Chapter 231: 【Red Beauty, Thin Fate】(Lower)

Hu Xiaotian and Qin Yutong entered the tent; Qin Yutong probed Xi Yan's pulse, while Hu Xiaotian felt her right carotid artery. Though the skin retained some warmth, there was no pulse and her breathing had ceased completely. Unwilling to accept this, Hu Xiaotian pried open her eyelids and saw that Xi Yan's pupils had dilated.

Qin Yutong shook her head and sighed, "Indeed, she is dead."

Hu Xiaotian pressed his lips together, gestured for Qin Yutong to step aside, laid Xi Yan's body flat on the ground, knelt before her, placed the heel of his left hand on the elastic area between her breasts, slightly above the lower sternum, and put the heel of his right hand on top of the left. He kept his fingers off the chest wall, pressed straight down firmly—cardiopulmonary resuscitation being the most basic first‑aid method, with the key points being: for adults, compression rate at least 100 per minute, depth at least 125 px, after each compression allow the chest to fully recoil; compression and relaxation each occupy about 50%, and the heel of the hand must not leave the chest wall during relaxation to avoid shifting the compression point.

If the onlookers could still understand Hu Xiaotian's chest‑pressing behavior, the subsequent mouth‑to‑mouth resuscitation they saw left them feeling helpless. Hu Xiaotian had no thought of taking advantage; his only thought now was to save a life. Lacking any other rescue tools, he could only perform mouth‑to‑mouth artificial respiration. The key to artificial respiration is to blow for more than one second each time, ensuring enough air enters the patient's lungs and makes the chest rise; mouth‑to‑mouth resuscitation uses the rescuer's blowing force to passively drive air into the alveoli, achieving alveolar ventilation and oxygenation through intermittent lung expansion, thereby relieving tissue hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention. Although Hu Xiaotian gave his all, Xi Yan showed no response, and he finally had to give up. According to his clinical experience, Xi Yan's vital signs had completely vanished; in his past life he would have already declared her dead, but after coming to this new world he gained a new understanding of human vitality and immunity. Moreover, Xi Yan was cunning and crafty, full of tricks—feigning death to escape the present danger was quite possible.

Qin Yutong again took out her silver needles and pricked Xi Yan a few times, trying to awaken her by needling acupoints. Not long after, she concluded that Xi Yan was dead and gently shook her head at Hu Xiaotian.

Only then did Hu Xiaotian believe Xi Yan had truly died; he gazed at her once‑lovely face now devoid of luster. For a moment he felt a sense of loss, as if Xi Yan had just died like this. He felt he ought to bear some responsibility—although Xi Yan was a demoness of the Wuxian Sect, she had not yet truly harmed him. Recalling their chat on the roof of the Wan manor, Hu Xiaotian felt a pang of sourness, pressed his lips, and whispered, "Let's bury her." He walked over and lifted Xi Yan's already cold, delicate body, heading toward the woods on the hillside. Liang Qing said, "I'll go get some oil and fire."

Hu Xiaotian nodded, glanced once more at Xi Yan's lovely face, still unwilling, and felt her pulse and listened to her heartbeat. After confirming there was no response, he sighed deeply and said, "I never imagined your life would be so thin; I actually bore you no ill will, but may you be reborn soon, find a good family, and never again fall into an evil cult." …

Suddenly a buzzing sound came from above; Hu Xiaotian looked up and saw a bee hovering over his head. He stepped back, and the bee circled once before flying toward Xu Heng.

Xu Heng waved his hand to drive it away, but the bee kept circling, angering him; he grabbed it at random, caught it, and squeezed it to death in his palm.

Suddenly a boom rang out; both men were startled, looked up, and saw dense swarms of bees like black clouds approaching from all directions. Hu Xiaotian reacted first, darting forward a few steps and leaping down from a boulder over two zhang high.

The bee swarm chased behind Hu Xiaotian, and from afar it looked like a long black smoke trailing his back.

Although Xu Heng's martial skill surpassed Hu Xiaotian's, his reaction speed was far slower; by the time he realized he should flee, the swarm had already engulfed him from head to foot, instantly surrounding him. Xu Heng let out a miserable cry, unable to see the road ahead, he stumbled about like a headless fly. Before he could take a few steps, his whole body went numb and he collapsed to the ground, the bees still continuously striking him.

Liang Qing had originally arrived at the edge of the woods with a torch and an oil barrel, but seeing the black‑cloud‑like swarm of bees approaching, he was frightened, dropped the oil barrel, and turned to run.

Although Hu Xiaotian's landing posture was ungraceful—he fell flat on his belly—his quick reflexes helped him turn danger into safety; after hitting the ground he immediately rolled with the momentum. Though a few bees clung to him, it was not serious.

Still, over two hundred people remained below; when the bee swarm descended, it immediately dispersed its targets and attacked everyone at once, thereby sharing the firepower Hu Xiaotian would have had to bear alone.

The cries of anguish continued unabated; Hu Xiaotian did not forget the Prince, shouting loudly, "Quickly protect His Highness the Prince!"

The bee swarm blotted out the sky, still coming relentlessly; seeing this, everyone cursed their parents for giving them only two legs, for fleeing was urgent—who still had the mind to attend to the Prince?

Hu Xiaotian waved his arms to drive off the bees attacking him while searching for a safe hiding place. In the chaos he saw the Prince being helped by a few close guards, stumbling toward him; after just a few steps, two people beside him collapsed from poisoning.

Hu Xiaotian covered his head and face with his robe, leaving only his eyes exposed, wanting to rush to the Prince's side, but seeing the bee swarm again descending like a dark wall, he abandoned the idea—under these circumstances, preserving his own life came first.

At the critical moment he smelled a hint of burnt smoke in his breath; it was Qin Yutong appearing at the crucial time, waving a bundle of plants that kept emitting white smoke. The bees encountered the white smoke and scattered in fear, desperate to avoid it.

Hu Xiaotian and Qin Yutong met at one spot; Qin Yutong pointed to his left rear, where a pile of fire had been lit, the flames already smothered, and a thick column of white smoke rose like a dragon, with no bees flying into the surrounding area.

At this moment the Prince also finally managed to escape; a few guards escorted him to the fire. White smoke also drifted from their rear—this was the Shajia Envoy Group using smoke to dispel the bee swarm.

These white smokes quickly took effect; as the mountain wind blew, the white smoke spread everywhere. After about a quarter of an hour, the bee swarm finally dispersed completely, leaving only a scene of utter disorder on the ground.

Last night's snake attack had targeted only the Dakang camp, but today's bee swarm assault left even the Shajia Envoy Group no escape. Preliminary casualty tallies showed five Dakang members dead under unnatural circumstances, almost everyone suffering varying degrees of bee stings; on the Shajia side one person was killed on the spot by stings, with only a dozen or so injured. The reasons were: first, they were farther from the bee swarm's attack point, giving them ample reaction time; second, they carried bee‑repelling grass, which naturally grows on the plains, and the Shajia people had long kept bees, thus mastering some methods to resist bee swarm attacks.

Xu Heng failed to escape the woods in time and was stung to death by the bee swarm. Hu Xiaotian led the men back into the woods, only to find Xu Heng's corpse covered with dead bees; as for Xi Yan's body, it had vanished without a trace. The scene proved one thing: Xi Yan was very likely not dead, and this horrific bee‑swarm spectacle was probably staged by her or her accomplices.

Although Hu Xiaotian had suspected Xi Yan of feigning death from the start, he still retained a sliver of mercy; otherwise he would not have given her a chance to escape alive.

Qin Yutong followed his footsteps to his side, saw Hu Xiaotian standing there silently, assumed he was upset over Xi Yan's escape, and softly comforted him, "It's all my fault for being careless and being deceived by her feigned death."

Hu Xiaotian shook his head and said, "I clearly saw she had stopped breathing and her heartbeat, her pupils were already dilated—how could anyone fake death to this extent?"

Qin Yutong let out a soft sigh and said, "I don't know either; just now I really thought she was dead. If I had stabbed her with a sword, perhaps none of this would have happened."

Hu Xiaotian glanced at Qin Yutong; her face was false, but her eyes are hard to fake. Qin Yutong's gaze remained as calm and steady as usual; the words she had just spoken seemed to carry no reluctance. Hu Xiaotian silently sighed, these girls are really one crueler than the other—even knowing Xi Yan was feigning death, he could not bring himself to stab her with a sword, to use such an extreme method to verify whether she was dead. However, if earlier he had buried her in earth, perhaps she would not have summoned the bee swarm to attack. He had sent Liang Qing to fetch torches, intending to cremate her; surely Xi Yan knew she could no longer maintain the disguise, which is why she called forth the bees.

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