425: Chapter 425 If miracles have a color, it must be the red of Great Xia.

At the same time.

Great Xia, Beijing.

At three in the afternoon, when Su Mingyuan hung up Elder Qin's call, the streets of Beijing had already changed.

He saw it from the window.

The window of his temporary office faced a highway outside the airport, which connected to the downtown area.

Usually, there weren't many cars on the road at this time, with only the occasional taxi or bus passing by.

But now, there were clearly many more cars on the road, and many of them had red items hanging from their windows, rearview mirrors, and antennas.

Some were small national flags—the Five-Star Red Flag—the kind sold at roadside stalls for two yuan each.

Some were red ribbons tied to rearview mirrors, fluttering in the wind.

Some were simply pieces of red cloth, torn from who-knows-where and tied to roof racks, looking like flags from a distance.

Su Mingyuan watched for a moment, then picked up his phone and opened a social media platform.

The first post he saw was a photo.

The photo showed an overpass on Beijing's Third Ring Road, its railings covered in national flags. They weren't the officially arranged, uniform-sized flags, but a mix of various sizes—handheld mini flags, medium-sized half-meter ones, and old, faded large flags that someone had dug out from their home.

There were so many flags, packed so densely that they completely covered the gray of the railings. From afar, it looked like a red line stretching across the middle of the road.

The poster had captioned it: "Passing by the Third Ring Road on my way home from work, I thought National Day had come early."

There were over twenty thousand comments below.

"Location: Yangcheng. All the office buildings in Zhujiang New Town have hung flags. Property management didn't even have time to stop them."

"Location: Rongcheng. Chunxi Road Pedestrian Street has already turned into a sea of red. The old uncle selling small flags made half a year's income in a single afternoon."

"Location: Pengcheng. Our company's admin just went out and bought two hundred national flags. They're hung up everywhere—the front desk, meeting rooms, pantry. The boss said today's overtime pay is tripled."

Su Mingyuan scrolled down.

The second hot post was a video of the Shanghai Bund.

The skyscrapers on both sides of the Huangpu River usually put on multi-colored light shows at night, with blues, greens, and purples. But in the video, from the Peace Hotel to Lujiazui's "Three-Piece Suit" of financial towers, the exterior lights of every single building had been switched to red.

The entire skyline was red.

Reflected on the surface of the Huangpu River, the water turned red as well.

The person filming stood by the railings of the Bund. Their hand was shaking, and the camera was unsteady, but the footage was clear. They didn't say much, only uttering toward the end of the video, "I've lived for thirty years, and I've never seen anything like this."

The video's views had already surpassed two hundred million.

Su Mingyuan continued to scroll down.

Photos, videos, one after another.

Some showed buses—their side advertisements temporarily replaced with the national flag pattern. Passengers looked out the windows, some smiling, others holding up their phones to take photos.

Some showed subway stations—above the exit turnstiles, someone had used red tape to stick a line of words: "Long Live Great Xia."

The characters were crooked and unevenly thick, but everyone passing by looked up to take a glance.

Some showed residential community entrances—a flag was pasted on the window of the security booth, and another on the smart locker nearby. Even the streetlamp posts inside the community were tied with red silk ribbons, a whole row from start to finish, as if celebrating a wedding.

Some showed schools—a group of elementary school students stood on the playground, each holding a small national flag, forming a giant five-pointed star. An aerial drone captured it from above, the red star imprinted on the gray synthetic track.

Some showed highway service areas—truck drivers had replaced their cab sun visors with red ones, and someone had tied a half-meter-long national flag to their front bumper, the fabric flapping loudly in the wind.

Some showed wet markets—a vegetable vendor auntie had hung a banner above her stall that read, "rejuvenation pill Blesses the People of Great Xia," with two red lanterns hanging beside it. Though it was neither Lunar New Year nor National Day, it looked incredibly festive.

It wasn't just the big cities.

The county seats were like this, and so were the towns and villages.

Someone had taken a photo of a mountainous area in Guizhou Province—a village of only a few dozen households, where the wooden houses on both sides of the stone path were all draped in red flags. Some had faded, likely left up since last year's National Day, but they had now been tidied up again, mixing with newly bought flags in alternating shades of deep and light red.

The entirety of Great Xia, from south to north, from east to west, seemed to have been dyed completely red overnight.

The emotions online were even more direct.

Seven of the top ten trending topics were related to today's press conference.

#rejuvenation pill# had been trending all day without dropping.

#GreatXiaCurrencyExchangeRate# followed closely behind.

But Su Mingyuan stared at the topic ranked third for a few seconds.

#IfAMiracleHadAColorItWouldDefinitelyBeGreatXiaRed#

Clicking in, the pinned post was from an unverified, ordinary user.

"My mom was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer last year, and the doctor said she had six months at most. I cried all night in the hospital corridor. Today, watching the live broadcast of the press conference, I cried all day again, but tears of joy. I don't know if my mom can hold on until the day she can buy the rejuvenation pill, but at least, there is hope. If a miracle had a color, it would definitely be Great Xia Red."

This post had fourteen million likes.

There were hundreds of thousands of comments. Many people shared their own stories or their families' stories. Someone's father was waiting for a liver transplant, someone's daughter had leukemia, and someone's husband had been diagnosed with ALS.

In the past, the comments under such posts were filled with nothing but helplessness.

Now, there was a new word: hope.

But not all voices were like this.

In the eighth spot on the trending list, that blogger named "Sweet Air" had posted again.

After posting the words "I was wrong" in the afternoon, he had stayed quiet for a few hours, but popped up again at eight in the evening, this time writing a long essay.

"I admit today's rejuvenation pill is shocking. But everyone, calm down. Right now, the daxia currency exchange rate has risen to three-to-one, and the black market is even at one-to-one. Do you know what this means? It means the price of Great Xia's exported goods has more than doubled. Previously, a pair of sneakers sold for one hundred eagle dollars; now, they have to sell for over two hundred eagle dollars. Who will buy them? Nobody. Exports are finished."

"If exports are finished, how will the factories survive? How will the workers survive? How will you protect your livelihoods?"

"The rejuvenation pill can save the lives of cancer patients, but it cannot save the livelihoods of three hundred million export industry workers. When the exchange rate dropped, you said we were finished; now that the exchange rate has risen, you say we are still finished. Can you please wake up?"

After this post was published, the number of likes didn't rise very quickly.

The comment section, however, was very lively, but the tone was completely opposite to what he had expected.

The top comment, with 870,000 likes, read:

"Can you fucking give it a rest? When the exchange rate fell, you said the daxia currency was waste paper and told people to exchange it for eagle dollars. Now that the exchange rate has risen, you say exports are ruined and workers will starve. What exactly do you want? Why don't you just go to your spiritual homeland?"

The second comment, with 630,000 likes:

"Lmao, Great Xia invented a medicine that can cure cancer, and the whole world is scrambling for daxia currency, yet here you are worrying about exports? Do you know how much foreign exchange the rejuvenation pill can earn for Great Xia in a year? Is your precious export trade even fit to carry the rejuvenation pill's shoes?"

The third comment, with 510,000 likes:

"Dear blogger, let me just ask you one question. If your family member got cancer, would you want the rejuvenation pill to exist or not? Don't BS me with exchange rates and exports, just answer this one question."

The fourth was even harsher:

"Here we go again, pouring cold water every time the country has good news. Last time when electricity became free, you said the treasury couldn't sustain it. When Xuanniao took its maiden flight, you said it wasted labor and money. Now that the rejuvenation pill is out, you say exports are ruined. Does it just hurt you whenever Great Xia does well? I suggest investigating whether this account is on the payroll of eagle dollars."

The comment section had completely turned into a roast session targeting the blogger.

"Sweet Air" posted his final update at nine in the evening: "I was merely discussing this rationally; it does not represent any stance."

Then, he closed the comment section.

Su Mingyuan put down his phone.

Outside the window, the sky had turned pitch black, but cars were still passing on the highway, their red ribbons and small flags flashing in the glare of the headlights.

In the direction of the distant downtown area, the skyline's silhouette was outlined by the red lights atop the buildings, blurry and looking like a burning line.

He closed the window and went back to sit on his folding bed.

His phone screen was still on the page of that post.

"If a miracle had a color, it would definitely be Great Xia Red."

Su Mingyuan stared at it for a couple of seconds, then locked his phone and placed it beside his pillow.

He should sleep.

There was still a follow-up meeting to attend tomorrow.