After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

The air in the auditorium seemed to freeze; the heat from before instantly cooled, turning into a stuffy feeling in one's chest.

"What's this?" A boy in the front row pushed up his glasses and asked instinctively.

Ye Zhen turned around, leaning against the map, her gaze sharp as a knife.

"It's fate."

She picked up a piece of chalk and drew a heavy circle over the cluster of black dots. She used too much force, and the chalk snapped in two with a "crack," sending white powder falling in a shower.

"Each black dot represents a child. Right now, in some corner of this map, some of them have already passed away because they couldn't afford treatment, becoming a line of characters canceled on their household registration; others are lying on the cold earthen bed, unable to breathe, their lips turning purple and black, while their parents think it's just 'bronchitis' and are giving them ineffective medicine."

The audience erupted in uproar.

"Many people say that the incidence of congenital heart disease is not high, and there's no need to make a fuss." Ye Zhen threw down the broken pen in her hand, patted the dust off her hands, and her voice turned colder. "Yes, statistically, a probability of 0.8% seems low. But for these families, it's a 100% catastrophe! It's a disaster!"

She took two steps forward, approaching the edge of the podium, her gaze fixed on the privileged students below.

"Glory is in Berlin, in the newspapers, in those machines. But if we win back the best equipment from Germany, yet can't even screen the children in our own alleyways, leaving them to die from misdiagnosis and delays—then we have lost this battle! Lost completely!"

Ye Zhen's voice wasn't loud, but every word was piercing.

The students below the stage fell silent. Some lowered their heads, while others clutched their hats tightly. The illusory sense of superiority derived from "defeating the West" was shattered by this stark reality.

Ye Zhen pulled out the three mimeographed cards—red, yellow, and blue—from her pocket and held them high. She had spent three sleepless nights printing them one by one using the most rudimentary method.

"I'm not going to talk to you about ideals, I'm only talking about reality. The reality is that we don't have enough doctors, and our grassroots health clinics don't even have a decent stethoscope. Many parents don't even know that their child's purple face and squatting posture are because of a hole in their heart. They call it 'cursed mouth disease,' think it's just bad luck, and don't treat it."

"That's why I launched the 'Heart of China' project."

Her gaze, like a torch, swept across the audience. "I need people. I need people to step out of the ivory tower. I need you to go into those deep alleys and impoverished gullies to conduct social surveys and listen to the heart; I need people to take these cards and tell desperate parents—red means run, that's life-saving; blue means wait, that's hope."

"But this job is not easy."

Ye Zhen paused, her voice becoming low and powerful, as if conducting a soul-searching interrogation, "This is not some glamorous 'foreign affairs activity,' there are no foreign exchange subsidies, no academic credits. You have to bring your own food, and walk on those muddy roads where you can't pull your shoes out once you step in. You even have to endure the scorn and misunderstandings of your family members, and be kicked out by people with brooms as if they were swindlers."

At this point, she chuckled self-deprecatingly, "Just yesterday, when I was getting screened in Dongcheng, an old lady threw a basin of foot bath water at me, saying I was there to curse her grandson."

A few low gasps rose from the audience.

"But I didn't leave." Ye Zhen's smile faded, her eyes becoming unusually firm. "Because after that basin of water was poured out, I heard a murmur in that child's heart. That child is now being admitted to the hospital; he can live."

"This work will stop the black dots on the map from increasing. It will ensure that ten years from now, there will be no more children in China dying because of 'ignorance'."

"I have brought back the glory; now, I will save my life."

Ye Zhen slammed the card in her hand onto the lectern, making a crisp "smack" sound.

"Who's coming?"

The last two words were as light as snowflakes, yet as heavy as mountains when they fell.

The auditorium was deathly silent.

one second.

two seconds.

The wind outside seemed to have stopped, leaving only the breathing of thousands of people. No one spoke; this heavy topic was far too weighty and too concrete for these students who hadn't even graduated. It clearly took far more courage to suffer in the mud than to shout slogans.

In the corner, Gu Zheng leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, half his face hidden in the shadows. He looked at the radiant little woman on the stage, at her slender figure appearing so small yet so majestic in front of the huge map.

He didn't move or speak, only a slight upturn of his lips revealed a row of white teeth. He knew the fire was lit. The blood of these children was hotter than anyone else's.

Count me in!

A bespectacled boy suddenly stood up, his movement so abrupt that the folding chair behind him overturned with a loud thud. He was a senior student from Peking University Medical School, auditing the class. His face was flushed, his voice trembling, yet he shouted hysterically, "I'm a medical student! I have a stethoscope! I can go!"

That roar was like a spark igniting dry grass.

"I'm a public health major, I can do contact tracing! Wow!"

A girl in a red sweater in the back row stood up, clutching a notebook: "I can go to the countryside! I'm not afraid of getting dirty! My family is from the countryside, I know what it's like!"

"I'm a math major! I can help you calculate data and build models! I can go too!"

"And me! I majored in Chinese literature. I don't know anything about medicine, but I can help write popular science articles and fill out forms! I have good handwriting!"

Like a flood bursting its banks, it instantly swept away all hesitation and restraint. Those raised hands, those reddened eyes, in the cold winter, converged into a wave of heat called "faith." The entire auditorium erupted in cheers, not for some vain vanity, but a heartfelt cry.

In this era, these young people may dress plainly and eat simple food, but even a simple meal of braised pork can make them happy for half a day. But their blood is hot and their backbone is strong. As long as someone points them in the right direction and tells them that the country needs them, they are willing to risk their lives.

Gu Linlin stood in the backstage, tears welling up in her eyes with excitement, clapping her hands frantically.

Song Sisi's eyes also reddened, and she stood up straight as if she were being inspected.

Gu Zheng turned his head and looked at the president of Peking University, who was staring in disbelief, taking off his glasses and wiping away the fog. The old president's hands were trembling, and his eyes were full of tears.

"See that?" Gu Zheng nudged the old principal's arm with his shoulder, his tone full of smugness, and raised his chin toward the stage. "That's my wife."

The principal put his glasses back on, looking at the figure on the stage who stood straight despite being surrounded by the students' shouts. His voice choked with emotion: "A national hero, a national hero... Gu family boy, you're really living off your wife with such arrogance! This girl is planting a seed of conscience in our generation."

Gu Zheng chuckled, but his eyes held an unyielding affection, his gaze piercing through the bustling crowd and fixed intently on Ye Zhen.

"She's not recruiting people to do the work," Gu Zheng said in a low voice, his voice drowned out by the deafening shouts of people signing up, only he could hear it. "She's driving steel nails into the backbone of this generation."

This day is known in later generations as the starting point of the "Red, Yellow, and Blue Storm".

While Hans was in Shanghai overhauling that sophisticated extracorporeal circulation machine, frantically searching for a single part, a group of young people carrying red, yellow, and blue business cards were about to flood into the hutongs of Beijing. They had no official positions, no salary, and not even decent transportation; relying solely on their two legs and their burning passion, they were redrawing this enormous map, bit by bit.

Ye Zhen stood on the podium, looking at the young and vibrant faces below, and finally let out a long sigh of relief.

A race for life has begun, and the starting gun has been fired.