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Creak.
The high-pitched screech of a sword slicing through the air echoed, synchronized with the rustle of fabric across a smooth surface and the faint tap of heels striking stone tiles.
Eyelashes fluttered in rhythm with the movement of heavy-lidded, wide, blue eyes.
Amidst the snow, footsteps crunched like grains rattling inside a leather pouch.
A word, forced out from a young female throat.
A girl with long black hair tied in a low ponytail lifted her head. The edges of her dark daobao swayed with the danho—a deep blue garment with icy blue trim, patterned like frozen northern mountains, rising to her waist.
Her serene contemplation of the snow was broken by a harsh, coughing fit—a northern ice blade of a cough.
Blood.
Ruitscherono looked down at the crimson mixing with the snow, beautiful and painful at once.
“Is this the end?” she asked softly, her voice tinged with a catch, pain, and restraint.
The Heavenly Physician.
Ruitscherono, once known as the Heavenly Physician, the greatest apothecary in the Northern territories, had suffered a “frozen meridian” affliction. She lost her internal strength, then her sense of taste, followed by smell… even hearing… until she became partially blind.
She walked through the snow, using her sword as a cane, feeling the vibrations as it struck a wooden table. Slowly, she reached out among the scattered jars, finally grasping a ceramic bottle and lifting it to her lips.
She could no longer taste food, but she could recognize it by texture alone.
Ruitscherono sighed, replacing the bottle on the table, mourning her wretched state.
“I must find a cure for this,” she murmured, continuing forward with the sword as support.
Suddenly, a sharp pain stopped her steps. She pressed a hand to her chest and collapsed onto the snow, clutching her chest. Memories flooded her mind, and a tear traced a cold path down her face.
“I will not die!! I still want to live long,” she rasped, her voice hoarse as more tears fell.
A voice came from behind.
“I hope… for a second chance,” she whispered, sobbing, and fell deeper into the snow.
Childhood memories danced before her eyes—being a begging infant, warm hands of Shizon, a simple life tainted by sickness, a desk cluttered with papers and research.
All of it vanished with the warmth of a voice.
“Do not worry, Ruitscherono. Shizon will handle it for you.”
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Clang!
A metallic plate crashed to the floor. Ruitscherono’s eyes snapped open in shock as sounds flooded her senses.
“I can see!!” she shouted, looking around.
“I can hear!!”
Her astonishment made her put a finger in her mouth, tasting salt. Tears streamed down her face—living over fifty years without senses was like being trapped in a black prison, unseen and unheard.
She scanned the strange room—not her old quarters. Her hands looked young and smooth but dotted with red blotches. She inspected her body, youthful and fragile, her long black hair curling at the ends, wide black eyes like dried plums.
She grabbed a silver dish and stared at her reflection.
“It seems I’ve been reincarnated… into a sick body,” she whispered, noticing red bumps on her face.
“A… venereal disease?!”
Placing a hand on her dantian, she felt a small fissure and a heartbeat that raced painfully when she tried to gather energy.
The high-pitched creak of a door let light into the dark room.
She looked up to see a tall, older man enter, his clothing marking high status. Her gaze sharpened at the sword at his waist.
“A warrior,” she whispered.
“Baek Yul Yasu,” the man said.
It was Hyung Sang. He had been working in his office, heard her cries, and came to check on Baek Yul Yasu—or rather, Ruitscherono.
“What?” she asked, confused.
She studied him, then leapt forward, grabbing his clothes.
“Who are you? Where am I?” she demanded, teeth clenched.
Hyung Sang’s hand rested on her shoulder.
“Yasu!! What happened to you? Don’t you remember me? I am your teacher, Hyung Sang.”
Ruitscherono pushed him away, grabbing a fire-tending iron rod as a makeshift sword.
“I don’t know you,” she said, noticing a plum flower embroidered on his garment.
She bit her lip. “Is this… the Mount Hua Sect?”
A thoughtless question, yet her mind began to process everything at once. A ton of bricks seemed to hit her head. She had reincarnated into a sickly child in the declining Mount Hua Sect.
She glared at him, then threw the iron rod aside.
“My name isn’t… that long, empty, strange name,” she said. Straightening her hair, she revealed her face.
“I am Ruitscherono. Remember that name,” she declared, voice filled with charisma and courage.
Hyung Sang looked at her warily—had she lost her memory to illness or gone mad?
He left to inform the sect leader of the latest developments.
Once the door closed, Ruitscherono turned to the room, found scissors, and cut her long black hair to shoulder length, tying it into a ponytail.
She opened a wardrobe to find clothes bearing the plum flower insignia, signaling she was a second-grade disciple.
Dressing in black, she pulled aside the curtains of the dark room and smiled.
“In this life… I will do what I was meant to do.”
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End of Chapter.