Sea clinic

East China Sea Cargo Ship·Block

The vibration of the cargo ship engine is like the heartbeat of a dying person. Charlotte counted the rivets on the iron wall—each rivet was twelve centimeters apart, perfectly matching the screw holes on the instrument rack in her father's laboratory. In the damp, salty smell, she heard the muffled sound of the container being dragged from the upper deck, and the Cantonese argument between Alexander and the ship's doctor.

"Either cut it open now to take out the goods, or wait for the customs radar to take a picture and bury it with you."

The pain of the knife tip piercing the collarbone made Charlotte bite the tip of her tongue. The rubber gloves of the ship's doctor were stained with fish and morphine, and the scalpel moved along the old scar three inches below her ribs. It was left by the appendectomy at the age of fifteen, but now it will become a tomb for hiding evidence.

"Relax, the embryo cryopreservation tube is thinner than a fish hook." Alexander's voice came from above her head. His white shirt was soaked with cold sweat, and the belt around his waist was tied to the unconscious snake head. "Remember the anatomy class in junior year? The frog heart pacing experiment you performed..."

Charlotte sneered in the pain. Of course she remembered that day when he deliberately changed the specimen number, causing her to be scolded by the professor in public. Later, they kissed in the corridor of the morgue, and the smell of formalin mixed with the sweat on the back of his neck was like the salty sea breeze seeping in through the porthole at this moment.

"Found the goods!"

The silver capsule grasped by the ship's doctor's tweezers flashed in the blood. A shrill whistle suddenly blew outside the cabin, the freighter tilted in the surge, and the instruments in the surgical tray hit the iron wall. Charlotte took the opportunity to grab the scalpel, and the tip of the knife pressed against the beating blood vessels below Alexander's Adam's apple.

"How many shares did Thunder Appliances give you?"

"Enough to buy your father's reputation." He held her bloody wrist, "and the custody of three children."

The freighter's broadcast suddenly switched to the customs channel. The searchlight of the anti-smuggling boat penetrated the porthole, pinning the shadows of the two people to the bulkhead. Charlotte saw her own outline on the wall trembling violently - on the ultrasound report of the eight-week pregnancy, the embryo had also throbbed uneasily like this.

"Boarding team ready!"

Alexander suddenly ripped open his shirt, revealing a festering gunshot wound under the waterproof bandage. He dug out a microchip from the wound and stuffed it into the secret pocket of her surgical gown along with a silver capsule: "This is the Zhou family's smuggling list for the past thirty years, enough to kill the Lei Ting family ten times."

The moment the cargo hold door was blown up, he hugged her and crashed into the life raft. When the sea water flooded her head, Charlotte remembered the rainy night in her father's laboratory - the culture dish floated under the leaking window sill, and the trajectory of the embryonic cell division was like the bubble falling into the abyss at this moment.

"Breathe!" Alexander's roar was bloody. He tore open the interlayer of the life jacket, pulled out a forged maternity checkup report and stuffed it into the anti-smuggling team, "My wife needs emergency treatment!"

As the blue light of the ambulance pierced the night, Charlotte held the chip tightly on the stretcher. The blood oozing from the wound on her palm dyed the prenatal checkup date red - September 17, 2007, the day of the laboratory explosion.

The phone vibrated in the waterproof bag. The latest announcement of Morningstar Group popped up: "The heir is critically ill and suspected of being poisoned." The accompanying picture was a photo of Alexander in the emergency room. The suture line at the clavicle looked very much like the gene chain of the embryo specimen.

When the nurse closed the isolation curtain, she touched the capsule in the surgical gown. Written in blood on the aluminum shell:

The password for the freezer compartment is your menarche date

Thunder suddenly exploded outside the window. In the rain, Charlotte saw the snakehead in the rearview mirror of the ambulance making a throat-cutting gesture to the anti-smuggling police. And her old wound on her lower abdomen began to bleed, and the outline of the Morningstar Group logo was blurred on the white bed sheet.