Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

Frost had formed on the glass of the culture chamber, but the inner walls were unusually warm.

The six-month-old fetus floated in a pale blue liquid, its eyelids occasionally twitching, as if it were having a long dream.

"We have to get it in."

Ling Wuwen's voice was barely audible in the blizzard; her hands, through thick winter gloves, were pressed against the outer wall of the culture chamber.

Gu Xidong stared at the fetus's chest—

There were faint undulations there, and the tubes connecting to the umbilical cord resembled some kind of alien tentacle, penetrating deep into the complex mechanical structure of the hull.

"This is a trap. They knew we would find it."

"So?" Ling Wuwen turned to look at him, his eyes behind the goggles were bloodshot.

"Should we leave it here to freeze to death?"

The mouse crouches in the snow, scanning the cabin with its instruments:

"The life support system is powered independently and can operate for at least 72 hours. But this is more troublesome—" He pointed to the fiber optic cable extending into the permafrost at the bottom of the cabin, "It's continuously transmitting data. The frequency is a military satellite-only band."

Old Gun had already drawn his tool: "Then cut it."

"Cutting it might trigger the self-destruct sequence." The pilot leaned closer, studying the Russian markings on the hull.

"This thing... my grandfather mentioned it. It was a Soviet-era 'embryo monitoring unit' used to raise soldiers in extreme environments. But it was later banned because of ethical issues."

"Clearly, someone has not complied with the ban." Gu Xidong's finger traced the edge of the hull, where a line of small characters was engraved: Nirvana 2.0 - Prototype A.

Ling Wuwen suddenly knelt down in the snow.

It wasn't because she was weak, but because she could see the gene sequence comparison below the label—

99.7% match, Donor A: Gu Xidong, Donor B: Ling Wuwen.

"They used our genes..." Her voice caught in her throat.

"Not only that." The mouse brought up the scan results.

"Look at the embryo's development timestamp. The fertilization date... was three years ago. A month before your final."

The snowfield was deathly silent, with only the howling wind.

Three years ago, the club not only orchestrated Gu Xidong's accident, but also extracted their reproductive cells at the same time.

This fetus had been growing in a laboratory for three years, accelerated, edited, and pre-produced, until it finally appeared before them.

"Why send it now?" Old Gun asked the crucial question.

"Because the time has come." Gu Xidong searched for answers in Chen Zhenghua's fragmented memories.

"Consciousness fusion requires the recipient to be in a specific physiological state. Six months... is the peak period of explosive growth in the fetal brain. It is also..." He looked at Ling Wuwen's abdomen, "when the other fetus was eight weeks old."

Ling Wuwen instinctively protected his stomach: "They're progressing in sync."

"Yes." Gu Xidong stood up, snowflakes patting his face. "What's in this culture chamber is the 'finished product.' What's in your belly is the 'control sample.' They're comparing which is better, which is more suitable as..."

He stopped.

2

"As what?" Ling Wuwen pressed.

"As the host for the next stage of experiments," Gu Xidong said with difficulty.

"If Ling Yaqin's consciousness is to transfer into your body, she needs a perfectly matched uterus. And this fetus—if it is a girl—may have been designed as a 'prepared version' of that uterus."

The mouse's sensor suddenly emitted a sharp beep. "Large-scale life activity detected! Underground! Beneath the permafrost!"

The snow beneath their feet trembled.

It wasn't an earthquake; it was the muffled sound of some kind of machinery running.

The snow layer cracked open, and white mist gushed out from the ground.

"Back off!" Old Gun pulled the group back.

The snow within a 50-meter radius began to melt and collapse, revealing the silver-gray metal structure underneath.

That wasn't natural geology; it was a huge circular platform slowly rising from the permafrost.

The culture chamber is located in the center of the platform.

Once fully raised, the platform has a diameter of over thirty meters, with twelve metal pillars along its edge, each topped with a glowing blue indicator light.

The platform's surface is not flat, but rather a concave bowl-shaped structure, with the culture chamber located at the bottom of the bowl.

Even more bizarrely, there were hundreds of indentations of varying sizes on the bowl's surface, each containing a small culture device.

Most of them were empty, but a few contained embryos—earlier ones, only the size of a fist, soaking in a pink nutrient solution.

"This is..." the driver's voice trembled, "a hatchery."

Gu Xidong approached the edge of the platform.

Each indentation on the bowl wall is numbered from A-01 to L-12.

The depression in area A is full, containing embryos at different stages of development.

The location of the culture chamber is marked as [A-01: Mature organism].

"They're mass-producing them." Ling Wuwen's breath condensed into frost on his mask. "Using our genes, mass-producing them..."

The mouse has climbed onto the platform to inspect the small culture equipment:

"These embryos have different genetic origins. I detected at least seven different DNA sequences, all from athletes... wait, the donor for this embryo is—"

He stopped, staring at the scan results, his face deathly pale.

"Who is it?" Gu Xidong asked.

"Ling Wufeng." The mouse looked up. "That hacker. His genes were extracted."

"Ling Wufeng died three years ago."

"But his sperm may have been cryopreserved." The mouse continued scanning.

"Here are also... Coach Zheng, Li Xiang, Chen Xiaoyu... all the 'failures' that the club disposed of; their genetic material has been collected."

The platform suddenly emitted a hissing sound from the hydraulic system.

The bowl began to rotate, and the indentations moved in position like slots on a turntable.

The culture chamber of A-01 was moved to the edge of the platform, and a new hollow was moved to the center.

Then, the metal plate in the center of the platform opened, and a robotic arm rose from the ground.

3

The end of the robotic arm is an injection device with a needle about the thickness of a thumb.

"What is it going to do?" Old Gun raised his gun and aimed.

"I don't know, but it's definitely not a good thing." Gu Xidong stared at the trajectory of the robotic arm—it was aimed at the hollow depression.

Just then, the fetus in the A-01 incubation chamber suddenly convulsed violently.

Its eyes opened, not with the confusion of an infant, but with a kind of conscious pain.

Her little hands patted the cabin wall, and rapid bubbles came out of her mouth.

"It's scared." Ling Wuwen rushed towards the incubation chamber.

The robotic arm is ready and begins to descend.

The needle was filled with a dark red liquid.

"That's bone marrow extract," Gu Xidong recognized it.

"They will extract bone marrow stem cells from the fetus and inject them into the new embryo."

Why?

"In order to allow the new embryo to 'inherit' the neural development achievements of the mature body."

This is a "learning by doing" technique researched during the Soviet era—transferring the learning outcomes of one individual to another through stem cells.

The needle pierced the outer wall of the culture chamber and probed towards the fetus's spine.

Ling Wuwen had already rushed to the edge of the cabin.

She didn't know where the strength came from, but she grabbed a crowbar from the ground and smashed it against the connecting joint of the robotic arm.

The metal clanged together, producing a piercing noise, but the robotic arm remained completely still.

Gu Xidong also rushed forward.

The clone was stronger than the original body. He grabbed the main body of the mechanical arm and pressed down with his full weight.

The hydraulic system groaned from overload.

Old Gun fired. The bullet struck the drive motor of the robotic arm, sending sparks flying.

The robotic arm paused for a moment, then suddenly changed its target—the needle turned towards Ling Wuwen.

"Be careful!"

The moment Gu Xidong pushed her away, the needle grazed her protective suit, cutting a gash.

The cold air rushed in instantly, and Ling Wuwen gasped.

The robotic arm did not continue its attack but retracted underground.

The platform began to descend, and the bowl stopped rotating.

"It retreated?" The mouse looked around warily.

"No." Gu Xidong looked at the metal plate in the center of the platform that had closed again. "It's waiting for the next instruction."

He walked toward the A-01 incubation chamber. The fetus had stopped convulsing, but its eyes were still open, staring straight at him.

Through the glass, Gu Xidong could see his own face reflected in its pupils.

And the shape of its lips opening and closing silently.

That's one word: Dad.

It's not through sound, it's through lip movements.

A six-month-old fetus should not know this word, much less know how to express it with mouth movements.

Unless its brain has been pre-programmed with language templates.

Gu Xidong pressed his hand against the glass.

The fetus's gaze followed his hand, and then it raised its little hand and placed it in the corresponding spot.

Palm to palm, separated by two layers of glass and twenty centimeters of liquid.

A memory suddenly flooded into Gu Xidong's mind—it wasn't his, it was the fetus's.

Darkness. Warm darkness.

4

The sound of flowing liquid. Indistinct voices in the distance. The stinging pain of needles.

The electric current numbed my spine. Then came a sound, a recurring sound, like a lullaby:

Your father is Gu Xidong, and your mother is Ling Wuwen. You are a perfect match. You must become the best; you must surpass them…

Images are also interspersed among the fragments of memory:

A bird's-eye view of the ice rink, a breakdown diagram of jumping motions, a biomechanical model of muscle exertion... this knowledge is directly "instilled" into the developing brain of the fetus.

"They're educating it," Gu Xidong said, withdrawing his hand. "They're starting the education from the embryonic stage."

After inspecting the damage to the protective suit, Ling Wuwen walked over:

"We must take it with us. We can't leave it here as a guinea pig for the club."

"How do we carry it?" Old Gun pointed to the dense network of pipes at the bottom of the culture chamber.

"These are connected to the life support system. If it's forcibly cut off, it might not survive for more than ten minutes."

The driver walked around the platform once:

"Perhaps... we don't need to cut it off. There's a mobile base underneath the platform. If we can activate it, maybe we can move the platform along with it."

"Where to transport it? Our base can't hold such a big thing."

"It can fit," Gu Xidong suddenly said.

"The basement. The Soviets included passageways for large equipment when they built it. I checked it; the passageways lead to natural caves inside the mountain, and there's enough space."

"But how do we start the platform?"

The mouse has crawled back to the edge of the platform and found the control panel.

The panel was frozen solid. He pried open the ice to reveal the old-fashioned keyboard and screen underneath.

"A password is required," he said.

Gu Xidong looked at the keyboard.

It was a Russian keyboard, with a different letter arrangement. He tried to type "Polaris" in Russian—no.

"Try 'Nirvana'," Ling Wuwen said.

error.

"The date of the collapse of the Soviet Union."

error.

Time ticked by. The platform began to vibrate slightly again, as if preparing to restart some program.

Gu Xidong stared at the keyboard and suddenly remembered a line from Wang Zhenhua's recording:

"The real key is never a password, it's blood."

He pulled out a dagger and slashed the clone's finger. Drops of blood dripped onto the keyboard.

The keyboard backlight suddenly turned red. The screen flickered, and a line of text appeared: [Biometric key verification in progress...]

"It's detecting DNA," the mouse said.

Blood seeped into the keyboard crevices. A few seconds later, the screen displayed: [Donor A Confirmed: Gu Xidong. Access Level: Guardian.]

Keyboard unlock.

"Guardian?" Ling Wuwen frowned.

"That means," the driver explained, "that the platform has identified Gu Xidong as the 'owner' of this embryo."

Gu Xidong didn't have time to delve into the ethical issues surrounding this term.

He quickly scanned the control menu and found the movement option: [Activate Transport Mode.]

The roar of machinery could be heard coming from below the platform.

The entire structure began to rise, breaking free from the permafrost and revealing the tracked base underneath—a massive mobile platform.

"Where is it going?" Old Gun asked.

Gu Xidong checked the preset destination: [Polaris Base - Underground Incubation Room.]

"Perfect." He pressed the confirm button.

The platform began to move, slowly but steadily.

The tracks carved deep furrows into the snow as they moved toward the base.

The group followed on both sides of the platform.

The blizzard intensified, reducing visibility to less than ten meters. They could only rely on the indicator lights on the platform to orient themselves.

After walking about a kilometer, the mouse suddenly stopped: "Signal interference has increased. Something is approaching."

"Drone?"

"No, even bigger. The heat source indicates... vehicles. Two, coming from the east."

Gu Xidong looked eastward.

5

In the wind and snow, the faint halo of car headlights could be seen swaying.

"The club's people." Old Gun cocked his gun. "They've come to collect the 'products'."

The platform is still moving slowly, and it is still two kilometers away from the base.

At this speed, they will definitely be caught up before they arrive.

"You take the platform with you," Gu Xidong said. "I'll distract them."

"You're all alone—"

"The clones are fast, and I know how to use the terrain."

Gu Xidong checked his equipment; he only had a pistol and two magazines. "Meet at base. If I don't get there..."

He didn't finish speaking, but Ling Wuwen understood. She grabbed his hand: "Come back alive. Our children... both need a father."

Gu Xidong nodded, turned around, and rushed into the wind and snow.

His plan was simple: create chaos, attract attention, and buy time for the platform.

The clone's cold resistance far exceeds that of ordinary people; it can endure for much longer in environments as cold as minus forty degrees Celsius.

He deliberately left obvious footprints in the snow, heading in the opposite direction from the base.

After running 500 meters, he found a rocky shelter and hid there to observe.

The car headlights were getting closer.

There were two modified snowmobiles with weapon racks on their roofs. The vehicles stopped in front of the track tracks left on the platform, and six people got out.

They were dressed in uniform white snow combat suits and were well-equipped.

The leader crouched down to examine the traces and used hand gestures to direct the team—four people went to chase the platform, and two people came to follow the footprints.

Gu Xidong waited until the two men were within fifty meters before firing.

The goal wasn't to hit the target, but to create noise. The gunshots echoed across the snowfield, and the two men immediately dropped to the ground and returned fire in the direction of the gunfire.

Gu Xidong had already left the bunker.

He leaped between rocks, using the terrain for cover, and ran deeper into the area.

The clone's muscles were extremely efficient, and it exerted force precisely with every step, so it was surprisingly fast even when running in deep snow.

But he could feel his energy being depleted. In low temperatures, metabolism speeds up, and energy consumption is three times that at room temperature.

The pursuers were very professional; they didn't blindly chase after the enemy, but instead split up to encircle them.

One of them climbed to a high place, locked onto his position with binoculars, and gave instructions via radio.

Gu Xidong changed his strategy. Instead of running in a straight line, he circled back towards the platform.

Under the cover of the wind and snow, he successfully shook off his pursuers and returned to the vicinity of the platform.

The platform was only 800 meters from the base. But four pursuers had caught up and were engaged in firefight with Old Gun and his men.

Bullets struck the platform's metal structure, sending sparks flying. The incubation chamber was in the center of the firefight, and stray bullets could penetrate it at any moment.

Gu Xidong approached from the side. He circled behind one of the pursuers, knocked him down at close range, and seized his rifle.

The clone's combat instincts were activated—skills that Wang Zhenhua had trained, now manifested through muscle memory.

He took down two men in quick succession, but a third pursuer spotted him. In the instant the gun turned, Gu Xidong fell and rolled, a bullet grazing his scalp.

The platform has arrived at the base entrance. The driver opened the gate to the underground passage, and a ramp slowly descended.

"Get in there quickly!" Old Gun shouted.

The last two pursuers were pinned down behind cover.

Gu Xidong provided cover as the platform entered the passage, and then rushed in himself.

The door closed behind them, and bullets struck the heavy metal door with dull thuds.

The passageway was dimly lit.

The platform was stationary in the center, and the indicator lights in the culture chamber flashed regularly in the darkness.

Everyone was panting. Ling Wuwen checked Gu Xidong for injuries, but he just shook his head and stared at the incubation chamber.

Inside the capsule, the fetus stared at him. Then, its lips moved again.

This time, Gu Xidong understood.

It is saying: Thank you.

The sound of gears turning suddenly came from deep within the tunnel. It wasn't them who started it.

The old-fashioned display screen on the wall lit up, showing a line of Russian text that was automatically translated into Chinese:

Welcome home, guardians. The incubation process continues. Next stage: Consciousness synchronization preparation.

The platform began to automatically drive deeper into the tunnel, and no one knew where it was going.

But the vital signs monitor on Gu Xidong's wrist suddenly showed an abnormality—it wasn't his, it was Ling Wuwen's.

The heart rate of the fetus in her womb was accelerating, perfectly synchronized with the heart rate of the fetus in the incubation chamber.

Two heartbeats, in the darkness, throbbed in unison.

Inside a body, inside a culture chamber.

Separated by flesh and glass, they seem like the same life.