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

The symposium ended half an hour later.

In the storage room of the Beicheng Military Region General Hospital, which had been temporarily converted into an office for the BBC, the doors and windows were tightly sealed. The radiators were heating up the accumulated dust on the floor, making it stifling and difficult to breathe.

In the corner, a few wooden chairs with peeling paint were piled up, and on the dilapidated desk by the window, a red rotary dial telephone with a temporary line was blaring shrilly.

George, wearing a crumpled khaki trench coat, leaned against a rusty radiator pipe, a cigarette between his fingers. He hadn't brought any expensive cigars; this pungent pipe was more invigorating. He ignored the phone ringing incessantly, showing no intention of answering.

Tom, the cameraman sitting in front of the editing machine, scratched his head and turned around: "George, this is the third call from headquarters. Editor-in-Chief York is cursing so hard he could drown someone with his spittle."

George finished his last puff, threw the cigarette butt on the ground, and crushed it out with the sole of his leather shoe. He bent down, picked up the ashes, and carefully tossed them into the metal trash can. After spending a few days in the Chinese hospital, he had learned his lesson; the elderly Chinese sweepers in the corridors were all quite temperamental.

The phone calls finally stopped.

Suddenly, the fax machine next to me made a strange grinding noise. The machine struggled to eject a curled sheet of thermal paper.

Tom snatched the note, glanced at it, and his expression changed: "George, look at this."

Several lines of bold black text were printed on the thermal paper:

[BBC World Service decision: George is suspended indefinitely from his position as director of this documentary. John will take over the material review process. George is strictly prohibited from making any unauthorized reports on matters related to Gore's company and is to remain in place pending review upon his return to the UK.]

Tom muttered a curse under his breath: "Are those people at headquarters out of their minds? These capitalists are overstepping their bounds!"

George took the fax paper and looked at the words on it.

A few days ago, he dreaded receiving this most. Suspension meant the end of his career; the editorial board's doors would be permanently shut on him.

As long as he takes that £10,000 bribe from Gore and keeps quiet, he can get a detached house with a lawn when he returns home. He just needs to follow the original script and make a film called "Stagnant Oriental Ward" to cater to the arrogant tastes of some Westerners, making a big deal out of some outdated facilities.

But now, the events of these past few days are constantly on my mind.

Ye Zhen, oblivious to her appearance, was devouring a cabbage and pork bun in the corner; Gu Zheng used his thumb to wipe the grease from the corner of her mouth.

In the cold, concrete corridor, twenty-three medical students huddled together, fully clothed. To respond to any movement from the ward as quickly as possible, the girl named Li Hong was covered with a camel-colored shawl that Mrs. Taylor of England had draped over her shoulders.

In the courtyard alley, a group of loud-voiced Chinese aunties, using the food coupons they had saved up at home, bought refined white flour and stuffed steaming dumplings into the hands of their British fathers in a foreign land, smiling without any suspicion.

Right there in the military compound's backyard, the Chinese officer, Gu Zheng, set up several large iron pots. The firewood crackled, and the aroma of stewed pork belly with vermicelli filled the air. A group of British gentlemen in smart suits, holding white enamel mugs with red double happiness symbols, gulped down Arctic Ocean soda, coughing from the spiciness, but their faces were full of enjoyment.

And then there was the auditorium symposium that had just ended. Parker's painstakingly fabricated calcification risk report was torn to shreds on the spot by the ramrod-straight-backed Asian female doctor.

George clenched his fingers, crumpled the fax paper that would determine the fate of his career into a tight knot, and with a flick of his wrist, tossed it precisely into the wastebasket in the corner.

Tom froze, then stood up: "What are you going to do?"

George didn't answer, and strode back to the editing console. He pressed the main power button on the Sony U-matic VCR.

A low, hum of electricity filled the room, and the monitor screen lit up with a ghostly green light.

"Cut the video," George uttered.

Tom swallowed hard. "Headquarters has suspended you! You edited and released it without permission; you can forget about ever working in journalism again!"

"It's documentary filmmaker George who's been suspended." George pulled up a peeling wooden chair and sat down. "But they can't stop my eyes. The world needs to see this."

Tom stared intently at him, his stiff shoulders slumping. He pulled out a chair and sat back down at the control panel.

"Fine, I'll just get fired by those idiots if I go back to London anyway. At least I've had the best stew in the world here. I'll set up the machine, you tell me how to cut it."

George put on his listening earpiece: "Get the footage of the airport robbery. Start with the scene of Dr. Yeh abandoning Minister Clark and rushing to the stretcher."

Tom's fingers spun rapidly across the metal dial, the screen rewinding: "Minister Clark's hand hovering in mid-air, shall we keep it?"

"Don't cut a single frame," George said firmly. "This is where arrogance begins to crumble."

"This will make Downing Street and those politicians lose face."

"The facts are far more important than their pride."

The editing machine hummed softly, and the magnetic tape spun rapidly under the drive of gears, making a continuous clicking sound.

The monitor screen flickered, and the gray-white runway of the Capital Airport came into view.

Wearing only a thin white lab coat, Ye Zhen pushed her way through the crowd trying to observe diplomatic etiquette. She didn't even glance at the important figures, heading straight for the dying British child on the stretcher.

The scene shifts to outside the catheter room.

Gu Zheng, dressed in a crisp military uniform, stepped forward to block all the cameras and pointed ahead, coldly rebuking, "Don't use the tears of sick children to buy your trophies!"

Jump again.

Third-floor corridor. Twenty-three top Chinese medical students lay on the cold floor. Mrs. Taylor's camel-colored shawl was draped over the sleeping Li Hong.

The narration microphone lit up with a red light.

George cleared his hoarse throat, leaned closer to the microphone, and pressed the record button.

"Before I arrived in Beijing, I expected to see a backward, chaotic, and vulnerable healthcare system."

He looked at the monitor.

"I did see outdated equipment, cramped hospital beds, and a duty room that couldn't even provide a cup of instant coffee."

"But I also witnessed a surgeon complete twenty-three highly complex surgeries in three days, surgeries that even the top hospitals in the West wouldn't dare to undertake, with a zero mortality rate!"

"I saw young medical students sleeping on the cement floor just to bridge the language barrier and translate for emergency treatment; I also saw ordinary citizens taking out their ration coupons just to provide a hot meal for a foreign head of state who had come from afar."

Tom, sitting in front of the control panel, turned his head and quietly rubbed his sore nose.

George raised his voice, making it resonate in the small room.

"People have been telling us that this is a stagnant land."

The scene shifts to the hospital's backyard. A campfire blazes high, and a large iron pot simmers with meat. The tall, dignified British father, sweating profusely, scoops up noodles soaked in broth from a chipped enamel bowl.

"But on this land, I witnessed the world's most advanced technology and the most selfless people."

The last piece of footage was uploaded.

At the auditorium symposium, Parker, dressed in a suit and tie, held up a fabricated report. Ye Zhen, sitting in the front row, remained calm and composed, relentlessly pressing with three professional questions, stripping away the hypocrisy of capitalism. Gu Zheng stepped forward and tossed out the words "empty promise," eliciting laughter from the entire audience, and Parker slunk away.

George stared directly at the screen.

"During the filming of this movie, Mr. Parker, the head of Gore's European operations, promised me £10,000 in cash and a promotion. There was only one condition—that I smear Dr. Ye Zhen's low-cost autologous pericardium therapy on camera, clearing the way for their expensive equipment."

Tom paused, turning to look at him: "George, have you thought this through? If this gets broadcast, you'll have completely offended Gore & Associates. They'll use their most vicious legal team to ruin you!"

George didn't look at Tom; he stared at Ye Zhen in the still image.

"I had no way out."

George pressed the record button, burning the last sentence onto the tape.

"As a journalist, I almost chose to take the money and keep quiet, becoming an accomplice to profit. Now, I'm including this true account in the final cut. Let the world judge for themselves what truly heals and saves lives, and what is simply profiteering!"

4:30 a.m.

With a crisp click from the recorder, the final master tape recording was complete. The cabinet stopped rotating.

George found a thick brown paper envelope in the pile of clutter and put two videotapes inside—one was the finished product with narration, and the other was the unedited original transcript of the symposium.

Then, he pulled the pen from his chest, wrote a letter by hand, and stuffed it into his bag.

He sealed the package with glue and wrote the mailing address on the front. The lettering was so strong it seemed to penetrate the paper.

[Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 10 Downing Street, London.]