They also found a note, left for them by a man named Qi Hong, who had rented the hotel room, arranged the equipment, and set the protest in motion before leaving for the U.K. with his family. Some trace their origin to Peng Lifa’s unfurling of banners with anti-lockdown and anti-Xi political slogans at Beijing’s Sitong Bridge in October of 2022. The latter protest, which used a remotely operated projector to display the slogans "Overthrow the Communist Party. Overthrow Xi Jinping," was timed to coincide with the start of the Second Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Two Sessions in Beijing. As Qi Hong wrote in the note he left behind for the police, “We must wake up to the truth, for truth is truth.