Chapter 268: Final Chapter

When Xia Xue pushed open the lead door of the nuclear contamination isolation chamber, the radiation counter inside her suit blared wildly. At the center of seventeen ring-shaped dirty bombs, the gene-editing pod was automatically injecting a pale golden liquid; the control screen displayed: [Carrier Activation: Final Stage].

“The password is July 17, 1997,” Luo Fei’s hoarse voice came through her headset. “That’s the date you were adopted.”

As she entered the final digit, a mechanical arm suddenly shot out from within the pod. In the instant Xia Xue rolled aside, she saw the spot where she had stood burned black by laser. Outside the blast-proof glass, the special police’s demolition saw suddenly stopped—every electronic device had been paralyzed by EMP.

“Don’t you understand yet?” A familiar synthesized voice echoed through the speakers. “These bombs are merely fireworks. The real weapon is you.”

Xia Xue tore open her suit. The scar beneath her collarbone was seeping blue luminescence. The gene pod’s scanner locked onto her instantly; the display flashed a 3D DNA model: the telomere length on the end of chromosome 17 was seven times that of a normal human.

“The immortality code…” She remembered the clones in the cryo-chamber and suddenly realized they were all failed backups. The true immortality program had long been written into her genes, waiting only for specific radiation to activate.

The blast door crashed open. “Director Wang” figures in hazmat suits filed in one after another. They tore open their protective gear in perfect unison, revealing glowing scars beneath their collarbones—like a row of puppet strings.

“The miracle your father created,” the leader removed his gas mask—it was Xia Mingyuan, founder of Noah Bio, long declared dead. “In the fire seventeen years ago, only you inherited the perfect genes.”

Xia Xue’s fingers closed around the ceramic dagger at her lower back—the only weapon on site unaffected by EMP. When she saw the dimple on his face, identical to the one in her childhood photo, the blade trembled in her palm.

“My mother didn’t die in childbirth, did she?”

Xia Mingyuan’s expression froze for a moment. The genius scientist enshrined in textbooks suddenly flashed a mechanical red light in his right eye. Xia Xue seized this fleeting opening—her dagger pierced his carotid artery, and what spurted out was not blood, but coolant.

“You’re the first synthetic human…” She stared at the fallen “father.” Inside his metal skull lay an old-fashioned chip, stamped with a manufacturing date: 2002.

———

In the underground base beneath Qingyan Mountain, Luo Fei found the true command center. When he inserted Xia Xue’s genetic key into the main console, a holographic projection revealed a horrifying truth: 1,700 “Xia Mingyuans” were acting in sync worldwide; their ultimate directive was to activate seventeen geopulse bombs buried at tectonic plate boundaries.

“This isn’t a terrorist attack,” the Geological Bureau’s alarm suddenly blared. “They’re triggering a 9.17-magnitude artificial earthquake!”

Xia Xue’s voice came through the encrypted channel: “My mitochondria are the stabilizer—I need to be…” The transmission was cut off by a violent explosion. Luo Fei stared at the geopulse controller’s countdown and suddenly understood why the clones had sought to capture her alive—the perfect carrier was both the key to activation and termination.

———

Over the Pacific, Xia Xue stood at the transport plane’s open door. Beneath her churned the sea of clouds; seventeen red dots blinked on the nautical map. She gripped the syringe she’d found in the gene pod—the pale golden liquid inside swam with nanobots.

“Live parachute system is ready,” the pilot’s voice was heavy with sorrow. “At the designated altitude, your biomagnetic field can neutralize…”

“Tell Commander Luo,” she interrupted, “the dandelions behind the orphanage were planted by my mother.”

As the ten-thousand-meter-high winds flooded the cabin, Xia Xue remembered the fire when she was seven. She had known all along—the female researcher who shoved her out of the flames bore the same circular scar on her left shoulder—the mark of the first-generation carrier.

The instant the syringe pierced her carotid, she saw a rift open in the clouds. The rising sun cast her shadow onto the ocean, perfectly covering the nearest geopulse bomb. As her body began quantum decomposition, seventeen beams of blue light rose from the world’s oceans, intertwining into a colossal DNA strand in the stratosphere…

———

Final Chapter

Three months later, in the evidence room of Qinghe Branch, Luo Fei opened the encrypted safe. Inside lay a half-vial of dried golden blood. On the windowsill sat a pot of dandelions; when the morning breeze stirred them, their fluff shimmered in sunlight, forming a blurred human shape.

As he flipped through the case report, a satellite photo was Jiazai the last page: on an unnamed islet in the Pacific, seventeen blood-red roses bloomed eternally in quantum dust.

(End)