The atmosphere in the Grand Ballroom had shifted from one of high-society prestige to that of a public execution. Under the brilliant, merciless glare of the spotlights, Shen Ruo looked less like a medical prodigy and more like a cornered animal. Her white lace gown, intended to symbolize purity and brilliance, now seemed like a shroud. Silence stretched across the room, heavy and suffocating, as hundreds of the world's most renowned medical experts waited for an answer that wasn't coming.
"I... the ratio... it's a proprietary secret!" Shen Ruo finally stammered, her voice cracking. She gripped the edges of the mahogany podium so hard her knuckles turned the color of bone. "My research is protected! I don't have to answer to a disgraced dropout who was sent to the countryside because she couldn't pass her basic exams!"
A low murmur rippled through the audience. Liang Xiujin stood up from her seat, her face a mask of righteous indignation. "Judges, this is an outrage! This girl is mentally unstable. She's jealous of her sister's success and is trying to sabotage this international summit. Security, please remove her!"
The security guards moved forward, but they didn't get more than two steps. A wall of black-clad soldiers, led by Feng Rui, stepped into their path. The click of safety catches being flipped off echoed sharply against the marble walls.
"The Young Marshal hasn't finished listening to the lecture," Feng Rui said, his voice cold and flat. "Anyone who moves will be treated as a threat to national security."
The guards froze. The audience held its collective breath.
Shen Xi didn't even look at her stepmother. She continued her slow, predatory walk up the stairs of the stage until she was standing directly in front of Shen Ruo. The contrast was staggering: Shen Ruo, trembling and sweating under her makeup, and Shen Xi, who looked as if she had been carved out of ice and midnight.
"You don't know the ratio because you didn't write the paper," Shen Xi said, her voice amplified by the microphone, vibrating with a chilling clarity. "You stole the notebooks from my mother's estate three years ago. But my mother was a cautious woman. She knew the Shen family was a nest of vipers. She wrote the final catalyst in a cipher that only her blood could decode."
Shen Xi turned away from her sobbing sister and faced the panel of international judges. With a fluid motion, she reached into the podium and pulled out a digital stylus.
"If you want the truth, look at the screen," Shen Xi commanded.
Behind her, the massive LED display—which had been showing Shen Ruo's flawed slides—flickered. Shen Xi began to write. Her hand moved with a speed and precision that defied logic. Complex chemical chains, multidimensional neural maps, and advanced calculus equations flowed from her hand like a river of gold.
In her mind, the [Spectral Medical System] was running at maximum capacity. It wasn't just recalling data; it was simulating the real-time application of the serum on a virtual human brain.
System: Catalyst 7-Alpha integrated. Neural pathways stabilizing. Probability of success: 99.8%.
The judges, men and women who had spent decades in the field, began to stand up one by one. Their eyes were wide, fixed on the screen.
"My God," whispered Dr. Aris, the Nobel laureate from the Swiss board. "The bypass... she isn't just regenerating the nerves; she's re-coding the synaptic response. This isn't just a paper. This is a new era of medicine."
Shen Xi stopped writing. The screen was filled with a masterpiece of medical science. She turned back to Shen Ruo, who was now leaning against the wall, her face a mask of pure terror.
"The missing catalyst is a synthesized protein derived from the Dendrobium orchid found only in the Yun family's private gardens," Shen Xi stated. "Without it, your 'Neural Project' is nothing more than a recipe for a brain hemorrhage. You were willing to kill patients just to maintain a lie. That isn't medicine, Ruo-er. That's murder."
The hall erupted. Reporters surged forward, their flashes firing like a barrage of artillery. Shen Yuanfeng tried to push his way to the stage, but Qi Yuan blocked his path, his hand resting significantly on the hilt of his sidearm.
"The audit of the Shen Group has already begun, Director Shen," Qi Yuan said, loud enough for the nearby VIPs to hear. "We've already found the offshore accounts used to funnel the stolen research funds. I'd save your breath for the interrogators."
Shen Xi walked to the edge of the stage and looked down at Mu Feichi. He was still sitting in the front row, his legs crossed, a dark, dangerous smile playing on his lips. He looked like a king watching his queen reclaim her throne.
He stood up, the movement drawing every camera in the room. He didn't look at the judges or the chaos; he walked to the stairs and held out his hand to Shen Xi.
"You've had your fun, Doctor," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to settle the frantic energy of the room. "The car is waiting. We have an appointment at Mount Jing."
Shen Xi placed her hand in his. His grip was warm and firm, a steady anchor in the storm she had just created. As they walked out of the hall, the elite of Jingdu parted like the Red Sea, bowing their heads in a mixture of respect and absolute fear.
As they reached the lobby, a black-clad man in a motorcycle helmet suddenly lunged from behind a marble pillar. A long, serrated blade glinted in his hand, aimed directly at Shen Xi's exposed side.
"Die, you bitch!" the man screamed.
Mu Feichi's reflexes were inhuman. Before the blade could even graze the silk of Shen Xi's gown, he had spun her behind his back. With a sickening crack, he caught the assassin's wrist, snapping the bone like a dry twig. In the same motion, he delivered a devastating kick to the man's chest, sending him flying across the lobby floor.
But as the assassin hit the ground, he didn't scream. He laughed. A dark, oily substance began to leak from his mouth.
"The Marshal... thinks he's safe..." the man wheezed, his eyes rolling back. "The 'Ghost Pulse' is already... in the house..."
Mu Feichi's face turned into a mask of pure, lethal frost. He looked down at his own hand. On the palm of his white glove, a single, tiny black dot was spreading—a microscopic needle mark from where he had intercepted the assassin.
Shen Xi grabbed his hand, her eyes widening as her internal system screamed a warning.
The "Ghost Pulse" wasn't a physical weapon; it was a contact-based nerve agent designed specifically to react with the Young Marshal's existing neural injuries. As the black dot on his glove began to turn a sickly, glowing violet, Mu Feichi's knees buckled. For the first time in his life, the invincible Commander of the North collapsed, falling into Shen Xi's arms as his pulse began to flatline in a way that even her System had never seen before.