A Moment of Life and Death

When Ye Wan brought Chen Fan into the valley, many of its residents crowded around them, their expressions full of agitation. It seemed they all recognized Ye Wan. One woman hurried to Ye Wan's side and asked anxiously, "Wan'er, you're finally back! How did it go? Did you find the antidote?"

For a moment, Ye Wan did not know how to answer. The people of this valley had lived here generation after generation, like one great Lineage. Whenever any household faced trouble, everyone did their utmost to help. This time, when her younger sister had fallen into danger, they had all worried themselves sick. Now, Ye Wan was their only hope, yet she had brought back no good news.

Just then, Chen Fan suddenly spoke. "Everyone, don't panic. Although Fairy Ye did not find the antidote, she found me. I came here this time to cure the poison."

The crowd was instantly overjoyed. Some even cheered and jumped for joy. Several people took the lead in clearing the way, signaling for the crowd not to block the path. Thus, Chen Fan and Ye Wan were escorted all the way to the home of Ye Wan's younger sister.

The moment they entered the small house, Ye Wan whispered into Chen Fan's ear, "This poison is incredibly strange. Are you really confident you can cure it?" Along the way, Chen Fan had kept reassuring her, saying that he had encountered those traffickers and inhaled the poisonous incense himself, so he had gained some understanding of it. But Ye Wan had taken it as mere comfort. She had not expected him to declare, the moment he arrived, that he would truly detoxify her sister, and she was somewhat taken aback.

Chen Fan did not answer her directly. He entered the inner bedroom, where a girl of twelve or thirteen lay quietly on the bed. Her face was utterly bloodless, and her breathing was faint. One glance showed that she had gone a long time without food. If another three to five days passed, she would likely starve to death outright.

Chen Fan walked to the bedside, pressed two fingers against the girl's brow, and closed his eyes to sense her condition for a while. Then his fingers moved to her neck. After a moment, he raised his head and said to Ye Wan, "As expected, it is Spirit-Mystifying Incense." Few could rival his familiarity with this incense, so after examining her, he could confirm it. Chen Fan could not help sighing inwardly. Even a child with a strong constitution like Ye Wan's younger sister could not resist its toxicity. The fate of those abducted children was easy to imagine.

"We investigated in Pingliang City before, but we could not find an antidote. Do you truly have a way?" Ye Wan asked again. At this moment, she was like a helpless child. Seeing Chen Fan's confident appearance was like seeing a lifesaving straw. She looked at him, her eyes filled with expectation.

Chen Fan was drumming anxiously in his heart as well. If the girl had only recently been poisoned, he could have given her the pills he had refined to control the poison first. Then, with Ye Wan's Internal Qi cultivation, she could slowly dissolve the toxin until the girl recovered completely. But it was clearly too late now. This girl could not endure any further strain, nor could she swallow medicine. A single misstep, and she would simply croak.

He had just claimed that he came to detoxify her. Was he about to have his face slapped? Losing face was a small matter. Wan'er's little sister would be his little sister from now on. At that thought, Chen Fan's expression turned solemn. He said to Ye Wan, "We returned too late. Your sister's condition is now hanging by a thread. We can only throw caution to the wind and make one desperate gamble! What comes next may not be pleasant to watch. Please ask the villagers to wait outside."

Ye Wan was stunned, but she did not hesitate. Turning around, she persuaded the onlookers to leave the room. Then she returned and shut the door. Her heart was tense beyond measure, and she knew that her sister's life was likely... At that thought, glistening tears welled up in her eyes.

Chen Fan glanced at Ye Wan, his heart heavy as stone. He sighed softly, then wasted no more time. He rushed to the girl's side, bent down, and gently parted her lips.

Ye Wan watched, utterly baffled. What was he doing? This guy had kissed her just yesterday—could he be planning something with her sister? But she immediately came to her senses. How could that be possible? At a time like this, what was she even thinking? Yet the next scene before her made her lovely face drain of color, and she nearly screamed.

A palm-sized dagger suddenly appeared in Chen Fan's hand. Then he slashed directly at his wrist. In an instant, the razor-sharp blade cut through his skin, and blood began seeping out without stop.

What was he doing? Slitting his wrist to kill himself? Ye Wan was completely dumbfounded by Chen Fan's actions and could only stare blankly.

As blood flowed from his wrist, a trace of determination appeared in Chen Fan's eyes. He directly held the wound between the girl's lips, allowing the blood to slowly flow into her mouth.

This was... feeding her his own blood? What was going on? Ye Wan now understood what Chen Fan intended to do, but she still could not understand what use it would have. She was about to step forward to inspect the situation when Chen Fan raised the index finger of his other hand to his lips, signaling for her to stay quiet and not come closer.

From then on, Ye Wan could only stand where she was and blankly watch him feed blood to her sister. Yet inwardly, she became even more panicked and lost. What exactly was this supposed to do? Could this really cure poison? Was there even such a method of detoxification? It was simply unheard of! Even if it could detoxify her sister, if he lost too much blood, would he die? Countless question marks tormented Ye Wan's heart.

Chen Fan's action was naturally not without purpose. He had once seen a peculiar detoxification method in the Treasure Record: when a poisoned person had been poisoned for too long, their vital signs nearly vanished, medicine could no longer reach them, and it was even more impossible to forcibly guide Qi into their body. One could fuse a detoxifying substance with the Origin Qi of heaven and earth, then continuously inject it into the poisoned person's mouth. By relying on the body's instinctive ability to absorb, the antidote's effects could spread through the entire body, resulting in slow but steady recovery.

According to the Treasure Record, the detoxifying substance had to fuse with the Origin Qi of heaven and earth. This was not as simple as taking Origin Qi and medicine together, but a far more complicated process of reaction and fusion. It was somewhat like how the giant snake had previously absorbed the Origin Qi of heaven and earth and transformed it into venom. Yet neither Chen Fan nor Ye Wan could easily complete such an operation in a short time at their current cultivation realms. So Chen Fan thought of his own constitution. With his ability to eat poison and drink poison, he was in no way inferior to Eastern Evil and Western Poison. In other words, his body surely contained a product of poison fused with the Origin Qi of heaven and earth. But he could not spit venom or anything like that. The only thing he could think of was bloodletting. Perhaps his blood also concealed such an effect. He was not entirely certain, but after analyzing it all, he still believed it was feasible.

However, even if his blood was useful, it was not a complete antidote. The principle was still one of using poison to fight poison. But as long as it could suppress the poison of the Spirit-Mystifying Incense, Fairy Ye should be able to handle the rest.

Blood continued to flow into the girl's mouth. Chen Fan kept two fingers from his other hand pressed against her neck, sensing the changes within her body. Seconds ticked by, and Chen Fan's face grew paler and paler. Yet he could feel the girl's pulse becoming increasingly distinct. His blood seemed to be taking effect.

At last, Ye Wan could no longer hold herself back. She rushed to the bedside, only to see a faint smile appear on Chen Fan's pale face. The next moment, his body went limp, and he was about to collapse to the floor. Ye Wan reached out and caught him, tapping several points on his wrist in rapid succession. The blood instantly stopped spilling out. She was about to question him when Chen Fan said weakly, "Quick... go save her, or my blood will have been shed for nothing..." Before he finished speaking, his eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

This? Ye Wan's heart clenched in panic. But there was not a moment to waste. She still chose to follow Chen Fan's words and save her sister first. When she reached her sister's side, she could clearly feel that the aura of life within that frail body had recovered considerably. The earlier state caused by the Spirit-Mystifying Incense—congealed blood and Qi, no breath at all—had already been dispelled by more than half. She hurriedly circulated her cultivation to help her sister continue expelling the poison.

Ye Wan could not help being deeply shaken. Judging from the original situation, she had already given up hope. She had only wanted to see her sister one last time, to do all that a person could before accepting fate. Yet this guy had actually... Ye Wan looked again at Chen Fan, lying on the floor. Her eyes reddened slightly. What exactly had he done? Though she did not understand his detoxification method, it was obvious that this was very likely an exchange of one life for another.

Chen Fan's place in Ye Wan's heart had undergone an earth-shaking change. Beyond the gratitude she could never repay, Ye Wan found that she even wanted to curse this guy. If he died to save her sister, what would she do afterward? At that thought, the tears at the corners of her eyes could no longer be restrained and flowed down.

Because she needed to keep using her art on her sister, she could not examine Chen Fan's injuries. Her heart was frantic with anxiety, and she could only silently watch Chen Fan and weep alone. If anyone else had seen this scene, they would have been moved to sorrow.

Don't die, please. I don't want you to die... Ye Wan cried out again and again in her heart. Meanwhile, her sister's condition improved further. With Ye Wan's Internal Qi realm, as long as her sister's physical condition could withstand the injection of her Origin Qi, the poison of the Spirit-Mystifying Incense was nothing worth mentioning. Ye Wan also vaguely sensed an unclear fluctuation of Origin Qi within her sister's body, neither quite poison nor not poison. That should have been brought in by Chen Fan's blood, right? What kind of freak was this brat?

However, she could sense that whatever was contained in that blood did not harm her sister. Once Ye Wan had purged all the Spirit-Mystifying Incense poison that had invaded her sister's body, she stopped tending to her and rushed straight to Chen Fan.

By then, Chen Fan's face had turned even paler, and his breath was exceedingly weak. When she touched his hands, they were ice-cold, clearly from excessive blood loss. This fool! If he had let out blood for just a little longer, he might already have left this world. If Chen Fan had been poisoned or injured, Ye Wan would have had ways to help him recover. But in this situation, she was utterly at her wits' end and could only pray that his vitality was strong enough to pull through.

Ye Wan suddenly pulled Chen Fan into her arms. The only thing she could do now was at least keep him from being so cold and slightly aid the circulation of blood through his body. Holding him like this, she suddenly remembered the endless tenderness of last night, when they had seemed to embrace each other too. But then she had completely lost her reason, while Chen Fan had burned like a blazing sun. It was utterly different from their embrace now. She could feel as though the life force in Chen Fan's body had faded a little more.

"No! Don't!" she roared wildly, tears streaming down without cease. She pressed her cheek tightly against Chen Fan's nose and mouth, feeling for his breath. His breathing was weak, coming and going, as if it might cease at any moment. Ye Wan panicked. Suddenly, she kissed Chen Fan once more. This time, however, she was completely awake. Their lips met as Ye Wan frantically urged the True Essence within her body, pouring streams of vital essence through their lips and teeth into Chen Fan's body.

This method was similar to the artificial-respiration rescue method used by ordinary people, except that when cultivators employed it, the results should be somewhat better. Yet for Chen Fan's current condition, it was undoubtedly a drop in the bucket.

Ye Wan continued holding Chen Fan, sending some Origin Qi into his mouth from time to time. Seconds passed one by one. After an unknown amount of time, an almost inaudible voice sounded. "Could this be heaven? Just as beautiful as the rumors say." Chen Fan slowly opened his eyes and looked at Ye Wan, his gaze actually filled with infatuation.

"Hmph, you're already this weak, and you're still thinking about such things! I should have known better than to care about you." Though Ye Wan spoke like that, her emotions were clearly brimming with joy. The tears she had only just stopped burst forth again in a wild rush.

"So I didn't die. If I'd known, I would've pretended to be unconscious a little longer." Chen Fan was still weak, but as long as he recovered his breath, his powerful cultivator's physique would allow him to return to normal after resting for a time and then meditating to circulate his cultivation and breathe in the Origin Qi of heaven and earth.

"Don't ever do something like this again, understand? It's too dangerous." Ye Wan's tone overflowed with tenderness.

"I'll listen to you in everything." Chen Fan forced out a smile. "How is your younger sister?"

"She's out of danger now. This time, it was all thanks to you..." She had many questions she wanted to ask Chen Fan, but this was clearly not the right time.

After that, Chen Fan recuperated in Ye Wan's Household, while Ye Wan stayed by her younger sister's side every day. Strangely, although her sister had awakened, she could still only lie in bed and could not speak. Several days passed, yet the situation remained unchanged, and Ye Wan began to grow worried.