It took about twenty minutes for Jiang Fei and Lin Moli to get to the scene by taxi.
On the way there, Jiang Fei had already called Prince Charles. He didn’t expect the Prince to directly pull strings and sweep the whole thing under the rug—after all, Britain is still a relatively civilized country. When something like this happens, especially out in public, trying to hush it up is next to impossible, even for the Queen herself.
All Jiang Fei really wanted was for Prince Charles to pass along a word to the London police and the relevant authorities. Just a little nudge to make sure they didn’t take advantage of the situation because Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners seemed like easy targets, or because some hidden hands were pulling the strings behind the scenes. The last thing he wanted was for public outrage to get so heated that the two TCM doctors on site couldn’t even be guaranteed their personal safety—that would be a disaster.
As long as the matter was handled fairly and justly, that would be enough.
In Jiang Fei’s view, this whole incident had fallen upon the TCM delegation like a bolt from the blue. But if you really traced it back, it wasn’t their fault at all. As long as the full truth came to light, it would certainly have some negative impact on TCM, but nothing fatal. After all, blaming an entire medical system just because an elderly patient—who was already at death’s door and beyond the help of any medicine—happened to collapse and pass away—that was a stretch, to say the least.
But if someone with ill intentions twisted the story, blew it out of proportion, and got certain authorities to stir up the uninformed public, then the fallout would be massive!
At that point, a lot of ordinary folks might genuinely come to believe that TCM was useless, unscientific, and only capable of harming people rather than saving them. And if that happened, who would still trust TCM? How could it ever hope to expand its reach and thrive in the West?
This wasn’t Jiang Fei being paranoid or projecting his own suspicions onto others. The possibility was very real.
After all, if TCM managed to establish a foothold in the West, the ripple effects would be enormous. Too many interests would be at stake, and it wouldn’t be surprising if some people, throwing professional ethics to the wind, resorted to underhanded tactics.
That was exactly why Jiang Fei had called Prince Charles—to ask for his help in minimizing the chances of such a scenario unfolding.
But even though Jiang Fei had anticipated this and taken precautions, he was still a step too late.
By the time he arrived, the situation had already spiraled in the worst direction he had imagined.
When Jiang Fei and Lin Moli got out of the cab near the Big Ben building, they initially thought about calling Cui Xiuping to ask for the exact location. But the moment they stepped out of the car, they realized they didn’t need to bother. The scene was impossible to miss.
About thirty meters ahead, a crowd of over a hundred onlookers had gathered, noisy and boisterous. Even from a distance, you could make out the gist of what they were shouting—curses hurled at the two TCM doctors, calling them murderers and quacks.
Jiang Fei’s expression turned grim. Without wasting a second, he told Lin Moli to pay the fare and hurried ahead on his own.
By now, nearly half an hour had passed since the incident first broke out—not a short time, but certainly not long either. Several police officers had already arrived and set up a perimeter around the scene.
That much was normal and expected.
What wasn’t normal, though, was that in addition to the police, there were also reporters from several newspapers already on-site, conducting interviews!
Jiang Fei quickly scanned the scene and noticed that these weren’t just any small-time publications—they were all major, influential British newspapers.
If these reporters went ahead and published stories without doing their homework, without understanding the real facts, and jumped to rash conclusions, what would the general public think after reading them?
“If just one reporter had stumbled upon this news by accident and showed up quickly, that could be chalked up to coincidence. But for so many reporters to arrive within such a short time—before even more police or an ambulance could get here—that’s definitely not normal!” Jiang Fei thought to himself.
Earlier, he had considered the possibility that the TCM delegation had simply run into terrible luck. But now, he was almost certain that this was no accident—it had been deliberately orchestrated behind the scenes!
The goal was painfully obvious: to deal a heavy blow to the TCM delegation, disrupt their activities, and send them packing back to China in disgrace.
As Jiang Fei pushed through the crowd and reached the police tape, an anxious and visibly agitated Cui Xiuping spotted him immediately. He rushed over and said, “Jiang Fei, something’s off about this whole thing. These reporters and a lot of the onlookers are clearly distorting the truth, no matter how much I try to explain. They’ve already made up their minds that TCM doctors are all quacks, that TCM itself is a sham, and some of them are even shouting for us to go back to China…”
“I know,” Jiang Fei nodded. After glancing around, he asked, “Why hasn’t an ambulance arrived?”
“Because the old lady has already stopped breathing and has no pulse—she’s been confirmed dead. The police said there’s no point calling an ambulance, and that they’ll just have someone come by later to take the body away. I’ve already requested a full autopsy to determine the real cause of death and make it public,” Cui Xiuping explained.
“Even if she’s been confirmed dead, they should still call an ambulance! Not sending one at all—this is ridiculous!” Jiang Fei frowned.
He understood that, strictly speaking, this incident had nothing to do with the TCM delegation, and even less to do with TCM as a practice. The death couldn’t be pinned on them.
But now, with the media jumping in prematurely and likely stirring up public sentiment without knowing the facts, it had ignited a firestorm of outrage.
Even if, after some time, the official findings were released and proved that TCM wasn’t at fault—that the old lady’s death was due to her pre-existing severe condition—how many people would actually believe it?
First impressions die hard. Most people probably wouldn’t trust the truth even when it came out.
“Let me take a look.” Jiang Fei didn’t say another word. After identifying himself, he stepped past the police tape to examine the old lady’s cause of death himself.
This couldn’t be left to a post-mortem report days later. He had to do something right here, on the spot, to turn the tide at least a little.
If he did nothing now and only tried to clarify things days later, no matter how hard he fought back in the media, it would already be too late.
The deceased was a woman around seventy years old, somewhat stout, wearing a pair of reading glasses that gave her a kindly appearance. But when Jiang Fei leaned in for a closer look, his eyebrows shot up and his gaze sharpened—something was off.
“What’s wrong?” Cui Xiuping noticed the change in Jiang Fei’s expression and asked quickly.
“Half an hour has passed since the incident. Didn’t you notice something unusual about the old lady’s appearance?” Jiang Fei asked with a sidelong glance.
Cui Xiuping studied her more carefully and asked, “You mean her complexion doesn’t look like someone who’s been dead for half an hour?”
Generally speaking, after half an hour, a person’s facial color and expression change significantly. Anyone with experience with corpses would know it’s completely different from the healthy flush of a living person.
“But half an hour ago, both of our delegation’s doctors examined her and confirmed she had no pulse and her pupils were dilated. I checked her myself too—she was indeed dead,” Cui Xiuping said.
Jiang Fei’s eyes flickered with thought as he crouched down, gently lifted the old lady’s wrist, and took her pulse himself.
There was indeed no pulse at all. Her face, her eyes—everything matched the signs of death. By all medical definitions, she could be declared a corpse.
On that point, Cui Xiuping and the two TCM doctors hadn’t made a mistake. As experienced physicians, they wouldn’t get something so basic wrong.
But as Jiang Fei held her wrist, his already peculiar expression grew even stranger. There was even a hint of surprise flickering across his brows!
Because at that moment, the system in his mind gave him a diagnosis—the old lady wasn’t actually dead!
In modern medical terms, this would be called a state of feigned death, yet true life!
“It seems… heaven never seals off all paths.” Jiang Fei narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
