Although the child wasn’t wearing any luxury brands, Sang Zhi recognized his identity at a glance—he was the innocent wealthy boy from the book who would meet an untimely death. In the 1970s, children in China were still struggling just to get enough food to eat; how could they possibly have spare money to buy Nike waffle sneakers?
It was right around quitting time at the factories, and the commotion here drew people’s attention. Curious onlookers craned their necks to look over. Two women saw the child’s stiff body wrapped in a tattered reed mat, his face ghostly pale, and were so frightened their souls nearly left their bodies. They turned and ran, screaming at the top of their lungs, “Someone’s dead! A child’s dead here!”
The words struck Sang Zhi like a bolt from the blue. Her body swayed. She had thought everything was perfectly calculated, that there was enough time—but was she still too late?
Wu Guan didn’t know what she was thinking and assumed she had simply been scared. He busied himself rubbing the child’s hands and feet and piling clothes over him. After working for a while, he finally realized there was a faint breath.
“There’s still warmth—he’s not dead!”
That single sentence pulled her back from the abyss.
Sang Zhi pushed past Wu Guan and examined the child. After lifting his eyelids and checking his pulse, her expression grew even more grave. That bit of warmth was only the residual heat of someone at death’s door—before the body fully cooled. His pulse and heartbeat were almost completely gone. As the saying went, once that last breath slipped out, the person would be gone.
Wu Guan remembered that she knew medicine and quickly stepped aside. Seeing her grave look after the examination, he suggested, “Should we… take him to the hospital first?”
The child was so young—it would be such a pity. With even the slightest hope, he was willing to try.
In just a moment, Sang Zhi had cleared the foreign matter from the child’s mouth and turned his head to the side, positioning him with his head lower and feet higher.
“He won’t make it to the hospital. At most, he has one more minute before his breathing completely stops. Even if we reached the hospital and used a defibrillator, the time wasted on the road would mean severe brain ischemia and hypoxia—the aftereffects would be unimaginable.”
Besides, in this era, whether hospitals even had defibrillators was another question.
As she spoke, she had already begun chest compressions and rescue breathing, but pressing against his chest brought no improvement. Calmly, she took out silver needles from her bag and disinfected them quickly.
“Then what do we do… my God!”
In his panic, Wu Guan saw something unbelievable. Comrade Sang somehow produced several needles and, without hesitation, deftly twisted and inserted them. In her slender fingers, the fine needles seemed to come alive. Wu Guan stared, dumbfounded.
Sang Zhi rapidly needled the Hegu and Renzhong points, twisting and lifting the needles with strong stimulation—so intense it made one’s scalp tingle. After withdrawing them, she inserted needles at Baihui and Shaoshang, this time with much gentler force.
When she felt resistance in the needles, she didn’t panic. She continued the lifting, thrusting, and twisting evenly. Only after sensing that resistance break through did she continue.
By now, dusk had fallen. The wild wind howled, and the swaying shadows of trees looked like clawed monsters, looming over them, waiting to pounce.
When it came to her profession, Sang Zhi was calm and precise, as if she had become a different person. Her master had built his reputation with this very “needle-induced qi circulation” technique. As his last disciple, Sang Zhi had fully mastered not only point selection, pressure, and needle direction, but also the lifting, thrusting, twisting techniques and stimulation intensity—every bit of it passed down intact.
Wu Guan knew this was no time to interfere. He simply used his body to shield them from the cold wind and quietly used his own body heat to warm the child’s icy hands and feet.
On this battlefield without gunpowder, he and his “comrade” were working together to pry open a door of life for a pitiful child.
No one knew how much time passed. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the child’s hand seemed to have regained a bit of warmth.
What was happening here was unknown to others.
As Jiang Yan was preparing to head home, he unexpectedly ran into Wang Zhang, who was hurrying along. The young man’s lips were cracked, his hair blown into disarray by the northwestern wind, making him look especially haggard. Seeing Jiang Yan, he was overjoyed. Without even greeting him, he grabbed him and dragged him toward a car.
“You came just in time. We need your help. You know about the Overseas Chinese reception hosted by the Municipal Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, right? A couple planning to invest lost their child. To find him, everything outside has been turned upside down. We’ve mobilized all police forces to search, but it’s been hours with no leads. You’re strong in reconnaissance—help us.”
This was indeed a major incident. The regiment had already received word in recent days. Among the teams hosting overseas Chinese were elite personnel specially selected by the regiment to protect them.
Knowing the urgency, Jiang Yan asked for details as they walked.
“Around four in the afternoon…”
…
Outside the guesthouse, it was bright as day. Crowds packed the area, layer upon layer, and even so, many leaders had just arrived. Among them, a slightly weathered middle-aged couple supported each other, silently weeping.
Wei Jingrui had left home at a young age and struggled abroad for many years. He lived comfortably, and his tastes had gradually become Southeast Asian. But in the dead of night, what he missed most was still the bowl of millet rice his mother made when he was a child—running with friends in patched clothes, chasing the wind and catching dragonflies.
This time, his wife hadn’t wanted their son to come back with them. It was he who wanted his child to feel the breeze of his homeland, to taste the flavors of his hometown. He had even sworn confidently that this land was the safest and most bountiful place in the world.
Who could have known it would end like this?
The night wind was cold. He draped his coat over his wife’s shoulders, but she quietly shrugged it off, her eyes filled with silent accusation. Wei Jingrui knew that if their child wasn’t found, his wife would lose her mind.
Every time someone arrived, the couple’s tense gazes snapped toward them, hoping for news of their child. But each time, it was disappointment.
Wang Zhang arrived with Jiang Yan, first greeting the overwhelmed municipal leaders, then bringing him to the couple. He briefly introduced Jiang Yan.
“Things are urgent, so I won’t go into detail. This is an exceptionally capable comrade. Would it be alright for him to take another look at the room? Also, where is your bodyguard? If convenient, we’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“Alright, alright. A Cai, come here.”
But before any questioning could begin, the conversation of two passing aunties drifted clearly into their ears.
“Hey, did you hear?”
“Hear what?” the other asked curiously.
“Old Zhao’s family—you know, your sister-in-law’s neighbor—on the way home, near the land temple, they saw a dead child someone had dumped. The kid wasn’t big, about the same age as my youngest. Fair and clean-looking. What kind of parents could be so heartless? No matter how poor, they should at least bury the child. Just wrapping him in a tattered mat and throwing him there—what if animals got to him? Oh my, what a mess…”
As parents themselves, they couldn’t bear the thought and left, sighing.
But at that moment, someone blocked their path, eyes bloodshot.
“Who died? Where?!”