Doctor’s Rebirth

Chapter 69

She was stubborn and serious.

Once she decided on something, she would see it through even if the sky fell. Yet she never insisted on trivial matters.

Jin Cheon-hee rose without a word.

“I’ll get ready right away. And you don’t need the money.”

Jin Cheon-hee wasn’t one to put a price on a desperate request from a friend.

***

She ran quickly through the forest.

Her small back repeatedly scattered and reappeared following the light and shadows.

Jin Cheon-hee followed Wang Gak-yeon without falling behind.

“How did you know?”

She hadn’t run at full speed, thinking Jin Cheon-hee might get tired.

If Jin Cheon-hee got too exhausted, she was planning to carry him on her back.

Jin Cheon-hee answered calmly.

“I heard from Uncle Phantom Archer that the footwork passed down in the Demon-Destroying Divine Bow is supreme. I’m fine, so run.”

Phantom Archer, Wang Chae-baek, wanted Jin Cheon-hee to keep calling him Phantom Archer.

Saying his alias was the karma he had built up.

With such a request, Jin Cheon-hee had no reason to refuse.

His daughter Wang Gak-yeon didn’t make much of it either, since it was something her father had decided.

“Alright.”

She nodded and put strength into her legs.

Thump!

As soon as she took her first step, her afterimage scattered.

She disappeared without a trace, as if it had been a dream.

‘Whew, amazing.’

Jin Cheon-hee whistled softly and circulated his inner force.

He concentrated the wind knot and the newly realized ice knot of the Five-Elemental Divine Technique in his legs.

The realization of the Three-Elements Stride awakened the boy’s body.

Tak.

Jin Cheon-hee chased right after Wang Gak-yeon with the least movement.

Seeing such a Jin Cheon-hee, Wang Gak-yeon’s eyes momentarily changed to wonder.

“Haven’t you only been learning martial arts for a short time?”

“Half a year.”

“That’s possible?”

She seemed amazed at her friend’s achievement.

The place where the two children arrived was a small cave situated between ravines.

It was in a location that normally couldn’t be found at all, hidden by tree roots. Even if one did find it, it looked carelessly made like a den dug by a mountain animal.

Moreover, it was a narrow earthen cave that adults couldn’t enter.

The two stopped in front of it.

“Is the patient in here?”

“Yes.”

Wang Gak-yeon bent down and entered the cave on all fours.

She didn’t care at all how dirty her expensive silk clothes got.

‘Oh my, Uncle Phantom Archer will cry… No. He might be proud instead.’

If her clothes get worn out, he has a reason to buy new ones. He was already desperate to buy new clothes, frustrated by Wang Gak-yeon’s nagging.

It’s all good.

Jin Cheon-hee followed such a Wang Gak-yeon into the earthen cave.

The two children grunted and descended for quite a while.

And when they reached the end, they saw light.

A narrow room. A low ceiling.

But the reason they could see inside was because expensive night pearls were embedded.

Looking from the outside, they couldn’t tell, but this was an artificial place made by humans.

It seemed like something made by some deceased person long ago.

Kiii-

Under the light of the night pearls, an animal’s sound was heard.

Wang Gak-yeon said,

“We’re here.”

Following Wang Gak-yeon, they went deeper into the room.

Inside, there was a dog curled up.

The smell of blood came from the dog.

Jin Cheon-hee asked,

“Is this dog the one you want me to treat?”

“Yes.”

It didn’t look like an ordinary dog.

Jin Cheon-hee approached the dog on his buttocks.

Three ropes were tied around the dog’s neck.

It wasn’t a noose choking its neck.

It was a kind of mark made to be used as a dog collar.

The knot shape was strange, so Jin Cheon-hee looked at it closely.

What medical pavilion members learn isn’t just medical skills.

It’s basic to learn various common knowledge used in the martial arts world.

In that sense, this was a knot he had seen before.

“The Beggar’s Sect…? And three ropes with five knots? Isn’t this the symbol representing the Sect Leader?”

A special-grade messenger dog.

Moreover, a special-grade messenger dog that carries messages for the Sect Leader of the Beggar’s Sect.

Ordinary sects use messenger birds, that is, birds.

Because they guarantee speed by flying and are not easy for other sects to intercept.

Depending on the sect, they sometimes use hawks, crows, or magpies instead of pigeons.

Usually, messenger birds only move to designated places.

If you raise highly intelligent birds using special methods, they can become quasi-spiritual beasts and move to various places.

They can even understand human speech.

Here, the Beggar’s Sect also uses dogs alongside birds.

They’re slower than birds, but they can move in groups and travel complex routes at once, and they’re also good for tracking using their sense of smell. Also, using their identity as dogs, they’re quite good at begging for food.

In the Beggar’s Sect, not only people but also dogs beg.

And the messenger dogs used by someone of the Sect Leader’s level are bound to be extraordinary.

“It’s a spiritual beast, isn’t it?”

Not a quasi-spiritual beast. Just a spiritual beast.

Jin Cheon-hee said,

“I don’t know how to treat dogs.”

“I thought you’d ask about the circumstances.”

“I was planning to ask after saving it.”

Despite saying he didn’t know how to treat dogs, Jin Cheon-hee was immediately disinfecting his hands with medical alcohol.

‘First, body temperature.’

Jin Cheon-hee’s index finger poked the messenger dog’s anus.

Yelp!

“Stay still.”

As if understanding Jin Cheon-hee’s words, the messenger dog didn’t bark anymore.

‘I only know the very basics, what should I do.’

He had studied a little bit as a sample in the past.

Unlike humans, for dogs in emergencies, you take their temperature through the anus.

Since there’s no thermometer, he had to judge by palpation, but for dogs, it’s normal to have a temperature 2-3 degrees higher than humans.

‘…But it’s too high? The pulse is fast too.’

Jin Cheon-hee said,

“For something like this, you need to find a specialist. If you make me do it, I’ll just be a quack.”

Wang Gak-yeon asked,

“Then where do they treat dogs?”

‘Right. This world doesn’t have modern veterinary hospitals.’

In an era where they can’t even take care of human bodies, finding a physician to take care of dogs is even harder.

Jin Cheon-hee sighed.

“Ugh… Then I don’t know either? I’ll do what I can, then let’s go to the medical pavilion after treatment. We can treat it there.”

Growl!

The messenger dog tried to bite Jin Cheon-hee at those words.

Surprised, Wang Gak-yeon calmed the puppy down.

“Hwang-gu. Stop! Stop!”

It seems the dog’s name is Hwang-gu. A common dog name.

Wang Gak-yeon said,

“It seems like something’s going on, and it absolutely can’t go anywhere else. I don’t know the details.”

“How did you discover this… No. Alright, I got it. Is that what the patient wants?”

He never thought he’d have a dog as a patient in his life.

Jin Cheon-hee tried to recall things that might happen to the Beggar’s Sect in the novel.

It’s the Sect Leader’s messenger dog from the Beggar’s Sect.

The news such a spiritual beast risks its life to deliver couldn’t possibly be small news.

‘There are too many possibilities.’

Nevertheless, there were too many.

The Beggar’s Sect is about to go through numerous storms. Each one will have a fatal effect on the Beggar’s Sect.

‘Does the Beggar’s Sect live if this dog lives?’

If the martial arts world were a living organism, messengers would be like red blood cells.

Instead of oxygen, they move information to keep every corner of the sect alive.

“Do you know why it’s injured?”

“I don’t know either. Honestly, if this guy hadn’t cried for help, I wouldn’t have known at all.”

Wang Gak-yeon said. Hwang-gu was a dog often seen in the neighborhood. She knew it was friendly with the Beggar’s Sect people.

Aren’t beggars and dogs in a competitive relationship while also being in a symbiotic relationship?

Hwang-gu is a yellow-haired dog with a slightly large build. A common dog.

“I knew it belonged to the Beggar’s Sect, but I didn’t know it was the Sect Leader’s messenger dog. It was just smart and fast, so all the kids liked it. The rope around its neck was too shabby.”

Even Jin Cheon-hee only knew because he had learned about it; if he had seen the dog without knowing, he probably would have thought it was an ordinary country mutt.

‘But it seems this guy appeared in this neighborhood often. If the neighborhood kids know it…’

Wang Gak-yeon continued speaking.

“The kids I used to play with called it Hwang-gu. That’s all. Then today while hunting in the forest, I found it… It led me to the cave. And it collapsed here.”

It seemed to have used almost its last strength to find her and call for her.

To find a familiar scent in that vast forest and request help. It seems it’s truly a spiritual beast.

Jin Cheon-hee sighed softly and took its pulse.

The Five-Elemental Divine Technique seemed to flow into Hwang-gu’s body but then lost its way.

Not human meridians, but dog meridians. What Jin Cheon-hee knows about dogs, especially large dogs, is extremely limited.

Jin Cheon-hee made a difficult diagnosis.

‘It’s in a state where contamination has progressed due to external wounds, and the inflammatory response is severe. Patellar luxation, tibial fracture, and biceps tenosynovitis?’

First, biceps tenosynovitis.

For humans, it’s a symptom that often occurs in middle-aged people. However, this symptom actually occurs frequently in large dogs as well.

It often occurs when the biceps tendon and synovial membrane are damaged due to obesity, and in this case, it’s due to mobility.

In other words, it could be seen as having occurred from excessive use of the front legs.

‘The fascia damage is severe too. Ah, I see. It continued to run through the mountains recklessly in an injured state.’

It also occurs when the front legs are used to their limit.

‘The pain must have been extreme, but it didn’t give up.’

The tibia is in a fractured state.

Normally, if the hind legs are broken, they can’t run.

If it were a wild dog, it would have moved to find a place to rest. But Hwang-gu was different.

Whether it was worthy of being a spiritual beast or a loyal dog, it stupidly continued to run. But even that has its limits.

No matter how much of a spiritual beast it is, what’s impossible is impossible.

When it reached its limit, it tracked the closest reliable scent to request help. Then it hid its body in its own hideout.

‘You’re better than humans. Better than humans.’

What could have been the message that Hwang-gu had to deliver at such cost?

‘The fracture… of course, it’s caused by receiving an impact on the hind legs.’

Fortunately, it’s in better condition than Wangya’s companion, Yoo-rang Hu, from last time. However, the fact that inflammation has progressed a lot is already a dangerous sign.

Infection prevents bone union, and once it progresses to osteomyelitis, it becomes chronic and difficult to cure completely.

The number of detached bone fragments is three.

Comminuted fracture!

Wounds tell us a lot.

Comminuted fractures are external injuries that occur when struck with a blunt weapon.

Jin Cheon-hee could deduce the appearance of the enemy from the wounds the dog had suffered.

‘The opponent didn’t use a sword but threw fists or kicks. They tried to capture the messenger dog alive as much as possible.’

Why? Isn’t it more efficient to kill it and take the letter?

Why did they try to take it alive?

Jin Cheon-hee told Wang Gak-yeon what he had deduced from the wounds.

“Is that… possible?”

“Yes.”

“Is it like the legendary Thousand-ri Eye?”

“If that were possible, I’d be an immortal. I’m just inferring a little from looking at the wounds.”

“A little?”

Woof!

Even Hwang-gu barked softly in surprise.

At their expression as if they’d seen a ghost, Jin Cheon-hee asked,

“Does Hwang-gu understand everything people say?”

“Probably. It seems to understand everything, even if it sometimes pretends not to hear out of laziness. It’s understanding everything we’re saying now, and I talked to it briefly before calling you, right?”

“Talked?”

“I speak, and it answers.”

At least it does yes or no better than anyone.

If that’s the case…

Jin Cheon-hee makes eye contact with Hwang-gu.