RH-0
Rain pounded against the dilapidated roof of the Du family's old house, gushing down the drainpipes. Du Siling crouched behind a neighbor's hedge, observing the house, which had been vacant for five years. No one had lived there since her father's death, but strangely, the lock on the front door looked brand new.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Han Beimo asked in a low voice. His right shoulder wound had been simply bandaged, but bloodstains were still visible beneath his black trench coat. "Yang Zhiming may have already set a trap."
Du Siling stared at the second-floor window: "My father has a secret workshop that even my mother doesn't know about. If there really is any information about the RH-0 gene, it must be there."
They went around to the back of the house. Du Siling pulled a rusty key from the base of the garden statue—a little secret between him and his father. The latch on the back door clicked dully, as if resisting the intrusion.
The room was filled with dust and a musty smell, and the furniture was covered with white sheets, like silent ghosts. Du Siling walked through the living room with practiced ease and stopped in front of a row of bookshelves in the study.
"Help me push this aside," he said, pointing to the heavy oak bookcase.
Han Beimo used his uninjured left shoulder to brace against the bookshelf, and the two of them together moved it half a meter away, revealing a hidden door in the wall behind it. Du Siling entered the password from his memory—his birthday, 0509. The electronic lock emitted a faint blue light, but the door remained unmoved.
"Wrong?" Han Beimo asked.
Du Siling frowned and tried entering another set of numbers—the last four digits of the mark on Han Beimo's waist, 0509. The door lock's green light came on, accompanied by an almost silent hydraulic start-up sound.
The two exchanged a shocked look. Why would Father use Han Beimo's marked numbers as a password?
Behind the hidden door was a downward metal staircase leading into the darkness. Du Siling touched the switch on the wall, and the old fluorescent tube flickered a few times, illuminating an underground laboratory.
In the center of the room were DNA analyzers and microscopes, and the walls were covered with research notes and photographs. Du Siling approached to examine them, and his breath caught in his throat—in one of the photographs, a young Du Siling was sitting side by side with another dark-eyed boy in the orphanage's garden. The back of the photograph read: "Siling and Xiaobei, May 2000."
"This is..." Han Beimo's voice trembled slightly, a rare occurrence. He reached out and touched the smiling little boy in the photo, as if he couldn't believe it was him.
Du Siling turned to the lab bench, where a notebook lay open. Her father's familiar handwriting read:
"RH-0 gene carriers exhibit astonishing cell regeneration capabilities. Ling Hua's discovery is correct; this gene can be transferred to ordinary people via viral vectors, but at a cost... (the text here has been deliberately obscured). The two children must be protected, especially Xiao Bei, whose gene purity is even higher."
"What is gene purity?" Du Siling murmured to herself.
Han Beimo suddenly grabbed his arm: "Listen."
Faint footsteps came from upstairs; it was more than one person. Yang Zhiming's men had found their way here.
Du Siling quickly flipped through her notebook and found an address and a set of coordinates on the last page: "Azalea Valley Biological Research Institute, 32°15'N, 118°E..."
"I know this place," Han Beimo said in a low voice. "My mother went there frequently during her last six months."
The footsteps upstairs grew closer, reaching the stairwell. Han Beimo looked around and pointed to the ventilation duct in the corner of the laboratory: "There."
They had just crawled into the ventilation duct when the hidden door was pushed open. Through the gap in the blinds, Du Siling saw Yang Zhiming leading three fully armed men into the laboratory.
"Find it! Leave no trace of RH-0!" Yang Zhiming ordered, then picked up the walkie-talkie. "Director Chen, confirm that Du Zhiyuan's lab is still operational... no, those two haven't been found... understood, destroy all materials immediately."
The ventilation duct was narrow and cramped, and Han Beimo's shoulder wound began to bleed again as he crawled. Du Siling could hear his suppressed breathing, but Han Beimo remained silent, simply moving forward resolutely.
The pipe led to the tool shed behind the garage. The two men quietly climbed out, and under the cover of darkness, scaled the wall and disappeared into the nearby grove.
"Your injury..." Du Siling looked at Han Beimo's shirt, which was soaked in blood, and said with concern.
Han Beimo shook his head: "It's not serious. We need transportation."
Du Siling remembered that her father's old friend, Uncle Zhang, owned a car repair shop nearby. Twenty minutes later, they stood at the door of Uncle Zhang's office. The old man's eyes lit up when he saw Du Siling, but he immediately became wary after noticing Han Beimo.
"Xiao Ling? And this is..."
"Friend," Du Siling said briefly, "Uncle Zhang, we need an inconspicuous car, the faster the better."
Uncle Zhang's gaze shifted between the two men, finally settling on Han Beimo's wound: "You've gotten yourself into trouble? Like your father did back then?"
Du Siling nodded. The old man sighed and took a key from a drawer: "The gray van in the backyard is full of gas. The license plate is temporary." He paused, "Your dad left something for you in the basement safe. The password is the date you first broke your arm while riding your bicycle."
Du Siling's heart skipped a beat—it was a secret known only to his father and Uncle Zhang. July 23, 1998, two months after his seventh birthday.
The basement was damp and cold, with a safe embedded in the concrete wall. Du Siling entered the date, and the safe door popped open, revealing a military-grade waterproof bag. Upon opening it, he gasped—a pistol, several magazines, a passport, and a small hard drive.
The passport bore Du Siling's photo, but the name was "Lin Hao." Turning to the last page, a note was tucked inside: "When you see this, it means the worst has happened. The whole truth is on the hard drive; the password is your mother's favorite song. Be careful of Chen and Yang. —Dad"
Du Siling's mother loved "Jasmine Flower," a folk song she often hummed. He carefully put away the hard drive and quickly left the repair shop with Han Beimo.
The gray minivan drove along the country road, its headlights not even turned on. Du Siling glanced at Han Beimo in the passenger seat from time to time; the latter was pale, but his eyes remained sharp.
"We need to treat your injury," Du Siling said.
Han Beimo shook his head: "Leave this area first. Yang Zhiming's men will block all the main roads."
An hour later, they stopped in an abandoned orchard. Du Siling took out a makeshift first-aid kit from the trunk and helped Han Beimo take off his trench coat and shirt. When the bandages were removed, he was shocked to find that the wound had stopped bleeding, and pink new tissue had even appeared at the edges.
"This...is impossible," Du Siling said softly. "A gunshot wound takes at least two weeks to begin healing."
Han Beimo turned his head to examine his shoulder, his expression complex: "It's always been like this. When I was a child, I fractured a bone, and it would heal in three days. I thought... everyone was like this."
Du Siling recalled the "amazing cell regeneration ability" in his father's notes. He carefully touched the edge of the wound; Han Beimo's skin was unusually warm, and his muscles were slightly tense under his fingertips.
"The RH-0 gene," Du Siling said. "My father and your mother were researching it... What did they discover? Why are the military and police taking it so seriously?"
Han Beimo suddenly grabbed his wrist with astonishing force: "The hard drive. It was left by your father; it might hold the answer."
The car was cramped, forcing the two to sit close together. Du Siling took out her laptop, inserted the hard drive, and typed in the pinyin for "Jasmine Flower." The progress bar moved slowly, eventually opening a folder labeled "Project Azalea."
Inside were hundreds of scanned documents, the earliest of which was marked "Top Secret" and dated 1995.
"Project Azalea Phase One Report: RH-0 gene carriers exhibit exceptional wound healing abilities and disease resistance. Preliminary experiments indicate that this gene can be transferred into ordinary soldiers via a modified adenovirus vector, potentially creating a new generation of super soldiers..."
Du Siling and Han Beimo quickly scanned the documents, piecing together a horrifying truth: In the mid-1990s, the military secretly launched "Project Cuckoo," screening for RH-0 blood type carriers nationwide. Han Beimo's mother, Ling Hua, was recruited as a genetic engineering expert, but when she discovered the experiments were causing fatal side effects on children, she decided to expose everything.
"My mother wanted to stop them," Han Beimo's voice was hoarse, "so she contacted your father..."
Du Siling continued flipping through the documents and found a document from 2003: "Emergency Termination Notice of Project Azalea: Due to uncontrollable mutations in experimental subjects, all related research is terminated effective immediately. All RH-0 original gene carriers are listed as Level A monitoring targets."
The attached list contains only two names: Han Beimo and Du Siling.
"What?" Du Siling looked up abruptly. "I'm on the list too? But I'm not the RH-0 type..."
Han Beimo's eyes sharpened: "Have you tested it?"
Du Siling shook his head. As a police officer, his file only contained basic blood type information—Type A, Rh positive. But no detailed genetic testing had ever been done.
The file ends with a video recording. Du Zhiyuan appears exhausted in the video.
"If you're seeing this, it means Linghua and I have both failed. Project Azalea has officially ended, but Chen Yan and Yang Zhiming are still continuing their experiments in secret. They need the original RH-0 gene, especially Xiaobei's. Protect yourself, son. Remember, you also have a fragment of the RH-0 gene in your body, from your mother... (The scene suddenly cuts off)"
The video abruptly ended there. Du Siling sat there, stunned, his father's words echoing in his mind. He also had the RH-0 gene? What was his mother's connection to it?
Han Beimo suddenly looked up alertly: "A car is coming."
The sound of engines approached from afar; at least two cars were driving along the country road. Du Siling quickly shut down her computer, and the two silently slid to the car window.
"We can't keep running away," Han Beimo said in a low voice, his breath brushing against Du Siling's ear, sending a slight shiver down her spine. "We need to fight back."
Du Siling turned her head and found their faces inches apart. Han Beimo's eyes shone with an unusual amber hue in the darkness, like a predator about to pounce. A taut tension spread through the small space.
"Azalea Valley," Du Siling said softly, "If both your father and mother pointed there..."
The car headlights swept across the bushes, and the two men held their breath simultaneously. The engine sound grew closer, then suddenly stopped a few dozen meters away. The car door opened and closed, and footsteps dispersed.
"Look for traces!" Yang Zhiming's voice came through the phone. "They must be in this area."
Han Beimo silently placed his hand over Du Siling's, guiding his finger to the pistol under his seat. Their fingers intertwined on the metal gun, their body heat mingling. Du Siling suddenly realized that, without realizing it, he had completely trusted this former adversary.
"Count to three," Han Beimo's lips almost touched his ear, "We'll go out the back door and into the woods."
Du Siling nodded, her heart pounding. Three, two, one—
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