So Jeongrak was making his rounds through the medical ward again today, physicians at his left and right.
He examined the patients’ conditions, prescribed medicine, and set their bones.
“Thank you, Doctor!”
The eyes of the patients looking at him were filled with reverence. They truly treated him like a god.
Just then, someone spoke from behind him.
“Do you perhaps remember me?”
When So Jeongrak and the physicians turned around, Geom Mugeuk was standing there.
“You treated my brother, didn’t you?”
“I remember.”
“I was worried you might not, since you have so many patients.”
“Someone like you is hard to forget.”
At that, Geom Mugeuk said with a smile,
“Right? It would be hard to forget the guardian of such a handsome patient.”
The physicians standing beside him looked dumbfounded, while the patients and their guardians laughed.
“How is your brother?”
“He’s already walking around as if he’s completely recovered. At this rate, he’ll get poisoned again.”
From the way So Jeongrak’s gaze swiftly swept over him, Geom Mugeuk could tell. He was checking whether Geom Mugeuk had been detoxified.
Both the Poison King and So Jeongrak were experts who could discern a person’s condition just by looking.
“What brings you here?”
“You treated my brother. How could I simply leave? So I prepared a gift.”
Geom Mugeuk took a small pouch from his robes and held it out.
“It’s a token of my sincerity, so please accept it.”
So Jeongrak looked at the pouch Geom Mugeuk offered him.
“No need.”
“It’s a cheap thing I bought at the marketplace, but it contains my sincerity.”
“My principle is to accept nothing from patients.”
“If you say that, my hand will feel far too embarrassed.”
Just then, the physician beside him said to Geom Mugeuk,
“The Doctor is busy, so it would be best to visit again later.”
“Then at least take a look at what the gift is.”
Before anyone could stop him, Geom Mugeuk opened the pouch.
At that moment—
Puff.
White smoke burst out of the pouch.
The smoke spread in every direction in an instant.
And in the next moment, something astonishing happened.
Not only the physicians, but even the patients and their guardians all collapsed, one after another.
It had happened in the blink of an eye. The only people still standing there were Geom Mugeuk and So Jeongrak.
“What is the meaning of this?”
So Jeongrak examined the physician collapsed beside him. They were all asleep.
Geom Mugeuk waved the smoke away with his hand and exclaimed in admiration.
“The effect is incredible. I suppose this is the appeal of cultivating poison arts.”
Geom Mugeuk looked at So Jeongrak.
“You’re like this, and so is Cheonae Geosa. Why do you people so love using innocent people as shields? I had no choice.”
“Shields?”
“You’ve lived your whole life as a lie. Aren’t you sick of it? At least when it’s just the two of us, return to your true self.”
But So Jeongrak still wore the face of a physician shocked by the situation. He even checked on a sleeping patient.
“Every time I meet you, you really make me feel like I’m the villain.”
Geom Mugeuk picked up a sheet of paper the attending physician had dropped on the floor.
“A patient record, is it?”
Geom Mugeuk held it up toward the window, checking whether any other writing would appear.
“When you hold it up like this, there should be poison formulas written on it, or secret messages from your organization.”
Of course, there was no way anything like that would be written there.
“How do you endure such a boring daytime life?”
He was not making a baseless guess.
There was something he had felt while staying with the Poison King in the Thousand Poison Forest. Cultivating poison arts was completely different from cultivating ordinary martial arts.
Unless one immersed oneself wholly in that world, one could never survive.
Because the poison would have killed him.
Only one who thought of nothing but poison could become a master of poison arts.
So Jeongrak must have been the same. Had he really come this far with poison arts he had learned in his youth? Without honing them through bloody training, he could detoxify a poison administered by the Poison King?
Impossible. He must have practiced poison arts in secret, where no one knew. By day, he saved lives; by night, he killed them.
So Jeongrak turned toward the door.
“I do not know why you are doing this, but I will call for people. If you intend to harm me, then do so.”
For now, he was trying to escape this unexpected situation.
When an unexpected situation arises, first get away from that moment!
Even if you think you can control the situation, get away first. The feeling that you can accomplish something is a trap and an illusion created by that unexpected situation.
So Jeongrak was a man who had lived by this principle.
And now, a single word came from behind him that made him violate that principle.
“Three-Day Life.”
In that instant, So Jeongrak flinched and stopped moving.
“Our Poison King recognized it at a glance.”
So Jeongrak turned back toward Geom Mugeuk.
The fact that he could endure everything else but not talk of the Poison King showed that he was a man filled with the desire to defeat him.
“I may not have the talent to recognize poisons, but I do have a talent for recognizing something else.”
Geom Mugeuk quietly stared at So Jeongrak and added,
“A talent for recognizing evil men.”
The good-natured face of So Jeongrak stiffened slightly.
“You’ve been acting for more than a few decades, haven’t you? Stop now.”
After a brief pause, So Jeongrak answered.
“I have never acted. Saving people’s lives is my life.”
Geom Mugeuk did not deny those words.
“That’s right. You have lived for a long time as a good physician.”
Because it truly was the life he had lived.
“But I don’t think I can respect that life.”
Geom Mugeuk sat on the edge of a bed where a patient slept.
“If the Demonic-Orthodox Great War breaks out because of you people, hundreds of times more lives than you saved in your lifetime will die.”
Geom Mugeuk could see it. There was not the slightest trace of guilt anywhere on So Jeongrak’s face.
Looking at the patient lying on the bed, Geom Mugeuk asked,
“Are you perhaps atoning in advance by saving these people?”
So Jeongrak slowly walked over and sat on the edge of the patient’s bed across from him.
Looking at the patient on the bed where he sat, he suddenly said,
“Bullshit.”
A deep sneer formed at the corner of So Jeongrak’s mouth.
“To think the word atonement would come from the mouth of the Young Cult Master of the Demonic Cult. Do you people even know what atonement is?”
Geom Mugeuk smiled brightly.
“See? Isn’t this much better? Let’s take off the mask and have an honest conversation.”
Even So Jeongrak’s sunken gaze was different. So different that one wondered if he was truly the same man who had seemed so kind—his eyes alone made him look like a completely different person.
“How long have you been waiting for this moment?”
So Jeongrak raised his head, looked up at the ceiling, and exhaled heavily.
The sticky presence flowing from his body seized control of the space in an instant. It was a presence that made a person’s body feel heavy, as if sinking into a swamp.
And Geom Mugeuk saw it. More than twenty vine-like strands of energy extended from his body, connecting to the bodies of those sleeping there.
“If I die, they die with me.”
One might have thought the situation was already to his advantage, yet his personality was thorough to the extreme.
Geom Mugeuk sighed and said,
“A shield is still a shield, even when it’s asleep.”
It was an extension of what he had said earlier about So Jeongrak using them too much as shields.
“I have heard that the Young Cult Master of the Demonic Cult likes to imitate a chivalrous hero.”
He seemed certain that, as long as there were hostages, Geom Mugeuk would never be able to do anything.
Yet the emotion in his eyes as he looked at Geom Mugeuk was intense distrust.
“But blood will tell.”
Naturally, he was certain it was nothing but a dirty scheme to dominate the murim. Those of the demonic path were born that way.
“Be honest. You don’t care if those people die, do you?”
Geom Mugeuk readily admitted it. There was no need to show, in this situation, that he was determined to save them.
“As expected! You recognize me. Didn’t I say evil men recognize evil men?”
Geom Mugeuk looked down at his own hands and said,
“That’s right. Even now, the blood inside me is boiling. The desire to throw all this talk aside and just cut you down keeps tempting me endlessly. It tells me to just kill this sinister bastard. If the orthodox sects misunderstand, let them! Think about what comes after later!”
Geom Mugeuk raised his head and looked at So Jeongrak. So Jeongrak did not hide his emotions. The displeasure of having been cursed at was fully contained in his cold eyes.
As if adding more firewood to that anger, Geom Mugeuk smiled obnoxiously and said,
“I’ve been living while pretending to be good with all my might, trying to hide the fact that I’m this kind of person. Come to think of it, we have a lot in common.”
So Jeongrak nodded.
“I must admit it. I, too, am forcibly holding back the urge to kill you.”
“Why are you holding back?”
So Jeongrak did not answer, but Geom Mugeuk knew the answer.
“Because your conspiracy can only be completed if I’m alive?”
The corner of So Jeongrak’s eye twitched slightly.
“What specific role do I have? The moment you poisoned me, you revealed your own identity.”
It also meant the time had come. It had been a choice made while anticipating that Geom Mugeuk would come looking for him like this.
“Are you curious about your role? It is a very important role.”
Seeing his confidence, Geom Mugeuk spoke calmly.
“You think you’ve lived perfectly as a physician, don’t you? Treating the poor for free, saving countless martial artists, earning everyone’s respect. So you think we can’t do anything to you, don’t you?”
Geom Mugeuk rose from the bed and slowly approached him.
“Do you really have no flaws?”
So Jeongrak merely listened in silence to what Geom Mugeuk was saying.
“At first, perhaps it was perfect. But over all those long years, were there truly no mistakes? Was there never even once when you let your guard down? You lived such a long life without getting caught.”
The corner of So Jeongrak’s eye trembled faintly.
“I’m certain there’s a secret workshop of yours somewhere beneath this clinic. That’s where you studied and tested poisons. No matter how well you hid the entrance, if we bring in an expert to find it, it can be found.”
The corner of So Jeongrak’s mouth rose slightly.
“If there is evidence that the place belongs to me, then you could frame me for a crime.”
At that, Geom Mugeuk widened his eyes.
“Oh? There really is a secret place underground? I was only guessing.”
When he made an aggravating expression, So Jeongrak bit his lip slightly.
Geom Mugeuk stabbed at another point.
“Who did you conduct those experiments on? I couldn’t understand why you worked so diligently to see patients. Unless you were born with a kind nature, you couldn’t live so self-sacrificingly. But someone born with a kind nature would never cultivate poison arts like this, would they? Then one thought came to me. What if you were searching for people with the constitution you needed?”
Geom Mugeuk’s eyes sharpened.
“I imagine patients with special constitutions among your patients have gone missing.”
So Jeongrak neither confirmed nor denied it, but his pupils were trembling.
“There’s a secret chamber underground where poisons were tested, and as it turns out, patients have gone missing. Wouldn’t that be enough reason to suspect you? Wouldn’t that be enough to kill you?”
But So Jeongrak was confident.
“Do you know how many people I have saved until now?”
“That doesn’t matter. There are far more people you didn’t save.”
“!”
“They will be the ones to create the rumors and reputation about you.”
Geom Mugeuk stared coldly at So Jeongrak.
“The conclusion is that nothing much will happen even if I kill you.”
After that strong threat, Geom Mugeuk was curious to see how he would react. Killing him would be easy. To those who used poison, Geom Mugeuk was quite literally the pinnacle of their natural enemy.
Not knowing that fact, So Jeongrak remained composed.
“The moment I first saw you earlier, I already poisoned you. The instant you use your internal energy, your qi and blood will swell and burst.”
Of course, Geom Mugeuk knew. The moment that poison entered his body, it had been burned away.
Geom Mugeuk deliberately put on a startled, flustered expression.
While the other man believed he held the advantage, Geom Mugeuk asked casually,
“Fine. Since it’s come to this, let me ask one thing. Just who are you trying to kill by using the old demons of the Geumma-ryeong?”
Geom Mugeuk asked probingly.
“Miss Jin?”
As he did, he carefully observed every detail of So Jeongrak’s expression.
“Captain Jin?”
Still, So Jeongrak only wore a strange expression.
Geom Mugeuk asked about the last person.
“It must be Cheonae Geosa.”
At last, So Jeongrak opened his mouth. It was the moment he would finally obtain new information from him.
“The target changed because of you.”
“Because of me?”
Then again, many things must have changed when he and the Demon Venerables came here to Wuhan.
He was curious who the changed target was.
“We considered many possibilities. We analyzed and reanalyzed every piece of information we had gathered until now.”
So Jeongrak spoke with a peculiar smile.
“And then, an astonishing result emerged. If that newly selected person were to die instead, the probability of war breaking out would be higher than with anyone else.”
It was just then, as an inexplicably ominous feeling came over him.
Creeak.
The door opened, and someone stepped inside.
He was an old master with white hair, and blood-red demonic energy blazed all over his body. The moment one saw him, his presence froze the entire body.
A supreme master who had reached the age of one hundred. Astonishingly, he was the Demon Flame Lord, who had broken through the Geumma-ryeong and come to Wuhan.
Another master appeared through the opposite door.
It was an old man whose body had withered away until he looked like a skeleton. It seemed as if his whole body would crumble if someone so much as tapped him.
But his two eyes alone were deep, immeasurably deep. The abyss of a hundred and fifty years was contained within them like death itself.
He was the White-Bone Soul Demon.
Astonishingly, the two of them had appeared in one place.
Just by looking at them, Geom Mugeuk could tell who they were.
So Jeongrak finished what he had been saying.
“We even concluded that it did not matter who killed him. If he dies, war will certainly break out.”
Geom Mugeuk’s eyes sank. He now knew for certain who that new person was.
“……It was me.”
So Jeongrak slowly nodded.
“Yes. We concluded that if you died, the Cult Master of the Demonic Cult would never endure it.”
Absolute Regression, Chapter 645