THREE MONTHS AFTER VERDICT | THE ECHO PROJECT | 10:00 AM
The meeting room was nothing like Winslow & Partners. No polished mahogany, no soundproofing, just a converted warehouse space with exposed brick and sunlight filtering through industrial windows. Five people sat around a scarred wooden table: Zhou Ming the poet, two other family members Stella recognized from trial photographs, an art therapist named Anya with gentle hands, and Dr. Eleanor Vance.
“We’re calling it The Echo Project,” Zhou said, his voice still carrying that poet’s measured rhythm. “Not because we want pain to echo. Because we want the responses to pain to find resonance.”
Stella sat at the head of the table, not as leader but as convener. For the past two months, she’d been meeting with each family separately, lis
