Chapter 807: The Medical Immortal Who Conquers All Diseases: the Divine Doctor of the Life-and-Death Pill (3)

In the open square, two large flags had been planted, and gold letters written on red cloth fluttered.

Conqueror-of-All-Illnesses Medical Immortal

Life-and-Death Reversal Divine Physician

In front of them stood a single man with his hands clasped behind his back, staring serenely at the crowd that had gathered.

He stood out no matter how you looked at him.

His robe, patched with five-colored cloth, was bright and fluttery—more like a shaman than a physician.

Qing’s impression was simple.

Yeah. A fake.

And judging by his evil karma, there wasn’t another bastard as vicious as that.

But it was still too early to decide.

You couldn’t judge a person by appearance alone, and evil karma wasn’t proof that someone was a scammer, was it?

Every scammer would have high evil karma, but not every man with high evil karma was a scammer.

Fortunately, Qing had something useful to keep at her side: a walking directory of human names—though the huge flaw was that it was very loud, but anyway.

“Jegal, have you ever heard of him?”

“A fake. I’ve never heard of him in my life.”

Wasn’t that Jegal Ihyeon, with a human name dictionary installed in his head?

Qing cross-checked just in case.

“Tang Nanna. You ever heard of him?”

“He’s a fake. What kind of Therapist writes a name like that? If he fails a treatment, he’ll get stabbed and die.”

It was a taboo for Therapists.

A Therapist only did what treatment they could. Whether someone lived or died was ultimately up to the patient.

But once a treatment failed and the patient died, people’s petty hearts couldn’t help it—they would turn their resentment toward the Therapist.

If you went as far as to hang a banner like that, promising a guaranteed cure, then when you failed, the grudge would spike straight to the heavens.

How would you endure that?

And the way he dressed like a shaman wasn’t “Therapist” at all.

If you had to put it into words, that guy wasn’t “Therapist-ing” in the slightest.

Still, the one person who wasn’t fake was the martial artist behind the drug peddler—quietly resting a hand on his sword hilt.

The sharp killing intent he was leaking was vicious enough that the entire quarantine zone, gathered to watch, was being crushed into silence.

No matter how much the front man looked like a fake drug peddler, with a master (presumably) standing behind him and holding the weight, it started to look plausible, too.

Masters were the kind of people who valued face. No matter how much gold you offered, they wouldn’t take a job standing behind a scammer just to lend him weight.

“Sir, what should we do?”

“First, we at least have to hear what he says. There’s always a one-in-a-million. He might actually have a real prescription.”

“From the way he looks, it’s absolutely not.”

“Once, there was a guy who made a prescription that really worked and sold it. Like a cow catching a mouse with its back hoof—somehow everything lined up. There was only one, though.”

Lord Physician looked displeased, but he was cautious for now.

If the prescription worked, what did appearance matter?

The drug peddler swept his gaze over the crowd, then, when he saw Qing’s group, he flinched slightly.

It looked even more suspicious, but if armed martial artists in fine clothing were mixed in among the patients, it wasn’t strange that he’d be startled.

“Hm. Everyone gathered? Well, I want to give you a chance to recover, but if you didn’t come out, that’s your own fate.”

The drug peddler snapped his fingers.

Then a servant holding one of the flags stepped forward and shouted.

“This man is none other than the Conqueror-of-All-Illnesses Medical Immortal! The Life-and-Death Reversal Divine Physician! The divine doctor who is the bane of all sickness and rewrites the fate of death into life—the true master of the Hua Tuo Lineage—Master Taepyeongja!”

“Master Taepyeongja is originally the gifted spirit-son of Jeongju, and he received the divine mandate of Physician Immortal Hua Tuo and inherited his medical arts! In other words, he is the orthodox successor of the Living Hua Tuo!”

All at once, Qing’s group’s brows furrowed.

Because the more she listened, the weirder it got.

He wasn’t dressed like a shaman.

He was a shaman.

And with Hua Tuo sprinkled on top.

According to those servants, he had received a spirit-descent from Hua Tuo—the legendary physician called a physician immortal—and communicated with him, directly inheriting his medical arts.

Who the hell would fall for that kind of garbage?

A shaman, what shaman—what does that even mean?

That was the honest impression of the famous, miracle-working local goddess from the Guangxi region.

But the gathered spectators—the patients’ families and relatives—seemed pretty impressed.

“Ooooh.” “Hua Tuo!” “So it was Lord Hua Tuo, after all!”

In an era where even basic education was hard to come by, this kind of gaudy packaging tended to work well on uneducated commoners.

And they were patients’ families, too.

A patient’s family was in a desperate state where, if someone said their loved one could recover, they were prepared to believe any bullshit.

Prepared to believe, or rather—wanting to believe, clinging to even a straw.

But.

If you thought about it for even a second, it was total bullshit.

So what if you learned medicine directly from Hua Tuo?

Hua Tuo was, rounding generously, a man from fifteen hundred years ago.

Even if you learned medicine from a physician from fifteen hundred years ago, it would still be medicine from fifteen hundred years ago—and medical knowledge kept advancing, so how many wrong prescriptions in old medical books had gotten people killed over the centuries?

Even if Hua Tuo came back to life, he wouldn’t even match the level of an apprentice at a modern clinic.

Because medicine had advanced for fifteen hundred years.

And yet?

“I am Cha Ilha of Yeokmun! Master Taepyeongja resolved the sickness demon in Yeokmun with a wondrous prescription! I, Cha, was moved, and I decided to serve him!”

“I am Yeo Seungsam of Sinpyeong! The sickness demon of Sinpyeong was also subdued by Master Taepyeongja!”

Sinpyeong, Wongang—she didn’t know where those places were, but they were claiming results there already, giving testimony.

Qing thought the ones following him were servants, but it seemed they were patients he “saved” who decided to follow him on their own.

“Sir? Is that a place you know? They’re saying he already got results.”

“It’s the standard drug peddler trick. You can’t go confirm it right now, so how would you know if it’s true? Still... it’d be good if it were true.”

It was then.

“I am Yu Dong of Wongang! Everyone, this man is truly a physician immortal! Even in Wongang, this vicious Bai Smallpox spread among us, and everyone was drowning in misery—then this man—”

“What kind of insane nonsense is that! Bai Smallpox?!”

Lord Physician snapped, fury exploding.

Every gaze swung to him.

“Bai Smallpox? Who dares to give the sickness demon a name like that!”

“I gave it the name.”

Taepyeongja answered calmly.

The gazes returned to Taepyeongja.

“Bastard! How do you name a disease like that!”

“Why can’t I? Isn’t it the physician who makes the prescription that gives the symptoms their name? I already made a prescription matched to Bai Smallpox, so I should have the qualification.”

Qing nodded without realizing it.

Mm. Then isn’t it Bai Smallpox?

Like... back in my time, that pneumonia went around, and—wait, that’s Wuhan. That was our town...

In Qing’s homeland, there had been a serious sickness demon that swept the entire world once, and wasn’t its origin Hubei Province’s provincial capital, Wuhan?

And now it was Qing’s town, too.

Because the Priestess Order was in Hubei Province.

“Bastard! Bai or Han, who in this whole world hasn’t mixed blood with others! We’ve lived intermingled for nearly five hundred years—if you trace lineage, there isn’t a single person in Yunnan without Bai blood mixed in! If what you say is true, then the disaster should happen in the Central Plains—how could it happen in Yunnan!”

“That’s... AHEM. Well, that’s something we can figure out gradually...”

“How can a man who calls himself a physician dare to attach such a name based on facts that haven’t been clearly established!”

Qing nodded again.

Yeah, even if they were “different peoples,” what kind of era was this where you could find pure blood?

Especially after the previous dynasty pushed it so viciously, mixing its own people’s blood like they were handling livestock—at this point, there was no people left on earth that still carried a pure line.

And among them, the Han—those who bragged they alone were Central Plains people—were in a situation where not a single pure-blooded person remained in the world.

Everyone knew it, even if they didn’t say it out loud.

And besides, was there really a sickness that only one people didn’t get? Mm. Like... smallpox? But that wasn’t “a people” so much as, what—an area? A region? Like a germ breaking into a clean room? Anyway.

A disease where only one people had no symptoms?

Thinking about it, it was nonsense.

As the looks aimed at him turned cold, Taepyeongja calmly—shamelessly—changed his tune.

“Anyway, what does the name matter? What matters is that I discovered the prescription matched to this horrible strange plague. It is this Hua Tuo Origin-Restoring Pellet. Not only will the strange plague be cured cleanly, this Origin-Restoring Pellet replenishes a person’s vital source, restoring their health to better than before, letting them live long without illness—Hua Tuo’s secret art.”

“Hua Tuo’s secret art?”

“What, you don’t believe me? But you will. One pellet each morning, noon, and night—within three days, you’ll witness the miracle of patients rising from their beds. In case something goes wrong, I will remain here until my patients recover. Then will you believe?”

Lord Physician visibly panicked.

He said he’d stay here until the patients recovered?

Drug peddlers sold their medicine and immediately ran.

If the medicine a drug peddler sold had no effect, that was lucky—often, it was worse, and the side effects killed people.

But he claimed a complete cure in three days, and said he’d stay until that was confirmed?

Wasn’t that confidence you couldn’t show unless the prescription was real?

The crowd, too, began to buzz.

Their voices were excited, heavy with relief—We’re saved, Heaven helped us, and so on.

But only for a moment.

“However, because I used precious ingredients without sparing them, the price is not small. Still, how could I leave profit in the act of saving people? So I will take only the cost of ingredients—ten gold taels.”

Ten gold taels?

For most people in the Central Plains, it wasn’t easy to even hold a gold tael in their hand.

Of course, like a certain famous novel from Qing’s homeland, if you saved up on purpose, it wasn’t impossible to touch.

But there was no reason to collect money for a long time just to hold such a high-value bill once.

And yet the medicine was ten gold taels.

How many patients could possibly pay?

“Of course! How could I not know it’s not an easy amount? But I still have a mountain of patients to treat, and to keep refining prescriptions, shouldn’t I take the cost of materials? I can’t save only you and leave other patients to die. But! There is a way!”

The crowd stared at Taepyeongja’s mouth.

“Fortunately, a few lords who understood these pitiful circumstances have offered help—saying they will give you a chance to repay through work. A sturdy man, three years. A woman, two years. A young woman, only one year of work.”

He was telling them to sell their bodies.

And the fact that the term for a young woman was shorter—

Wasn’t that intention so filthy and transparent it practically glowed?

“A deed of selling oneself—when you have no money to bury your parents, it is said you must fulfill your filial duty even by selling your body. If even a funeral is like that, then what about saving your sick parents? And for the parents here with sick children, surely you intend to save your children, even if this physician doesn’t add a word.”

He was saying that of course you should sell your body for your parents.

“I say again, there is no need to worry about the medicine’s efficacy. I will stay about five days. Before I leave, you can confirm your family recovering, and then leave with me.”

At this point, it really did look like the medicine worked.

But the price wasn’t just expensive—he was pushing them to sell their bodies.

What a vicious bastard.

Yeah. That’s why his evil karma looked like that.

Still... even selling medicine that truly worked was something.

A vicious man was still better than a scammer.

And as for the price being high?

Qing stepped forward.

“I’ll buy it all. Everyone! I’ll treat you to the medicine—big time!”

In an instant, the open square fell silent.

Everyone knew the heavenly maiden had been caring for patients all this time, so when she said she’d buy it all, wasn’t she saying she’d buy it and distribute it?

Suddenly, people lowered their eyes, unable to look up, as if she was too dazzling.

So that’s why Sir always called her heavenly maiden—our heavenly maiden... she’s so bright it makes you cry...

But Taepyeongja’s eyes trembled in tiny shakes.

He was clearly flustered.

“All of it? That would be a thousand gold taels.”

“There’s only enough for a hundred people? No—right. I’ll pay you the cost of ingredients, so you can make more.”

“Th-that’s right! Also, I don’t accept drafts. One thousand gold taels. In bullion!”

“Then we’ll exchange it. Heema, can you go to the money changer? Yeah. One thousand. No—bring another thousand so he can make more. Yeah. Two thousand. Ah, but is that okay? Two thousand gold taels won’t be easy to carry around.”

“Uh, um, uh.”

Taepyeongja stammered with a deeply suspicious air.

Then—wasn’t it—

He let out a low laugh and twisted his mouth into a vile smile.

“No. I can’t sell to your side.”

A deep wrinkle carved into Qing’s brow.

What the hell is this bastard doing now? What kind of stunt is this?