In Beijing, the Zhongnanhai compound was still, the kind of stillness cultivated by centuries of power.
Inside the Red Hall, where the Politburo Standing Committee met under the highest level of state secrecy, a man dressed in a dark mandarin-collar suit sat alone beneath a gold-framed calligraphy scroll that read: Endure, Adapt, Ascend.
He was President Liang Xuejun, a soft-spoken academic who had once been considered a compromise between reformists and traditionalists. His features were round, his glasses thick, his voice gentle even at its firmest.
And yet, in the last three months, this quiet professor had become a wartime strategist.
He had just finished hearing Damon Arnan's mental transmission.
The mental resonance still echoed faintly in his mind, like a bell that refused to go away.
President Liang did not speak at first.
He simply stood and walked toward the tall, arched window behind his desk, hands folded behind his back.
