The underground station shook from another distant burst of gunfire.
Smoke drifted through the air.
Broken lights flickered above the abandoned tracks.
But none of it mattered anymore.
Xiaoyu stared at Lu Shen.
"What is on page seventy-one?"
His face had gone pale.
Not from blood loss.
Not from exhaustion.
Fear.
Real fear.
The kind she had only seen once before.
The night they were surrounded at the warehouse.
Lu Shen looked toward the archive room.
Rows upon rows of files waited beyond the steel door.
Decades of secrets.
And somewhere among them—
page seventy-one.
"The project wasn't finished," he said quietly.
Xiaoyu frowned.
"What project?"
Before he could answer—
a gunshot echoed nearby.
Concrete exploded from a pillar only meters away.
The architect had found them again.
"Later," Lu Shen snapped.
"No."
Xiaoyu grabbed his arm.
"Now."
For a moment they simply stared at each other.
Then Lu Shen exhaled.
And surrendered.
"Page seventy-one contains the continuation."
The words landed heavily.
"The continuation of what?"
"The experiments."
Cold spread through Xiaoyu's chest.
"No."
"Yes."
His eyes remained fixed on hers.
"The fire destroyed the facility."
"The organization collapsed."
"The children escaped."
He paused.
"But the project never ended."
Thunder rumbled somewhere above.
Xiaoyu's pulse quickened.
"Who continued it?"
A voice answered before Lu Shen could.
"I did."
The architect stepped from the smoke.
Calm.
Uninjured.
Smiling.
His pistol remained lowered.
As though he wasn't worried about anyone here.
As though victory was already inevitable.
The sight made Xiaoyu's stomach twist.
"You're insane."
The architect laughed softly.
"History usually says that about visionaries."
Another gunshot echoed in the distance.
Neither of them reacted.
The battle around the station no longer mattered.
Everything had narrowed to this moment.
The architect.
The archive.
Page seventy-one.
The truth.
The architect slowly spread his arms.
"Do you know what disappointed me most?"
Nobody answered.
He smiled.
"Your father."
Rage flashed through Xiaoyu instantly.
The architect noticed.
And enjoyed it.
"He saw the future and chose fear."
"He chose people," Lu Shen said coldly.
"No."
The architect shook his head.
"He chose limitations."
Silence.
Then he pointed toward the archive room.
"Page seventy-one proves it."
Xiaoyu looked toward the steel door.
The answer was right there.
Only meters away.
The architect noticed.
"Go ahead."
His smile widened.
"Read it."
The confidence in his voice was unsettling.
Too confident.
As if he wanted them to see it.
As if discovering the truth would help him.
Lu Shen clearly noticed too.
"Don't."
The word came immediately.
Xiaoyu turned.
"What?"
His jaw tightened.
"Some truths don't help."
For the first time—
she disagreed.
"No."
Her voice remained steady.
"They do."
Without waiting for another argument—
she ran.
Straight toward the archive room.
"XIAOYU!"
Lu Shen followed immediately.
The architect didn't stop them.
He simply watched.
Smiling.
That alone terrified her.
The steel door remained open.
Dust floated through the cold air.
Thousands of files lined the shelves.
The room felt more like a tomb than an archive.
A graveyard of secrets.
Xiaoyu rushed past cabinet after cabinet.
Searching.
Numbers.
Labels.
Dates.
Then—
she found it.
Archive Box 71.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
Lu Shen arrived beside her.
Too late.
She had already opened it.
Inside rested a single folder.
Yellowed with age.
Protected carefully.
Waiting.
Xiaoyu opened it.
The first page contained research notes.
The second contained diagrams.
The third contained names.
Dozens of names.
Children.
Subjects.
Survivors.
Then—
page seventy-one.
She turned it.
And froze.
The page wasn't research.
It wasn't data.
It wasn't a blueprint.
It was a photograph.
A family photograph.
A man.
A woman.
And between them—
a little girl smiling at the camera.
Xiaoyu.
Her breath stopped.
"No..."
The photo had been taken years before the experiments.
Years before the fire.
Years before everything.
Her hands trembled.
Because written beneath the photograph were six words.
Subject 1 was never created.
Silence.
The station disappeared around her.
The words blurred.
Then sharpened again.
Subject 1 was never created.
A second line sat beneath it.
Smaller.
Handwritten.
By her father.
She was born this way.
Xiaoyu felt the world tilt beneath her feet.
The experiments hadn't made her special.
The organization hadn't created her abilities.
They had found her.
And suddenly—
every sacrifice.
Every death.
Every lie.
Made horrifying sense.
The architect appeared in the doorway.
His smile had returned.
"Now you understand."
Xiaoyu slowly looked up.
The man who destroyed her life.
The man who killed her father.
The man who hunted her for twenty years.
And for the first time—
she understood exactly why.
Because she had never been the result of the experiment.
She had always been the reason for it.
Then the lights throughout the station suddenly turned red.
A mechanical alarm roared to life.
The architect's smile vanished.
For the first time—
he looked surprised.
A computerized voice echoed through the underground complex.
"Security protocol activated."
Everyone froze.
Then the voice spoke again.
"Welcome, Xiaoyu."
And somewhere deep beneath the city—
something enormous began to wake up.