Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

Deep inside the tunnel, the sound of gears could be clearly heard.

The platform carrying the culture chamber slid into the darkness. When Gu Xidong chased after it, he only saw the last faint blue indicator light disappear around the corner.

This is not a temporary passage, but a carefully designed transportation system.

Where is it going?

Ling Wuwen pressed her hand to her abdomen, where the heartbeat became clearer and clearer, almost resonating with the throbbing of her chest.

The mouse tracked the signal: "At least fifty meters down. The structural diagram shows an 'incubation chamber,' the entrance of which was originally sealed off."

"It's open now," Gu Xidong said.

"Because the 'guardian' has returned."

The temperature dropped to minus fifty degrees Celsius, and frost formed on the inside of the mask as we breathed.

Five hundred meters later, at the end of the track is a pearl-white composite material door.

Gu Xidong dripped blood onto the biometric panel, and the door slid open silently.

The hemispherical space has a diameter of over 100 meters, and the dome is transparent, allowing a view of the frozen rock layers above.

Hundreds of culture chambers are neatly arranged on the ground, most of which contain early embryos and a small number of developing fetuses.

In the twelve large central chambers, the fetuses were nearing full term, some even with their eyes open, slowly moving in the liquid.

All culture chambers are connected to the central processing unit, and data scrolls across the screens:

[Synchronization rate monitoring in progress... Current overall synchronization rate: 71%]

[Consciousness Pre-production Progress: Group A 89%, Group B 76%, Group C 63%]

[Neurodevelopmental Index: Average above-average value 142%]

"They're mass-producing them..." Ling Wuwen's voice trembled.

Gu Xidong retrieved a detailed list:

Group A consists of 36 embryos, whose genetic origins are Gu Xidong and Ling Wuwen, and whose developmental stages range from fertilized egg to eight months.

There are over 300 embryos in total from Group B to Group L, and the donors are all athletes who were disposed of by their clubs.

"They're not just using our genes," the mouse stared at the screen, "they're building a gene pool of athletic geniuses."

Old Gun inspected the equipment: "Geothermal power generation can last for ten years. Even if the surface base is destroyed, it can continue to operate here."

Platform A-01 was parked in the corner, and the robotic arm was transferring the culture chamber to the fixed base.

As Gu Xidong approached, the fetus inside the pod had calmed down, but the monitor showed that its heart rate was completely synchronized with that of the fetus in Ling Wuwen's womb—132 beats per minute, down to the second.

"Two heartbeats, one rhythm." Ling Wuwen looked at the data. "Why?"

"Neural pre-synchronization," Gu Xidong recalled Chen Zhenghua's memories.

"Multiple embryos were implanted with the same neural template, naturally leading to convergent brain activity. The autonomic nervous system was also pre-programmed—breathing, heart rate, and body temperature regulation were all parameters the club wanted to control."

Ling Wuwen pressed his hand against the cabin glass: "So my child was designed to be part of the system from the embryonic stage?"

The central processing unit suddenly issued a prompt:

[Group A mother container detected to have entered a controllable area. Initiating synchronization enhancement procedure.]

Ling Wuwen clutched his abdomen and bent over: "It hurts..." The fetal heart rate suddenly rose to 160, and abnormal peaks appeared in the brain waves.

"It's responding!" The mouse hovered over the data. "The data in the A-01 culture chamber is also rising in tandem!"

Two lives, separated by the uterine wall and the glass of the culture chamber, are having a strange "conversation".

"Physical isolation," Gu Xidong said. "She has to leave here, at least 500 meters away."

The moment he stepped out of the door, Ling Wuwen's pain lessened and his heart rate dropped.

Five hundred meters means returning to the upper level of the base, but there are pursuers outside, and the blizzard continues.

"You need training," Gu Xidong suddenly said.

"It's not about the competition, it's about control. If the body is programmed, the only way to fight it is to make it memorize another pattern—your own."

They returned to the upper base.

2

The blizzard subsided, but the temperature dropped to minus forty-five degrees Celsius.

Gu Xidong found training equipment from the Soviet era: old-fashioned cold-weather clothing, crampons, climbing ropes, and military-grade underwater breathing apparatus.

"Ice-breaking diving," he said, pointing to the design drawings.

"There's an underground lake beneath the base, connected to an outer glacial lake. The Soviets used it for extreme cold-water diving training."

Three hours later, they found the passage at the bottom of the base.

The lake surface is frozen, up to a meter thick, but there is a thinner ice layer in the center of the lake—that is a diving hole left by the Soviets. The heating device has long been broken, but the ice layer is still thinner than in other places.

Gu Xidong used an ice axe to break open a half-meter-wide hole, and black lake water surged out.

The water temperature is zero degrees Celsius. Not freezing point, but zero degrees Celsius—the mineral content prevents the lake water from completely freezing.

Ling Wuwen bit down on the respirator, and they both sneaked in at the same time.

Darkness. Bone-chilling cold.

Gu Xidong forced his muscles to relax, his headlamp illuminating the rugged rocks at the bottom of the lake and the training facilities left by the Soviets.

Ling Wuwen swam beside him, his movements stiff but his rhythm steady.

Two minutes later, Ling Wuwen stopped and gestured for him to come closer.

In the beam of his headlamp, he could see a faint, rhythmic pulsation beneath her protective suit around her abdomen—

The fetus was moving, and the rhythm of its movements was synchronized with Ling Wuwen's paddling rhythm.

"It's learning from me," Ling Wuwen said hastily as he surfaced.

"It imitates every movement. I change the rhythm, and it changes too."

Mouse scanning revealed a high correlation between fetal neural activity and Ling Wuwen's electromyographic signals.

"It's establishing neural mappings; an eight-week-old fetus couldn't possibly have this advanced function."

"Unless it's accelerated." Gu Xidong helped her take off her wetsuit.

"Or its brain was designed from the beginning to learn quickly."

The second day was weighted rock climbing.

3

Ling Wuwen was climbing a ten-meter-high training wall when he suddenly stopped in mid-air on his third attempt.

She loosened one hand, hanging on with only one hand, her body swaying slightly like a pendulum yet remaining stable.

"The fetus is helping me maintain my balance," she said. "It's adjusting the distribution of my body's center of gravity."

Gu Xidong noticed that her abdominal muscles contracted slightly and involuntarily when she was hanging.

"It's not control, it's optimization." Ling Wuwen slowly pulled his body back.

"It's like autopilot assisting manual driving. I can perform the main actions, but it will fine-tune them to make the actions more efficient."

That evening, they discovered the problem. During partner training, their rhythms were always 0.1 seconds off.

Mouse measurements showed that Gu Xidong's clone was 0.1 seconds faster than Ling Wuwen's.

"Because my body is a clone," Gu Xidong analyzed.

"Epigenetics, the degree of myelination, and the gut microbiota all differ. This leads to subtle temporal differences."

"0.1 seconds can be fatal in a game," Ling Wuwen said.

In the early hours of the fourth day, she came up with a crazy idea: "A synchronized triple Axel."

Gu Xidong thought he had misheard.

4A is a jump that is almost impossible to complete even by a single person. The two-player version is even more complicated and requires perfect synchronization.

"No one in history has ever accomplished this," Ling Wuwen said.

"But our physical condition is unique—fetal optimization and cloning. If we can accomplish this, it will prove that we still have control over our bodies, even if they are pre-programmed. We can still make choices."

"The impact force upon landing is eight to ten times the body weight," Gu Xidong said. "The fetus cannot withstand it."

"Perhaps." Ling Wuwen placed his hand on his abdomen.

"If it's truly being optimized, it should be able to optimize shock absorption. This is a test—a test of whether it's our child's product or the club's."

They began preparations. 4A required a rotational speed of 420 revolutions per minute and a hovering time of 0.7 seconds.

They drew lines, measured, and recorded videos for analysis on the ice rink.

4

The third day, the seventeenth attempt.

The takeoff was excellent, with three and a half rotations.

But in the second and a half laps, Ling Wuwen's body shifted slightly—the fetus was moving, changing his center of gravity. They landed off-center, and Gu Xidong fell.

"The fetus is scared," she said breathlessly. "It feels uncomfortable when it's being rotated."

"Then let it get used to it." Gu Xidong got up. "Let's try again."

The twentieth attempt. At the moment of takeoff, time seemed to slow down.

Ice shards kicked up by the ice skates, Ling Wuwen's tense profile, the outline of life beneath her protective suit—

All the details are clearly visible.

After three and a half laps, it's time to land.

Gu Xidong saw the ice surface, the landing point, and another figure beneath the ice—not a reflection.

Through a half-meter-thick layer of ice, a woman was trapped in the water beneath the ice, staring at them with her eyes open.

He looks exactly like Ling Wuwen.

The impact of landing caused the ice surface to crack, and the ice layer near the take-off point collapsed.

They rolled to safety and looked back to see a culture chamber floating in the ice hole.

The cabin was transparent, and inside was a sleeping adult woman, who looked like a mirror image of Ling Wuwen.

The label reads:

[Nirvana 2.0 - Mother Container Prototype - Ling Wuwen Clone A - Status: Pending Activation]

More incubation chambers surfaced, one after another, each containing a Ling Wuwen of different ages and conditions.

The last compartment contained Gu Xidong's clone.

I stared at him through the glass with my eyes open.