Chapter 443: Blood Splattered.
Murong Bai was assembling a fan while looking at the blueprint on his desk.
The components were made of steel that would not be cut by most blades, and consisted of a frame shaped like an elongated box, several thick steel needles, small beads, and the like.
The blueprint had been drawn by Murong Bai himself.
But all the steel components had been made at the Dragon Head Ironworks. This was a weapon he had already commissioned four times and failed to complete; this was the fifth attempt.
It was true that the skill of the Dragon Head Ironworks was improving by the day, but since they had never made a steel fan before, it could not be helped.
As Murong Bai fitted the first steel needle into the lower part of the steel frame, he smiled faintly.
‘Smooth.’
Thanks to the previous failures, the components were much better finished this time.
Without looking at the blueprint, he inserted the steel components one by one, overlaid thick paper on top, and fixed it in place with thin needles whose tips had been blunted. Just like that, it became an iron fan. Later, once he painted it white after his own name, it would be a weapon called the White Fan.
In truth, it was awkward for a physician to carry a weapon.
But seeing patients while holding a fan was far more natural than doing so with a sword at one’s waist, so it was highly suitable as a physician’s unique weapon.
After finishing the assembly, he examined the tips of the steel needles. As he had requested, the insides of the steel needles were hollow. He turned the iron fan over and examined the problematic handle.
There was a groove in the center of the lower end, and he placed a small bead inside it and closed the cover. Then he looked at the opening of the handle and picked up the medicine bottle he had prepared in advance.
Murong Bai spoke toward the outside.
“No one is to come in for a moment.”
“Yes, understood.”
Murong Bai poured the green poison powder he had made into the opening, then hurriedly closed the cover.
It was not a lethal poison, but he was careful because the medical women could collapse if they smelled it.
The principle was simple.
When the steel bead moved within the narrow space, the poison would be pushed outside through the hollow needles. Naturally, the bead had to be moved with internal energy, and because of the heat from that internal energy, it would spread in the form of dispersed poison.
Simply put, it was a weapon that could spread poison mist with the breeze of a fan.
The poison he had used this time was called Drunken Dream Powder, a sort of sleeping drug Murong Bai had personally made.
How could he, a physician, face every person of the jianghu with martial arts alone? As that Sect Leader bastard had warned, one always had to be careful in order to survive in the jianghu. Murong Bai folded the steel fan, gripped it, rose to his feet, rotated his wrist, and smiled slightly.
‘It has some weight to it.’
Recalling the battle he had witnessed at Mount Hua, he swung the heavy fan.
He pointlessly swung the fan at an imaginary enemy, then opened it wide and leisurely fluttered it.
If that imaginary opponent were an enemy now...
They would inhale the Drunken Dream Powder that had begun to spread from the fan, stagger, or collapse unconscious on the spot.
Imagining his enemies falling one by one, Murong Bai murmured in a small voice.
“You underestimated this Murong.”
Though he had only muttered softly, Baek Soa outside answered.
“Did you call?”
“I was talking to myself.”
“Yes.”
Murong Bai opened the window to ventilate the room, then left and closed the door. Watching the medical women busily moving about to close up, Murong Bai said,
“Today, let us go to that Sect Leader bastard’s inn and have dinner. We’ll drink a little too.”
When even the medical women farther away cheered, Murong Bai let out a slight sigh.
“Do you like Zaha Inn that much?”
“Yes!”
The medical women tidied up the clinic while shouting pork whole-bone like a call-and-response chant.
“Pork!”
“Whole-bone!”
While the medical women were cleaning up, Murong Bai stepped outside first and slowly looked around with the iron fan in hand. Since people of the jianghu occasionally came as patients, caution had become ingrained in him. He made a circuit around the clinic, pulling weeds as he went, and when he returned to the front gate, he heard someone’s voice.
“...Physician Murong?”
As soon as Murong Bai heard the voice, he turned around with his back to the front gate. Five or six people of the jianghu came crowding over and stopped in front of him.
Murong Bai asked,
“Is someone injured?”
The reason he asked was that he saw no one poisoned or wounded. Looking them over, he recognized none of their faces, and their attire and atmosphere were not those of people from around here.
An unpleasant feeling immediately came over him.
Unusually, one man was carrying a shield on his back like a tortoise shell.
The man carrying the shield opened his mouth.
“Are Heuk Soryeong and Baek Soa inside?”
Murong Bai tilted his head.
“For what reason do you ask?”
Murong Bai’s tone had already changed.
When the man carrying the shield pointed to a middle-aged man, the middle-aged man spoke.
“Tell me first whether they are here or not.”
“They are.”
The middle-aged man gave a cold smile. The men who had come swarming in checked one another’s faces, and all wore similar expressions.
Murong Bai sighed inwardly, but he was diligently assessing the weapons the men carried, their air, and the level of their martial arts.
The middle-aged man said,
“Are you keeping them as medical women?”
“That is correct.”
The middle-aged man nodded.
“This may be sudden, but those two swindled me before.”
Because Murong Bai had roughly heard about the past from the Black-White Sisters, he replied without any sign of surprise.
“At the martial duel gambling hall?”
“So you know. Before a duel with Dongfang Yan, they drugged my liquor. To think that those who used to drug drinks at a gambling hall are now handling medicine in a clinic. I’m so dumbfounded I can hardly speak.”
By now, the pork whole-bone chant that had been flowing out in chorus from inside Murong Clinic had also stopped.
Murong Bai asked,
“What do you want?”
“If one commits fraud, it is the way of the jianghu to be punished. They can pay it back with money. If they have no money, they can pay it back with their bodies. They were not women belonging to Murong Clinic in the first place, so I hope you do not make this into a bigger matter.”
Murong Bai replied,
“Do you know that Murong Clinic belongs to the Haomun? No matter what they did in the past, those two were personally taken in by the Sect Leader and entrusted to me, so I cannot hand them over carelessly.”
The middle-aged man let out a sigh.
“Because of that Haomun Sect Leader, I came after thoroughly investigating the surroundings. I know he is absent right now. I also know that you are close to the Haomun Sect Leader, but if you hand over only those two women, we will withdraw without incident. It isn’t as if the Haomun Sect Leader will appear here this instant, after all. Must we really smash down the door by force, go in, grab them by the hair, and drag them out?”
Murong Bai sighed.
“How unfortunate.”
In truth, Murong Bai had been training diligently in martial arts all this time, so he was not afraid of them. What Murong Bai feared was the folly of having learned medicine to save people, only to kill people with those same hands.
In other words, more than these bastards, Murong Bai feared himself.
Still, he had not expected men of the jianghu to barge in like this on the very day he first laced the White Fan with poison, and start talking about grudges involving Hei Xiaoling and Bai Xiao’e.
After briefly sorting out his thoughts, Murong Bai opened his mouth.
“Gentlemen, I understand that you feel wronged. But they are young women entrusted to me by the Gate Master, and they are also female physicians I am teaching, so I cannot accept that request. If you leave as you are, I will let this pass quietly without informing Haomun.”
The men who had swarmed in laughed.
“That damned Haomun.”
“We’ll just take the girls and leave for somewhere far away too.”
Murong Bai replied.
“And if I refuse?”
The middle-aged man glared at Murong Bai.
“Then you’ll have to take a beating today. There are plenty of female physicians here, so they’ll treat your broken bones well enough.”
For some reason, a chuckle kept slipping from the corners of Murong Bai’s mouth.
“You look down on Haomun, and you look down on me too.”
In an exceedingly brief instant, the words that bastard Gate Master had spoken flashed past as if he had only just heard them.
‘Train in martial arts for your own sake, Doctor. So that when you fall into one of life’s traps, you can leap out of it on your own. Murong Bai, that is my small wish.’
When Murong Bai’s air changed in an instant, the men of the jianghu drew their respective weapons as well.
Murong Bai spread open his iron fan and looked at them.
“That bastard Gate Master was right. I mustn’t let myself be beaten easily by scum like you. Why are you taking out your losses from rigged gambling on Hei Xiaoling and Bai Xiao’e? The two of them had no power at the time. Rather, the Gate Master beat to death the ones who gave the orders, so shouldn’t you be grateful to Haomun?”
Now even the rough tone came smoothly.
There was no way these bastards did not understand such reasoning. It was not hard to tell that they were using the rigged gambling as an excuse to take away the good-looking Hei Xiaoling and Bai Xiao’e.
One of them said with a laugh.
“A physician bastard is acting quite like an expert.”
When everyone except the middle-aged man rushed in at once, Murong Bai retreated, then blocked an incoming blade with his iron fan.
A metallic clang burst out at once, and force traveled into his wrist.
The middle-aged man, watching, laughed.
“So the physician bastard learned martial arts. Draw some blood from his arms and legs.”
“Yes.”
Murong Bai infused internal energy into his iron fan and fought as earnestly as he did when treating a patient. In the middle of the fight, it felt as if that bastard Gate Master was chattering beside him.
‘The Yihua Jiemu Divine Art fundamentally requires you to know all the acupoint-striking techniques. For self-defense, an iron fan would be better.’
Murong Bai had trained in the Yihua Jiemu Divine Art delivered to him by the White-Clad Scholar. Naturally, he had no real combat experience. However, as he dodged the incoming blades and clashed shield and iron fan, he began to see the openings of the men of the jianghu. After exchanging a few more moves, the middle-aged man watching from the side also entered his field of vision.
Seeing it this way.
It seemed the man intended to observe his techniques and then step in at the end.
Murong Bai naturally compared the middle-aged man’s level with the internal energy he himself had accumulated. The moment he thought he ought to conserve his strength, he instead moved toward where the middle-aged man stood, busily working his iron fan.
All while he had already briefly stopped his breathing……
As the distance narrowed, the middle-aged man suddenly stepped forward and thrust a palm strike at Murong Bai’s back.
Murong Bai answered with his left palm, then used the grafting technique to change the direction, and the man charging in from the side was struck by the palm force instead.
Thud!
At the same time, he struck the Jianjing acupoint of the man pressing in from the right with his iron fan, then fluttered the fan as he retreated.
The men who had been chasing after him one after another suddenly collapsed where they stood, all pitching forward.
The middle-aged man started in shock and looked at Murong Bai while holding his breath.
Murong Bai ventilated the surrounding air with the iron fan, without infusing it with internal energy, and met the middle-aged man’s eyes.
“What?”
“…….”
“Surprised that a physician can fight well?”
As Murong Bai approached, the middle-aged man forced his eyes wide and glared at him.
When the middle-aged man let out a battle cry and launched his final counterattack, Murong Bai brought the iron fan down vertically on his skull.
Thwack!
The middle-aged man collapsed to the ground and fainted just like that.
Murong Bai looked at the fallen men of the jianghu, then laughed in disbelief.
“Absurd. You people underestimated this Murong nobody.”
With a creak, Hei Xiaoling and Bai Xiao’e poked their heads out from the main gate of the Murong Medical House.
“Teacher, is it over?”
“There is still Drunken Dream Powder in the air, so don’t come out.”
“Yes. Are you all right, Teacher?”
“I have some resistance.”
It could not be helped if one was to research poison. Murong Bai, who had been fanning the empty air, stared blankly at the fallen men.
What should he do with these bastards?
Drunken Dream Powder was not a deadly poison. In any case, they would come to their senses. While he was wondering what to do with the men of the jianghu, Bai Xiao’e asked.
“Is Zixia Inn canceled today?”
Murong Bai shook his head.
“No, we should go. Get ready.”
“Yes.”
Murong Bai was kicking away the weapons of the men of the jianghu when his temper suddenly flared, and he stepped on the ankle of one of the unconscious men, crushing it.
“Gaaah!”
The man of the jianghu regained consciousness from the surging pain, and Murong Bai brought the iron fan down on the crown of his head again.
Thwack!
What in the world was this emotion?
He was angry yet annoyed, annoyed yet indignant.
He was furious again that they had ignored him even though he had given them a chance to leave.
He was furious that they had tried to take Hei Xiaoling and Bai Xiao’e away with wicked intentions.
And yet, beating them all to death right here did not sit well with him either.
All sorts of feelings made his chest seethe.
In the end, Murong Bai stepped on and broke the ankles of all the men of the jianghu, and whenever one woke up, he struck him on the crown with the iron fan. The last one he hit seemed to have had his forehead split open with a thwack, and blood lightly spattered his pure white clothes.
Murong Bai stared blankly at the blood on his white robe, then let out a sigh.
He recalled the sight of that bastard Gate Master coming in covered in blood before.
A thought occurred to him.
That he had only pretended to understand that bastard Gate Master’s feelings.
Only now did he feel he understood what the Gate Master’s heart had been like.
Murong Bai laughed with a sour expression and muttered.
“……I’m angry. I’m angry.”
After tucking the iron fan at his waist, he opened the main gate of the Murong Medical House and said to the female physicians.
“Girls.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
Murong Bai said.
“Let’s go drink.”
The female physicians came pouring out and asked.
“What about those people?”
“They’re people who broke their legs rushing over here, so I don’t know. Leave them. For now, let’s go and discuss it with the Great Master.”
Murong Bai took the medical women and set off for Zixia Inn, intending for the time being to eat, drink, and take refuge there. He had a feeling they would have to move the Murong Medical House next to Zixia Inn.
After walking a short distance, Murong Bai said,
“Wait a moment.”
“Yes.”
Murong Bai went back to the unconscious middle-aged man and rummaged through his clothes. He pulled out a weighty money pouch, then shook it and showed it to the medical women.
“Today, we’ll drink with this.”
Had this entangled him once again in the affairs of the jianghu? Murong Bai could not know. But on the way to Zixia Inn, he resolved one thing.
That from now on, he would train in martial arts far more harshly than he had until now.
Because this was the jianghu, where one could not survive without fighting from one’s own place.