Above the Pacific, enormous starship transports from the Interstellar Federation swept past like locusts, carrying top scientists, engineers, and their genetic samples to a lunar base. On the sea below, the Island of Traditional Chinese Medicine Revival was marked as a "low-value area," and every route there was canceled.
· The protagonist appears: Lu Chengxuan, 35, stands before the island's last remaining medicinal herb garden, gently touching with his fingertip a wild ginseng plant on the verge of withering. Three drones fly over his head, dropping the final shipment of supplies: not food, but an electronic notice reading, "We recommend abandoning nonessential residents and prioritizing the protection of research personnel."
