**Chapter 2: Machines That Steal Breath**
Yuezhi ripped the last needle from her arm the moment the stretcher wheels stopped rolling.
Clear fluid sprayed across the white hospital wall like cheap enemy blood. Alarms blared. A heart monitor screamed its mechanical panic. Two nurses froze in the doorway, faces pale as fresh paper.
"This poison ends now," she declared, voice low and carrying the weight of old command. She sat up fully. The thin hospital gown slipped off one shoulder. She did not care. "Explain these shackles. All of them."
The older doctor, a man with silver at his temples and the tired eyes of someone who had seen too many rich patients, stepped forward cautiously. "Miss Shen, please. You're in the best hospital in the city. Those are IV lines. Medicine. Your body is extremely weak right now. You collapsed at the gala and—"
