The train ride took nine hours, winding through frozen countryside, past ghost towns and silent forests cloaked in fog. Zahra and Elijah barely spoke. Each of them carried the weight of too many questions, and the fear of answers they might not be ready for.
They disembarked at a lonely station in the outskirts of Gansu province. A rickety bus took them the rest of the way to Hǔshān Village, nestled deep in the shadow of snow-covered mountains.
The village looked untouched by time. Sloping roofs, woodsmoke curling into the grey sky, and old men huddled around fires with weathered faces that held more stories than years could count.
A local woman named Madame Lian, Elijah's aunt's old contact, met them at the edge of the village. Her eyes were sharp, and though she didn't smile, she welcomed them into her home with quiet hospitality.
Over cups of herbal tea, she finally spoke.
"So… you've come looking for the dead," she said softly.
Zahra met her eyes. "Not just the dead. The truth."
Madame Lian nodded. "Then you must speak to the one who remembers."
She led them to a crumbling, stone house at the edge of the forest. Inside sat an elderly man in a wheelchair, wrapped in thick blankets. His skin was papery, but his eyes, milky though they were, seemed to glow with quiet fire. His name was Bao Yu, a former nurse from the Xǐzhǎo Project.
"They thought I forgot everything," he said, his voice a rasp. "But some things never fade. Especially the screams."
Zahra leaned forward. "Did you know Dr. Liang?"
Bao Yu nodded slowly. "He was a good man. Too good. He tried to stop what they were doing."
"What were they doing?" Elijah asked.
"Extracting pain. Injecting memory," Bao Yu whispered. "They believed trauma could be transformed into knowledge, into intuition, even obedience. They called it… neuro-genetic encoding. But it was madness."
He coughed violently, then reached into his blanket and withdrew a small metal box.
"This belonged to Liang," he said. "He gave it to me the night before the fire."
Zahra opened the box slowly. Inside were fragments of documents, handwritten notes, and a voice recorder.
She pressed play.
Dr. Liang's voice crackled through:
"If you are hearing this, I have failed. They took my research, twisted it. I tried to warn Zayne Williams. I told him to leave. But he stayed...for her. For the child."
Zahra's heart stopped.
Elijah leaned in. "For who?"
The tape continued:
"Zahra, if you've found this, it means the memory survived. You must finish what we started. You are the living key." Then silence.
Zahra stared at the recorder in shock. "He knew me. Before I was even born."
Madame Lian nodded solemnly. "Your father didn't just participate. He volunteered to protect you. You were never just a student here, Zahra. You were the last subject."
The room swirled with silence.
And then, gunshots outside.