porridge in one go and drew in the morning ki.
After a simple Taijiquan session, he opened the acupuncture clinic.
Two days after his release, proper customers finally started showing up.
"This the place that old Lee Sun-hee ran? Now some young guy's doing it..."
The middle-aged man who arrived eyed the young physician with disappointment.
But a few hours later, he rose from his seat beaming.
"Thought you were a quack... Fuck..."
The treatment over, the man seemed genuinely satisfied. He promised to spread the word about this skilled young doctor before leaving.
Whether he kept his word or the reopening of the once-famous clinic spread on its own, customers soon poured in steadily.
The acupuncture clinic had a solid reputation in the neighborhood. It was a secret that it was Invincible BB Bullet's front, but as a physician, Heo Pung-gae had decent skills.
Those skills hadn't rusted with time—they'd sharpened. Thanks to his recent breakthrough. That harmony where lightning burst from his hands.
It held meaning beyond the phenomenon. Lightning had always been divine. In Taoism, it executed heavenly punishment, transcending mere weather to wield exorcism and healing.
Actual lightning held no such power, of course. But what of lightning summoned the Taoist way?
Testing revealed it did. While needling a patient's afflicted area, a trickle of Thunder Technique sent mild current flowing through. Whether mere electrostimulation or true mysticism, the blocked qi pathways reopened visibly.
A few needles later, patients marveled at feeling lighter from just a few pricks and left amazed.
Such repeated healings were cultivation too. Not just for priest and physician, but for the martial artist.
Mastering healing meant mastering destruction.
He could test that truth soon enough.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
In just days, the clinic's patients swelled astonishingly.
Seeing the line, Yi Do-hyeok expressed awe.
"Seriously impressive. Not just a martial arts master, but medicine too?"
The guy Yi Pung had sent as assistant. Heo Pung-gae half-ignored the praise.
"Why you mixing casual and polite speech?"
"Well, heard you're older than you look from last time..."
"Just stick to casual. Polite from someone who looks younger feels off."
The patients cleared out as dusk fell. Closing time.
As he moved to lock up, late customers arrived.
A mean-looking man and a young woman.
The man even flaunted tattoos. A gangster type from the jump—his speech gave it away.
"Heard this place is the real deal. So you do urology stuff? Like that?"
Typical thug, straight to casual. Yi Do-hyeok glared, but Heo Pung-gae answered unfazed.
"Roughly. Dick problem?"
He'd handled urology on the side before.
Stations always had red-light districts nearby. East Incheon Station had one too.
Countless caught STDs there. Too embarrassed for proper hospitals, they came to this non-specialist clinic. He'd gotten good at it.
The answer pleased him, apparently. The man grinned sleazily.
"Not me. Check this bitch."
"The lady?"
"Yeah. This slut's fucking..."
Even through the casual speech, Heo Pung-gae had stayed calm. Now he got serious.
"No women. Take her to a hospital."
The man scowled.
"Came here 'cause we can't go to one, asshole. Scared of harassment charges? I pulled her panties down myself."
"No women. Out."
"Fuck. Sexist quack?"
"Out."
"You wanna die?"
That instant, Yi Do-hyeok—who'd turned to grab a bat—freaked.
A gangster's agonized scream echoed from behind.
Turning, he saw it was over. Heo Pung-gae had subdued the thug in a blink and was now torturing him.
He pulled needles and stabbed the gangster's thighs, muttering.
"They say muscle contractions hurt most. Wonder if direct current makes it worse?"
The needles were so thin and sharp they barely looked painful.
But each prick drew screams like he'd been tased. Mucus streamed from nose and mouth.
Heo Pung-gae jabbed a few more, then muttered again.
"Yep."
The screams dragged on. Yi Do-hyeok's eyes trembled watching.
No matter how the man writhed, Heo Pung-gae's expression never changed. Same calm as needling a patient—as if just doing his job.
Seeing that bold-to-emotionless demeanor, Yi Do-hyeok thought.
Disciple of Invincible BB Bullet, huh? Isn't this too cruel? Did that great hero pick up a psychopath?
Didn't match what you'd expect from the famed vigilante's disciple. The man kept screaming, and Yi Do-hyeok plugged his ears.