The moment the words "Academician Lu has already left" left someone's mouth, the atmosphere became extremely awkward.
People from the city government and provincial government had all come, and the TV station reporters were ready as well. Yet they had never expected to come up empty-handed at the entrance to the Semiconductor Industrial Base.
But angry as they were, there was nothing they could do.
After all, they had neither made an appointment nor gotten Academician Lu's phone number. He had been gone for quite a while already and might even have gotten onto the highway by now. They could hardly chase after him and drag him back, could they?
That would turn a small problem into a major one.
And just as Jia Yuanping had predicted, by the time their group met up with the senior officials from Hubei Province at the entrance to the Semiconductor Industrial Base, Lu Zhou's car had already passed through the highway exit checkpoint and was heading toward his hometown in Jiangling.
As his car neared the highway exit, Lu Zhou was thoroughly taken aback by the sight of the Jiangling Toll Station.
Several enormous searchlights stood atop the toll station, shining upward like the laser lights used in plazas or stadiums, casting their beams into the sky.
Lu Zhou was not the only one startled by the sight. Even Wang Peng was shocked.
"Did this highway toll station turn on its high beams?"
Fortunately, those high beams were pointed at the sky rather than the highway itself.
Otherwise, several cars might have been wrecked at the highway entrance and exit.
Lu Zhou stared toward the toll station for quite some time before realizing that the lights were not meant to shine into the sky at all, but to illuminate the banner above