Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 34 - The Heart Beats (1)

Chapter 34 – The Heart Beats (1)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“You’re saying you’re going to found a merchant company? You don’t mean the kind of merchant company I know, do you?”

The moment we stepped out of the Provincial Administration Commission, Myeong-gyeong pressed me. To think the reputation of the merchant profession had fallen this low. Then again, the history of exalting agriculture as the root occupation and degrading commerce as a minor occupation had been going on since practically ancient times, so it was long enough.

“That’s right. The kind that sells goods.”

“A disciple of Wudang is going to make something so crooked?”

“Why is a merchant company crooked? It’s one of the proper professions. And there is no high or low among occupations.”

“Merchants are people who care only about money and know nothing of righteousness or chivalry. You think I don’t know that?”

“The problem is the person, not the profession.”

“Is this why you told me not to tell Master?”

“Yes.”

“This is fraud!”

“Are you going to speak twice with one mouth? A martial artist of Wudang, no less?”

Myeong-gyeong’s face turned red, and then he suddenly threw himself onto the ground. Naturally, the ground there was covered in sand.

“I’m not going!”

“What am I supposed to do if you suddenly throw a tantrum like this, Senior Brother?”

“I won’t get up until you say you won’t found the merchant company.”

“Then stay here and live here, Senior Brother. I’ll be going first.”

The moment I turned my back, Myeong-gyeong started shouting and thrashing his limbs wildly. Dust flew up and drew the attention of everyone around us. But this was the turning point of the match. If I went to Myeong-gyeong now, that would mean accepting defeat. I bit my lip hard and walked forward.

“Bwaaaaah!”

But Myeong-gyeong wasn’t an easy opponent either. He had started screaming too.

“Oh my, oh my. What could have happened to make that sweet-looking child act like that?”

“He looks too young to be the father. Is he the older brother?”

“Whatever it is, the elder brother seems heartless.”

People always took the side of the weaker one. What made it unfair from my perspective was that Myeong-gyeong wasn’t the weaker one. I faithfully treated him as my senior brother. Setting down his utensils, pouring water, all that was entirely my job. The whispers of people who didn’t know that only made my stomach twist.

I kept walking without hesitation, and soon I turned into an alley where Myeong-gyeong could no longer be seen. Of course, I didn’t go deep into the alley. I intended to wait and see when he would come.

“Hwaaaang…”

The crying that had started as fake crying turned into real crying by the time it reached me. He seemed to think I had really abandoned him. Then again, since he was the senior brother, wasn’t it rather that I, the junior brother, had been abandoned? Still, Myeong-gyeong wasn’t really old enough to think about it that rationally.

“Sigh.”

I hesitated for a moment. In truth, the old me would never have gone back. Registering the merchant company was the core task of this outing.

And yet somehow Myeong-gyeong’s crying stabbed at my heart like an awl. Thinking about it, in my previous life I had never had the chance to form ties with such a young child. It had always been merchants and officials with beards all over their faces.

I took out Wudang’s wooden token from my robe and looked at it. Because I was a lay disciple I had no Daoist name, but the name Muk Hui-yeong was clearly engraved on it. Beneath that, the characters Great Wudang Sect were carved in a grand and forceful hand.

It wasn’t that I felt a sense of belonging to it. I simply repaid grace where grace had been shown. At the very least, Myeong-gyeong had protected me just because I was his junior brother. When Zhuge Yan’s guard had threatened me, he had drawn his sword without hesitation.

In a relationship as meaningless as that of senior and junior brothers, where not a single document was exchanged, how had he been able to act like that? Especially when there had been no reward in it at all, it felt unfamiliar to me.

I turned back around. I left the alley and walked toward the source of Myeong-gyeong’s crying. The crying grew louder and louder.

When I came out of the alley, Myeong-gyeong was sitting alone in the same place and crying. A few people had already gathered around him and were trying to soothe him by giving him sweets and skewers.

“Senior Brother.”

Pushing through the people, I went over to Myeong-gyeong.

When I approached, the surrounding people glared at me sharply.

“Tsk tsk, making such a young child cry.”

“The code of the jianghu has surely fallen to the ground.”

I forced myself to ignore them. The moment I appeared, Myeong-gyeong began sniffling. That meant the tears were gradually stopping.

I pulled Myeong-gyeong up and brushed the sand off his back and his rear. He must even have rolled around while I wasn’t looking, because there was sand all over the front of him too.

“Hic, hngh, hic.”

“I’m sorry, Senior Brother.”

Perhaps because his crying still hadn’t fully stopped, Myeong-gyeong buried his face in my shoulder and poured out the rest of his tears. I held him tightly in my arms and patted his back.

At that moment a man who looked a little past forty spoke to me.

“Young man. Let me say one thing. Don’t do things that will wound a child. You’ll regret it later. Children remember everything.”

The man’s words sounded as though they were carrying some kind of regret. His complexion was haggard too, which made it feel even more so.

I narrowed my eyes. It wasn’t because he had spoken out of turn. It was because he had a face I seemed to have seen somewhere before.

“No, Lord Hyeong.”

“When will you return to your post?”

“You’ve been through much.”

There were others who recognized him before I did. By pure chance, it was Hyeong Tae-seong, the currently absent Registrar. The people of Wuhan recognized Hyeong Tae-seong immediately. I, on the other hand, had only ever seen the older Hyeong Tae-seong, so I hadn’t recognized him at once.

“It seems I spoke unnecessarily. I’ll be going.”

Once people started recognizing him, Hyeong Tae-seong seemed uncomfortable and tried to leave at once. But since I had intended to ask around and find Hyeong Tae-seong’s home anyway, I had no intention of letting this chance go.

“Not at all, my lord. Your words are as good as gold and jade.”

I cupped my fist first and lowered my head deeply.

“Though I’m not from Wuhan, I have heard of your great name from afar. It is truly an honor to meet you like this.”

“Ahem, I see. In that case, treat the child well.”

Perhaps burdened by my sudden change, Hyeong Tae-seong coughed awkwardly. He looked eager to get away as quickly as possible, but I chased after him with Myeong-gyeong on my back.

“My lord. Your brows are heavy with worry. Do you perhaps know the Way?”

“Are you from Wudang?”

“I’m a person of the Wudang Sect, yes.”

“I thought I’d seen that outfit somewhere. So you’re a man of the martial world.”

Hyeong Tae-seong didn’t even turn to look at me. He was clearly uncomfortable that I kept following him at his side.

“I’m sorry, but stop following me. I’ve been very busy lately.”

“Because of your daughter, I presume?”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t know my daughter is sick?”

I supposed there wouldn’t be. Around this time, after all, an epidemic had spread through Hubei. It was only because I had been in the clear air and isolation of Wudang Mountain that I hadn’t seen any of the sick myself.

“But there probably wasn’t anyone who knew how to cure it.”

At my words, Hyeong Tae-seong stopped dead. Only then did he turn to look at me.

“…Are you another one of that type?”

“What do you mean, that type?”

“Those damned quacks who say they can cure my daughter’s illness and then take only the money.”

Hyeong Tae-seong’s eyes filled with hostility. There must have been plenty of such people around him.

“I’m a man of Wudang. I’m not one of those quacks.”

“Hmph. The physicians recommended by martial artists were the same. They all said the same things.”

“I can cure your daughter’s illness.”

“They all said that too. If that were true, the epidemic wouldn’t have spread this far.”

“That’s true. But all of them called it a yin syndrome, didn’t they?”

At my words, Hyeong Tae-seong flinched.

Illnesses could be divided according to the concept of yin and yang, into yang syndromes and yin syndromes. Yang syndromes were conditions of extreme activity and excess. Yin syndromes were conditions of extreme decline and exhaustion.

At around this time, the epidemic in Hubei had caused a great many deaths. The reason was that the physicians who treated it had mistaken the symptoms.

“The whole body should have felt as cold as ice, the mouth and tongue should have been dry, she should have kept sighing, the throat should have been swollen, and the chest and abdomen should have been puffed up. If you pressed on the swollen places, she would have said it hurt. Even after drinking water, the thirst wouldn’t go away, and the color of the urine would have been red.”

“…That’s right. But if the whole body is cold as ice, then how can it not be a yin syndrome?”

“Because it isn’t.”

Of course, I wasn’t a physician either, so I didn’t know the exact details. I simply remembered it because it had remained famous for a long time as a case of medical failure.

“Then you’re saying you can cure it?”

“Yes.”

I hesitated slightly, but I forced my voice into the tone of absolute certainty. In moments like this, even when something looked uncertain, one had to speak with certainty. That was how opportunities were seized.

“…And if you can’t, you’ll have to take responsibility.”

Hyeong Tae-seong practically spat that out, then led us all the way back to his home.

At the front gate of the house, there was even a sacred rope strung with red peppers and white paper strips. It seemed they had even called in a shaman because the illness wouldn’t be cured.

“Come in.”

Being careful not to touch the sacred rope, we entered.

Inside the room, a young girl was shivering beneath a thick cotton blanket, sweating heavily. When I crouched and wiped her sweat with a finger, it was as cold as ice water. The symptoms were exactly the same as the ones I knew.

“Many physicians have come and given prescriptions, but it simply wouldn’t get better.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. They probably prescribed Aconite Decoction to strengthen her yang qi.”

“Are you truly not a physician? How do you know so much?”

“I’m not. I simply know about this illness.”

I pretended to know as much as possible. To be honest, even I would have thought it was a yin syndrome. If the body was this cold, then what else would it be?

But I decided to trust my memory. As I remembered it, this wasn’t a yin syndrome but rather physical reversal, a condition where a yin pulse appeared in what was actually a yang syndrome.

The reason so many people had died was because it had been mistaken for a yin syndrome, and treatments that supplemented yang qi, like Aconite Decoction or moxibustion on the dantian, had been used instead.

I slowly searched my memory for how physical reversal had been treated.

“First, we need to use a purging method to expel the toxic matter from the body, and then prescribe medicinal ingredients with a cold nature.”

“The physicians all said under no circumstances to use purging methods…”

If you thought it was a yin syndrome, then of course you would say that. In a condition of physical decline, draining the body’s strength further would damage the fundamental qi and bring the patient closer to death.

But this was a yang syndrome. The body’s force had become too excessive, so it had to be drained.

“Please trust me just once.”

Hyeong Tae-seong and I met each other’s gaze. After studying my eyes closely, he slowly nodded.

“Fine. What do you need me to do?”

“First, I think we need to induce diarrhea with Benefiting the Stomach Decoction. It would also be even better if we can make her sweat and vomit.”

“Understood.”

What I knew was a common purging method. I also had a fair amount of medical knowledge myself. As a merchant, I had traveled through many places, so I was familiar with all sorts of local illnesses, and I had also brewed a good number of medicinal soups.

“While using the purging method, we will prepare Bupleurum and Poria Decoction. Go to the pharmacy and get licorice root, cinnamon heart, pinellia, white atractylodes, bupleurum, ginseng, polyporus, alisma, and skullcap.”

Hyeong Tae-seong nodded at once and ran straight outside. Myeong-gyeong, who had stopped crying by now, looked back and forth between me and the girl with a worried expression.

“Junior Brother. You know medicine too? Won’t it be a disaster if you do this wrong?”

“It’ll be fine.”

I reassured Myeong-gyeong and then proceeded with the purging method.

Purging meant expelling toxins by inducing sweat, vomiting, and diarrhea. Once I carried it out, the cold energy in the body definitely subsided somewhat. It felt as though the toxic energy in her body was being driven out.

As I was in the middle of this, hurried footsteps sounded from outside. Hyeong Tae-seong had already returned.

Breathing hard, Hyeong Tae-seong opened the door.

“I’ve brought them. What should I do with them?”

“Boil them with three pun of licorice root, seven pun of pinellia, seven and a half pun of white atractylodes, one jeon and six pun of bupleurum, six pun of ginseng, seven and a half pun each of polyporus and cinnamon heart, one jeon and three pun of alisma, and six pun of skullcap.”

“Understood.”

“Also, it’s better not to have too many people around while treating the illness, so please have the child here relay things for you.”

Myeong-gyeong seemed displeased at being called a child, but he also seemed to know this wasn’t the time for tantrums, so he stayed quiet.

Before long, a well-brewed Bupleurum and Poria Decoction came in from outside. The girl was unconscious, but thankfully she still swallowed what we let drip into her mouth.

As time passed, there was definite improvement. After some time of nursing her, warmth gradually returned to the girl’s body.

At this point, all that remained was to call Hyeong Tae-seong in. Last of all, I took the girl’s pulse. When using purging methods, it was important to check the pulse, since the patient could die from dehydration or exhaustion.

But the moment I grabbed her wrist, I felt something strange within her body. It wasn’t the pulse. It was a current of qi.

It was a strange sensation. The qi inside the girl’s body was resonating with the qi in my own dantian.

Since my regression, I had never once trained a heart method. Then that meant this wasn’t qi I had accumulated, but rather primordial life qi, the source of life itself. That qi felt familiar, as though I had experienced it somewhere before.

“Junior Brother?”

Myeong-gyeong must have felt the strange qi too, because he spoke.

The qi in my body and the qi in the girl’s body began rising at the same time. I tried to pull my hand away from her wrist, but for some reason it clung fast as though glued there.

I couldn’t even open my mouth. It felt as though if I opened it now, my primordial life qi would pour out through my lips.

Then I remembered where I had felt this qi before.

It was the qi that had briefly filled my body right before I died in my previous life, when I had swallowed the Divine Demon Pill.