“A needle knife?”
Jin Yong-ho frowned as he examined the instrument I handed him.
“What is this? The clinic I used to visit never mentioned anything like this.”
That made sense.
Unlike ancient times, when practitioners used many different types of acupuncture needles—such as chan needles and round needles—modern Korea relied almost entirely on standard filiform needles.
Though I’d heard there were still clinics that used needle knives, apparently the one Jin Yong-ho had attended wasn’t one of them.
As for me...
Honestly, this was much more convenient.
In the Murim world, they didn’t even possess the technology to mass-produce needles as thin as modern acupuncture needles.
“This is different from a regular acupuncture needle,” I explained. “Normal needles are made of soft iron. They bend, but they don’t break. This one is forged from steel, and the tip is sharpened like a tiny blade so it can make micro-incisions. Think of it as something between a scalpel and a hypodermic needle.”
From a safety standpoint, ordinary acupuncture needles were naturally superior. As long as they were inserted carefully, they could avoid blood vessels and nerves.
But there was no way they would penetrate the rock-hard shoulder Jin Yong-ho had developed.
“So... you're saying you're going to cut me with a knife?”
“Not exactly. I’ll be creating tiny openings in the adhesed soft tissue. It’s far less invasive than surgery. Rather than explaining it, why don’t you experience it yourself?”
His eyes moved back and forth between the scan on the monitor—showing tendons stiff as ice—and the needle knife in my hand.
Interest flickered in eyes that had looked dead only moments before.
“Come on, Dad. Let’s try it.”
“...Alright. Let’s do it.”
Urged on by his son, Jin Yong-ho finally nodded.
He pulled off his short-sleeved shirt and sat facing away from me, exposing his shoulder.
After locating a safe insertion point with a direct path to the tendon, I sterilized the area with an alcohol swab.
“Alright. I’m starting.”
Scritch. Scritch.
I could clearly feel the blade passing through skin and fascia.
Healthy tendons were elastic.
Inflamed tendons felt sticky.
And Jin Yong-ho’s shoulder was exactly like its nickname implied—Frozen Shoulder.
It felt frozen solid.
In a case like this, precise acupuncture points didn’t matter much.
I simply targeted the areas with the worst adhesions and cut through them decisively.
“Huh. It’s not as painful as I expected. It actually feels... relieving.”
“Right? Now try lifting your arm.”
“Already? That’s it?”
Less than a minute had passed when I declared the treatment finished.
Jin Yong-ho looked bewildered.
As before, he cautiously raised his arm, expecting it to stop around ninety degrees with a burst of pain.
“...?”
But contrary to his expectations—
Exactly as I had predicted—
“Y-you’re a miracle doctor?!”
His arm shot upward.
All the way.
A full one hundred and eighty degrees toward the ceiling.
“W-Why is it moving?!”
“Wooooow!”
His son screamed in pure excitement.
Jin Yong-ho, however, seemed overwhelmed by something beyond mere joy.
“Heh. Surprised?”
The expression on his face couldn’t be described with a single word.
“Y-you said this was called a needle knife?”
“Yes.”
“This is ridiculous—no, incredible. For two years, this arm has never gone any higher than that. If anything, it only got worse...”
He simply couldn’t believe it.
Was this a dream?
He blinked repeatedly and even slapped his own cheek, but everything felt perfectly real.
“Now that we’ve loosened things up, stretching should become much easier. Start exercising again and keep coming in for treatment.”
“Y-Yes.”
He may have come into the consultation room willing to humor me, but he’d never truly expected results this quickly.
If you wanted fast improvement, needle knives were the way to go.
If you wanted a slower, gentler approach, thread embedding acupuncture worked wonders too.
I honestly didn’t understand why these techniques weren’t more widely known.
Well, if people started calling me a miracle doctor, I certainly wasn’t losing out.
“I’ll record your range of motion. You can now lift it to one hundred and eighty degrees. Sideways is about one hundred and fifty. Rotating it behind your back is still difficult, though.”
“R-right...”
“The front capsule is usually the last part to loosen up. We’ve confirmed that you respond well to needle knife treatment. If you keep this up consistently, you’ll be cooking again before long.”
I emphasized that he wasn’t fully healed and would need continued treatment.
But Jin Yong-ho barely seemed to hear me.
The fact that his shoulder could move at all was simply too miraculous.
He kept lifting and lowering his arm over and over.
“Really?”
“Of course. You’ll be able to run your restaurant again. You’ll even be able to play with your energetic son.”
The confident words of the young doctor triggered a flood of memories.
Ordinary days from years ago.
Running his restaurant from dawn until night.
Spending weekends with his son.
Reading books together.
Playing sword-fighting games.
Visiting amusement parks.
Happy days.
Then came the shoulder injury.
His life shattered.
At first, he endured the pain and kept working.
It’ll heal. It’ll get better soon.
But reality was merciless.
His shoulder only stiffened further.
Eventually, he was forced to hire another chef.
Allowing someone else into the kitchen he’d cherished for decades felt unbearable, but he had no choice.
And after swallowing his pride—
Customers started leaving.
The food tasted different, they said.
The restaurant slipped into the red.
At the time, he thought he’d already reached hell.
But it wasn’t over.
After deciding with his wife to close the restaurant, he learned another harsh lesson.
Closing a business wasn’t as simple as deciding to do it.
Each passing day made him realize just how lucky and happy he had once been.
But there was no way back.
“How is it, Dad? Glad we came?”
Yoon-ho puffed out his chest proudly.
The truth was, for the past several months, Jin Yong-ho had been a terrible father.
Even yesterday, he had exploded in anger after hearing his son say that a doctor had cured his stomachache for only a thousand won.
And yet—
“Yeah... Yeah, you were right.”
Now he felt nothing but gratitude.
“Head over to the therapy room for physical treatment. We’ll also do regular acupuncture. The staff will guide you.”
The director said more after that.
The staff explained various things.
But Jin Yong-ho remembered none of it.
He simply underwent the rest of his treatment in a state of overwhelming emotion.
“Your shoulder's really moving?”
“It was me who convinced him to come! Good job, right Mom?”
“That’s wonderful. Thank goodness...!”
His wife, who had been supporting the family alone for nearly a year while working at another restaurant, was overjoyed.
“So when can you start working again?”
“I’m not sure... I should ask tomorrow.”
“Then focus on treatment for now.”
“I’ll massage your shoulder!”
He pulled his loving family into a tight embrace.
Maybe it was fortunate that no one had rented the restaurant space yet.
If he reopened, perhaps the regular customers would return.
Dreaming of a brighter future, he sat there while his son enthusiastically kneaded his shoulder.
“Ah!”
Suddenly, Jin Yong-ho clapped his hands.
“What is it, Dad?”
It wasn’t anything serious.
He had simply realized something.
In all his excitement, he’d forgotten to thank the doctor.
“You said we found the place through NewTube, right? I should at least leave a comment.”
Tomorrow he planned to bring some fruit as a gift.
But he wanted to do something immediately.
“Okay. Wait a second.”
His son opened the NewTube app and searched for:
‘The Acupuncturist Who Places Needles.’
That title is so plain, Jin Yong-ho thought.
Is it some kind of acupuncture ASMR channel?
“...”
What appeared on screen, however, was about as far from ASMR—or clinic advertising—as possible.
“W-What is this? Ten Thousand Flowers Rain?”
“Were you even listening yesterday? I told you the director taught me how to throw rain!”
“...Did he come from Murim or something?”
“He said the video effects are edited!”
“Well, obviously! But what even is this...?”
Thus Jin Yong-ho stepped one foot toward the truth—
Then promptly turned around and walked away from it.
After treating Jin Yong-ho, the number of patients increased noticeably.
Lee Jin-i brought three.
One of those patients, Grandma Heo Soon-nam, referred five more.
And Jin Yong-ho alone brought nine.
Some were acquaintances.
Others had come after watching NewTube videos.
“I got treatment for frozen shoulder here. After two years of being unable to lift my arm, I can finally raise it again.”
Just as Jin Yoon-ho had done, some viewers recognized the neighborhood fountain.
And after watching enough of Seo In-ae’s videos, identifying the clinic wasn’t particularly difficult.
“Isn’t this revealing too much about your identity, In-ae?”
“Come on! My vlogs already show all the nearby restaurants anyway. Don’t worry about it! More importantly, we need a blog! Strike while the iron’s hot!”
So we quickly created a simple blog.
At the moment, it contained little more than clinic hours and location.
Maybe someday I’d serialize some of the cases I’d treated in Murim.
After posting the link, several people accused us of secretly running an advertisement campaign.
But those comments were completely drowned out by curious foreigners and endless arguments in the comment section.
“There’s no way this is real. That fountain statue is made of stone. How does a needle penetrate stone?”
“It’s edited.”
“The green light is obviously CGI, but how do you fake the needle actually going in?”
“Maybe it’s magnetic? Or some special hard needle?”
People argued endlessly about physics and impossibilities.
Well... they’re right.
Without internal energy, the needle would simply bend and fall off.
Maybe I’d been too careless when I allowed filming.
Fortunately, Seo In-ae herself didn’t seem particularly interested in the mystery.
But there would always be people online eager to debate anything.
Well, editing the video now would just look even stranger.
No major television network would care about some tiny NewTube channel anyway.
Then one comment caught my eye.
“Your internal energy is impressive. May I ask which sect you belong to?”
Most people replied with strings of laughing emojis.
They assumed it was a joke.
But it caught my attention.
“Without companions to train alongside, loneliness weighs heavily upon me. I wish to discuss martial arts with the young lady. Though this message may never reach you, I leave it here. Please send me an email.”
“Hmmm...”
I clicked the profile.
The channel contained videos demonstrating the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique and the Four-Day Sword Technique.
Those look quite different from the versions I know from Mount Hua and Jeomchang...
There were several other techniques he claimed belonged to his sect as well.
Something felt... off.
Almost as though there really was internal energy involved.
Or maybe not.
It was difficult to tell through a video.
What is this?
Are there actually people practicing martial arts in the modern world?
It wasn’t impossible.
Even online, one could easily find breathing exercises and cultivation techniques.
The problem was that the amount of qi in the atmosphere here was dramatically lower than in Murim.
Even with perfect training methods, efficiency was less than one-third of what it should be.
And using the methods circulating online?
Maybe after ten years, a person would barely feel anything.
Then, acting on impulse, I sent an email.
Hello. I saw the comment you left under the video.
I am merely a physician who learned martial arts through observation while staying as a guest of the Sichuan Tang Clan. If there is any way I can help...
When I finished, the email was over 5,500 characters long.
Maybe that was a little excessive.
If he wasn’t actually a martial artist, he’d probably think I was insane.
Scratching my head, I sent it anyway.
The very next morning—
“Good morning. Huh? You don’t look very happy. Something wrong?”
“Oh, I got another scam call this morning. Third time already. These voice-phishing idiots never even change their methods. I have no idea where my number leaked from. Who falls for that stuff?”
“That sounds exhausting.”
After greeting Seo In-ae, I entered the consultation room and turned on the computer.
Out of habit, I logged in.
And there it was.
A reply to my email.
The sender introduced himself as a martial artist living in Gyeongju, training under teachings passed down from his grandfather.
The email was incredibly long.
Compared to this, my own message barely qualified as oversharing.
But among all the paragraphs, only one sentence truly stood out.
I possess a genuine martial arts manual.
Countless possibilities flashed through my mind.
Had his grandfather also traveled to Murim somehow?
What exactly did he mean by a genuine martial arts manual?
Could there be a cultivation method specifically suited to the modern world?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I immediately replied.
I’ll come to Gyeongju.
Until that accidental video upload, I had gone to great lengths to hide the fact that I was a martial artist.
Otherwise, people would simply think I was crazy.
But now...
The possibility that someone else in this world had mastered martial arts made my heart race.
Even if it changed nothing, I wanted to meet him.
I wanted to talk.
What’s the harm?
And if the manual he has is really effective...
That’s right.
I should teach it to Lee Jin-i too.
After exchanging contact information with the mysterious man, I immediately arranged a meeting.
