It was the weekend, at Dragon Spring Manor in Longdu's western suburbs.
The state-guest manor, normally reserved for hosting foreign heads of state or retreats for the Dragon Kingdom's highest-ranking leaders, had opened fully that day.
Festive decorations adorned the manor inside and out, and security was tight.
A red carpet stretched a full three hundred meters from the manor's gates to the main banquet hall.
Along both sides of the road, a soldier stood every five meters, fully armed and ramrod straight.
The stern, forbidding atmosphere made every arriving guest instinctively rein in their smiles and adopt a solemn expression.
Since early morning, black military sedans with special license plates and bulletproof Hongqi cars had streamed up from the foot of the mountain.
Every person who stepped out was a heavyweight whose slightest move could send tremors through the Dragon Kingdom.
Generals with gold stars on their shoulders, senior officials who governed entire provinces, business titans who controlled the lifeblood of the national economy...
Any one of these figures would normally cause a sensation by appearing in public, yet here, they all seemed ordinary.
The sheer prestige of this birthday banquet left the reporters stationed beyond the manor's outer security cordon utterly dumbfounded.
They had never seen such an extravagant gathering!
Someone made a rough count: no fewer than thirty generals bearing stars had arrived that day alone!
Even three-star generals could only be seated in the secondary halls on the periphery.
Only true four-star generals were qualified to enter the main banquet hall at the heart of the manor!
"My God! How is this a birthday banquet? It's practically a meeting at the highest level of the state!"
"The Xu Family has unbelievable influence! They actually managed to invite so many important people!"
"What do you know? This