EP.69 Sharing a Bed...? (1)
A walking corpse?
At the Divine Doctor's unexpected words, my mind instantly went blank.
As if speaking for me, the Divine Doctor asked with a grave expression.
"You brat, just what kind of things have you been picking up and eating?"
"What do you mean by that...?"
"The Qi circulating within your body is no mere one or two, yet you're still walking around perfectly fine even in this state."
It was a statement that unconsciously made me flinch.
Having consumed so much recently, I vaguely understood what he meant.
He must be referring not only to the Demonic Qi but also the fortuitous encounter I gained in Sichuan and the Huashan Qi extracted from the demonic artifact.
"Is it really that big of a problem?"
"As a martial artist, you shouldn't be unaware... What's more amazing to me is that a human can stay alive in such a state."
Is it really that serious?
I knew the Qi of the Daoist Sect and the Qi of the Gu Family were incompatible, but I thought I was managing it fairly well.
'Is it because of the bastard that Elder Shin said is rampaging inside me?'
[It's not just that. What madman would harbor two such Qis within their body unless they intended to commit suicide?]
'It wasn't on purpose either, you know...?'
[That is precisely why it's amazing.]
That was the part I had worried about and questioned countless times.
The fact that two completely opposite Qis coexist within my body.
Put differently, it means they clash endlessly.
Because they are incompatible, they will clash without end, and the shocks generated in the process must be borne entirely by my physical body.
This will become a stumbling block as my martial prowess increases.
Originally, if it were a normal body, I would have fallen into Qi Deviation and become a cripple.
'Did I take it too lightly?'
I had brushed it off simply because it didn't feel like a big deal.
Then the one Elder Shin said was suppressing things refers to these Qis...?
[That is not it.]
'It's not?'
[Yes. Based on what that physician is saying, that fellow is actually the one keeping you alive.]
'What do you mean?'
[Some bastard is glaring at the endlessly rampaging Qi and putting it to sleep; the one that looks like it could explode at any moment is also that fellow...]
It wasn't easy to fully understand what Elder Shin was saying.
...Just what is going on inside my body?
I urgently asked the Divine Doctor.
"Then what should I do?"
"What do you mean what should you do? You either extract all the Qi or live begging that your body doesn't explode."
"Excuse me...?"
What kind of...?
"Your body right now is in a state where it wouldn't be strange if it suddenly exploded this very instant. There's nothing I can easily meddle with."
To the point where even the Divine Doctor hesitates to interfere?
"A walking corpse isn't called that for nothing. You could really die suddenly while eating or while taking a bath. That's exactly the state you're in right now."
A state where it wouldn't be strange to die at any moment.
It meant that if the Qi pretending to be quiet runs amok beyond necessity, I'll just be gone in a flash.
'...To think I had a bomb inside my body.'
Was it the root of disaster to think there was no problem after consuming all of that?
...No, honestly, I didn't eat them on purpose, so ending up like this felt unfair from my perspective.
"This is a bigger deal than I thought, isn't it?"
At Maehwaseon's words, the Divine Doctor asked back in disbelief.
"Didn't I tell you to bring him after finding out?"
"How was I supposed to know..."
"No, for someone with an impressive title like Maehwaseon, you don't even know this!?"
"It roughly showed, but it's hard to know without looking closely, isn't that why I brought him to you?"
Even while the two old men bickered in front of me, my mind was still complicated.
What should I do?
With Zhuge Hyuk in front of me and the matters that would pop up in the future, this was no time to be worrying about that.
Without even realizing it, I had ended up in a situation where I could die in an instant.
'...What should I do?'
Right now, I'm holding on thanks to something inside my body, but even that fellow tries to run amok if I use internal energy beyond a certain point, so it's not exactly a docile entity.
And if that's the situation where Elder Shin is suppressing it...
'It's much more of a mess than I thought, seriously.'
It meant a war was being waged inside my body all day long.
Unwanted fortuitous encounters had gathered, eventually resulting in this mess.
If I had eaten them of my own will, I wouldn't even feel unfairly treated.
While I was repeatedly agonizing over it, the Divine Doctor's voice was heard.
"There is one way to survive."
"Yes?"
"No, you're alive right now, so there's one way to keep staying alive."
"May I ask what it is?"
I was grasping at straws.
Hearing that, the Divine Doctor answered with a nonchalant expression.
"If you're worried the Qi will explode as it pleases, you can just seal your Dantian."
"...!"
"Whether it's Qi Deviation or your body exploding like firecrackers, it's all because a problem has already occurred in the path from the Dantian to the meridians. If you seal it now while there's no problem, you'll be able to preserve your life."
The Divine Doctor's words made sense.
If I just crush the Dantian, the Qi will dissipate, solving the problem. If I do that, I'll be able to survive.
However, as a martial artist, it would mean death.
'That won't do.'
It's not because the internal energy and martial prowess I've built up until now are precious to me.
If I seal my Dantian, I will inevitably die in the future anyway.
Either by the Heavenly Demon.
Or by the Murim Alliance.
'...Fuck.'
Why is there never an easy way out? Can't I just go about this safely?
[You brat, you have no intention of giving up. Then again, a martial artist values their Dantian more than their life.]
It might seem foolish in a way, but the life of a martial artist was mostly like that.
The Divine Doctor looked at my expression, clicked his tongue briefly, and spoke.
"Judging by the look on your face, it seems you can't bring yourself to give up your Dantian."
"...."
"If so, I have no other method beyond this. I can only pray that your physical body continues to hold out as luckily as it is now."
"You said you'd only touch me and do nothing, but you've already thought of all the treatment methods, you stingy Royal Physician!"
"...You rotten mule bastard, just hurry up and get lost!"
My head is really throbbing....
The Divine Doctor pointed toward the door as if telling us to get out quickly since we'd heard everything.
"This is a place for patients. Get the hell out, all of you."
"Still as heartless as ever..."
"Especially you, Dohwa, get out first."
Maehwaseon let out a good-natured laugh and naturally stood up.
As the Sword Empress immediately tried to stand up and offer her respects, Maehwaseon stopped her with his hand, telling her not to get up.
"Rest well. I'll visit often."
"Yes... Sect Leader."
"I said don't come because it's distracting, you damned bastard..."
"I'll come again next time, Royal Physician."
"Rotten."
Maehwaseon stepped out the door, and I was about to follow right away, but...
"W-wait."
When I turned around, the owner of the voice was Gu Ryeong-hwa.
Gu Ryeong-hwa was looking at me with eyes that were shaking severely.
"Why?"
"...Die...?"
"What?"
"Are you going to die...!"
When I asked back a few times, Gu Ryeong-hwa suddenly raised her voice.
What is she suddenly talking about?
Since it had been so long since we last met, it was a bit difficult to know how to act.
Did she ask because she wished I was dead? Were we on such bad terms that...
-Get out of my sight, just looking at you makes me sick.
...we could have been?
I let out a deep sigh at the memory that suddenly crossed my mind. It was definitely something I had said, so I couldn't deny it.
I looked at Gu Ryeong-hwa and said.
"It seems so."
"...Why, why..."
"Hmm?"
"Why are you so calm about it...?"
"Is there a reason to be scared? I said I'm not dying yet."
"But you might die tomorrow...!"
"But I'm alive right now."
At my words, Gu Ryeong-hwa's expression changed strangely.
Was that such a strange thing to say? Moreover, why did Gu Ryeong-hwa become even more serious because of it?
There's no way she has any affection left for me.
[It is a strange thing to say. It's not something a brat who has never experienced the boundary between life and death would say so casually.]
'Hmm.'
[I did think you were like an old man in a child's body, but this is a bit much. I hope this is also included in what you'll say to me later.]
'How do you know if that will be in the story or not, to assert it so definitively?'
[If not, then never mind.]
'....'
Haa.
Weighing down on useless talk only doubled my fatigue.
I shook it off with a deep sigh and looked at Gu Ryeong-hwa as I spoke.
"I'll be returning to the family in a few days. You need to go too."
"I'm... not going."
"You're not going?"
"There's no way I'd want to go back to a place like that...!"
"Alright, suit yourself."
When I casually said she didn't have to go, Gu Ryeong-hwa's expression turned even more bizarre.
Just from her expression, it had been obvious for a while that she didn't want to go.
"Are you really not going to take me?"
"You said you didn't want to go."
"Ah...?"
"If I tell father that I couldn't bring you because you were throwing a tantrum about not wanting to go, what do you think he'll say?"
"..."
"That's right. Just as you're thinking right now, he probably won't say much."
He'll probably just end it with a single "I see," in his characteristic stiff voice.
As for the Taiseondan I was supposed to receive... Ah, the Taiseondan is the problem.
'Honestly, if I take it and eat it now, it feels like it'll just mess me up more.'
With firecrackers already going off inside my body, wouldn't adding more just be poison?
It seemed like there would be a problem in that regard.
Looking back and forth between the Sword Empress and Gu Ryeong-hwa resting in her arms, I wondered if there was even a need for her to come.
Certainly, this place would be more comfortable for Gu Ryeong-hwa than the Gu Family.
[Your brotherly heart, what of it?]
'Don't say such creepy things.'
I'm about to die, who cares about blood ties...
Just like in my past life, I simply chose not to care.
[You always say the opposite of what you feel.]
I lightly ignored Elder Shin's words and bowed to the Divine Doctor and the Sword Empress.
Then my eyes met Zhuge Hyuk's, but I just let our gazes linger briefly before ending it.
For now, that is.
Like that, I closed the door and stepped outside...
Maehwaseon was nowhere to be seen outside, as if he had already left.
Did he already depart...?
Thinking I should also return before night fell, I gathered Qi in my feet and was about to leap when...
"Wait, I don't know the way...?"
...Huh?
******************
"How peculiar."
It was what the Divine Doctor uttered inside the cottage after Gu Yang-cheon had left.
Peculiar.
It was truly peculiar.
That such Qis were clustered within the body of a boy who was far from reaching adulthood.
That the Qis were growling at each other hostilely without exploding his body.
Even the boy's attitude as he listened to his words.
'Eyes I've seen somewhere before.'
Eyes that remained calm even upon hearing of his own death right in front of his nose.
A face that simply accepted it calmly, when he should have been trembling with anxiety about possibly dying.
Those were eyes that the Divine Doctor had definitely seen somewhere before.
But perhaps due to his old age, he couldn't properly recall.
The Divine Doctor asked Gu Ryeong-hwa.
"Little girl, what kind of fellow is your brother?"
"...Yes?"
Gu Ryeong-hwa was flustered by the Divine Doctor's sudden question.
What kind of fellow is Gu Yang-cheon...?
An older brother one year apart in age.
At first, he was a kind and proud person, but at some point, he drastically changed.
And.
The one who witnessed mother's last moments.
Because she was so young, the memories of that time were faint and dreamlike, but Gu Ryeong-hwa clearly knew that Gu Yang-cheon had been there.
Along with their father, Gu Cheol-un.
"..."
"Ryeong-hwa...?"
Gu Ryeong-hwa anxiously gripped the Sword Empress's hand tightly.
"Ahem..."
Seeing that, the Divine Doctor turned his head away.
It seemed there was something he shouldn't have asked about.
"Then where on earth did I see..."
...!
He remembered.
The Divine Doctor remembered who the people were that had the same eyes as the boy.
It was a memory from so long ago that he had temporarily forgotten.
A very long time ago, when he was just starting to make a name for himself as a physician, there were people he was put in charge of treating.
In their eyes lay a bottomless abyss so deep that a human could not possibly harbor it.
They seemed so transcended over death that they appeared to have no lingering attachment to life.
As if to prove it, they ended their own lives shortly after, leaving behind the joy of survival. The eyes they possessed.
"...How does that child have such eyes..."
The Demonic Realm.
Those eyes resembled the eyes of survivors who had made it out of the Demonic Realm alive.
******************
By the time I painstakingly made my way back to the Huashan Sect, the sun had already set.
"It's already night, and I haven't even had dinner."
Upon finding me after I arrived late from finding my way back, Maehwaseon said he was sorry with an apologetic face.
Good heavens, he really forgot about me and left...
Even when I asked what I should do about the Huashan Qi in my body.
'We can't take the Qi out... Since there seems to be no immediate way, wouldn't it be fine to just leave it and pretend not to know?'
He just brushed it off with such a vague excuse.
No, then why did he take me there in the first place...?
In the end, the only things I got out of visiting the Divine Doctor were the unexpected fact that Zhuge Hyuk was the Divine Doctor's grandson, and...
That I was currently on a time limit.
'...Life.'
Nothing ever goes easily for me, ever.
What sins did I commit in my past life...
'I did commit them, a lot...'
Now that I think about it, yeah...
Is this also karma in the end? I tried to take comfort in thinking so, but...
There are just some things that simply don't work.
Just like right now.
"...What exactly is this situation?"
It was a place provided by Huashan for guests.
The guards would be nearby for the night watch, and the attendants would also be in the vicinity.
"But what are you doing here?"
A room of moderate size, neither too big nor too small.
In the middle of it, someone was diligently spreading the bedding.
At first, I thought it was an attendant, but seeing her distinctive hair, I couldn't mistake her.
"What are you doing there?"
The silhouette matched my gaze at the sound of my voice.
Then she tilted her head with an expression asking why I was questioning her.
The one diligently spreading the blankets was Namgung Bi-a.
"The blankets..."
"Why are you, a young lady, doing that...?"
"To sleep?"
"Where... surely not here?"
"Yeah."
"Together?"
"Yeah."
"...Why?"
...Just why?