Chapter 302

Zhao Jianguo was still standing in the corridor, hand in his pants pocket, the component pressed against his palm heating up, hotter than before, like he was holding a fresh-out-of-the-oven baked flatbread. He didn't move; the building was so quiet he could hear the wind from the ventilation vent, so faint it was almost inaudible. But he knew something was off—the heat came suddenly, not the gradual rise of before, but a sharp jump, as if someone had lit a fire inside.

Zhao Jianguo turned and walked back, his steps a little dragging, his right leg still faintly aching, but he didn't have time for it. The main control room door slid open automatically, blue light shining on his face, the screen still on the power consumption monitoring interface. He reached out to pull up the system's underlying log, his fingers moving fast, lines of data scrolling upward. Before he could finish scrolling, the communications panel "ding" sounded, and a red light flashed.

"Connect." As soon as he said it, the Special Forces Captain's face appeared in the small window at the upper left, wearing his uniform, hat still on, the background a gray-walled room with several monitoring screens hanging on the wall.

"Engineer Zhao, emergency report." The Special Forces Captain's voice was low but couldn't hide the tension: "Seven locations in Europe have simultaneously reported cases—patients with persistent high fever, confused consciousness, EEG showing abnormal fluctuations, matching the symptoms of temporal-spatial dislocation."

Zhao Jianguo frowned: "Same old problem?"

"No. This time it's different." The Special Forces Captain handed over a video clip: a middle-aged man lying on a hospital bed, eyes open, muttering incomprehensible words, his fingers grasping at the air as if turning invisible pages. The next second he suddenly sat up, shouted something in German, then instantly collapsed, his breathing steady, as if asleep.

"He's already done this three times in a row." The Special Forces Captain said, "Countries have just confirmed the virus has mutated; transmission routes can't be traced to a source, only that the first batch of patients all came into contact with the same thing."

"What thing?"

"A card." The Special Forces Captain paused, "Paper-made, retro style, silver foil edging, with 'Happy Birthday' written on it."

Zhao Jianguo's heart gave a thump.

He didn't speak, directly switched to the family archive, entered keywords: Triplets, birthday, external gift. The system popped up a record—three months ago, an unnamed package appeared at the Siheyuan gate, addressed to Zhao Xing, Zhao Chen, Zhao Yang, sender blank, only bearing an Interstellar Post Office-style label. At the time the scan showed no abnormality; Su Qing thought it was from a distant relative and accepted it.

That card is now in the children's keepsake box, piled together with other little trinkets.

He pulled up the Traceback Mirror program; the interface was simple, just a circular progress bar and a line of text: "Reverse tracing in progress, please provide the initial carrier sample." He dragged the photo of that day's package into it, then added the viral gene fragments from the European cases. The system began calculating; the main screen darkened, leaving only a tiny point of light spinning in the center, like looking up from a well.

Time passed second by second; Zhao Jianguo leaned against the chair back, his fingers unconsciously tapping the armrest. The Special Forces Captain's end also stayed connected, waiting in silence.

About six minutes later, the screen suddenly lit up, a red path spreading out from across Europe, crossing the Atlantic, skirting the Arctic Circle, and finally landing on a coordinate in southern Beiping—exactly the location of the underground storage room of the Technology Building. At the path's endpoint, a 3D image of a card appeared: silver foil reflecting light, edges with tiny cracks, the front showing three cartoon children riding a star-shaped spaceship, the back bearing a line of handwritten script: "May you forever be bright."

Below the Traceback Mirror, a prompt popped up: "Carrier confirmed. Virus embedding method: nano-scale quantum spores, dormancy period ninety-two days, activation condition: exposure to morning light on the child's tenth birthday. The higher the emotional intimacy, the stronger the infection efficiency."

Zhao Jianguo stared at that line for a full ten or so seconds before quietly saying, "They even calculated the day……"

The Special Forces Captain asked over there, "Who did it?"

"I don't know." Zhao Jianguo shook his head, "But they sure understand Chinese sentiments, specifically targeting children on their birthdays. It looks like a blessing, but it's actually planting a bomb."

"What do we do now?"

"First, contain the scene." Zhao Jianguo sat upright, "Notify everyone who came into contact with that batch of cards to isolate on the spot, avoid light, avoid emotional agitation. This thing lives off emotional resonance; the livelier it gets, the more it thrives."

"Understood."

"Also, contact Dong Xu, have him enter the B3 Laboratory; I'll send the data over right away."

The communication cut off; Zhao Jianguo immediately pulled up the biosafety protocol, authorizing the highest-level protection mode. The storage room's surveillance feed popped up, showing the box holding the cards sitting quietly on a shelf, its surface showing no abnormality. He remotely activated the sealed chamber, moving the box into a negative-pressure box, preparing to take a physical sample.

After finishing those, he turned his head toward the experimental area. At the end of the corridor, the elevator doors slowly opened, and Dong Xu walked out carrying a tool kit, wearing a white coat, his hair messy, clearly just having been woken up.

"Old Zhao, I've looked at the data you mentioned." He said while walking, his voice coming through the earpiece, "The new virus mimics the host's memory waveband, disguising itself as normal brain activity; regular detection can't catch it. Moreover, it's unaffected by high or low temperatures, and ordinary disinfectants don't work on it."

"So what do you plan to do about it?"

"Not treat it." Dong Xu walked into the decontamination passage before the lab, mist falling down, "First, study it."

"Study?"

"Right." He stood still, looked up at the camera, "Since it spreads via emotion, that means it relies on emotional signals to stay alive. I won't kill it; I'll deceive it—using simulated memory wavebands to interfere with its recognition mechanism, making it unable to tell real from fake hosts, causing it to self-terminate."

Zhao Jianguo nodded: "Okay, give it a try."

"But there's a condition." Dong Xu pulled open the Operation Console, "I need a segment of genuine high-intimacy memory data as bait, preferably from a child, and it should be a happy one."

Zhao Jianguo thought for a moment, then pulled up a video: on the Triplets' tenth birthday, in the Courtyard blowing out candles, Zhao Xing grabbed the last piece of cake, Zhao Chen laughed so hard he kept slapping the table, Zhao Yang held up the card facing the sun and said, "This star will twinkle." In the frame, the sunlight was just right, shining on the card's surface, making the silver foil flash.

"Just this segment." He said, "It's genuine enough, and warm enough."

Dong Xu accepted the data packet, loaded it into the analyzer. "Okay, enough. I'm now starting mimetic modeling; you keep an eye on global new cases, and tell me immediately if anything changes."

"Okay."

The screen switched to an interior view of the laboratory; Dong Xu put on gloves, opened the freezer, and took out a virus sample. As the glass cover rose, an alarm suddenly blared, red lights rotating in circles, and the system prompted: "Activity leak detected in B3 zone, automatic lockdown initiated."

"Damn!" Dong Xu jumped back a step, "It's leaking even before I touched it?"

"Don't panic." Zhao Jianguo quickly pulled up the isolation protocol, "It might have been triggered by an air disturbance; the system is too sensitive. You can't come out now, communications might be delayed—if there's a problem, knock three times on the wall, we'll hear it."

"Got it." Dong Xu caught his breath, returned to the console, "I'll continue."

The image froze for a moment; the monitor showed the lab lighting shifting from white to red, the outer seal gate dropping, the entire B3 area completely sealed off. On Zhao Jianguo's end, he could only see the data stream flowing, the toxin activity curve spiking up and down, like an unstable heartbeat.

He didn't leave the main control room, sitting in the chair, staring at the screen. Time trickled by; the building grew so quiet only the faint hum of machinery remained. He felt his pants pocket—the component was no longer hot, it had cooled down, like an ordinary metal sheet.

But he knew, things had only just begun.

The laboratory's data plot suddenly jumped, a new waveform appearing, similar to the previous virus signal but with a slightly shifted frequency. Zhao Jianguo zoomed in, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

"The deception has begun……"

He was about to log the timestamp when a warning popped up in the lower right corner of the screen: 【Global new infection nodes +4, locations: Poland, Sweden, Hokkaido Japan, Michigan USA】.

Each location was marked with the same note: "Patients had recently come into contact with birthday-card-type items."

Zhao Jianguo pulled his chair forward a bit, bracing both hands on the tabletop.

The footsteps in the hallway outside gradually faded away; the entire building was left with only him still having the lights on.