Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

Gu Xidong stood on the deck of the gambling ship, facing Ling Wuwen's silvery-white eyes and the baby in her arms.

The surrounding audience, dressed in evening gowns, erupted in applause, treating this life-or-death standoff as a circus performance.

The sea breeze, carrying the saltiness and sweetness of champagne, swept past the two tense figures.

"Kill me." Ling Wuwen's voice was squeezed out from between his teeth, clearer and more resolute than before.

"Quickly...do it..." Her left hand fell to her side, picking up the knife that had fallen earlier; the blade gleamed coldly in the moonlight.

Gu Xidong stared at the struggling dark brown beneath the silvery-white of her eyes—

That was the real Ling Wuwen, trapped in an out-of-control body.

"Did you hear me?" Ye Shen roared from the side.

"She's begging you! Please grant her wish!"

Laughter erupted from the audience, and a man in a top hat loudly placed his bet: "I bet my mother will win! 100,000!"

Gu Xidong took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Ling Wuwen launched an attack instantly, thrusting the knife straight at his chest with lightning speed.

He dodged to the side, his wetsuit shoulder was slashed, and blood quickly seeped into the black fabric.

"Bravo!" Cheers erupted one after another.

Ling Wuwen held a baby in one arm and a knife in the other. His attacks were ruthless and precise, with kicks, elbow strikes, and stabs all being the techniques of a professional assassin.

Gu Xidong only dodged and did not attack, his old rib injury causing excruciating pain, but he clenched his teeth tightly.

Each time he dodged an attack, he could glimpse the silvery light fading from her eyes for a moment, followed by a flash of deep brown light.

"You're resisting," he whispered in her ear, dodging the blows. "I know you can hear me."

Ling Wuwen paused for a fraction of a second, tears mingling with seawater sliding down his cheeks.

Then the silvery white surged again, and she let out a low roar, her attack becoming even more ferocious.

Gu Xidong was forced to the railing, with the dark sea twenty meters below behind him and a blade poised to strike in front of him.

Ye Shen excitedly recorded the data: "Extreme pressure response! Absolutely perfect!"

Ling Wuwen raised his knife, aiming it at his neck. His silver eyes shone brightly, but his lips trembled.

"I'm sorry..." The two words were so soft that only he could hear them.

The moment the knife fell, Gu Xidong didn't dodge but instead met it head-on, using his shoulder to take the blow.

The blade pierced his flesh and got stuck in the bone. The excruciating pain made his vision go black, and cold sweat soaked his entire body.

But he held her knife-wielding hand tightly, and with his other hand he held her and the child close.

The family of three huddled together, their blood staining Ling Wuwen's white dress.

"Now," Gu Xidong's voice trembled with pain, "let's jump together."

He led the two of them over the railing, and as they fell, he twisted himself to cushion their fall, protecting his wife and daughter, while looking into the baby's silvery-white eyes:

"Help your mom." The baby blinked, and the three of them plunged into the icy seawater.

Darkness and coldness instantly engulfed everything. Gu Xidong's back hit the water first, and the intense pain almost made him choke, but he still held Ling Wuwen tightly, while she also protected the child with all her might.

As they sank, he suddenly felt Ling Wuwen's body stop struggling and instead relax. The silvery white in her eyes quickly faded, dissolving like ink drops into clear water, revealing her deep brown eyes again—the real Ling Wuwen had returned.

2

She looked at him, made an upward gesture, and the two of them struggled to rise together.

The silvery-white color in the baby's eyes is also slowly fading.

When they surfaced, the gambling ship was already a hundred meters away. The deck was in chaos, Ye Shen was yelling at the railing, and searchlights were sweeping wildly across the sea.

"This way." A small boat approached silently, carrying B-3 and several clones, known as "Freedoms," rescued from the northern city.

"Come on up!" B-3 reached out and pulled the three of them onto the boat.

Ling Wuwen tore off a piece of her skirt to bandage Gu Xidong's wound. The silvery white in the baby's eyes had faded, and he was staring at the direction of the gambling ship.

"What are you doing here?" Gu Xidong asked, panting.

"Ling Yaqin arranged it." B-3 started the small boat.

"She said Ye Shen would definitely force you to jump into the sea, and that we should be here to meet you."

The small boat sailed to a large, unlit gray ship, where Ling Yaqin, wearing a white lab coat and a winter coat, stood on the deck.

"It's less serious than I thought." She looked at Gu Xidong's wound. "I thought he would take your arm."

"What exactly happened?" Gu Xidong pressed.

"Ye Shen said he was the executor of the 'Gu Raising Plan'—" "He is, but he is also my experimental subject."

Ling Yaqin interrupted him and led everyone down to the ship's command center.

The screen on the wall displayed images of various parts of the gambling ship, and Ye Shen was yelling at the communicator.

"Ye Shen thought he was carrying out a 'Gu-raising plan,' but in reality, it was my 'anti-Gu plan.'"

Ling Yaqin retrieved the "Eagle Trainer Behavior Prediction and Guidance Program".

"The data he stole three years ago contained a backdoor, and all his actions were under my surveillance and guidance."

The data stream on the screen clearly records every predicted decision Ye Shen made over the past three years.

"Including tonight?" Ling Wuwen frowned.

"Especially tonight." Ling Yaqin pulled up the communication records. "He knew you would jump into the sea and that I would be there to help you. I guided him to think of all of that."

"Why not just arrest him directly?" Gu Xidong asked, puzzled.

"I need the data," Ling Yaqin said earnestly.

"His decision-making patterns, methods of controlling clones, and tests of children's ability to withstand extreme danger—tonight's data is enough for me to analyze for three months."

"So you're still using us." Ling Wuwen hugged the child tightly.

"Mutual exploitation." Ling Yaqin walked towards the baby.

"Children need a nurturing environment, you need safety, and I need data—a win-win-win situation." The baby actually reached out and touched her fingertips, a flash of silvery light appearing in its eyes before quickly fading away.

"She can sense that we are related by blood." Ling Yaqin said with some surprise.

"Genetically speaking, I am your prototype, she is her maternal grandmother."

The cabin fell silent.

Ling Yaqin continued:

"Thirty years of experiments have taught me that true perfection lies in the unexpected and in autonomous thought." She pointed to the screen, where the clones on the gambling ship had begun to rebel, and cracks were appearing in Ye Shen's control.

She typed on the keyboard, and all the lights on the gambling ship went out, the emergency lights came on, all the electronic locks opened, the monitoring system was turned off, and the clone control program temporarily failed.

"Ye Shen is now all alone," she said. "I'm waiting for him to reveal the whereabouts of the other six 'eagle trainers'."

The screen displays the "Report on the Remaining Executors of the Gu Raising Plan".

"Ye Shen is only one-seventh; the others are scattered around the world, controlling the dark side of sports and billions of dollars in illicit funds." Ling Yaqin held up two fingers.

"I want you to do two things: first, protect the child, she is their target; second, act as bait."

"The other six people know that Ye Shen has failed and are on their way to rescue him or silence him."

She checked the surveillance footage; several boats were approaching the area.

"You lure them out, and I'll capture them all. The children will stay with me on the safe boat. I'll give you six places before dawn, and then you'll be free."

Gu Xidong and Ling Wuwen exchanged glances and nodded.

3

Ling Yaqin took the baby, a rare tenderness appearing on her face for a moment. The baby actually smiled at her—this was the first time Gu Xidong had ever seen his daughter smile.

After changing into dry clothes and taking the pistol from B-3, the two boarded the small boat and headed towards the ships.

"Are you scared?" Gu Xidong asked. "Yes, but I'm even more afraid of running away," Ling Wuwen replied softly.

The small boat approached a converted fishing boat, where Chen Lin, an Asian woman in her fifties, stood at the bow—one of the executors of the "Poison Raising Plan" and a middleman in the Southeast Asian sports black market.

"Come up here," Chen Lin said coldly. "Where's Ye Shen?" "He was captured by the clone."

Gu Xidong climbed onto the ship, and the other five ships immediately approached, with the remaining six "eagle trainers" all present.

"Where's the child?" the bespectacled man who did genetic research pressed. "With Ling Yaqin."

Gu Xidong pulled out a USB drive with falsified data.

"Here are her research codes and defense structure diagrams. Cooperate to kill her and rescue the child, and the data is yours."

As the six people remained silent and weighed their options, three helicopters flew in from three directions, their searchlights illuminating the sea.

"Interpol." Gu Xidong smiled.

"Ling Yaqin called the police. Now you either cooperate with us to get a reduced sentence, or you'll be imprisoned for life."

Chen Lin's face turned ashen. She took the USB drive, plugged it into the computer, and immediately roared, "Fake! It's full of viruses!"

Gu Xidong pressed the signal transmitter, and dozens of searchlights suddenly lit up the sea surface. More than a dozen small submarines surfaced, and fully armed special police rushed out.

"Interpol Special Operations Team! Lay down your weapons!" The loudspeaker's voice echoed across the sea.

The six men had no chance of escape and were arrested one by one by the police.

Chen Lin was still cursing while being handcuffed, and Ye Shen was also put on the police boat, looking dejected.

Gu Xidong and Ling Wuwen boarded the submarine. Before the hatch closed, they saw Ling Yaqin's large ship sail away. On the deck, the baby was waving at them, a flash of silver-white in its eyes.

Three days later, the two took their child on a plane to New Zealand, where B-3 and the clone were already waiting.

Ling Yaqin gave them new identities, living expenses, and tainted witness testimonies.

The child was sleeping soundly beside me, and the silvery-white eyes had not reappeared in the past three days; he was no different from an ordinary baby.

The plane pierced through the clouds, and sunlight streamed in.

"Is it over?" Ling Wuwen leaned on his shoulder.

"For now." Gu Xidong gazed out the window.

"Ye Shen finally revealed that the real founder of the 'Gu Raising Plan' is still alive, and we all know him." Ling Wuwen pressed for an answer, but Ye Shen did not answer. He simply hugged his wife and daughter tightly.

In an underground laboratory, Ling Yaqin looked at their flight information and closed the encrypted file titled "The Final Stage of Project Nirvana: Homecoming".

She took an old photograph from the drawer; it was a picture of her with another woman who looked remarkably like Ling Wuwen.

"I'm sorry, sister," she whispered, "your daughter is safe now."

On the plane, Gu Xidong suddenly woke up. In his dream, he saw Ling Yaqin's tears, a strange woman gliding on the ice, and his daughter who had grown up and had silver eyes.

He turned to look at his sleeping wife and daughter, their breathing even. The plane continued its southward flight, cutting through the night towards dawn.

Some secrets, like fish in the deep sea, have not yet surfaced.