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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: 13화
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Thwack!
Ilhwa slapped her hand away.
The Medical Hall Master’s eyes widened, having been about to take her pulse.
But Ilhwa looked at her with even greater vigilance.
‘If she’s Hyeolma’s person, it’s dangerous.’
This was the woman known as Dokwol.
As skilled as she was in pharmacology, she was equally adept at using poisons.
‘If this woman is a spy for the Blood Sect, she might try to kill me.’
Hyeolma was not the kind of person to forgive traitors; he would kill them by any means necessary.
Seop Mugwang and the Medical Hall Master, unaware of her thoughts, exchanged puzzled glances before looking back at her.
“Kid. We need to take your pulse to know what’s wrong.”
“I’m not sick. I don’t need my pulse taken.”
“She says she’s fine?”
Seop Mugwang sighed, scratching the bridge of his nose.
“Step aside.”
The Medical Hall Master stepped aside, and Seop Mugwang knelt in front of Ilhwa, meeting her gaze.
Ilhwa, who had been glaring sharply at the Medical Hall Master, met his eyes.
“Kid. I’m sorry we brought you here without your consent, but please get examined. This lady, despite how she looks, is quite skilled…”
“Oh, would you mind calling me ‘older sister’?”
“Enough!”
“My, you’re so full of vigor, aren’t you?”
Seop Mugwang clicked his tongue in annoyance, then tried to persuade Ilhwa again.
“Let’s just get your pulse checked, just in case. I know you’re extraordinary, but you haven’t eaten properly or rested for days, so you never know.”
“I…”
“If you behave, I’ll let you eat as much Tanghuru as you like.”
At Seop Mugwang’s words, Ilhwa’s vigilance wavered.
It wasn’t because of the Tanghuru.
The fact that this woman was the Blood Sect’s Medical Hall Master was something only she knew, so she simply lacked a good reason to refuse outright.
‘Since Seop Mugwang is here, Dokwol won’t be able to do anything for now.’
Ilhwa reluctantly nodded.
Seop Mugwang chuckled, lightly ruffled her hair, then stood up and moved aside.
The Medical Hall Master sat down in front of her again.
“May I have your arm?”
Ilhwa extended her arm to her.
The Medical Hall Master smiled faintly, took Ilhwa’s arm, and began to take her pulse.
She then gently closed her eyes, focusing on the pulse.
Silence fell.
“...!”
Seop Mugwang, who had been watching with his arms crossed from the side, suddenly reached out between Ilhwa and the Medical Hall Master.
The Medical Hall Master opened her eyes in surprise.
But she couldn’t move.
Ilhwa’s hand was already gripping her neck.
“Let go.”
“This woman tried to kill me.”
“It was just a normal pulse examination.”
“She moved her internal energy.”
“That’s Choryeon’s method. She must have been trying to examine your meridians using internal energy.”
“...”
Ilhwa’s gaze fiercely pierced the Medical Hall Master.
Examining meridians using internal energy.
She already knew that this was her method. And that it was a common method used by ordinary physicians, not just her.
However, even knowing this, Ilhwa grabbing her neck was a form of warning, in case she was Hyeolma’s subordinate.
A warning that said, ‘I can kill you at any time.’
Though she backed down at Seop Mugwang’s words, she couldn't afford to show any weakness.
A suffocating tension hung heavy in the air.
Ilhwa’s grip on the Medical Hall Master’s neck slowly loosened.
As Ilhwa completely released her neck, the Medical Hall Master’s legs gave out, and she slumped to the ground.
“Quite… a sharp-clawed child, isn’t she…?”
The Medical Hall Master composed her slightly ragged breath, touching her now-chilled neck.
Seop Mugwang and Ilhwa were still in a standoff.
“If you don’t suppress your killing intent, the inner hall warriors will burst in within a ban-gak (7-8 minutes).”
Ilhwa’s killing intent slowly began to subside.
Seop Mugwang watched her with a stern expression.
‘She reached out the moment the Medical Hall Master moved her internal energy.’
If he hadn’t stopped her, the Medical Hall Master’s neck would have been twisted in an instant.
He had felt it when she dealt with the Black Faction thugs as well; once this child decided to kill, she showed no mercy in her actions.
As if she had killed quite a number of people before.
The killing intent emanating from the child was also so dense that it couldn’t be felt from an ordinary assassin.
It felt as if she was cloaked in the blood and resentment of thousands, tens of thousands of people.
What kind of life she had lived, he couldn’t possibly fathom.
‘...’
In the meantime, the killing intent completely vanished, and Ilhwa returned to the aura of an ordinary child.
“I’ll go back first.”
Seop Mugwang nodded, releasing Ilhwa’s arm.
“Go to the Cheongaekwon.”
“Yes.”
Ilhwa bowed to him, then walked out of the Medical Hall with a composed stride.
The Medical Hall Master stared blankly at her.
“How was it?”
“...?”
“The kid, I mean. Is she healthy?”
The Medical Hall Master let out a huff, then stood up, dusting off her clothes.
“Where did you pick up such a stray cat?”
“Do you think she can be tamed?”
“I don’t know. That depends on you, Grand Master.”
Seop Mugwang let out a chuckle.
“Why? Isn’t she the one you brought here, Grand Master?”
“I did bring her here, yes.”
But taming her isn’t my job.
“So, is she healthy or not?”
“I don’t know. I only examined her for too short a time. But…”
A strange expression appeared on the Medical Hall Master’s face as she looked at the door Ilhwa had exited.
“She seems to have eaten something unusual recently?”
“...!”
Seop Mugwang’s lips curled into a smile.
“It seems you’re not in that position for nothing, after all.”
“What’s with that? Even if I look like this, I was once the physician in charge of the Son of Heaven, you know.”
“You were probably just a minion.”
“Same difference.”
The Medical Hall Master rubbed her stiff neck.
“Anyway, bring her back later. I need to properly examine her.”
“Examine what?”
“Something’s a bit…”
The Medical Hall Master looked down at her hand.
Though it was only for a very brief moment, she felt an unusual energy in the child’s body when she examined her with internal energy.
“How do I put it, like explosives about to detonate? Or a stone wall on the verge of collapsing? I need more time to figure it out properly. Bring her back soon.”
Seop Mugwang frowned.
It wasn’t a very good assessment.
“Understood.”
Seop Mugwang stared blankly at the spot where the child had been.
Should I report this to the Family Head?
After a moment of contemplation, he activated his qinggong and left the Medical Hall.
* * *
Returning to the Cheongaekwon, Ilhwa headed towards the pond within its grounds.
Next to a chair by the pond, there was koi food.
She grabbed a handful of koi food and scattered it into the pond. Instantly, koi as large as Ilhwa’s thigh simultaneously broke the surface, their mouths gasping.
Ilhwa shook the remaining food from her palm onto the mouth of the koi that had risen highest.
‘Am I trapped in the past?’
She had known that the Medical Hall Master wasn’t trying to kill her when she channeled internal energy into her body.
Yet, her body reacted first.
‘Because that woman often killed Blood Sect members that way.’
It was her hobby to mix poison into treatments, claiming therapeutic purposes, and then kill people.
The reason she was able to maintain her position as the Blood Sect’s Medical Hall Master, despite this, was…
‘Because she was one of Hyeolma’s Twelve Moons.’
The Blood Sect was a group formed by six independent factions uniting under the being known as Hyeolma.
The leaders of the six factions were called the Six Blood Lords, and each of them was a master of unfathomable martial prowess.
Even in her previous life, the Six Blood Lords always concealed their faces, so Seolhwa also didn’t know their true identities, but she knew the Twelve Moons well.
A group of twelve masters, Hyeolma’s direct assassin corps.
The Masters of the Twelve Moon Plates.
They were individuals who had been granted Moon Plates, inscribed with Hyeolma’s blood, and unique blood arts by Hyeolma, and they moved solely for him.
Although their martial arts level was somewhat lower compared to the Six Blood Lords, their loyalty to Hyeolma was so high that they would not hesitate to die for him.
Dokwol was one of the Masters of the Twelve Moon Plates.
Because of this, even the Sect Leader didn’t question her randomly killing Blood Sect members, so who could have stopped her atrocities?
Once, when Ilhwa visited the Medical Hall, she had asked Dokwol.
‘Dokwol. You were originally a person from the Orthodox Factions of the Murim, weren’t you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But how did you end up coming to our sect?’
‘Well…’
At that time, Dokwol had a deeper, more profound smile than she did now.
‘Because there was someone I wanted to kill?’
The words uttered with a captivating smile weren’t beautiful at all.
Ilhwa hadn’t asked who it was she wanted to kill.
They weren’t that close, nor was she curious.
‘I should have asked.’
If she had, she might not be so confused now.
While Ilhwa was lost in thought, the koi had already finished all the food and were leisurely dispersing.
The surface of the water rippled slightly from the tail fin of the last koi as it swam away.
Ilhwa lowered her gaze.
When she looked back at the water’s surface, a large man in splendid robes stood beside her reflection.
Ilhwa rose from her seat and performed a fist-and-palm salute towards him.
“I greet the Namgung Family Head.”
“No need to be so formal. Call me Grandfather.”
“...”
Namgung Mucheon stared intently at Ilhwa. His eyebrows arched as if he saw something peculiar.
“I heard about it.”
