Yuetan Grand Hotel.
Third Floor Banquet Hall.
Seven or eight tables, accommodating over a hundred people, were abuzz with clinking glasses and lively conversation as guests mingled and toasted one another.
At the main table, besides the pot-bellied Yu Xiaoguang, sat a man in his fifties wearing a black robe. The man had a gaunt face and deeply sunken eyes, making his eye sockets appear enormous and giving him a somewhat effeminate air. The people around him were all raising their glasses in a continuous stream of toasts. Yu Xiaoguang, despite being the host of this banquet, seemed more like a background figure. However, he harbored no displeasure at being upstaged. On the contrary, he was all smiles, occasionally raising his own glass to join the toasting crowd.
