CHAPTER: Chapter 32
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Chapter 32.
“R-Right now?”
“There is no reason to delay. Senior Life-and-Death Exalted One, please observe as well. You must be prepared in case something unexpected happens.”
At Uncheon’s unhesitating lead, even the Life-and-Death Exalted One nodded as if possessed.
The momentum had already shifted to Uncheon.
“Very well. I shall watch, so begin.”
Seolyeong carefully sat cross-legged in front of Uncheon.
Between the two of them, a chilly coldness and a faint warmth crossed paths.
Uncheon’s low voice split the silence of the Demon Physician Hall.
“Excuse me. I must directly check your qi meridians, so I will place my hand on your back.”
Originally, regardless of propriety between men and women, having another person probe the inside of a martial artist’s body with energy was an act close to taboo.
It was a dangerous act that could easily cause Qi Deviation or cripple one’s inner arts.
“Correct. It would be best to take every precaution.”
However, the Life-and-Death Exalted One agreed, and Seolyeong also offered her back without hesitation.
“Please do.”
Uncheon’s palm touched Seolyeong’s back.
‘It’s warm….’
To her, who had always suffered from bone-carving Yin-Cold Qi, the True Origin Qi flowing in from Uncheon’s hand felt as warm as spring sunlight.
However, Uncheon’s expression was grave.
“Your condition is worse than expected. Have you learned inner arts of the yin-cold type?”
“……Yes. I learned the inner arts heart method of the Ice Soul Seol Family, my mother’s family. It is called the Ice Soul Divine Art.”
Uncheon’s eyes narrowed.
The Ice Soul Divine Art, known as a divine art of the Northern Sea, a force beyond the borders.
It was peerless martial arts that all under heaven would covet, but to the current Seolyeong, it was no different from poison.
“That was the source of your trouble.”
“What? The source of my trouble?”
“An ordinary inner arts heart method gathers qi and confines it in a vessel called the qi center. However, for those like you and me, who suffer from an innate Severed Meridian Affliction, that method is no different from suicide.”
Uncheon looked at the Life-and-Death Exalted One and continued speaking.
“Since you were born with the Yin Severed Meridian Affliction, Lady Seolyeong, your achievement in inner arts must have been extraordinarily fast when you were young. What took others ten years, you must have achieved in one or two. You must have been called a genius.”
“……!”
Seolyeong’s eyes shook.
He was correct.
In her childhood, she had been called a prodigy.
A miracle in which inner arts accumulated just by breathing.
Her family had rejoiced, and she had also believed that she was blessed.
Until the pain began.
“But it was not a blessing. It was like pouring water into a broken jar.”
Uncheon’s diagnosis was merciless.
“When the yin qi you were already born with in overflowing amounts only kept filling up without any outlet to escape, the weakest blood vessels ultimately froze first and burst apart. Right now, Lady Seolyeong, you are trapped inside an ice prison of your own making.”
A suppressed groan burst from the Life-and-Death Exalted One’s mouth.
He, too, had vaguely suspected it, but he had been unable to abolish the Ice Soul Divine Art and had been agonizing over it.
The moment she abolished her inner arts, the suppressed yin qi would become uncontrollable.
It was a dilemma where he could neither do one thing nor the other.
“Then… what must be done? We cannot disperse her inner arts now, can we?”
“We will not disperse them.”
Uncheon stared straight into Seolyeong’s eyes.
“We will make them flow.”
“Make them… flow?”
“Do not try to confine qi inside the qi center. Rather, you must break down the dam and open a waterway.”
Uncheon explained with his own experience behind his words.
“From now on, I will open a path inside your body. I will circulate the energy by using the fine meridians that have not yet frozen, not the major acupoints.”
“Through the fine meridians… with such a vast amount of energy?”
“If the major acupoints are the main current of a river, the fine meridians are its countless branches and tributaries. Stagnant water rots, but flowing water does not freeze easily.”
At Uncheon’s explanation, Seolyeong nodded.
‘…It does not seem as if he properly learned medicine at such a young age. Yet his insight into the body is remarkable.’
Even the Life-and-Death Exalted One was inwardly surprised.
“Forget the circulation formula of the Ice Soul Divine Art for a moment. Follow only the path my energy leads you through.”
Uncheon closed his eyes.
Through the palm touching her back, he began pouring in the energy of the [Life-Prolonging Breathing Method] he had created.
Wooooong—.
A faint but tenacious energy filled with vitality flowed along Seolyeong’s frozen spine.
‘Even in deep winter, fish live beneath the surface of a frozen river.’
The energy Uncheon poured in was like water flowing beneath a frozen river.
‘This is the path.’
Uncheon’s energy avoided the tightly blocked major acupoints and dug into the fine meridians tangled like a spiderweb.
The path Uncheon showed her was a narrow and precarious path that anyone who had learned martial arts would not dare imagine.
It was not a broad road like the Eight Extraordinary Meridians or the Twelve Standard Meridians.
It was a minute gap hidden between flesh, muscle, and bone joints.
Along that capillary-like path, the energy Uncheon sent forward began to flow.
Seolyeong instinctively felt resistance.
It was a flow of qi that went against the common sense she had learned all her life as a martial artist.
But Uncheon’s voice slipped into her ear.
[Do not be afraid. The fine meridians are also part of your body.]
At that firm shout, Seolyeong released the control she had been gripping tightly.
Then, something miraculous happened.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The yin qi frozen solid in her qi center, which had not budged at all, began to flow slowly but unmistakably along the capillary-like waterways Uncheon had opened.
Surely, it should have hurt.
Normally, pain from the tearing of her fine meridians should have followed.
However.
“Ah…?”
She shuddered.
What burst from between Seolyeong’s lips was not a scream, but an exclamation.
It felt refreshing.
It was a clear sensation, as if her tightly blocked chest had suddenly opened.
It felt as if the giant ice boulder that had been crushing her chest for years had shattered into fine pieces and scattered throughout her entire body.
‘I can… breathe.’
Without the pain of cold blades scraping her lungs, air entered and left the deepest parts of her chest.
For the first time, she learned that the simple act of breathing could be this sweet.
“Huuuu…….”
A long stream of dark gray turbid qi poured from Seolyeong’s mouth.
The turbid qi she had held inside while it remained frozen was discharged.
At the same time, a faint but unmistakable flush returned to her cheeks, which had been so pale that they had looked bluish.
“Huh…!”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One, who had been watching, gaped.
With trembling hands, he snatched his granddaughter’s wrist and took her pulse.
“T-This cannot be! Only a little, but her pulse… has opened?”
It was not a perfect treatment. The fundamental cause, the Severed Meridian Affliction, still remained.
However, a small path had formed in the blood vessels that had been so blocked they were on the verge of exploding.
“Her qi and blood… are circulating. Without passing through the qi center, they are wrapping around her whole body and maintaining her vitality on their own!”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One stared at Uncheon as if he were a monster.
This was a new horizon of martial learning that went beyond the realm of medicine.
Martial arts without a qi center.
The principle of circulating qi, not accumulating qi.
This young boy had overturned the common sense of martial learning in order to survive.
Uncheon slowly withdrew his hand and caught his breath. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.
Guiding another person’s energy was several times harder than handling his own.
“For now, the most urgent danger has passed. If Lady Seolyeong learns this breathing method and becomes able to breathe on her own… at the very least, she will not lose her life to cold energy.”
No sooner had Uncheon finished speaking than Seolyeong tried to rise from her seat and staggered.
It was because the strength had left her legs.
However, her expression was wet with joy.
“Benefactor….”
Tears suddenly poured from Seolyeong’s eyes.
They were not tears of sorrow, but tears of relief that she had survived.
“The pain… is gone. I am breathing, but it does not hurt.”
She clutched her chest with trembling hands.
Her heart was beating.
Not coldly and painfully, but warmly and powerfully.
“Thank you… truly, thank you….”
When Seolyeong began to sob as if she would prostrate herself on the floor and bow, Uncheon calmly shook his head.
“You are not fully cured yet. You have only barely taken half a step back from the threshold of death.”
Uncheon’s gaze turned to the Life-and-Death Exalted One.
“I kept my promise, Senior Life-and-Death Exalted One.”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One blankly looked back and forth between his granddaughter and Uncheon.
What he had failed to accomplish after devoting his entire life to it, this boy had proven possible with a single procedure.
Shame, gratitude, and a thrill all surged over him at once.
“…Yes. You did it.”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One took an old book and a heavy-looking scroll from his robe and placed them on the table.
“As promised, this is the secret manual of my life’s greatest work, the [Demonic Bone Rebirth Art]. And this is….”
He hesitated briefly, then pushed the scroll toward him.
“The Western Regions secret art that Yeong-ah had been researching at the risk of her life, [Union of Two Extremes]. Yeong-ah personally added annotations to it.”
Seolyeong looked at her grandfather in surprise, but the Life-and-Death Exalted One shook his head.
“We could not complete it with our strength anyway. But if it is this fellow… he might be able to find the answer you could not.”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One’s eyes grew serious.
“Uncheon, if the three of us combine our strength, we might be able to conquer even the Severed Meridian Affliction that is called incurable. Let us begin… the joint research in earnest.”
Uncheon picked up the book and the scroll, raising the corners of his mouth.
It was exactly what he had wanted.
“Good. Then from today onward, let us begin the struggle to live.”
***
After that day, the lights of the Demon Physician Hall did not go out.
During the day, they devoured old books in the Inner Archive, and at night, they gathered in the Demon Physician Hall to study the human body and discuss the flow of qi and blood.
It was a strange cohabitation, and also fierce research.
To save his granddaughter, the Life-and-Death Exalted One poured out without reserve the medical knowledge he had accumulated throughout his life.
“Look here. This acupoint is not merely a passage. It is both a pool where energy stays and a gate that regulates its flow. If one tries to force this place open, the entire qi meridian will be destroyed as if a dike has collapsed.”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One passionately explained while pointing at a human body diagram.
“Grandfather, then what if we bypass this gate? Here, if we use the branch blood vessels of the Foot Taiyang Bladder Meridian….”
Seolyeong was intelligent by nature, and with desperation added to that, she absorbed and applied knowledge like water being soaked up.
“Oh? A branch, is it… The idea is good, but that path is far too narrow and treacherous. One wrong move, and you will fall into Qi Deviation.”
By the time the debate between the two physicians reached a dead end, Uncheon, who had been silently listening, opened his mouth.
“If the path is narrow, then would it not be enough to pass through quickly?”
Uncheon had been silently watching their heated discussion, and because he did not know medicine, he offered a startling opinion only he could make.
The Life-and-Death Exalted One and Seolyeong turned their heads at the same time.
“Pass through quickly?”
“Instead of physically widening the blood vessel.”
Uncheon picked up a brush and drew a spiral line on the human body diagram.
“Flowing water becomes faster when it passes through a narrow pipe. If we add rotation to the energy to increase its speed and narrow its density, then even a narrow path can be pierced through without touching the dike.”
At that moment, the Life-and-Death Exalted One’s eyes flashed open.
“Rotation… of energy? Hah! To combine the principles of martial learning with medicine… What exactly is inside your head?”
“Benefactor… you truly are amazing! With that, it might be possible!”
When the Life-and-Death Exalted One pointed out the essence of Central Plains medicine and built the framework, Seolyeong added knowledge from the Western Regions and beyond the borders, filling in unexpected variables.
And Uncheon broke through that solid wall and opened a path with innovation born from martial intuition and unconventional ideas.
As the wisdom of the three meshed together like gears, problems that had seemed impossible were solved one by one.
It was the moment when the old dust of the Inner Archive was swept away and a new horizon of medicine opened.
***
And fifteen days later.
Deep inside a stone chamber in the Inner Archive.
A faint tearing sound rang out from inside Uncheon’s body.
Dududuk.
It was not the sound of bone joints striking together.
It was the sound of one of the two enormous snakes coiled deep inside his qi center finally raising its head.
‘……I succeeded.’
Uncheon wrapped a hand around his lower abdomen.
The Yin-Yang Great Spirit Severed Meridian Affliction.
A heavenly punishment constitution in which yin qi and yang qi had bitten each other’s tails and formed a knot of death.
It was a difficult problem that could never be solved unless the two energies were released at the same time.
However, Uncheon had chosen an expedient method.
The principle of the [Ice Soul Divine Art] he had grasped while helping Seolyeong.
By borrowing that principle, he had succeeded in soothing only the ‘yin qi’ among the tangled knots first and loosening it, even if only slightly.
‘Though it is only a half-success….’
The yang qi remained tightly blocked and silent, but at least the yin qi he had released had begun to flow according to Uncheon’s will.
When Uncheon opened his hand, a cool frost formed over his palm.
‘Unexpectedly, I ended up handling yin qi first.’
Just as he clenched his fist tightly and tried to confirm the sensation of cold inner arts.
BANG—!
Breaking the silence of the Inner Archive, the heavy iron door opened violently.
It was an insolent intrusion that would normally have been unimaginable.
However, the moment Uncheon saw the face of the person who had opened the door and rushed in, his eyes shook.
“Uncheon! Follow me at once!”
It was the Life-and-Death Exalted One. The face of the man called the Demon Physician under heaven had turned ashen. His usual arrogance and composure were nowhere to be seen, and only urgency filled him.
“Senior Life-and-Death Exalted One? What happened?”
“Yeong-ah… Yeong-ah has collapsed!”
Uncheon’s heart sank with a thud.
The joint research had clearly been proceeding smoothly.
He had even been certain that they had found a breakthrough of their own.
“This is different from her previous seizures! While she was operating your Life-Prolonging Breathing Method, her qi and blood flowed in reverse, and she lost consciousness! Even my medical arts cannot control it!”
The Life-and-Death Exalted One grabbed Uncheon’s arm.
His hand was trembling faintly.
“Hurry! At this rate… she will not survive tonight!”
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