In forensic medicine, “feigned death with true life” refers to a state in which a person’s vital signs—such as breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, and pulse—have become so weak that they appear to be dead, when in fact they are still alive.
The root cause of this condition is a lack of oxygen to the brain’s blood supply.
Newborn infants are the most susceptible to this state, as many of their organs haven’t fully developed yet, making it easy for the brain’s oxygen supply to fall short and trigger a false-death state.
Among adults, there are also five common scenarios that can lead to feigned death: alcohol poisoning, anemia, hypoxemia, brain injury, and comas induced by opium, hypnotics, anesthetics, uremia, or diabetic coma.
Death is a gradual process, and it’s extremely difficult to distinguish someone in a feigned-death state from someone who is truly dead based on outward appearance alone.
For most doctors, using pulse-taking, retinal exams, or pupil checks, it’s nearly impossible to tell—or more accurately, most doctors simply wouldn’t even consider it. When they see a patient with no pulse, they instinctively assume the person is dead and don’t think twice.
Only through high-tech precision instruments can it be detected in time that the patient hasn’t actually died, but is merely in a suspended state.
This wasn’t just beyond the two TCM delegation doctors—even someone like Jiang Fei, a master of Chinese medicine whose skills had reached a peak surpassing many ancient sages, wouldn’t have suspected the old lady wasn’t truly dead if not for his system’s direct diagnosis. Without that, he likely would have missed it too.
If a feigned-death patient isn’t rescued in time, the condition can easily become genuine death, and the chance for revival is lost.
But if the patient receives timely treatment, the odds of revival are extremely high.
Fortunately, Cui Xiuping had notified Jiang Fei promptly, and Jiang Fei hadn’t wasted a second. From the moment the incident occurred to his arrival, less than half an hour had passed—just within the window for rescue.
If Jiang Fei had arrived even five or six minutes later, the outcome would have been entirely different. Even with his system, he wouldn’t have detected the feigned-death state—because by then, the old lady would have genuinely passed away.
“Jiang Fei, what did you find?” Cui Xiuping noticed the unmistakable glint of surprise in Jiang Fei’s eyes and couldn’t help but ask immediately.
Of course, he didn’t guess that the old lady was still alive in a feigned-death state. But he knew something good must have happened—otherwise, Jiang Fei wouldn’t have looked pleased in a situation like this.
“Feigned death, true life!” Jiang Fei didn’t waste words. He only said four words, letting Cui Xiuping ponder them himself, and then began considering how to save the old lady.
Feigned death that had already lasted half an hour—by this point, it wasn’t much different from actual death. Only someone with Jiang Fei’s peak-level medical skill, backed by his system and alchemy shop, would still see a chance for revival. If this challenge were handed to anyone else—even a master like Old Divine Healer Cui—they’d be completely helpless.
“Feigned death… true life…” Cui Xiuping muttered the four words under his breath. After a two-second pause, his expression drastically changed. He looked at Jiang Fei in disbelief and asked, “Jiang Fei, are you saying this old lady isn’t actually dead yet? That we can still save her—bring her back from the brink?”
“Too much time has passed. If I’d been here right when it happened, it would’ve been much simpler to revive her. Now… it’s going to be tough.” Jiang Fei frowned, his voice heavy.
Hearing this, Cui Xiuping clenched his fist in frustration and said, “I should have insisted on calling an ambulance! If one had come sooner, the equipment onboard might have detected her feigned-death state earlier.”
By now, Cui Xiuping’s initial hostility and disdain toward Jiang Fei had long since transformed into absolute trust. So when Jiang Fei said the old lady was in a feigned-death state, Cui Xiuping didn’t hesitate for a moment—he believed it completely.
And precisely because of that, when Jiang Fei said it would be “tough,” Cui Xiuping knew he genuinely meant it—it wasn’t just false modesty.
As a descendant of the TCM Cui family and inheritor of the Thirteen Ghost-Needle Technique, Cui Xiuping hadn’t been able to detect the feigned-death state himself, but he knew full well how difficult it was to treat—and how much harder it became after half an hour.
Jiang Fei didn’t deliberate for long—nor did he have the time to. This was the final, critical moment; there was no room for hesitation.
In less than half a minute, Jiang Fei pulled a box of silver needles from his storage space, stood up, and handed them to Cui Xiuping. “We’ll need you to go first. The first step in saving this old lady has to come from you.”
“Huh?” Cui Xiuping took the needles, stunned, caught completely off guard.
From the very first time they’d crossed paths, Jiang Fei had always performed brilliantly. He’d not only surpassed Cui Xiuping but had even exceeded his grandfather, leaving Old Divine Healer Cui to admit his own inferiority.
Over time, Cui Xiuping’s mindset had shifted from rivalry to admiration. Now, whenever Jiang Fei was around, he’d grown uncharacteristically unsure of himself—he never even considered taking the lead, having developed a dependency.
As long as Jiang Fei was there, no matter the illness, he could handle it—there was never any need for Cui Xiuping to step in!
That was Cui Xiuping’s unspoken belief.
So when Jiang Fei suddenly told him to make the first move today, it caught him completely off guard. He hadn’t prepared for this at all; his mind went blank, struggling to process it.
But Jiang Fei didn’t have time to cater to his surprise. After handing over the needles, he produced a vermilion pill the size of a thumbnail and swiftly placed it in the old lady’s mouth.
The pill was remarkable—it dissolved instantly upon contact, so even though the old lady was in a feigned-death state, there was no need for manual feeding assistance.
This pill, of course, had just been exchanged from the alchemy shop moments ago, costing Jiang Fei over a thousand gold coins—a remedy highly beneficial to the old lady’s condition.
“I said you go first,” Jiang Fei repeated to Cui Xiuping after finishing. “The needles are already sterilized. If I remember correctly, your Thirteen Ghost-Needle Technique is especially effective for treating mania, psychosis, and epilepsy, right? Now, I need you to channel your qi and use four specific techniques from the Thirteen Needles—Ghost Path, Ghost Market, Ghost Hall, and Ghost Pillow. You must fully complete all four within three minutes, consecutively. Can you do it?”
Cui Xiuping was no ordinary man, after all.
He was the heir of the Cui family, a lineage of traditional Chinese medicine, and the sole inheritor of the Thirteen Ghost-Needle Technique.
Though his brilliance had been overshadowed by Jiang Fei lately, reducing his presence in the medical world to that of an assistant, one mustn’t forget—the Thirteen Ghost-Needle Technique is one of the three greatest acupuncture methods in history. Cui Xiuping had earned the title “Little Divine Healer Cui.”
Among the younger generation, before Jiang Fei appeared, Cui Xiuping was indisputably the top talent—a medical prodigy who surpassed the heirs of even the three great millennium-old schools.
“I can do it!” Cui Xiuping took the needles, his expression resolute.
With a serious look, he watched as Jiang Fei helped the old lady sit up from the ground. Cui Xiuping opened the sterilized needle case, withdrew three ultra-fine hair-like needles, took a deep breath, and decisively began his technique.
The Thirteen Ghost-Needle Technique—a miraculous method capable of pulling people back from the gates of hell. Its reputation alongside the “Eight Divine Needle Methods” and the “Eight Turtled Methods” as one of the top three acupuncture techniques was no hollow boast.
Completing the Ghost Path, Ghost Market, Ghost Hall, and Ghost Pillow techniques consecutively within three minutes—if it were Cui Xiuping’s grandfather, Old Divine Healer Cui, it wouldn’t be too difficult, with nearly a hundred percent success rate.
But for Cui Xiuping, it was a significant challenge.
Yet Jiang Fei had set a three-minute deadline, and Cui Xiuping knew it must be met. He had no choice but to give it everything he had.
His fingers moved like fluttering butterfly wings, trembling continuously. The two needles went to the philtrum point, then moved to the Fengfu, Shaoshang, and Yinbai acupoints.
At the first acupoint, Cui Xiuping finished in just half a minute. At the second, it took forty seconds—ten seconds longer. At the third, it increased by another ten seconds, reaching a full fifty seconds.
By then, the three acupoints had taken exactly two minutes!
And at this point, though his hands remained steady without a trace of tremor, a thin layer of cold sweat had broken out on his forehead. His eyes were wide open, and the veins at his temples were slightly bulging.
Clearly, performing three acupoints at maximum speed had pushed him to his absolute limit.
Now, only one acupoint remained. He still had a minute left, but this final one was far more difficult than the previous three combined!
Jiang Fei’s eyes were sharp as lightning, fixed intently on Cui Xiuping. Even the usually unflappable Jiang Fei felt a flicker of anxiety.
He didn’t know the Ghost-Needle Technique—it was a family secret of the Cus. But for this feigned-death state, the Ghost-Needle preparation work was absolutely essential. Without it, even his medical mastery and miracle pills would be useless.
So there was nothing he could do now but watch and trust Cui Xiuping’s efforts.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Neither Jiang Fei nor Cui Xiuping could afford even the slightest mistake—they barely dared to breathe.
Outside the police tape, however, the gathered public and the reporters from various major newspapers who had arrived in droves were making a racket.
Even if they knew nothing about TCM, they weren’t blind—they could see that Jiang Fei and Cui Xiuping were trying to “save” someone.
Let’s call it a rescue attempt, for now.
Even though the person they were trying to save was an old lady who had supposedly been dead for nearly half an hour. It sounded utterly absurd.
“What are these quacks doing? Trying to perform a resurrection on the old lady they supposedly killed?”
“How laughable! So this is what TCM is—a superstitious, unscientific relic!”
“I really can’t understand how such foolish medicine still exists in this day and age. It seems that so-called Eastern dragon, China, hasn’t improved at all—just as ignorant and backward as they were a hundred years ago!”
Many onlookers sneered coldly, finding Jiang Fei and Cui Xiuping’s actions utterly ridiculous.
Some even felt they were disrespecting the deceased—much like China a century ago.
Meanwhile, the reporters, seizing the moment, captured every angle. Some were already doing live broadcasts, ready to show the entire British public this farcical scene and reveal just how laughable TCM was.
No one had faith in Jiang Fei and Cui Xiuping. No one believed they could bring the old lady back.
After today’s events, it seemed all but certain that TCM would struggle to find any foothold in Britain—or the broader West—with public trust plummeting to rock bottom.
Seconds ticked by.
Cui Xiuping had now inserted the needles into the old lady’s final acupoint, Yinbai.
After his treatment across several acupoints, the “deceased” old lady’s complexion seemed to change ever so slightly—so subtle it was invisible to the naked eye, only detectable through the flow of blood in her veins.
At the same time, if the most sensitive instruments were used, they would have detected a faint, barely perceptible heartbeat.
But Cui Xiuping’s face and forehead were now drenched in sweat, and even his body was beginning to tremble.
He was completely focused, his eyes locked on the task, ignoring all the noise and doubt from the outside world.
A single minute felt both agonizingly short and impossibly long. Cui Xiuping felt like he might collapse at any moment, or that one wrong twitch of his hand would render all his efforts useless.
Thankfully, just as he was about to break, with only five or six seconds left, Cui Xiuping jerked his right hand upward—pulling the needles out!
He didn’t even have time to catch his breath. He collapsed onto the ground without any pretense of dignity, but his face lit up with a relieved, carefree expression—like a man who had just escaped death. Sweating and utterly drained, he looked up at Jiang Fei and whispered three words: “It’s done…”
“Well done!” Jiang Fei, equally brief, gave only three words in reply. Then he produced his own set of needles, had Lin Moli hold the old lady steady beside him, and began his own acupuncture technique.
The Eight Divine Needle Methods—Dragon-Tiger Intersection Technique!
His movements were lightning-fast, almost too quick for anyone nearby to follow.
The angle and precision of his needle insertions were so intricate that even the hidden observers—other TCM practitioners with ulterior motives—couldn’t make out a thing.
Hum!
Three minutes later, Jiang Fei withdrew the needles with a decisive flick!
