The sharp scent of medicinal herbs pricked at his nose.
That distinctive mixture of earth and greenery.
No physician could possibly ignore a smell like that.
Following the scent, the Divine Physician of Clear Life found a row of carts parked in a prime location, their stalls covered with neatly displayed medicinal herbs.
He hurried over and began examining them.
“Oh!”
A gasp of admiration escaped him.
Herbs sold from carts were usually scraps, or else old stock that had sat around so long it had lost most of its potency.
He had assumed the quality would be poor precisely because they were being sold off carts, but the reality was the exact opposite.
These were top-grade herbs.
Unable to believe it, he checked them again.
There was no question about it.
Top grade.
How was this possible?
It had been a very long time since he had seen medicinal herbs of such quality.
“Excuse me.”
The Divine Physician’s voice trembled.
“How much are these herbs?”
“The prices are written right there.”
Written?
Where?
He turned toward the displayed herbs.
“Ten iron coins...?”
An absurd price.
Astragalus currently sold for a hundred iron coins.
They were charging one-tenth of that.
Astragalus had originally cost around twenty iron coins, which meant they were selling it for less than even the normal market price.
And yet the quality was the finest available.
Herbs this good could sell for thirty iron coins and still have people lining up to buy them.
Suspicion crept in.
What in the world were they plotting by selling herbs this cheaply?
And it was not only the astragalus.
All the other medicinal herbs were priced far too low as well.
The Divine Physician asked,
“Is this really the correct price?”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, I mean... how can that price possibly make sense? No one else is selling them this cheaply.”
“Yes. We know.”
“Then why are you? You could charge far more and people would still line up to buy them. Is there perhaps something wrong with the herbs?”
“You seem to be a physician. Take a look for yourself. Do you see anything wrong with them?”
“No. Nothing at all. If anything, the fact that they are such excellent quality makes me even more suspicious.”
“Hahaha. They are indeed top grade. To be honest, we aren’t exactly happy about selling them this cheaply either, but what can we do? Our master ordered us to price them this way.”
“Who is your master?”
“I can’t tell you that. Are you buying or not?”
The Divine Physician hesitated for a moment, but the answer had already been decided.
Faces passed through his mind.
A child writhing in pain because there was no medicine.
An old woman trembling from a fever she could no longer endure.
People who had turned away from a physician’s door because they had no money.
There were too many who desperately needed these herbs right now.
First, he needed to buy them and deal with the immediate crisis.
“I’ll buy them. May I purchase every herb on these carts?”
“All of them? That would be difficult. We’re only allowed to sell a fixed amount per person.”
“There are many sick people. They are suffering because these very herbs are unavailable. Please sell them to me.”
The clerk looked troubled beneath the Divine Physician’s desperate gaze.
Just then—
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Ah! This gentleman is asking us to sell him every herb we have here.”
The man who had appeared turned to the Divine Physician.
“Forgive me, but may I ask your name?”
“Heo Myeong.”
The clerk frowned.
He had asked for the man’s name, only to hear something that sounded like “empty fame.”
But the newcomer broke into a broad smile.
“Are you the Divine Physician of Clear Life?”
“That title is empty fame as well.”
“Hahaha! What are you saying? How could the reputation of the greatest divine physician in the Central Plains possibly be empty? Ah! Your name really is Myeong. Forgive me for laughing so loudly.”
“No offense taken. My name being Heo Myeong is a fact, after all.”
Only then did the clerk realize who the old man was.
Heo Myeong, the Divine Physician of Clear Life.
The savior of the poor.
A saintly physician who charged the wealthy dearly, then used the money to care for those who had nothing.
“It is an honor. My name is Jeok Wigang.”
“Likewise. Please, I beg you. Sell me all those herbs.”
Wigang grinned at the Divine Physician’s request, then called to someone nearby.
“We have another full load of everything here, right?”
“Yes. There’s another cart of each waiting in the back.”
Wigang nodded, then turned back to the Divine Physician.
“You can have all of it.”
“Thank you! How much?”
“I won’t take any money.”
“Wh-What are you saying? I cannot allow that.”
“I have long admired your reputation, Divine Physician. These herbs are surely for people in need, are they not? How could I possibly charge you for them?”
“No... even so...”
“Shouldn’t we be spending this time getting the herbs to the sick instead? Where do they need to go? Just tell me.”
Tears welled in the Divine Physician’s eyes.
“Thank you! Truly... thank you!”
Wigang did not simply follow the Divine Physician, hand over the herbs, and leave.
He stayed to help tend to and heal the sick.
He never hesitated.
Never faltered.
He moved with the ease of someone who had belonged there all along.
The Divine Physician watched in astonishment.
Wigang was even healing patients faster than he could.
His hands were unusually deft as well.
Even more remarkable was his uncanny ability to identify exactly where each patient was suffering.
He was not even taking their pulse.
How could he locate the problem so easily?
“What in the world are you doing to identify the source of a patient’s illness so accurately?”
“Ah! I use sorcery to find the affected area.”
The Divine Physician’s eyes lit with interest.
“So sorcery can be used for such things as well.”
“You aren’t offended?”
“Why would I be? There is no law saying a patient must be treated through medicine alone. Sorcery is fine. Martial arts are fine. Anything is acceptable if it can heal the patient.”
Wigang smiled.
“I would like to learn it myself. How is it done?”
Wigang shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think your body could endure it.”
“I see. What a pity. If I could learn that sorcery, I might be able to save even more patients.”
“Then I’ll work harder and do my best to save as many people as I can.”
A gleam entered the Divine Physician’s eyes.
“I am old.”
Why was he suddenly bringing up his age?
“I have spent years searching for a successor, but no one ever satisfied me. I think I may finally have found one today.”
“What? You don’t mean me, do you?”
The Divine Physician grinned and nodded.
“What do you say? Would you be willing to learn the medical arts I spent my entire life mastering? You need not even formally accept me as your master. If combining my medicine with your sorcery allows you to save more lives, that alone would satisfy me.”
A smile spread across Wigang’s lips.
Come to think of it, the Divine Physician of Clear Life had gone his entire life without taking a disciple.
What he sought was someone capable of showing unconditional compassion.
How many people like that could possibly exist in the world?
He had spent his entire life searching for a disciple and never found one.
Wigang did not want the Divine Physician’s medical arts to disappear with him.
He wanted that knowledge to survive for future generations, so that the name of the Divine Physician of Clear Life would endure long after his death.
“That wouldn’t be right. These are the medical arts you devoted your entire life to. How could I simply take them without giving anything in return? I may be lacking, but I would like to become your disciple and properly learn your medicine. Will you accept me?”
The Divine Physician burst into delighted laughter.
“Hohohoho! Accept you? Of course I will. I’m the one who desperately wants this!”
“Then I look forward to learning from you, Master.”
Hearing the word Master only made the Divine Physician laugh even louder.
“Th-This cannot be...”
The Divine Physician stared in shock.
There was a saying that if you taught a genius one thing, he would understand ten.
In all his years, the Divine Physician had never once met anyone who actually lived up to that saying.
Until now.
No.
Even that saying was inadequate.
Wigang did not learn ten things from one.
He grasped the underlying truth itself.
“You... truly aren’t a physician?”
“No. Everything I know about medicine, I merely picked up by watching others.”
“By watching over someone’s shoulder? There must be an entirely different world beyond your shoulder.”
“You’re quite the joker, Master.”
“I wasn’t joking...”
The Divine Physician genuinely wanted to know what sort of world existed over Wigang’s shoulder.
This man claimed he had merely picked up medicine in passing, yet he inserted acupuncture needles more skillfully than the Divine Physician himself and prepared medicinal decoctions better as well.
And his speed of learning was absurd.
Anything the Divine Physician explained, Wigang understood immediately. There was never any need to tell him twice.
When Wigang watched an acupuncture technique once and reproduced it perfectly, the Divine Physician was left speechless.
This was the greatest medical genius in the history of the Central Plains.
By this point, meeting Wigang felt like a connection granted by heaven itself.
At first, seeing him absorb every lesson so effortlessly had planted a faint suspicion in the Divine Physician’s mind.
Could Wigang have approached him deliberately in order to steal his medical arts?
But Wigang remained exactly the same.
Even when blood and pus from patients stained his expensive silk robes, he paid it no mind and remained wholly focused on treating them.
That was when the Divine Physician realized his suspicion had been wrong.
No one could fake something like that.
Whether Wigang had learned medicine over someone’s shoulder or merely by watching did not matter.
Whatever anyone else said, Jeok Wigang was his disciple.
The Divine Physician’s eyes overflowed with affection as he looked at him.
“This is troublesome.... It looks like the task Demon-Brain gave us is about to go awry....”
A cold-faced man sat in a chair, staring up at the ceiling as he grumbled.
The woman standing quietly beside him spoke in a low voice.
“Shall I go and wipe them out?”
The man gave a faint snort.
“Demon-Brain ordered us not to let the world learn our identities. Have you forgotten?”
“As long as no one discovers who we are, does it matter?”
“Do you have a method?”
“We have the Sichuan Divine Cult.”
“Hm?”
“Demon-Brain told us we could make use of them whenever the need arose. This is precisely such a time.”
“Oh? That isn’t bad. Good thinking.”
The man smiled in satisfaction as he looked at her.
“You really are the only one I can rely on.”
A flush spread across the woman’s cheeks.
“Stay with me tonight.”
“Thank you....”
She lowered her head shyly.
“Now hurry and tell them. Have them destroy every medicinal herb the True Martial Merchant Company is selling.”
“Wouldn’t that be a waste? I’ll tell them to seize everything instead.”
“Kehehe. Fine. Do as you please.”
“They ordered you to seize every medicinal herb being sold by the True Martial Merchant Company?”
“That is correct.”
Wigang gave a faint smile after hearing the Sichuan Godfather’s report.
Then—
“Wait....”
Hadn’t they said those people were using medicinal herbs to create demonic beasts?
If he could track where the stolen herbs were taken, he might be able to locate the place where those demonic beasts were being made.
There was no guarantee.
But every herb sold by the True Martial Merchant Company was top grade.
They would almost certainly want to use them in the creation of demonic beasts.
The better the ingredients, the better the demonic beast they could produce.
“Well, this is convenient. They’re helping me without even being asked.”
He had been wondering how he was going to find the place where the demonic beasts were being created.
This might make things unexpectedly easy.
“Attack us four days from now.”
“What? You truly want us to attack?”
The Sichuan Godfather asked again, apparently unable to believe what he had heard.
“Yes. I’ll tell my people to pretend they’ve been beaten. Take every last herb and deliver it to them.”
“Understood.”

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