A funeral was being held in Donggan Village.

The deceased was a man in the prime of his life.

Although the intelligence report had prepared him,

he still felt a sense of apprehension.

’Am I too late?’

’Can he still be saved?’

He walked over and used a translator to ask a weeping woman about the situation.

Seeing the sudden appearance of a face from Dragon Country, some of the villagers looked up.

"Excuse me," Li Xu asked politely, "how did this man pass away?"

The woman, who wore a headscarf, was too consumed by her grief to answer.

At that moment,

an old, bearded man stepped out from the crowd.

"I am the village’s Ye Mushen."p>He sized up Li Xu. "What can I do for you?"

Ye Mushen was another name for a herb doctor.

"Hello, Ye Mushen," Li Xu said. "I’m a doctor as well. I see that someone has passed away. May I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course."

Ye Mushen nodded.

Li Xu stepped forward, looked at the man lying on the ground, and asked his first question:

"May I ask what illness this gentleman died from?"

Ye Mushen sighed and answered, "His name is Snar. He wasn’t sick. Yesterday, he went to the riverbank to dig for loaches. For some unknown reason, he suddenly collapsed, and... he never woke up."

"May I examine him?"

Li Xu asked.

Snar’s body was awaiting burial, and not knowing if there were any local taboos,

Li Xu decided it was best to ask first.

"Hm?"

Ye Mushen frowned. "Why?"

Li Xu found a good reason. "To determine his cause of death. Otherwise, won’t other villagers who go to the riverbank be at risk of dying too?"

"Alright."

Ye Mushen was convinced and agreed to let Li Xu examine the body.

Li Xu crouched down and carefully inspected Snar’s condition.

Snar’s face was pale, but there were no signs of livor mortis, and his skin still had some elasticity.

He placed his fingers on Snar’s wrist.

As expected, he couldn’t feel a pulse.

’That makes sense. If there were a pulse,

Ye Mushen wouldn’t have pronounced Snar dead.’

Li Xu checked other areas, combining his observations with the information from the intelligence report.

’Snar was poisoned.’

The poison had caused the blood and qi in his body to stop circulating along their proper paths.

This led to a violent conflict between the yin and yang energies, which became trapped and unable to be released.

This chaotic, perverse qi erupted violently toward the body’s surface, causing instantaneous damage to the internal organs.

When the body’s healthy qi grew too weak to suppress this perverse qi, the latter would accumulate, ultimately leading to a slackening of the yang vessels and a tightening of the yin vessels. This created the illusion of sudden death by fainting.

Generally, when a person faints, the most common first-aid method is to pinch the Renzhong Acupoint.

But why pinch the Renzhong Acupoint?

In fact, the state of fainting is quite similar to a hexagram in the Yi Jing—the "Pi" hexagram, also known as the "Hexagram of Yin-Yang Separation."

In this hexagram, Qian is above and Kun is below.

Qian represents heaven, which is yang, and its nature is to ascend. Kun represents earth, which is yin, and its nature is to descend.

The Yang Qi is above, ascending on its own; the yin energy is below, descending on its own.

The energies of heaven and earth do not interact, and thus the myriad things cannot flourish.

This is the image of "Pi," representing blockage, obstruction, and the separation of yin and yang.

Corresponding to the human body, with the Renzhong Acupoint as the dividing line, the Du Meridian above it is yang, and the Ren Meridian below it is yin.

Under normal circumstances, the body’s Yang Qi should descend and its yin energy should ascend. Only when yin and yang interact can the body be healthy and free of illness.

However, if the Yang Qi of the Du Meridian abnormally ascends and the yin energy of the Ren Meridian abnormally descends, it forms the internal equivalent of the "Pi" hexagram.

This causes a person to faint due to the separation of yin and yang.

In this situation, one must forcefully stimulate the Renzhong Acupoint, located at the junction of yin and yang, to reverse the situation and compel the two energies to reunite, mobilizing the qi and blood.p>The situation of restoring the body’s qi and blood by pinching the Renzhong Acupoint is akin to another hexagram from the Yi Jing—the "Tai" hexagram.

In this hexagram, Kun is above and Qian is below. Earth is above heaven; yin energy descends and Yang Qi ascends. Heaven and earth interact, and all things prosper. This is "Tai," a highly auspicious sign of harmony between yin and yang.

However, can all types of fainting be treated by pinching the Renzhong Acupoint?

Not at all.

Fainting that can be remedied by this method requires that the patient’s yin and yang energies are both still relatively strong, merely experiencing a temporary separation.

Snar’s yin-yang separation was caused by poison. The yin toxin in his body was rampant, creating a condition of "slow yang and urgent yin."

In other words, the perverse yin energy in his body had become extremely rampant, while his Yang Qi had become exceptionally weak.

When the Yang Qi is completely unable to restrain the yin energy, the body exhibits a gloomy, overcast state and fainting occurs. In such a case, pinching the Renzhong Acupoint is absolutely forbidden.

This is because the patient’s last sliver of faint Yang Qi cannot withstand any strong stimulation. Forcefully pinching the acupoint would only hasten his death.

Therefore, after confirming that Snar’s pulse was a classic case of "slow yang and urgent yin," Li Xu did not immediately attempt to save him but continued his questioning.

"Excuse me, when did Snar ’die’?"

Ye Mushen thought for a moment and replied, "Around one o’clock last night."

One in the morning.

Li Xu became even more certain.

That was the Hour of the Ox, the time when the Liver Meridian of Foot Jueyin is dominant among the twelve meridians.

The liver governs generation and growth.

This is the critical time when the body’s Yang Qi begins to rise, its yin energy begins to recede, and the two energies "change shifts."

If a problem occurs in the body at this time, it’s very easy for the phenomenon of "Yang Qi failing to rise and yin energy failing to descend" to occur.

And in Snar’s case, at the time his yin energy should have been descending, the excessive cold, toxic, and perverse qi in his body prevented it from doing so. Instead, it suppressed the newly budding, faint Yang Qi, preventing it from rising and holding it firmly in check.

This is what produced the "slow yang and urgent yin" pulse.

At this point, Li Xu had completely confirmed that the primary cause of Snar’s collapse and apparent death was a perverse yin condition, brought on by poisoning, which was obstructing the generation of Yang Qi.

From this, he determined that Snar had not truly died, but had merely entered a state of deep shock—a "suspended animation"—because his breath was blocked.

All of this matched the conclusions provided by the intelligence system exactly.

Perhaps it was due to the poverty of the area, or perhaps it was local custom.

The family hadn’t placed Snar in a coffin.

If he had been placed in a coffin with the lid closed, it would have completely cut him off from the exchange of yin and yang energies with the world. At that point, not even an Immortal could have saved him.

He stood up, looked at the grief-stricken family, and said loudly through his translator:

"Everyone, please stop the ceremony. Snar isn’t dead."