Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

The pair of silvery-white eyes blinked once behind the metal grille of the ventilation duct, then vanished in an instant.

Gu Xidong immediately shielded the child behind him, grabbed the iron bar beside him, and moved step by step toward the ventilation opening.

The emergency lights in the basement cast a stark white light.

"Who's there?" he asked in a low voice, scanning his surroundings warily.

The iron bars made a slight scraping sound, and a pale hand reached out from inside. But the hand did not attack; instead, it made a gesture of three short, three long, three short strokes.

SOS in Morse code.

"B-3?" Gu Xidong asked incredulously.

The iron gate was pushed open from the inside, and a humanoid creature emerged.

He was soaking wet and dressed in rags, his exposed skin covered with scaly keratin, his left cheek bearing burn scars, while his right cheek was severely deformed, with prominent cheekbones, and his eyes were brown and silver-white respectively.

The most horrifying thing was his back, where his vertebrae bulged out one by one.

"Brother Gu..." B-3 began, his voice hoarse and broken like a leaky bellows, "Quickly...go..."

"How did you become like this?" Gu Xidong gripped the iron rod tightly, without backing down.

"Genetic...degeneration..." B-3 sat down against the wall, breathing heavily. "The stabilizer Ling Yaqin gave me...was poison...accelerating the collapse...she did it on purpose..."

He pulled a silver metal tube from his pocket, its surface engraved with a DNA double helix pattern, and handed it to Gu Xidong: "Child...you can't get that injection...this is...the real stabilizer...Ling Yaqin hid it...I stole it from her lab..."

Gu Xidong took the cold metal tube: "How did you find this place?"

"Your daughter...she...guided me in my dream..." B-3's silvery-white eyes turned to the baby on the bed. "Her abilities...are not just precognition...she can...connect with all...genetically modified beings..."

The child had just woken up, neither crying nor fussing, his clear, calm dark brown eyes gazing at B-3.

"What did she say?" Gu Xidong pressed.

B-3 shook his head: "It's not language...it's...images...feelings...she told me to tell you...the lab is a trap...what Ling Yashi wants...isn't the formula...it's her heart..."

"What?"

"The perfect virus... requires... a living activator..." B-3 coughed violently, spitting out black blood. "The child's heart... has a complete... genetic map... that can activate the virus... for directed evolution... Ling Yashi wants to use it... to create controlled... ethnic cleansing..."

Gu Xidong's mind went blank. It turned out that the Ling Yaqin and Ling Yashi sisters, who had been fighting for thirty years, ultimately had the same goal—

Both sides wanted their children to die, one wanted to preserve data, and the other wanted to use their organs.

"Does Ling Wuwen know?" he asked eagerly.

"Knowing... that's why she... wants to destroy the lab... and you... together..." B-3 suddenly convulsed, her body arched, and a low, inhuman growl escaped her throat. Spinal spurs pierced her clothes, bloodstains visible beneath. Degeneration was accelerating.

"A needle...give it to me..." B-3 pointed to the metal tube.

"I also need... a little... to suppress the degeneration... I can't hold on much longer... but I can still... help you one more time..."

Gu Xidong opened the metal tube, which contained three syringes filled with a pale golden liquid. He took one out and inserted it into B-3's arm. After the liquid was injected, B-3's convulsions gradually stopped, and the silvery-white in his eyes faded slightly.

"Thank you..." he said, catching his breath.

"Listen carefully... Ling Wuwen's plan... won't work... The self-destruct program in the control room... requires dual authentication... Ling Yaqin's genes... and Ling Yashi's genes... both are indispensable..."

"How could those two sisters possibly get certified at the same time?"

"So Ling Wuwen... will die..." B-3's eyes cleared a little.

"Ling Yaqin tricked her into going in... and then used her life... to force Ling Yashi to show herself... Once Ling Yashi entered the control room... when both sisters were present... Ling Yaqin would activate self-destruct... and perish together..."

"madman……"

"They're all lunatics..." B-3 stood up, his body hunched over.

"You have two things to do... First, inject the child with a stabilizer... the real thing... once a month... to suppress the mutation... until she reaches adulthood... Second, go to this place..."

He handed Gu Xidong a crumpled map, with the marker indicating the outskirts of the Northern City:

"This is... the real command center of 'Ice Shards'... Raven is there... He can cut off the lab's power... to buy you... ten minutes..."

"What can you do in ten minutes?"

"That's enough for you... to rescue Ling Wuwen..." B-3 stared at him.

"Brother Gu...you have to choose...save your wife...or save your child...ten minutes...is only enough time to do one thing..."

Gu Xidong gripped the map tightly: "Where is Ling Wuwen now?"

"We should be... almost at the lab entrance..." B-3 turned and climbed back into the ventilation shaft. "I'll go... disrupt the outer guards... You... decide quickly..."

He disappeared into the ventilation shaft, leaving behind only a few drops of black blood.

Gu Xidong returned to the bedside, where the child was holding his finger, his dark brown eyes seemingly waiting for his decision.

He picked up the syringe, aimed the needle at the child's thigh, but his hand trembled uncontrollably—if B-3 was lying, this injection might be poison.

Suddenly, the child reached out and pressed the syringe, pushing it onto his leg.

When the needle pierced her skin, she merely frowned and released her grip.

After Gu Xidong finished administering the medication and removed the needle, the child yawned and fell into a deep sleep a few seconds later. His breathing was steady, and his body temperature and heart rate were normal.

It seems this really is a stabilizer.

He wrapped the child up, secured him to his chest with a baby carrier, slung his backpack over his shoulder, grabbed his gun and map, and left the safe house.

2

It was already daylight outside, and the mountains were shrouded in mist. The command center marked on the map was five kilometers to the north, requiring a crossing of a mountain.

Gu Xidong quickened his pace and ran. The child slept peacefully against his chest, his little face pressed tightly against his chest.

After running two kilometers, the familiar male voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Mr. Gu, you are moving. Please return to the safe house immediately. Repeat, please immediately—"

Gu Xidong immediately turned off the walkie-talkie and threw it into the bushes.

As he crossed the ridge, he saw the city of the North—no ordinary city, but a huge, hemispherical silver building embedded in the valley, like an inverted bowl, surrounded by walls, sentry posts, and patrol cars.

Black smoke was billowing from the east entrance of the laboratory, indicating that a conflict had clearly broken out.

He didn't stop and continued running towards the marked point on the map.

The marker is an abandoned weather station, with the dilapidated building hidden in the woods.

Gu Xidong approached cautiously and found the door ajar. Pushing it open, he found himself in a dusty control room. Although the equipment was old, the screens were lit up, displaying the monitoring footage of the laboratory.

In the scene, Ling Wuwen, dressed in a black combat uniform, walks down a white corridor with a gun in his hand, followed by three members of "Ice Shards".

"They've finally arrived." A voice came from deep within the control room.

Gu Xidong pointed his gun at the source of the sound. A bald man in his sixties emerged from the shadows. He wore glasses, an old-fashioned military green jacket, and was holding a tablet computer. He was unarmed.

"Raven?"

"Yes." The man nodded, looking at the child on his chest. "How is the child?"

"I just had a stabilizing injection and I'm asleep now."

"Okay." Raven walked to the control panel and brought up the main control room screen—Ling Yaqin stood in front of the huge control panel, her back to the camera, surrounded by several white lab coats with their heads bowed.

"Ling Wuwen has three minutes to enter the control room. Once she's inside, the door will lock, and the power system will switch to the backup battery for ten minutes. You must enter the control room through the ventilation ducts within those ten minutes and bring her out."

Where are the ventilation ducts?

"Here." Raven pulled up the building's structural diagram.

"There's a maintenance access point above the control room, and the entrance is in the next room. But the electronic lock requires a password—the first six bases of the child's genetic sequence."

"How would I know?"

"Ling Yaqin gave you a genetic report in the submarine, remember?" Raven handed him a piece of paper. "I've deciphered it. The password is ATCGGT. Remember, you can only enter it once; an error will trigger an alarm."

"In addition," Raven added.

"B-3 should have told you that the self-destruct procedure requires both sisters to be certified simultaneously. But there is another way—if you interrupt the certification process, the procedure will freeze, the lab will enter 'hibernation lock,' all exits will be sealed, and the internal oxygen will only last for 24 hours."

"Isn't that just waiting to die?"

"Yes, but Ling Yashi won't survive either." Raven's eyes were icy.

"She was diagnosed with a terminal illness three years ago and has been kept alive by gene therapy. After the lab was shut down, she will not be able to access the drugs and will die before you. Over the past thirty years, more than three hundred clones have been created here, more than two hundred of them died in experiments, and the rest either collapsed or became like B-3. This hell should end."

In the surveillance footage, Ling Wuwen had reached the door of the control room. She stopped and looked back at the camera.

"I'll go." Gu Xidong untied the child from his chest and carefully placed her on a chair in the control room. "You watch over her."

"Not bringing children in?"

"It's too dangerous inside." Gu Xidong checked the bullets in his gun. "If I can't get out... I'll have to take her to New Zealand and find a protected area for 'ice chips'."

The raven paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Gu Xidong took one last look at the sleeping child, then turned and rushed out of the weather station.

On the way to the laboratory, several burning armored vehicles were parked at the foot of the mountain, with corpses lying scattered about, clearly indicating that a fierce battle had just taken place—B-3 had indeed kept its promise and interfered with the outer guards.

The main entrance to the laboratory has been destroyed, but the maintenance passage on the side remains open.

Gu Xidong crawled inside; the place was a mess, lights were flashing, and alarms were blaring.

Following the map, he found the staircase leading to the control room area, where the bodies of "Ice Shards" members and Ling Yashi's men lay.

As he climbed to the third floor, he heard gunfire from close range above. He gripped his gun tightly and slowly peered out—in the corridor, Ling Wuwen was leaning against the wall, changing magazines. He had been shot in the left arm, and blood was dripping from his fingers. Three enemies were approaching from the far end of the opposite corridor.

Without hesitation, Gu Xidong raised his gun and fired three shots, killing two enemies who fell to the ground, while the third retreated to cover.

Ling Wuwen turned around and saw him, her pupils shrinking sharply: "What are you doing here?!"

"I'm here to save you!" Gu Xidong rushed over to meet her. "The child is safe and at the command center."

"You're insane! This is a trap!"

"I know." Gu Xidong looked at her bleeding arm. "Can you still walk?"

"Yes," Ling Wuwen gritted his teeth, "but the door to the control room is already open, and Ling Yaqin is waiting for me inside."

"Don't go in, let's go through the maintenance passage."

Gu Xidong pulled her back, found the storage room marked on the map, lifted the ceiling panel to reveal an upward shaft, and said, "Password!"

Ling Wuwen paused for a moment, then read out ATCGGT. The electronic lock on the partition lit up green and opened.

Gu Xidong climbed up first, then pulled Ling Wuwen in. The shaft led to a narrow pipe layer, and the two could only crawl forward.

After climbing about twenty meters, Ling Yaqin's voice came from below and spread through the broadcast system:

"Daughter, I know you're up there. Come down, let's talk."

Ling Wuwen stopped what he was doing.

"Don't listen to her," Gu Xidong whispered, trying to dissuade her.

"She had a nerve gas controller."

Ling Wuwen's tone was grave. "If I don't go down, she will detonate it immediately, and everyone within a 50-kilometer radius will die."

Ling Yaqin's laughter came over the loudspeaker: "You really know me. I'll give you five minutes, or I'll press the button."

Gu Xidong looked at Ling Wuwen, whose face was covered in sweat and blood, but whose eyes were unusually calm. "I'll go," she said. "You take the child and leave."

"no--"

"It has to be done." Ling Wuwen grabbed his hand.

"Gu Xidong, listen: If I die, tell the child that her mother is not a monster, but just an ordinary person with bad luck."

She kissed his lips, then turned and jumped down through the access hatch.

Gu Xidong reached out to grab something, but only grasped at thin air. He heard footsteps below, the sound of a door opening and closing, and then everything fell silent.

Lying inside the pipe, Gu Xidong felt as if his blood had frozen.

A minute later, he gritted his teeth and continued crawling forward—

Ahead was the observation window above the control room. Climbing to the window and looking down, inside the control room, Ling Yaqin stood in front of the control console, while Ling Wuwen stood five meters away opposite her, their guns pointed at each other.

The two sisters look very alike, especially their eyes.

"You've grown up," Ling Yaqin said.

"As beautiful as your mother."

"Don't mention her," Ling Wuwen said coldly. "You're the one who killed her."

"It was her own choice," Ling Yaqin smiled. "She'd rather die than become a perfect human. Foolish."

"Bullshit." Ling Wuwen tightened his grip on the trigger. "Activate the self-destruct program, now."

"No rush." ​​Ling Yaqin glanced at the time. "We'll go together when your sister arrives."

As soon as he finished speaking, the door to the control room opened.

3

Ling Yashi walked in, wearing a white coat, her hair neatly combed, but her face was as pale as paper, her steps were unsteady, and she was holding a tablet computer in her hand, but she had no weapons.

"Little sister," she said, looking at Ling Yaqin, "it's been thirty years, and you're still in such a hurry."

"Sister," Ling Yaqin nodded, "you're still so late."

Ling Yashi walked to the other side of the console and placed the tablet down: "Let's begin. Two-factor authentication, let's make this error disappear."

The two of them simultaneously placed their hands on two sensors on the control panel, the screen lit up, and the countdown began: 10:00.

Gu Xidong suddenly noticed that Ling Yaqin's other hand was quietly moving towards a hidden red button below the control panel.

Ling Wuwen saw it too and shouted, "Don't press it!"

But it was too late. The moment Ling Yaqin pressed the button, the explosion-proof doors of all the exits simultaneously closed.

A mechanical voice announced over the loudspeaker: "Hibernation lock activated, oxygen circulation stopped, time remaining: 24:00:00."

Ling Yashi was stunned, then laughed: "You're still so cunning, trying to trap me?"

"I want to die with you." Ling Yaqin laughed as well. "We've been fighting for thirty years; it's time for an end to this."

Ling Wuwen hesitated between the two men, unsure which to aim his gun at.

Gu Xidong anxiously searched for the switch on the observation window. Just then, he saw Ling Yashi take a small box out of her white coat pocket. Inside was a syringe filled with a silvery-white liquid.

"Unfortunately, I don't intend to die," Ling Yashi said.

"I obtained the child's blood sample and made the final version of the stabilizer. With this injection, I can live for another thirty years."

She plunged the syringe into her neck and injected the medication. Within seconds, her face visibly flushed, and her eyes sharpened.

"Now," she looked at Ling Wuwen, "it's time to get what I want."

She moved with superhuman speed, instantly reaching Ling Wuwen, knocking her pistol away with one hand, and grabbing her neck with the other, pinning her against the wall.

Gu Xidong tried to fire, but the bullet was deflected by the bulletproof observation window.

"I want your heart." Ling Yashi's hand turned into a claw and grabbed at Ling Wuwen's chest.

Just as the fingertip was about to pierce the skin, the ventilation vent in the control room suddenly exploded.

B-3, covered in blood and with bone spurs protruding, slammed into Ling Yashi. Ling Yashi fell to the ground, immediately rolled over and stood up, punching B-3 in the chest; the sound of bones cracking was clearly audible.

But B-3 didn't back down, holding her tightly, and roared at Ling Wuwen, "Run!"

Ling Wuwen grabbed the gun from the ground, but didn't run—she rushed to the control panel, trying to unlock the dormant lock. Ling Yaqin stopped her: "It's no use, it's already locked."

"Then let's die together!" Ling Wuwen pushed her away.

Gu Xidong finally found the emergency switch for the observation window, pressed it and the window popped open. He jumped down and landed on the control panel.

When Ling Yashi saw him, her eyes lit up: "The child's father is here too? Perfect, the whole family is together."

She shook off B-3, which crashed into the wall and remained motionless.

Ling Yashi walked towards Gu Xidong: "Hand over the child, and I'll make sure your wife dies quickly."

Gu Xidong pointed his gun at her: "She's in a safe place; you'll never find her."

"Really?" Ling Yashi smiled and tapped on the tablet, bringing up the surveillance footage—

Inside the weather station control room, a raven lay on the floor, shot in the forehead; the child was nowhere to be seen.

"My men have picked her up. Now, put your guns down."

Gu Xidong's hands began to tremble; the child had been caught. Ling Wuwen's face turned deathly pale upon seeing the scene.

Ling Yashi's smile grew even more smug: "Game over. Now, I'm going to take my daughter's heart and activate the perfect virus. As for you—"

Her words stopped abruptly.

Suddenly, a childish yet clear voice blared over the control room's loudspeaker: "The game is over, sister."

It was a child's voice, not coming from a tablet, but from every speaker in the laboratory, creating a stereo effect that filled the entire space.

Ling Yashi was stunned.

The monitoring screen on the tablet suddenly switched; it was no longer the weather station, but the laboratory's gene bank.

In the scene, one after another, the infant incubation chambers open, and the cloned embryos inside slowly open their eyes—all with silvery-white pupils.

The child's voice continued to echo: "You created us, imprisoned us, used us. Now, it's our turn."

The glass of all the incubation chambers shattered simultaneously, and liquid gushed out. On the screen in the control room, a new countdown appeared: 00:59:59.

The child whispered, "Mommy, Daddy, close your eyes."

Gu Xidong and Ling Wuwen closed their eyes at the same time.

The next second, all the lights suddenly went out.

In the darkness, only Ling Yashi's shrill screams and countless faint, dense crawling sounds came from all directions.