Chapter 6

“Please note: after three incorrect entries, the safe will activate its self-destruct program and destroy its contents.”

Panic seized me.

Besides the ticket, what could my parents have used?

“Think!”

Yue Kai roared and brought the axe down, smashing a piece of equipment.

The metallic crash rang through the laboratory, making my scalp prickle.

Trembling, I reached out again and entered 0, 0, 0, 4, 1, 8.

April 18, 2000. My birthday.

“Incorrect password. One attempt remaining.

“Please note: after three incorrect entries, the safe will activate its self-destruct program and destroy its contents.”

I smiled bitterly.

Of course it couldn’t be my birthday.

Everything here was false.

The laboratory, the safe, my parents’ recording—π had already found them all.

To open this safe, they had rebuilt the entire town at full scale and gone to enormous lengths to make me remember.

If it were that simple, they would have opened it long ago.

Yue Kai smashed another piece of equipment and shouted, “Gu Na! Stop fooling yourself! You know the password!

“I’ve been trapped in this fragment for five years! Open it and we can return to reality!”

He was still acting frantically, unaware that Tian Mu had already told me everything.

Wait.

A thought flashed through me.

So that was it.

34

“I know! That’s what the tangram means!”

At my exclamation, his threatening advance briefly halted.

“What do you know?”

My eyes shone, my face filled with delight.

“Synesthesia!”

“Synesthesia?”

“Yes!”

Gesturing wildly, I said, “My father, Gu Dashan, was born with synesthesia! It’s a neurological condition. To him, each color corresponds to a number!

“No wonder he mentioned the tangram! Its seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—match the numbers one through seven. Red means one, the beginning of everything!

“So we take the six red numbers from the ticket: 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9.

“A tangram has only seven colors. Eight and nine must wrap around after seven and become zero and one!”

Turning, I entered 1, 3, 6, 7, 0, 1 as fast as possible.

“Correct password. Unlocked.”

Air rushed behind me. Yue Kai raised the axe and lunged.

I had anticipated it. The stun gun was already clenched in my palm.

Dodging the blade, I pressed it against his chest and pulled the trigger.

Electricity crackled.

The current threw him to the floor, limbs convulsing, unable to move.

The safe slowly opened.

A silver-white USB drive lay inside.

I snatched it, pocketed it, and left him paralyzed on the floor as I turned away.

No one saw the barely perceptible smile at the corner of my mouth.

Everything was going to plan.

35

Leaving the laboratory, I climbed the wall ladder back to the bedroom, went straight outside, and mounted the motorcycle.

Its roar broke the town’s silence again.

Passing the “police station,” I flung the gas-releasing helmet into the courtyard.

Several “officers” rushed out. I raised my middle finger and sped away.

Tian Mu had said I could leave to the north.

I raced out of town and onto the road beyond.

This time, the fog machines remained silent.

Perhaps my escape was too sudden for π to switch them on.

The pursuit appeared quickly. Several “police cars” followed close behind.

“Gu Na! Stop immediately!”

Ignoring them, I opened the throttle fully.

Suddenly, a spike strip appeared ahead.

Cold sweat broke out. I shifted down, braked, and steered off the main road onto dirt.

In the mirror, seven or eight cars and three motorcycles still clung to me.

This was a real flight for my life.

Before I could shake them, the road ended.

The island’s edge.

The ground dropped sharply. Jagged rocks intertwined like exposed white bones.

Fierce waves struck the shore, throwing up white spray.

“You can’t escape!”

Yue Kai’s voice came from behind.

I looked back. On another motorcycle, he glared at me furiously.

I had no attention to spare him. I kept searching.

Hadn’t Tian Mu said north was the way out?

There wasn’t a boat on the shore.

Then I caught sight of an immense dark shape, perhaps three stories high, a few hundred meters away.

Could it be…?

Without hesitation, I started toward it.

Soon, the headlamp revealed its outline.

A hot-air balloon.

36

“Gu Na! Hurry!”

Tian Mu stood anxiously in the basket, waving hard.

I stopped, leaped aboard, and helped release the mooring lines.

The balloon slowly rose.

Below, our pursuers were frantic, but they could no longer reach me.

“We did it! We can get out!”

Flushed with excitement, he raised his right hand for a high five.

I answered with the stun gun.

Holding it, I looked down at his convulsing body.

“Sorry. Only I get to leave.”

I dragged him to the basket door, opened it, and prepared to throw him into the sea.

“W-why?”

His eyes were blank with despair.

“Did you really think your plan had no holes?

“Why would a hot-air balloon appear on this island for no reason? And why would a psychologist know how to fly it?”

Laughing coldly, I dragged him closer.

“There’s only one explanation.

“You discovering I was pretending, gathering information for me, telling me how to escape—all of it was part of π’s plan.

“Yue Kai’s sudden attack forced me to trust you and leave with you.

“But you were afraid I’d stop resisting. So you placed a stun gun beside the safe, giving me a weapon to fight back.

“Don’t you think that was rather obvious?

“I think your mission wasn’t to get me out. It was to hypnotize me and confirm whether the password I entered was correct.

“They wanted me to trust you enough to let you hypnotize me again and establish whether I’d given the truth.

“Unfortunately, you won’t get that chance.”

I kicked him and watched him scream as he fell into the depths.

Then I threw the silver USB drive into the sea too.

If I was right, it was empty.

37

The balloon carried enough food and water for two.

In a backpack, I found a compass, map, altimeter, handheld GPS, satellite phone, and a manual for controlling the balloon’s course.

We were west of the Federated States of Micronesia, in Oceania.

Following the manual, I adjusted the burner’s direction and the balance of weight in the basket, letting the balloon travel with the wind.

Once everything was done, I used the satellite phone to call the police at home.

I told them everything that had happened and asked them to set an ambush in Tailuowan.

π would certainly have recorded the password I entered in the fake safe.

They would go to the real town, find the real laboratory and safe, and try it.

Three days later, the balloon reached Malaysia.

I had already contacted the embassy. They arranged for a balloon specialist to guide my landing remotely.

The moment I stepped out of the basket, I nearly burst into tears.

But I had something more important to do.

Borrowing a phone, I made a call.

“Hello, Officer Zhao. This is Gu Na. We spoke by satellite phone three days ago.”

A hearty laugh came through.

“Miss Gu, your information was extremely accurate.

“We set an ambush at your old home and arrested five suspects.

“For now, they’re detained for breaking and entering with intent to steal. But our investigation has linked them to the international criminal organization called The Republic. Our superiors have established a cross-border task force. We’re preparing to follow the trail and bring them all in.”

38

A few days later, I flew home and set foot in my homeland again.

Accompanied by Officer Zhao, I saw the detained suspects.

Pointing at one, I said, “I’d like to speak to him alone.”

He nodded and took us to a visiting room.

The suspect’s eyes burned with anger when he saw me.

Watching him through the glass, I lifted the telephone.

“Failed to get what you wanted and got yourself arrested. Angry?”

He shook his head slightly and picked up his receiver, bitterness in his voice.

“If I’m right, you knew the correct password all along?”

I smiled and nodded.

“Yes. As soon as I heard Dad’s recording, I knew.”

His eyes widened in disbelief.

“Do you understand what you’ve done? That was a cure for cancer! Your false password destroyed it!”

I raised a hand to stop him.

“I’d seen through your lie long before.

“Tian Mu told me my parents had developed a cancer treatment.

“But when their recording mentioned it, there was no excitement or pride in their voices. They sounded stiff.

“I knew I wasn’t hearing the original.

“You used editing and AI voice imitation to make me believe it, so I’d give you the real password.

“The safe was fake. It couldn’t distinguish truth from falsehood. It merely recorded what I entered.

“So whatever I typed, it would eventually open.

“I guessed you’d already made two incorrect attempts on the real safe. That was why you built so many traps to extract the correct password.

“You hoped a lie would buy you the truth.

“Unfortunately, another lie is all a lie can obtain.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Alpha? Officer Zhou? Zhou Li?”

His face turned livid. For a moment, he looked ready to erupt.

Then he seemed to accept his fate and sighed deeply.

“You even guessed my codename. But how did you know Alpha was me, not Yue Kai?”

“Simple. Remember that scene? You called to say Yue Kai was the suspect. Immediately afterward, you were ‘killed,’ and someone threatened to kill me next.

“Clearly, your status was lower than his.

“Then why did you have the first codename, Alpha?”

I paused.

“Because your organization is called π.

“Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. Surely the member called Pi wouldn’t rank sixteenth.

“So I concluded you were Alpha, and Yue Kai was the real leader—Pi.”

Zhou Li nodded heavily. When he looked at me again, tears glimmered in his eyes.

“We underestimated your intelligence. We lost.

“At this point, I only want to know the real password.

“Your parents would sacrifice their lives rather than tell us.

“We spent twenty years and hundreds of millions of dollars, only to end up with three wrong passwords.

“I know I’ll be sentenced to death. I just want to die without that question unanswered.”

Smiling, I closed my eyes and remembered my days with Dad.

“I didn’t lie about everything. He really did have synesthesia.

“We often played tangrams together.

“He would choose one piece as the starting point, then ask me to build the shape around it.

“The blue ball, 04, was his starting point.

“With the red numbers 01, 03, 06, 07, 08, 09, you start from the fourth number.

“That gives 7, 8, 9, 1, 3, 6.”

Zhou Li bowed his head like a defeated rooster.

Watching him, I asked, “I’ve told you the truth. Now tell me yours.

“What did my parents really discover?”

He closed his eyes and spoke softly.

“Let your parents tell you themselves.”

39

Leaving the detention center, I boarded a coach for Tailuowan.

The real town in 2025 hardly differed from the island’s reconstructed 2005 version.

Most buildings retained their old appearance. Few people passed through the streets.

Soon, I reached home.

Long neglected, the little courtyard house was almost unsafe to inhabit.

A few days earlier, police had arrested several π members here. Signs of the struggle remained.

I entered the bedroom and opened the wardrobe that had shadowed twenty years of my life. Easily finding the floor mechanism, I activated it and switched on the lights.

Once more, the laboratory fire door stood before me.

“Fingerprint recognized.”

“Gu Na, welcome to Mom and Dad’s secret base.”

The real laboratory was much older than the island copy. Time had coated everything in dust.

The hidden compartment stood open. The safe lay shattered.

Clearly, the incorrect password had triggered its destruction.

Turning away from the wreckage, I sat at the computer and switched it on.

As on the island, I readily found the recording and double-clicked.

“…Nana, there are things we didn’t want you to know.

“But now you’re grown, able to tell right from wrong.

“We once worked at an institute overseas. By accident, we discovered something terrifying.

“If it escaped, all humanity would face catastrophe.

“It was a virus capable of ‘transmitting’ cancer.”

40

I didn’t understand.

Cancer began when normal cells became cancerous, divided uncontrollably, and damaged the body, leading to organ failure and death.

How could such a disease spread?

The recording continued.

“It sounds absurd, Nana. But we verified that it really exists.

“This virus makes normal cells far more likely to become cancerous.”

My breath caught.

That… seemed possible?

“A normal cell has a one-in-ninety-thousand chance of becoming cancerous.

“After infection, that probability rises sharply. Patients are extremely likely to develop cancer.

“More frighteningly, it spreads through respiratory droplets.

“When the institute learned of it, they saw enormous profits and demanded our method for cultivating it.

“They wanted to make a vaccine first, then release the virus and turn cancer into a global epidemic.

“Every dose could then sell for an astronomical price.”

I understood.

Marx had said that at three hundred percent profit, capitalists would risk even hanging.

Spreading a virus and selling the vaccine—how many hundreds or thousands of times greater would the return be?

Mom continued.

The island recording had indeed been edited into a lie.

“To stop that, we destroyed all the documents, left the institute, and returned home to live anonymously.

“We knew the institute and the organization behind it were still searching for us and the virus.

“Nana, aren’t we rather ridiculous?

“A lifetime’s work brought no wealth or fame, only endless threats.

“In the laboratory’s northeast corner is a secret door. Behind it is a safe.

“It contains the final backup of our research.

“If one day the organization finds you and threatens your life, you may open the safe and give them its contents.

“This is the last protection we can leave you. We hope you use it well.

“We don’t want you to be a hero.

“We only want you to live safely.”

…

At some point, the recording stopped.

Clumsily wiping tears that would not dry, I opened the image file beside it.

A family photograph.

In it, five-year-old me sat in Mom’s lap, looking curiously toward the camera.

Dad wore a slightly ill-fitting suit. Smiling broadly, he leaned close to her.

[April 18, 2005. Taken at Tailuowan Photo Studio.]

(The End)