At eight in the morning, bright autumn sunlight cut through the morning chill outside Taichu Sanctuary Hospital.
The hospital plaza was overflowing with more than three hundred television cameras, satellite vans, and financial reporters.
Microphone booms hovered over the raised wooden stage like a steel forest. On the front steps, seventy uniformed security guards from the Ninth Bureau kept the crowd in order.
Behind the podium, Su Wan stood with calm, elegant posture. She wore an ivory business suit, her hair tied back in a neat bun.
To her left stood Dr. Gu Qinghe in traditional white robes, his posture erect and dignified. To her right stood Captain Chen Hu and twenty-nine retired border veterans, standing tall and proud in crisp military dress uniforms.
Lin Mo stood on the second-floor balcony above the plaza, leaning on the brass railing with a warm cup of jasmine tea.
Beside him, Chu Lingxiao rested one hand on her wrapped sword hilt, watching the massive crowd below.
“The press is hungry,” Chu Lingxiao remarked softly. “Situ Pharma has been threatening every media house in Yanjing since dawn.”
