Over twenty days had passed since Dan Woosung had devoted himself to recovery...
What had started as simple walks had now turned into runs.
His posture was being gradually corrected, and the speed at which internal energy accumulated was also increasing. It was proof that his body was properly transforming. The root causes of illnesses, once too numerous to even track down individually, were being suppressed one by one after encountering the rebel force called internal energy.
Martial power to bring order to the world.
It suited Dan Woosung's temperament well.
Even when he felt that his body had returned to normal, Dan Woosung did not push himself too hard.
Martial arts must be honed steadily over a long period.
The higher one's level, the more important it was to remain patient.
Training like mad for a single day would only harm the body. All the more so since Dan Woosung's body had been weakened by illness; recovering slowly was the right path.
In that sense, running was a great leap forward.
It meant his body had become sturdy enough to support intense movement.
Dan Woosung changed his diet again.
He consumed nutrients, and then trained in parallel to break them down.
His digestion was steadily improving, and his complexion was even healthier than when Lee Jin-Eon had been at his peak.
Though the kitchen staff found the First Young Master's detailed food demands strange, they obeyed without complaint.
When Dan Woosung returned from running—only stopping when he was truly hungry—and sat down to eat, the attendants could hardly take their eyes off him, so deliciously did he eat.
That evening, just as dinner was wrapping up, the white-haired Physician appeared for the first time in a while.
"Young Master, it's Gongsun Myung. May I come in?"
Dan Woosung, rinsing his mouth with dried persimmon water and crystal fruit, replied.
"Enter."
Unlike the servants, Gongsun Myung walked in with his head held high, scanning Dan Woosung carefully.
"Young Master, it is truly fortunate to see you recovering so quickly, day by day."
At that shameless comment, Dan Woosung replied with a smile.
"Thank you. Sit."
"Yes, sir."
Dan Woosung had been thinking of seeing the physician anyway, but the man had come of his own accord.
He hadn't been drinking tonic soups, nor accepting moxibustion or acupuncture—surely the physician had had nothing to do all this time.
Only now did Dan Woosung properly look at him.
He examined his gaze, expression, movements, and bodily balance. It appeared the man had trained in martial arts well enough to sneer at the previous First Young Master. As Dan Woosung stared at him, Gongsun Myung swallowed once and asked,
"...Young Master, may I take your pulse for the first time in a while?"
Dan Woosung answered coldly,
"No need."
"Hmm..."
Regardless of skill level, Dan Woosung considered a physician without conscience to be no better than a quack. There was no need to let him touch his pulse.
Gongsun Myung spoke with a troubled expression.
"Still, your complexion has changed dramatically. I apologize. It seems all my previous efforts were truly in vain."
But Dan Woosung said something unexpected.
"It was I who ruined my own body, so think nothing of it."
"No, no, not at all."
"It's the truth."
It had been Lee Jin-Eon who first ruined the body, and the physician had only made things worse. Dan Woosung continued,
"Of course, the Dragon and Phoenix Soup you made worked as poison in my body. It may have helped with virility, but I could've died in bed from overexertion. As a physician, I'm sure you understand—medicine unsuited to the situation is no different from poison..."
At the subtly mocking tone, Gongsun Myung had no response.
'Hmph…'
He had only come to check on him, but now the atmosphere felt more like an interrogation, making him clear his throat uncomfortably.
Dan Woosung asked something he'd been wondering.
"Who pays your wages again?"
"Well, of course, the family's finance manager..."
Dan Woosung shook his head.
"No, not that kind of wage. I'm asking if someone else is secretly paying you something extra."
Gongsun Myung's face began to redden.
"What reason would I have to receive extra pay?"
Dan Woosung smiled as he replied.
"If I died, wouldn't you receive a generous reward?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why so surprised? It'd be better if I died of natural causes, no? Even if an investigator combed through this safe house like hunting rats, they wouldn't find any poison. Ah, maybe the hallucinogenic grass might raise suspicion. But that's not poison, technically."
Gongsun Myung lowered his head and muttered,
"Young Master, please refrain from such talk. That would never happen."
He thought the situation had gone awry, but could only feel bitter.
Even if this patient tried to lay a hand on him, it wouldn't hurt. Even if they investigated, there'd be no evidence that he'd worsened the First Young Master's health.
It was just the baseless suspicion of a reckless, troublesome heir.
Dan Woosung could see Gongsun Myung's mind working and burst into laughter. In the awkward atmosphere, Gongsun Myung also forced a laugh.
"Hahaha..."
He added with a slightly sarcastic tone,
"In any case, now that the First Young Master has recovered like this, the Eunha Merchant Group's head will surely be delighted."
"Of course. What father wouldn't be glad to see his son rise from a sickbed?"
To that, Gongsun Myung offered no reply. The conversation he was having with the First Young Master was so different from before, it left an uneasy feeling he couldn't hide.
Gongsun Myung said,
"If you dislike pulse readings, then I shall take my leave. Please rest well."
"Physician Gongsun."
"Yes?"
"I didn't ask you to come, and now you say you'll leave without being told to. Don't do that from now on. Come when you're called. Leave when you're told. If you're receiving a hefty sum from the household without doing anything, that's the least you can do."
Gongsun Myung stared at Dan Woosung in shock. Was this really the same Lee Jin-Eon he used to know? He was picking a fight—how absurd.
Dan Woosung continued,
"Am I wrong?"
"Ah, no. You're right."
As Gongsun Myung rose half in a daze, Dan Woosung said,
"I didn't say you could leave."
With his face bright red, Gongsun Myung awkwardly sat back down.
"Yes, please speak."
Dan Woosung was deliberately provoking him. Pointing to the desk, he said,
"I need to send a letter. Bring me the writing tools on the desk."
"Yes."
It was something normally done by an attendant.
Gongsun Myung stood up, brought over the brush, ink, and blank paper from the desk.
Dan Woosung spoke.
"This letter is to be sent to the main house. I'll dictate, you write it."
Gongsun Myung, taking the brush, replied,
"Yes, please go ahead. I'll write it down."
Dan Woosung spoke as if talking about someone else.
"It seems that the illness of First Young Master Lee Jin-Eon is quite severe, and he will have to remain at the safe house for the time being."
Gongsun Myung wrote down exactly what was said. Dan Woosung continued.
"His life is truly tenacious. Please advise the next course of action."
The tip of Gongsun Myung's brush stopped and trembled slightly.
It was something he couldn't bring himself to write. It sounded too much like a message to a co-conspirator.
Dan Woosung, lowering his head slightly and watching Gongsun Myung's expression, asked,
"What's wrong? Why aren't you finishing it?"
"The wording is... a bit prone to misunderstanding..."
As Gongsun Myung looked on with a rigid expression, Dan Woosung said,
"Hey, old man..."
"Hah..."
At the insult that crossed the line, Gongsun Myung put down the brush and looked at Dan Woosung. No—at this point, it would be more accurate to say he glared.
It was no longer a conversation between the First Young Master of a merchant group and a physician, but the kind of stare exchanged between a young man and an old man prepared to kill one another.
Gongsun Myung answered in a stiff tone.
"Go on."
Dan Woosung spoke a truth-laced sentence.
"I am no longer the Lee Jin-Eon you once knew."
"Is that so?"
"I'm not the fool who drank the Dragon and Phoenix Soup you gave and fooled around lewdly with servants. You could say I'm a prodigal who dipped his feet in the afterlife and came back."
"Heh heh heh. I have no idea what you're talking about. And the Dragon and Phoenix Soup is not poison."
"Depending on the timing, it is poison. There's no way a physician wouldn't know that..."
"Seems the Young Master holds quite the grudge against me. I am not a retainer of the Eunha Merchant Group. I'll let today's insults slide."
Dan Woosung pointed to the letter with his finger.
"Enough chatter. Just finish the letter. And at the bottom, write the name of the one who ordered you to do this. I'll keep it as evidence. If you don't want to write it, you can die right here."
At Dan Woosung's blunt threat, Gongsun Myung let out a long sigh.
"Huuuuh..."
But by the end of the sigh, as if casting off a mask, Gongsun Myung smiled and nodded a few times. Lee Jin-Eon truly looked pathetic to him.
'What a piece of trash. Seems the long illness really messed with his head. I was trying to send him off gently…'
It was a worst-case scenario, but still, sending Lee Jin-Eon back to the main house as a corpse would suffice. He would just kill all the servants to silence them. Whether the servants lived or died was none of Gongsun Myung's concern. What baffled him more was why this weak, sickly man was acting so arrogantly. If anyone knew how poorly trained Lee Jin-Eon was in martial arts, it was Gongsun Myung. Maybe if the kid could fight, it would make sense—but from what he remembered, Lee Jin-Eon had always been the one getting beaten.
Scratching his head, Gongsun Myung looked behind him.
"Haah, seriously..."
It was an instinctive motion to check if any servants were outside.
Understanding the meaning of this movement, Dan Woosung clicked his tongue.
"A so-called physician..."
Gongsun Myung turned his head back, already thinking about how best to strangle Lee Jin-Eon to leave a clean corpse.
"You there, First Young Master..."
The moment Gongsun Myung turned around, Dan Woosung was already poised—hand raised as if to split firewood. In the next instant, Dan Woosung's right hand came crashing down like lightning onto Gongsun Myung's head.
Whack!
Dan Woosung followed up with a comment.
"All you do is scheme how to kill people."
With his skull crushed, Gongsun Myung slowly collapsed to the side, convulsed a few times, then stopped breathing.
Dan Woosung stared at Gongsun Myung's corpse, then looked at his own hand.
This pitiful body reacted with a dull ache just from striking an old man's head. Since he hadn't trained in fists, he'd deliberately used a knife-hand strike, but even that hurt.
With cold eyes, Dan Woosung looked down at Gongsun Myung's corpse.
'Checking for witnesses before launching a surprise attack…'
To the Fist King, that was laughable.
He didn't particularly care who had ordered the deed. Once he recovered his martial power, it wouldn't matter even if the entire Eunha Merchant Group was behind it. He planned to uncover it after returning.
Just as Dan Woosung was about to call a servant, he frowned and grabbed his forehead. A strange headache—one he had never experienced before in his life—was surging.
"Mm..."
It was a strange phenomenon.
The truth was, this Gongsun Myung had been the direct cause of Lee Jin-Eon's death. And now, with Gongsun Myung's death, it was as if the vault of Lee Jin-Eon's memories had opened, with past events flashing by like a lantern reel. Of course, they were Lee Jin-Eon's memories.
Was this the price of revenge?
The memories of the body's original owner, Lee Jin-Eon, had until now remained shrouded in fog, unclear.
But now, Dan Woosung could observe them—almost as if he were spectating Lee Jin-Eon's memories. It wasn't a common occurrence, so the headache made sense.
Even the faces he had only seen in portraits were now vividly imprinted in his mind along with their names. It felt as if Lee Jin-Eon was finally acknowledging Dan Woosung's reincarnation by offering up his memories.
A tear—shed not by Dan Woosung, but by Lee Jin-Eon—rolled down from one eye and dropped to the floor.
Bam—
Dan Woosung spoke gently, as if knocking on Lee Jin-Eon's heart.
'Jin-Eon, show me. Show me how you truly felt, what was in your heart, what your pain was... Reveal it all to me. I will remember it now.'
And as Lee Jin-Eon's memories poured out like a waterfall, Dan Woosung quietly closed his eyes.
< Fist King, Breaks It Apart > End