It was ten o'clock in the morning, Upper Capital time.
The sun had already climbed halfway up the clear blue sky. Sunlight streamed through the thin clouds, and faint waves of heat began rising from the ground.
At Upper Capital International Airport, one international government plane after another landed in sequence. The roar of engines echoed across the open runways, and the national insignias on their fuselages stood out sharply in the sunlight.
On one side of the airport, a large crowd of reporters had already set up their banks of equipment, with video cameras, still cameras, and recording devices neatly arranged.
Holding microphones, wearing vests and press credentials, the reporters formed an arc outside the security cordon.
Flashes kept firing, shutters clicked incessantly, and every lens was trained on the arriving planes and the figures descending their boarding stairs.
But there were only reporters there. No red carpet, no honor guard, no Foreign Ministry reception staff, not a single welcome banner.
Several ambulances sat quietly at the edge of the apron, their windows shut, their drivers waiting behind the wheel for instructions.
The arriving heads of state paused briefly at their aircraft doors, surveying the empty apron and the distant crowd of reporters. Then they descended the stairs step by step and followed staff toward a makeshift sunshade erected in one corner of the apron.
Not far away, however, the other side of the apron presented an entirely different scene.
A bright red carpet stretched from the foot of the boarding stairs all the way to the waiting motorcade. Rows of uniformed students stood on either side, smiling and waving small flags.
A military band stood in formation at the end of the carpet, its brass instruments gleaming gold in the sunlight.
Foreign Ministry officials in formal attire waited