Chapter 53: Who is the mole?

Zhang Jun's combat boots crushed a few dry twigs, the echo bouncing three times down the hallway. He pulled out a wrinkled orange candy wrapper from his pocket, the moldy smell mixed with cloying fragrance rushing straight to his forehead.

"This damn place doesn't even have a ghost..." Before he finished, an ice cone scraped past his earring and stabbed into the wall crack, freezing a sizzling, sparking mechanical tentacle.

"If I lose, I'll wash your socks." Lin Xue kicked open the door to the next ward, the door panel creaking as the iron plate reading "Observation Room 107" swayed.

Zhang Jun pulled the door shut behind him, his tactical glove scraping over the frosted door panel: "First, let's agree—your socks with ice chips need to—" The alarm suddenly blared, drowning out the rest.

On the rust‑stained frame of the operating table lay several medical records; he grabbed the top one at random. "Lin Zhen…45…delusional disorder…" His fingertip traced the yellowed page: "This isn't Old Zhang's..."

"Look outside!" Lin Xue suddenly tugged his sleeve. In the courtyard, seven crooked sculptures were arranged in the Big Dipper formation, moonlight giving the statues a grim white edge. She condensed ice crystals at her fingertip and tapped the glass, a dull thud shaking dust from the wall.

Zhang Jun kicked open the iron cage, and with a clang a notebook fell out. "Clone survival rate 0.03%…" Reading the third page, he suddenly froze: "Experiment records from twenty years ago?"

The overhead light flickered twice then died completely. In the darkness, a metal tray glowed faintly, purple liquid in the syringe bubbling. He snatched the notebook and stuffed it into his tactical pack, the pages rustling.

"Watch out!" Lin Xue grabbed his collar and yanked him back. The operating table exploded into fragments; a purple cybernetic soldier rose straight from the smoke, its joints emitting the screech of rusted gears.

Zhang Jun drew his Heaven-Man Sword and held it across his chest: "This thing makes more noise than my grandpa's false teeth." As the blade sliced the first cybernetic soldier, five or six more of the same type poured out of the doorway.

An ice blade struck a metal arm, sending sparks flying; Lin Xue suddenly staggered: "They have Ice Soul residue on them..." Before she finished, a cybernetic soldier lunged from the side, its claws already at her heart.

"Damn!" Zhang Jun flung his scabbard to knock the claw aside, but his own arm was sliced open half a foot long. Blood droplets spattered onto the observation window, overlapping with old bloodstains from twenty years ago.

The vent grille suddenly burst open, more cybernetic soldiers pouring out like cockroaches. Zhang Jun kicked two over, pulling Lin Xue toward the corner: "The ventilation duct over there!"

"Catch!" Lin Xue hurled an IV pole frozen solid like an ice stick. He swung it to smash open the vent, the torn metal scraping his combat uniform. Behind him came the crisp crack of the ice wall shattering, purple viscous fluid splashing onto the back of his neck, burning fiercely.

The ice wall suddenly sprouted a spiderweb pattern; before Lin Xue could turn, a blast of cold air hit her full back.

"Does this wall even have an auto-repair function?" Zhang Jun's sword got stuck in the mechanical arm's joint and he couldn't pull it out; lifting his head, he saw a figure reflected in the ice— "Holy shit!"

Lin Yuehua drifted out from the shadows, ice chips clinging to her combat uniform. Lin Xue's throat tightened: "Mom, behind your ear..." Her mother's earlobe bore a purple earring, identical to those of the earlier cybernetic soldiers.

"Come with me." Lin Yuehua's fingernails bore a bluish-gray tint as she gripped Lin Xue's wrist like a vise. Zhang Jun had just cleaved two pursuing cybernetic soldiers when an ice spike at the vent slit his pant leg: "Auntie, your entrance is quite something!"

As they crawled through the vent, Lin Xue's knee guard sparked from friction; ahead came her mother's voice: "Back then your dad buried twenty-seven explosives here." Zhang Jun nearly collided with the suddenly halted Lin Yuehua: "Could you at least give a heads-up?"

In the center of the secret chamber stood a massive machine like a metal spider; the moment the purple‑robed figure turned, Zhang Jun almost crushed his sword hilt— that face was one he saw every weekend in the family portrait.

"Surprised?" The purple‑robed figure lifted a hand to pull back the hood, revealing Lin Zhen's signature forehead crease: "Was the braised pork at last week's family dinner good?"

Lin Xue suddenly flung an ice cone onto the machine's control panel: "My dad's allergic to peanuts." The ice cone pierced the holographic projection, which flickered to reveal the cold glow of the underlying mechanical skeleton.

"Don't pick up your mom's nasty habit of smashing things." The mechanical fingers of the fake Lin Zhen tapped the control panel, buttons lighting an eerie purple: "If you hadn't destroyed the lab..."

"Cut the crap!" Zhang Jun suddenly plunged his sword into a ground fissure: "You think I've never seen a clone?" Beneath the metal plate flung open by his sword qi, the twenty‑year‑old experiment log was spontaneously combusting.

The fake Lin Zhen's mechanical arm suddenly flicked out a blade; as Zhang Jun leaned back to dodge, he saw Lin Yuehua's earring glowing purple: "Auntie, watch out!"

Two purple beams grazed Lin Xue's hair tips as Lin Yuehua lunged forward, her back exploding in two blossoms of blood. Lin Xue caught her limp body, feeling her hands full of ice shards mixed with purple viscous fluid.

"Mom..."

"Cryo‑chamber… the password is…" Lin Yuehua traced a lopsided heart on Lin Xue's palm, identical to her scribble at age three. The fake Lin Zhen's mechanical voice glitched: "Program error… parent‑child agreement conflict…"

Seizing the chance, Zhang Jun snatched a half‑length steel pipe and jammed it into the machine's vent: "Eat shit, you tin‑shelled bastard!" Amid the spurting electric sparks, he caught the operation screen flashing the prompt 【Mother Body Command Priority】.

"Take her… go…" Lin Yuehua suddenly broke free of Lin Xue, her whole body freezing into an ice sculpture that slammed into the control console. The cold blast erupting in the secret chamber froze Zhang Jun's eyelashes; as he dragged Lin Xue rolling out of the blast radius, he heard the ice shards cracking like sobs.

Zhang Jun's boots crushed a half‑dry twig, the echo lingering long down the hallway. He pulled out a wrinkled candy wrapper from his pocket, orange flavor mixed with mold rushing straight to his forehead.

"This dumpster can't even be bothered by ghosts?" Before he finished, the faint sound of metal wire tightening flesh made the hairs on his neck stand up.

A black shadow twisted out from the far end of the hallway, gray‑blue fingers clutching a half‑length IV tube, the needle dripping purple slime. Just as Zhang Jun was about to grab Lin Xue, his feet suddenly felt as if glued with 502 adhesive.

The needle tip was still three inches from his throat when a lump of ice chips grazed his ear and flew past. With a clang, that claw froze into a lump of ice.

"You…" Lin Xue clenched a half‑length ice cone, her knuckles whitening: "Behind the neck…"

Zhang Jun reached back and felt the implanted crystal element scorching hot: "Is it going to blow up?"

"If it blows, at least it'll be clean." Lin Xue suddenly grabbed his collar: "That oil stain on your cuff..." She dragged her fingertip across his tactical uniform: "It's exactly the same as the one in last week's convenience‑store surveillance."

Zhang Jun stepped back half a pace and hit the wall, plaster dust sifting down: "Grandma, I just bought some oden that day…"

The alarm suddenly blared, shaking dust from the ceiling. Lin Xue yanked him into the adjacent ward, where a rust‑streaked iron bed frame held a yellowed medical record.

"Lin Zhen… paranoid schizophrenia…" Zhang Jun's finger hovered over the age‑45 entry: "This isn't your dad…"

"Look!" Lin Xue suddenly clung to the window and shouted. In the courtyard, the twisted stone statues were arranged in the Big Dipper, moonlight giving them a grim white sheen.

Zhang Jun kicked open the iron cage, and a notebook fell out: "Clone survival rate 0.03%… twenty‑year‑old data?" The overhead light flickered twice then died, purple fluid in the syringe bubbling.

A black shadow burst through the door and lunged, joints grinding like rusted gears. Zhang Jun swung an iron bar at it: "This thing makes more noise than my grandpa's false teeth!"

Lin Xue suddenly staggered: "They have…" An ice blade struck a metal arm, sending sparks flying— "They retain Ice Soul!"