Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

The baby's silvery-white pupils contracted in the red light of the emergency lamp, turning back to their normal dark brown, but Gu Xidong saw it. He froze by the bedside, still clutching the scissors used to cut the umbilical cord.

Ling Wuwen was so tired he could barely open his eyes, and he instinctively held the baby to his chest.

The newborn immediately begins to suckle, making satisfied swallowing sounds.

"She..." Gu Xidong's voice caught in his throat.

"What's wrong with her?" Ling Wuwen barely managed to lift his eyelids. "Her eyes..." Gu Xidong couldn't bring himself to say "silver-white."

Ling Wuwen looked down at the baby in his arms.

"She's alright." Ling Wuwen's voice was muffled with exhaustion. "She's perfect."

But Gu Xidong could not forget that moment. He turned towards the door of the infirmary, but Ling Yaqin was gone.

"Mouse!" he shouted.

"Scan this child," Gu Xidong said. "Scan her brain activity, scan her gene sequence, scan everything."

"Now?" Mouse frowned. "She's just been born and needs to be stabilized—"

"Now."

The mouse sighed and brought over a portable scanner.

Ling Wuwen shielded the child, saying, "Be gentle, she'll be scared."

But the baby didn't cry. She even opened her eyes and looked curiously at the scanner's beam of light.

The scan results are displayed on the screen in real time.

"Gene sequence...normal." The mouse read out the data, "Compared with your genes, the match is 99.99%, indicating it is your biological offspring. No foreign gene insertion was detected."

"Where's the brain?"

"The brainwaves... are a bit strange." Zooming in on the waveform with the mouse, "Normal newborn brain activity should be random and low-frequency. But her brainwaves are regular, fluctuating between 8-12 Hz—those are alpha waves, which normally don't appear until three or four months of age."

"What do you mean?"

"It means her brain is developing ahead of schedule. But considering the many extreme situations her mother experienced during her pregnancy, accelerated fetal brain development could also be a stress response."

Gu Xidong stared at the waveform graph. The regular fluctuations reminded him of the synchronization signals emitted by conjoined twins.

"Detecting neural signal output," he said.

Adjust the parameters with the mouse. A few seconds later, the screen displays a near-perfect sine wave.

"Impossible," the mouse whispered. "A newborn couldn't possibly produce such stable neural signals. Unless..."

"Unless her brain was pre-made," Gu Xidong continued, "implanted with some kind of basic neural template during the embryonic stage."

Ling Wuwen suddenly hugged the child tightly: "You mean, she was also...modified?"

"The club used our genes to create hundreds of clones," Gu Xidong said softly. "Why didn't they tamper with your body while you were pregnant? If they could monitor from the embryonic stage, why couldn't they modify it from the embryonic stage?"

The baby suddenly started crying. It wasn't a cry of hunger or discomfort, but a sharp, terrified cry.

Ling Wuwen gently rocked her, humming a tuneless song—a song her mother used to hum when she had nightmares as a child. The baby slowly calmed down.

"Whoever she is," Ling Wuwen looked up at Gu Xidong, "she is my daughter. The child we gave birth to in the freezing cold and amidst gunfire. That's enough."

Gu Xidong wanted to say something, but the door to the infirmary was pushed open.

A-2 stood at the door, in terrible condition—blood was seeping from his nostrils and ears, and his silvery-white pupils had not yet fully faded.

"We need to evacuate." A-2 leaned against the doorframe. "The data transmission was interrupted, but the club must have detected the anomaly. They'll send someone. Soon."

"Where to?" Old Gun asked. "The blizzard's here again."

"The city of the North," A-2 said.

Everyone was stunned.

"What did you say?" Gu Xidong stared at him.

"When I was overloaded... I received some residual signals." A-2 wiped the blood from his nose.

"Although the data transmission was compromised, some information had already been transmitted. This included base coordinates and... the biomarkers of the newborn fetus. The club now certainly knows the child has been born. According to their agreement, they will activate 'Project Chick'—to retrieve the child within 24 hours of birth."

"Recycle?" Ling Wuwen hugged the baby tightly.

"That's their terminology." A-2 closed his eyes, as if recalling knowledge he had been taught. "The newborn's brain has the strongest plasticity. If you want to extract complete neurodevelopmental data from a naturally born child, the first 24 hours after birth are the golden window."

The mouse brought up previously captured data fragments: "He's right. There's an encrypted command here, the timestamp is the child's birth time, and the content is indeed 'Chick Protocol activated, 24-hour window'."

Gu Xidong looked out the window. The blizzard had obscured the sky, reducing visibility to zero. Leaving the base in this weather would be tantamount to suicide.

But to stay is to wait for death.

2

"Where is the city of the North?" he asked A-2.

"Under the glacier further north. The exact coordinates... I don't remember them, but I remember the way there." A-2 opened his eyes. "I saw a map of the entire transportation system during my underground glide track maintenance training. There's a hidden route that avoids surface storms and leads directly to the underground entrance to the Northern City."

"Why go there?" Old Gun asked. "Isn't that just walking into a trap?"

"Because the most dangerous place is the safest," A-2 said. "The club will think we're running away and will chase us towards the border, towards the south. They won't expect us to go against them and into their core territory. And... the Northern City has what we need."

"What?"

"The original gene sample bank." A-2 looked at the baby. "All clones come from there. If we can find your original gene sample, we might be able to analyze what was done to the child, or even... find a way to reverse it."

Ling Wuwen and Gu Xidong exchanged glances. This plan was insane to the extreme, but in a desperate situation, madness might be the only rational option.

"What about the clones?" B-3 also came to the door. She was in slightly better condition than A-2, but she was still unsteady on her feet. "We can't take everyone with us."

"We have to bring them," Gu Xidong said. "Leaving them means certain death. The club won't allow so many 'out-of-control products' to survive."

"But the transport system has limited vehicle capacity." The driver checked the base's inventory. "The snow trains left behind by the Soviets can only carry a maximum of fifty people. We have two hundred and thirty-seven."

"Then we'll do it in batches," Old Gun said. "The first trip will take the wounded and...the children."

"No," Ling Wuwen suddenly said, "Let's go together."

"How do we get there? The train can't fit everyone—"

"We won't take the train." Ling Wuwen got out of bed, his steps unsteady but his stance firm. "We'll take the ice track."

She pointed out the window: "There's a glacier below the base, running through the entire mountain range. The Soviets used it to transport heavy equipment. If we could find a transport vehicle on the ice..."

"Ice boats." The driver remembered. "There are several hovercraft ice boats on the lowest level of the warehouse. They use geomagnetic navigation and can travel at high speeds on smooth ice. But that's thirty-year-old technology. Are they still usable—"

"Go check," Gu Xidong said. "Everyone get moving. Those who can walk, help move the supplies; those who can't, prepare stretchers. We need to leave within an hour."

The clones began to move.

3

Gu Xidong stayed in the infirmary to help Ling Wuwen change his soaked clothes. The baby was wrapped in layers of thermal blankets, only his little face showing, and he was sleeping peacefully.

"If she really is transformed," Ling Wuwen suddenly said, "what would you do to her?"

Gu Xidong's hand stopped. The question was too heavy; he wasn't ready to answer it.

"She's still our child," Ling Wuwen answered himself. "The modification wasn't her choice. Just like the clones, they didn't choose to be created. But now they're helping us."

"She might...not be entirely human," Gu Xidong said with difficulty.

"What is a human being?" Ling Wuwen looked at the baby's face. "Does she have human genes? Human form? Or human emotions? If she can love, cry, and know pain and pleasure... then she is a human being. Regardless of the color of her eyes."

An hour later, all preparations were complete.

Three of the ice boats on the bottom floor of the warehouse are still usable. They are old-fashioned hovercraft, their hulls a vibrant orange-red, resembling congealed blood in the dim light. Each boat can carry eighty people, but can squeeze in ninety if you want. Just enough for everyone to get on board.

"The geomagnetic navigation system needs calibration," Mouse said, sitting at the control panel of the first ship. "But the blizzard has disrupted the geomagnetic field, so the navigation might be inaccurate."

"Use inertial navigation." A-2 sat down next to him. "I have a complete 3D map of this glacier in my memory. I can guide it manually."

"Your current state—"

"I can do it." A-2's silvery-white pupils had completely faded, but his eyes were bloodshot. "This is our salvation. We were created to replace you, and now we're going to do the opposite."

Three ice ships slowly sailed out of the base's ice tunnel entrance.

The boat's speed gradually increased. The hovercraft had minimal friction on the ice, and it quickly accelerated to 80 kilometers per hour. The wind rushed in from the open hatch, biting cold, but no one complained.

Ling Wuwen sat down next to Gu Xidong, holding the baby.

"She likes light," Ling Wuwen said softly.

Gu Xidong looked at his daughter. In the flickering light and shadow, her eyes sometimes appeared deep brown, sometimes flashed with a silvery white, so quickly that it seemed like an illusion.

Suddenly, the ice ship began to shake violently.

"What's going on?" Old Gun gripped the handrail tightly.

"Behind us!" the driver pointed behind him. "The ice is collapsing!"

Gu Xidong turned around. The ice they had just crossed was collapsing on a large scale, not a natural phenomenon—there was an explosion beneath the ice. The shockwave was propagating underwater, shattering the ice.

"The club is catching up." A-2 stared at the navigation screen. "They're entering the glacier via a different route, trying to cut off our retreat."

The words had barely left his mouth when the ice wall ahead suddenly burst open. It wasn't an explosion, but some kind of drilling equipment—a massive drill bit burst through the ice, its rotating blades still covered in ice shards. Behind the drill bit was an armored snowmobile.

"Jump ship!" Gu Xidong shouted.

But the iceship was going too fast to brake. The first ship crashed straight into the bow.

Just moments before the collision, A-2 swerved sharply. The ice ship skidded sideways, its hull grazing the drill bit, the metal screeching against metal. A large gash was torn in the hull, and the air cushion began to leak.

"The ship's sinking!" Mouse gripped the control panel tightly. "The air cushion pressure is dropping!"

"Change boats!" Gu Xidong picked up Ling Wuwen and the baby and jumped to the second boat. The others who could move also began to jump.

But the attack began from the snowmobile. Not bullets, but some kind of sonic weapon—

An invisible shockwave spread across the glacier, causing several clones that had been jumping in the air to fall into a crevice and be instantly swallowed by the icy river water.

"Don't jump!" B-3 shouted. "Stabilize the ship!"

But the first ship had already begun to sink. A-2 remained at the control console, trying to maneuver the ship as close to the ice wall as possible to buy time for the others.

4

"A-2!" B-3 wanted to jump back to save him.

"Don't come any closer!" A-2 roared. "Take them away! Remember the map! To the Northern City!"

The first ship struck the ice wall and shattered. A-2 disappeared into the icy water and metal fragments.

The second and third boats seized the opportunity to accelerate and sped past the snowmobile from the side. The snowmobile tried to turn and give chase, but its maneuvering on the ice was clumsy, and it was left behind.

"How many people were lost?" Gu Xidong asked on the second ship.

"At least thirty." B-3's voice trembled. "A-2 is in there too..."

"There's no time for grief." Old Gun checked his weapons. "There's a longer road ahead."

The glacier forks ahead. One branch goes to the left with a gentle slope; the other goes to the right and plunges steeply downwards.

"Which road?" the driver asked.

B-3 closed her eyes, as if recalling the map information A-2 had given her: "Go right. There's an undercurrent below the steep slope; you can shake off your pursuers."

"But the boat might not be able to withstand the steep slope—"

We must hold on.

The ice boat hurtled down the steep slope. Its speed increased, and the boat began to rock violently. The ice surface was no longer smooth; there were undulating ridges, and the boat's hull struck these ridges with a heavy, muffled thud.

The baby was startled awake and began to cry loudly. Ling Wuwen held her tightly: "Don't be afraid, Mommy's here."

Gu Xidong looked back. The snowmobile hadn't followed—it was too big to go down the steep slope. But something else appeared on the ice: small sleds, each carrying two people, nimbly leaping between the ice ridges at incredible speed.

"It's a rapid reaction force." B-3 recognized the equipment. "Special clones of the club. They're better at ice warfare than we are."

The sled began firing. Not conventional weapons, but nets and tranquilizer darts—they wanted prisoners alive.

A tranquilizer dart struck the cockpit of the third ship. The pilot collapsed, and the ship went out of control and crashed into the ice wall. Everyone jumped overboard, but jumping at high speed was tantamount to suicide.

"Save them!" Ling Wuwen shouted.

But the second boat was in dire straits. Another net was fired, covering the stern engine. The air cushion began to leak, and the speed dropped sharply.

The sleds surrounded them. Eight sleds, sixteen clones, fully armed. They took off their helmets—all of them bore Gu Xidong's face.

"Original body, surrender," said the leading clone. "The professor wants us alive. The children want us alive too. The others... can be destroyed."

Gu Xidong looked at these people who looked exactly like him. Their eyes were cold, devoid of any hesitation or pity. Perfect killing machines.

"You were once them too," he said to B-3 and the other clones. "Now, prove you are different."

The clones stood up. Though weak and frightened, they picked up whatever weapons they could find: wrenches, ice axes, even pieces of ship hull.

"We are not tools," B-3 said. "We choose to resist."

The clones on the sled laughed—a programmed, emotionless laugh.

"Then destroy it."

The battle erupted on the ice. It wasn't a fair fight—one side consisted of weakened clones, recently overwhelmed by nervous exhaustion, and the other of elite special forces. But the rebellious clones possessed something their opponents lacked: anger. Anger at their creation, anger at being used, anger at the deaths of their comrades.

Gu Xidong protected Ling Wuwen and the baby, attempting to retreat deeper into the glacier. But a sled blocked their path.

"Give me the child." The clone held out its hand. "You don't want to see her hurt."

Gu Xidong put Ling Wuwen down, let her lean against the ice wall, and then turned to face another version of himself.

"You can't beat me," the clone said. "My body is the latest version, my muscle strength is 120% of yours, and my nerve reaction speed is 0.15 seconds faster than yours."

"But you don't know the pain," Gu Xidong said.

"Pain was a design flaw, and we've removed it—"

Gu Xidong punched him in the face. It wasn't a skillful strike, but a pure, furious outburst of anger. The clone staggered back, but quickly regained his balance and retaliated with a punch to Gu Xidong's injured ribs.

The excruciating pain caused Gu Xidong to kneel on the ground. The clone walked over and stepped on his hand.

"Emotions are a weakness," the clone said. "Pain is a weakness. Love is the greatest weakness. Why don't you understand? Evolution is about eliminating weaknesses."

Gu Xidong looked up at him: "So, in the end, what will you have left?"

The clone paused for a moment. This problem was clearly not in its default programming.

Just then, the baby cried.

It wasn't ordinary crying; it was a penetrating, high-frequency cry. The sound echoed across the glacier, crashing against the ice walls and reflecting back, creating a kind of resonance.

All the clones—whether friend or foe—simultaneously covered their ears. The sound directly stimulated their brains, causing intense nerve pain.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Gu Xidong broke free, picked up Ling Wuwen and the baby, and rushed into the depths of the icy river.

Those behind tried to give chase, but the baby's cries continued unabated. The frequency of the cries varied, making it difficult for the clones to concentrate.

"Her crying..." Ling Wuwen gasped in Gu Xidong's arms, "was disturbing them..."

"She knew we were in danger," Gu Xidong said. "She was protecting us."

A bright light appeared ahead of the glacier—not natural light, but an artificial one. It was a huge ice cave with a metal structure at its entrance.

"The City of the North." B-3 caught up; she was injured, her arm bleeding. "We've arrived."

They rushed into the ice cave. Inside was a vast underground space.

Buildings stand tall in the space—not igloos, but modern glass and steel structures, brightly lit. Vehicles travel on the streets, and pedestrians stroll along the sidewalks.

But if you look closely, all the faces of those "pedestrians" are duplicates.

They are all clones.

Thousands upon thousands of Gu Xidong, Ling Wuwen, Ling Wufeng, Coach Zheng... walk, work, and talk on the streets. A city entirely composed of clones.

At the entrance of the ice cave, the pursuers stopped.

They cannot enter here—the Northern City has a strict identity verification system, and unauthorized clones will trigger an alarm.

Gu Xidong put Ling Wuwen down and leaned against the ice wall, panting. A piercing pain shot through his broken ribs, but he couldn't care less.

The baby finally stopped crying.

She opened her eyes and looked at the strange underground city. A flash of silvery-white light passed through the depths of her pupils.

On the top floor of the tallest building in the distance, a figure stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, watching them through binoculars.

That's Ling Yaqin.

She put down her binoculars and said to the people around her:

"The chicks have returned to the nest. Ready to receive them."