At two in the afternoon, the grand auction hall of the Yanjing High People’s Court was silent.
Sunlight filtered through the high arched windows, illuminating polished mahogany desks, brass railings, and judicial seals.
In the front row of the judicial gallery sat old patriarch Situ Tai.
The seventy-year-old former titan of the capital’s pharmaceutical world was clad in a bright orange detention jumpsuit. Steel handcuffs linked his wrists to a waist chain, guarded closely by two armed bailiffs. His sunken eyes were bloodshot, and his thin grey hair hung wild and uncombed over his hollow temples.
Beside him sat three defense attorneys, their heads down as they sorted through stacks of bankruptcy filings and liquidation orders.
Only four hours had passed since Deacon Dan Huo’s cauldron detonated in the Medicinal Plaza.
The fallout had been instantaneous and total. Twenty major state commercial banks had declared Situ and Ouyang Pharmaceutical Group in catastrophic default on one hundred and twenty billion yuan in syndicated debt.
With their wholesale licenses revoked, their production lines halted by federal marshals, and eighty alchemists rescued from their dungeon, Situ Pharma’s listed shares had been permanently suspended from trading.
