Chapter 28 – Returning from Death
The clinic was thick with the smell of medicine.
Steam rose from the pot where herbal decoctions were boiling.
Yeong-woo lay on the bed.
His chest moved faintly.
But his breathing was already so thin it seemed ready to stop at any moment.
The physician held his wrist and felt the pulse.
The pulse stopped.
Then returned.
Then stopped again.
Like a thread that had been cut and clumsily tied together again.
"The poison has entered the heart meridian."
The physician muttered quietly.
To Yeong-woo, the words sounded distant.
Like someone speaking about another person.
Something unrelated to him.
His body felt lighter.
The pain drifted farther away.
Then he closed his eyes.
The world suddenly moved far away.
He saw his own body lying on the bed.
The physician was there.
A nurse beside him.
A young apprentice stood holding a jar of medicine.
Perhaps it was the first time he had seen someone dying.
His hands trembled.
The nurse said urgently,
"The pulse is fading."
The moment she finished speaking—
all sound vanished.
Where sound disappeared,
a road appeared.
It stretched into white fog.
The road was long.
So long that its end could not be seen.
When he stepped forward,
the ground felt cold beneath his feet.
Then a voice came from behind him.
"It is not yet your time."
"You still have things left to do."
An old man stood there.
He wore an old robe.
He looked like an ordinary neighbor.
Yet his face could not be remembered.
It could not be clearly seen.
Even when looking directly at him,
it was impossible to hold the image in memory.
And yet—
he did not feel unfamiliar.
The old man lifted a hand.
From Yeong-woo's chest,
a thin thread stretched outward.
An invisible thread.
The last strand of life.
A single remaining chance between life and death.
The old man spoke.
"The poison has reached the heart."
"But the thread has not yet broken."
At that moment—
something pulled him violently.
The world flipped.
Air flooded into his lungs.
Yeong-woo's body jerked violently on the bed.
The physician shouted.
"The pulse is returning!"
Yeong-woo's eyes slowly opened.
The smell of medicine returned.
The sound of people breathing returned.
The next day Yeong-woo regained consciousness.
His body remained weak.
He could barely move.
But his eyes were clear.
He could speak.
"I lived."
"Ha… ha…"
Cheol-ryong asked,
"How did that happen?"
"I don't know."
"We asked your master to save you."
"He said it was Fuzi poison."
"He must have dealt with those bastards while he was there."
"Ah."
"Who do you think it was?"
"I don't even remember being cut."
"Well," Cheol-ryong said,
"You were fighting many people at once."
Everything had been tangled together.
Yeong-woo thought of his master.
Surely Baek In-gyeom had seen who wounded him.
He did not know where the man had been hiding.
But he remembered the voice guiding him through transmitted sound.
He had died.
And returned.
He had truly died.