“Is being a river bandit all you do after dying and coming back to life?”

Tang Jun-pa was silent.

On the outside, there was no awkward change in expression like before. His face was cold and deeply sunken. But Cheon Mubaeck felt Tang Jun-pa’s insides churning violently.

“Do I look like a dead person to you?”

“You’re alive. Because you’ve come back to life. But it’s also true that you were dead, right?”

“You know a lot. You, what’s your name?”

“Shall we have a question and answer session one by one?”

“Follow me.”

The river bandits scattered and retreated. The sight of the path opening at a single gesture from Tang Jun-pa. It was a clear sign of Tang Jun-pa’s authority in the Water Dragon Fortress.

At that, Chae Ga-ryeong had a complex expression, as if she knew and didn’t know.

“My master was a benevolent person. He wasn’t authoritarian. That appearance is by no means…”

“The master you knew probably disappeared when he died and came back to life.”

“Isn’t that a metaphor?”

“It’s not a metaphor, it’s real.”

It was a confident tone. Chae Ga-ryeong, who had thought it was a metaphor, shut her mouth.

For a person to die and then come back to life.

Was that possible? Of course, it wasn’t that there was no such thing in the martial world. For example, the Jiangshi of the Maoshan Sect.

“It’s not a Jiangshi.”

Cheon Mubaeck said.

“Then what is it?”

“Bidara”

“Bidara?”

It was a word she had never heard before in her life. Chae Ga-ryeong raised her head and looked at Cheon Mubaeck.

Before Cheon Mubaeck could answer, Tang Jun-pa stopped walking as if he had arrived at the desired place.

“It’s quiet.”

“When I was first detained, this was the place that made my mind and body comfortable.”

Tang Jun-pa said calmly. Below the rock cliff, there was a crude house made of wood. After entering it, Tang Jun-pa said.

“Let’s have a question and answer session. Who are you?”

“I’m Cheon Mubaeck. Are you the Vitality Physician, Tang Jun-pa?”

“I was.”

It was in the past tense.

“And now?”

“No, it’s my turn to ask. Why did you come here?”

“Because Ga-ryeong wanted to see her master’s face.”

There was no change in his expression. Cheon Mubaeck was convinced. A reunion with a beloved old disciple. But Tang Jun-pa, even when facing her, did not show any sign of welcome or ask about her circumstances.

He was only full of interest in Cheon Mubaeck.

A normal person would not have such a reaction. As if she had felt that, Chae Ga-ryeong was silent.

“Alright. I’ll ask. It seems you were kidnapped by the Water Dragon Fortress, but what happened now?”

“I was kidnapped. Now, as you can see, I’ve become the fortress master…”

Tang Jun-pa said so and put his hand on the table. Cheon Mubaeck’s eyes sparkled. The movement of putting his hand on the table was awkward. As soon as he felt that, Cheon Mubaeck kicked the floor hard.

The sharp spears that were coming up from the floor with a creaking sound were shattered by Cheon Mubaeck’s kick.

It was a brutal mechanism trap. Spears coming up from under his feet.

Cheon Mubaeck smirked and looked at Tang Jun-pa.

“A physician who saves people has become a black-way member after getting involved with river bandits.”

Tang Jun-pa, with his mouth firmly shut, waved his hand.

Deudeuk, deudeudeuk.

The wall cracked, and dozens of hidden weapons swirled like a storm.

They were not simple hidden weapons. They sparkled as if something were on them.

They were coated with poison.

Cheon Mubaeck laughed as if he were dumbfounded. He now shook off the last bit of suspicion. He had only seen the Bidara in literature, so he had not been completely sure. But seeing him operate the mechanism trap even with his disciple, Chae Ga-ryeong, there, it was just as the literature had said. The Bidara remembers the connections before becoming a Bidara, but the emotions disappear.

Cheon Mubaeck’s sword danced. The deflected hidden weapons, on the contrary, headed for Tang Jun-pa. Tang Jun-pa flinched and spread his robe.

“That’s pretty good.”

Cheon Mubaeck’s eyes sparkled. They were hidden weapons with internal energy infused in them as they were deflected. Even with them, he could not make a single scratch on that robe. It was a pretty amazing divine weapon.

Tang Jun-pa, who had blocked the hidden weapons once, gestured again.

This time, the spot where the spears had not come up, the place where Cheon Mubaeck was standing with Chae Ga-ryeong, sank.

A deep pit opened up. It was a trap.

It didn’t stop there. Tang Jun-pa, while withdrawing his robe, simultaneously poured out all sorts of hidden weapons. As if to prove that he had once been a physician, dozens of long needles sparkled.

Cheon Mubaeck floated into the air and swung his sword. Since he was holding Chae Ga-ryeong on one side, he could not counterattack. First, he focused on blocking. The flying long needles poured down on the floor.

‘Well, this is annoying.’

Anyway, this is why it’s tricky to deal with guys who use hidden weapons or poison.

The reason he had obediently brought them here was obvious. To operate the mechanism trap.

Indeed, the old ginger is what you have to be careful of in the martial world.

Even while Cheon Mubaeck was thinking so, all sorts of mechanism traps were operating and tormenting him.

But Cheon Mubaeck, while blocking them one by one, was looking for a way to overcome the situation.

He glanced at Chae Ga-ryeong. Her face was pale from the pouring hidden weapons and blades. To do this even in a situation where he had recognized his disciple.

Cheon Mubaeck said rather coldly.

“Do you understand now? He’s not the master you knew.”

“Why on earth?”

“We’ll have to find out now. Who made him like that.”

Cheon Mubaeck was nonchalant. A calmness that was hard to see in the midst of a pouring mechanism trap.

‘The left is opening and hidden weapons are flying, spears and awls are coming up from the floor, if you step here, this side opens, and if you hit that side, the mechanism trap on the other side operates…’

It’s like an old man saying this, but even if the world seems to be an irregular mess, there is a subtle rule in it.

Such rules apply to all things. It’s the same now. Cheon Mubaeck’s eyes flashed. He found a rule in the midst of the countless indiscriminate attacks.

‘The gate of life is here.’

Any mechanism trap has a gate of life. If not, even the person who operates it would have to die. Unless you get the blueprint, you don’t know where the gate of life is.

Cheon Mubaeck found a subtle rule and found the gate of life in it.

It was simple. When he looked closely at the place where Tang Jun-pa was stepping, the answer was there. After deflecting the poured hidden weapons, Cheon Mubaeck moved like lightning.

“You bastard!”

Tang Jun-pa fluttered his robe. The sharp hidden dagger that was hidden in it stretched out. Cheon Mubaeck, without being flustered, lightly deflected it. At the same time, he stretched out his left hand and struck the robe.

“What the…”

Cheon Mubaeck laughed as if he were dumbfounded. The robe, which had been infused with internal energy, felt like hitting steel. Still, as if it had received a big shock from Cheon Mubaeck’s internal energy, Tang Jun-pa vomited blood and took a step back. It was an internal injury.

Cheon Mubaeck took the reins.

He put his sword into its scabbard.

The moment Tang Jun-pa was about to withdraw his robe to counterattack again.

A lightning-fast sword drawing pierced through the space in one go. The speed and power were so great that the path the sword passed through became a temporary vacuum. The sword, with the concept of penetration, pierced Tang Jun-pa’s shoulder in one go. He had aimed for the head, but he had narrowly dodged it.

That alone was enough. Tang Jun-pa was momentarily neutralized, and in the meantime, Cheon Mubaeck rushed in like a thunderbolt and pressed his blood points.

Tang Jun-pa, who had stiffened like a wooden statue, fell back.

Cheon Mubaeck put his foot on his neck and said brutally.

“Alright. Let’s have a question and answer session again.”

“…”

“But I’ll ask, and you’ll just answer. Or I’ll kill you again. What’s more unfair than dying twice in the world?”

“Do I look like I’m afraid of death?”

“Why, are you sure someone will come and save you again?”

Cheon Mubaeck laughed as if he knew everything.

Only then did Tang Jun-pa’s eyes shake slightly.

“Your wrists, your ankles, I see that all your qi veins are cut. Your body is also full of traces of torture. It’s true that you were kidnapped by the Water Dragon Fortress and were persecuted. Right?”

“…”

There was no answer. But he knew the answer. The silence was an affirmation.

“Until then, you had pride as a physician who saves people. So even in the midst of the river bandits’ persecution, even while all your qi veins were being cut, you didn’t hand over the poison.”

“…”

Still no answer, but a light of agitation appeared in Tang Jun-pa’s eyes.

Cheon Mubaeck unfolded his reasoning without hesitation.

“Then you couldn’t hold on and died. For two years, you barely maintained your life with the methods you knew, but what else could you do? But, then someone saved you.”

“…Haha.”

Tang Jun-pa laughed with a tired look. A look of relief.

He suddenly opened his eyes wide.

“My heart had actually stopped.”

Tang Jun-pa’s eyes burned with a strange heat.

His cold face twitched, and a strange heat sparkled.

“But I came back to life. It was a realm of mystery that no medical art I had seen could ever reach. It was the pinnacle of medical art! It regenerated my stopped heart, awakened my stiffening brain, and restored my severed qi veins.”

The strange heat burned more and more and gradually turned into madness. As his face, which was sparkling with a ghost-like qi, contorted frighteningly, Chae Ga-ryeong closed her eyes as if she could not watch anymore. Cheon Mubaeck looked into Tang Jun-pa’s madness-filled eyes and smirked.

“The pinnacle of medical art, my ass. It’s just a secret art.”

“Shut up! What do you know about medical art…!”

“You weren’t revived. You were just reborn as a doll. A Bidara.”

Bidara.

A secret art that had been passed down from ancient India.

The Buddhist scripture that had been brought over when Bodhidharma had crossed over to the Central Plains contained numerous secret arts.

They were full of cruel and bizarre things, to the point where one would wonder if they were really the teachings of a benevolent Buddha. So they were twisted into a complex content that was difficult for anyone to interpret.

‘The time is right.’

From the time the Blood Ghost Valley had seized the goods that were heading for Shaolin, until the bloodbath had occurred here.

The Blood Ghost Valley must have interpreted the secret arts in the Buddhist scripture.

Because the Tang Jun-pa in front of him was a Bidara.

In Buddhism, killing is forbidden.

Among the many kinds of killing that are forbidden, there is curse killing. A method of instigating others to kill another person.

The Bidara was a being born for such a method.

It was a doll made to revive a dead person and to make them kill another person.

It was different from a Jiangshi. Unlike a Jiangshi, it could think for itself, perceive, and even use martial arts. At a glance, it looked the same as when it was alive. No, it was actually alive. Because its heart was beating and it was breathing.

But everything from its previous life had become meaningless. The goal of those who were born as a Bidara was only one.

To kill someone as ordered by those who had revived them.

“It’s a kind of contract killer. A very obedient, contract killer.”

Cheon Mubaeck smirked.

Only then did he understand the process of all the bloodbaths that had occurred in Anhui and Chongqing.

The fact that the Ho-seon-ja, a famous master of the orthodox sects, was a culprit, and the fact that the Tang Jun-pa here was a culprit.

That’s right.

The Blood Ghost Valley, whether its target was the orthodox sects, the unorthodox sects, or the demonic sects.

It had only made contract killers who would obey absolutely.

What was more frightening was the fact that if they were to hide it, one would not know that they were a Bidara.

No, in the first place, if you didn’t know what a Bidara was, you wouldn’t know at all. Even if Tang Jun-pa were to return and pretend to be an ordinary physician, no one would feel anything strange.

Even if they thought it was strange, would they think of him as a contract killer?

If they were to dig into it like that, they might suddenly turn around and hold the sword backwards.

At a crucial moment.

Perhaps.

‘They might have already infiltrated everywhere.’

The Blood Ghost Valley had already confirmed its efficacy by making them annihilate several sects.

The efficacy of the Bidara.

‘The annihilation of the Sacred Fire Sect and the Seopjin-mun was just an experiment for them.’

An experiment to confirm the performance of the Bidara.

Just that.

Only then did it make sense. Although he had wondered countless times why they had done such a thing, it was just for such a simple reason.

The corners of Cheon Mubaeck’s mouth curled up strangely.

“Ha… these bastards. The more I see them, the more I dislike them.”

(End of Chapter)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep