Chapter 15: Frantic Corpse Desecration
Hu Feng laid the girl down. A woman rushed forward, wailing, and reached out with a trembling hand to feel for breath under the girl’s nose. There was none. She began to sob so violently that she nearly fainted.
A surge of a physician’s natural instinct drove Bai Zhi to drop her wooden basin and rush forward to check on the girl’s condition.
’The girl is temporarily suffocating from the drowning. She needs CPR right now, or she’ll die for sure.’
She spoke to the woman who was weeping over the girl’s body, "Move! I can save her."
The woman lifted her tear-filled eyes to look at Bai Zhi, asking blankly, "What did you say?"
Bai Zhi was frantic, her tone growing impatient. "Move! If I don’t help her right now, your daughter is going to die!"
The woman stared blankly at Bai Zhi. ’What on earth is this girl talking about? Yingzi is clearly dead, but she’s saying she can save her?’
Desperate to save a life, Bai Zhi couldn’t waste another second. She shoved the woman aside with all her might, straddled the girl’s waist, interlaced her hands, and began forcefully compressing the girl’s chest. Then she pried open the girl’s mouth and breathed air into her lungs.
This action left everyone present completely dumbfounded. Father Yingzi, who had just arrived on the scene, was especially enraged and moved to strike Bai Zhi.
His iron-like fist was raised high, about to smash into Bai Zhi’s cheek, when a large, calloused hand caught it.
"What are you doing?" Father Yingzi roared at Hu Feng, utterly exasperated.
Hu Feng’s expression was impassive. His gaze swept over Bai Zhi, who was still repeating the cycle of chest compressions and rescue breaths. In a low voice, he said, "She’s saving your daughter."
Father Yingzi retorted angrily, "What kind of rescue is this? She’s clearly—"
Before Father Yingzi could finish his sentence, Yingzi, whose face had been deathly still, suddenly coughed up a mouthful of water all over Bai Zhi’s face. This was followed by a series of violent coughs as she continued to expel more water...
She was alive. A person who had clearly stopped breathing was, just like that, alive again.
Father Yingzi, Mrs. Yingzi, and all the onlookers were so shocked their jaws hung open.
So Bai Zhi really had been saving her, not... desecrating a corpse.
A strange light suddenly flickered in Hu Feng’s dark, desolate eyes, like a guiding lantern suddenly rising up on a bleak and endless path.
He gave Bai Zhi one last, deep look, then turned and walked away from the crowd.
"She’s really alive? That girl, Zhi, actually has some skill. To think she could save someone who was clearly dead!"
"It’s so uncanny. That girl Zhi already died once today, and she came back to life for no reason then, too. Can that be a coincidence?"
"Ugh! Stop, don’t say another word! Just listening to this is giving me goosebumps. Let’s go, let’s go, hurry up and get out of here. This is too creepy."
Hearing this gossip, Father Yingzi and Mrs. Yingzi also grew frightened. Without so much as a word of thanks, they hurriedly took the soaking-wet Yingzi and went home. The crowd of onlookers dispersed as well.
Bai Zhi gave a helpless, self-deprecating smile. ’How ridiculous. I act on a warm-hearted impulse to save a life, and it just ends up causing more trouble for me.’
She retrieved her wooden basin and squatted by the river to scrub the clothes. The noisy riverbank had fallen silent. Aside from the sound of her washing, there was nothing to be heard.
————
Meanwhile, at the Bai Family’s home, the old matriarch knew Mrs. Zhao had taken her daughters to the Hu Family. Since it was the village chief’s idea, she couldn’t very well object.
’Besides, Zhao Lan and Bai Zhi are both injured and can’t work right now. Having them go to the Hu Family saves the Bai Family two days’ worth of food.’