=========================================
SERIES: Return of the Divine Thief
CHAPTER 10: Return of the Divine Thief
=========================================
Return of the Divine Thief - Chapter 10
On a bed draped with silk curtains, the Elder of the Heuk family tightly held the hand of his daughter, who lay with a deathly pale complexion.
Despite the efforts of renowned doctors and costly medicines, the child's life was fading day by day, like a guttering candle.
“Aran… Aran, are you awake….”
The child, lacking even the strength to answer, could only furrow her brow faintly.
At the sight, the Elder’s heart burned to ash.
As an Elder of the Daewung Lodge, he was as sharp as a blade before his subordinates, but in front of his daughter, he was nothing more than a helpless man.
Just then, a steward announced urgently from the doorway.
“Elder! Doctor Hwa has arrived!”
The Elder shot up from his seat as if he had met his savior and rushed to the entrance.
Muryang’s appearance as he entered the room was the same as yesterday, but to the Elder’s eyes, he seemed to be bathed in a halo.
“Doctor! Welcome! My, my daughter’s condition…!”
Muryang remained unfazed by the Elder’s frantic state.
He hushed him, bringing an index finger to his lips and silencing the commotion in the room.
“Haste is the greatest enemy of healing, Elder. The demon of illness despises tranquility. First, I must read the flow of energy enveloping this room.”
Muryang strolled slowly around the room, as if he were seeing it for the first time.
He tapped a priceless vase and touched the leaf of an orchid by the window.
Heedless of the Elder’s burning anxiety, his movements were utterly unhurried.
After surveying the room for a long while, Muryang finally approached the bed.
He gently placed three fingers on the child’s bloodless wrist.
Muryang glanced back and forth between the child’s faint pulse and the Elder’s desperate expression.
After a deep silence, Muryang spoke with a sigh.
“Hmm… This is strange.”
“W-What do you mean, strange? Please, just tell me straight!”
“This child’s body is empty. It is like a desert where all life force has dried up, but the source of the drought that created this desert is not here.”
Muryang turned from the bed to look directly into the eyes of the Elder, who was trembling with anxiety.
“Elder. This sickness… does not belong to this child.”
“W-What does that mean…?”
“This is a sickness known as the ‘Shadow Sickness.’ Normally, when one is near those with strong yin or malevolent energy, that energy can be transferred. However, if the target is too strong, the energy is repelled and latches onto the weakest vessel nearby.”
Muryang’s finger pointed directly at the Elder.
“The true owner of this sickness… is you, Elder Heuk.”
“Me…? You mean me? The malevolent energy directed at me went to Aran…?”
“Precisely. Your powerful and solid internal energy must have struck down the malevolent energy like a rockslide. But the fragments of that wicked aura do not simply vanish. The repelled shards of the curse seek out the one with the deepest connection and the weakest energy. Your strength, paradoxically, is driving your beloved to her death.”
“H-How can that be…!”
The Elder’s face went beyond shock, turning deathly pale.
Guilt and terror froze his heart.
To think that his beloved daughter was dying because of his own power—the very power that was the source of all he had achieved.
“Tell me, what, what in the world must I do!”
“Do you want to save your daughter?”
“Of course!”
“At any cost?”
“Even if it costs me my life!”
At that, Muryang grinned and spoke.
“Good. Then first, throw away your sword.”
“…What did you say?”
Stunned by the unexpected words, the Elder was speechless.
Muryang looked at the Elder as if he were pathetic and continued.
“Are my words so difficult to understand? Then again… to a warrior who has spent his entire life thinking only of cutting people down with a sword, the logic of saving a life must seem as distant as the stars in the sky.”
“……”
“Elder, have you ever raised a precious orchid?”
When the Elder furrowed his brow at the random question, Muryang continued without waiting for an answer.
“That child is like a precious and fragile snow orchid. A delicate life that can barely bloom even when fed only pure dew and touched only by clean winds.”
Muryang gestured around the room with his finger.
“But look at this estate now. Does this look like a garden where pure energy flows? The clash of swords all day, the stench of blood on your clothes, the resentful screams and killing intent. This is no different from planting an orchid in a gutter and then demanding to know why it doesn’t produce a beautiful flower.”
The analogy was so scathing that the Elder could not find a single word in rebuttal.
“Then… what, what am I supposed to do….”
“The prescription is simple.”
Muryang cleared his throat primly and said.
“First, melt down your sword and forge a hoe. Second, put brushes in the hands of the ruffians who frequent this estate and have them all recite poetry together. Third, for every person you harm from now on, you will plant a tree on the mountain behind your house. By the time that mountain has become a lush forest, won’t the child’s sickness be washed away as if it never existed?”
At the absurd prescription—he couldn't tell if it was a joke or serious—despair spread across the Elder’s face like a swamp.
It was no different from being told to just lie down and die.
“……”
“It’s to save your daughter. You can’t do it?”
“…It’s not a matter of whether I can or can’t. If I do that, I’ll be cast out of the Daewung Lodge. After that, things will become very difficult.”
At the Elder’s reply, Muryang sighed.
“It seems you truly do not love your daughter.”
In that instant, the Elder unleashed his killing intent.
“Doctor Hwa. Take that back.”
But Muryang just clicked his tongue and continued.
“I just repeatedly warned you to avoid malevolent energy, yet you spew killing intent next to the child just because you heard something you don’t like.”
The Elder was taken aback by the doctor’s audacity.
And for good reason. Even those who had spent their entire lives in the underworld feared his murderous gaze.
Yet this doctor not only met his gaze head-on but was even criticizing him scathingly.
“Ughn……”
Just then, Aran shifted uncomfortably.
“Ah, Aran! I’m sorry, it’s okay, it’s okay. Please, look after our Aran.”
Muryang sighed and replied.
“We’ll continue our discussion shortly. For now, please leave.”
“You want me to leave?”
Muryang replied as he took out his medical tools.
“Didn’t the child’s symptoms worsen because you were spewing your killing intent? Tsk.”
“…Th-That was my mistake. But must I really leave?”
At the Elder’s question, Muryang’s hand, which had been taking out his medical tools, paused.
“If you don’t want to, then I’ll leave.”
“Ah, I understand.”
He couldn’t let the divine doctor he had gone to such lengths to bring here leave just like that.
Once the Elder declared his surrender, Muryang began to lay out his medical tools again.
“Do not let anyone in until I say it is done. Absolutely no one.”
* * *
After Elder Heuk reluctantly stepped outside and the door closed, a heavy silence fell upon the room.
The look in Muryang's eyes, which had been part of his act as an arrogant eccentric for Elder Heuk, changed instantly.
Gone was any trace of playfulness. These were the eyes of a doctor.
He first took another careful look at Heuk Aran, who was lying on the bed.
Her breath, faint as if it could be extinguished at any moment; her cheeks, pale as if they would crumble to dust; and the shadow of death that enveloped her entire body.
‘Her innate true qi is too weak.’
Innate true qi is the source of life, inherited from one's parents at birth.
Heuk Aran had been born with this fundamental power in a fragile state.
But that wasn't the only problem.
Muryang closed his eyes and focused on the flow of qi.
In his senses, Heuk Aran's body appeared just as precarious as it looked.
‘The vessel of qi in her dantian is cracked. Her life force is constantly leaking through that tiny fissure.’
With a broken vessel, no matter how potent the medicine, it was like pouring water into a cracked jar.
The child was frail to begin with; it was only natural for her health to decline when the mansion was overflowing with noxious energy.
“In a way, I suppose this was inevitable. Ordinary doctors can only see the withered leaves; they would have no way of finding the rotting roots.”
Muryang clicked his tongue and took out a handspan-long Seven Star Needle from his medicine box.
His movements were without a hint of hesitation.
The first needle went into the Qihai acupoint on her dantian, known as the gate of life. The second was placed in the Zhongwan acupoint, which governs the circulation of qi.
The needles left his hand and embedded themselves silently in their precise locations, as if they were living creatures.
His true skill wasn't in his speed.
With each placement of a needle, he drew out his internal energy into a fine thread and channeled it through the needle's tip.
This was to gently envelop and stitch the cracks in the broken vessel, so as not to harm her weak true qi.
When all seven needles were in place, the faint stream of qi that had been leaking from the child's body finally stopped.
He had put out the most urgent fire, for now.
“Huuu.”
Muryang carefully placed his palm on Heuk Aran's abdomen.
Now it was time to cleanse the noxious energy clinging to the child's body with his own true qi.
It was an act that required Muryang's utmost concentration.
He carefully sent a stream of his internal energy into the child's body.
It was at that very moment.
‘……!’
Something unexpected happened.
A power entirely different from what Muryang had intended began to stir within his body.
It felt as if an ancient dragon, long lost in a deep slumber, was awakening.
It was the mysterious internal energy gifted to him by the old man in the scroll!
‘Why is this thing acting on its own again…!’
Regardless of Muryang's will, the internal energy surged fiercely through his palm and into Heuk Aran's body.
The amount itself was minuscule.
But the energy it contained was on a wholly different level from the gentle, stream-like neigong Muryang had intended to send—it was a power like a great river.
Muryang broke out in a cold sweat without realizing it.
He feared that the body of a child as fragile as Heuk Aran might not be able to handle this immense power and could simply burst.
But his fears were unfounded.
The internal energy was far from destructive.
It was an energy of extreme purity, one that felt gentle and benevolent, as if it could embrace all things.
Ssshhh…….
An astonishing sight unfolded.
The damp, cold, noxious energies clinging to every part of Heuk Aran's meridians began to melt away like spring snow the moment the old man's neigong touched them.
It wasn't simply pushing it out. It was closer to annihilation, to purification.
Furthermore, it was like watching murky, muddy water meet a clear spring and regain its original purity.
The noxious energy vanished without a trace, and in its place, only a clear, warm energy remained.
How much time had passed?
When there was no more noxious energy left to purify, the old man's neigong receded like the tide without a hint of reluctance, sinking back into the depths of Muryang's dantian.
Muryang stared blankly, his gaze shifting between his own palm and Heuk Aran, who now slept with a peaceful expression.
A healthy, rosy color, not the pallor of sickness, was faintly blooming on the child's cheeks.
The brow that had been faintly furrowed in pain was now relaxed and smooth.
Like a child who had just woken from a long nightmare.
‘Just what… is the true nature of this internal energy?’
Muryang couldn't comprehend the power that resided within his body.
A power of purification, not destruction. A life-giving energy, not a killing intent.
It wasn't a simple matter of a high or low level of martial arts, or a large or small amount of internal energy.
The very essence of the power, its level, was different.
0 Comments