After screaming, Fang Xiaoxiao seemed to realize he had lost control of his emotions. He staggered back two steps, crouched against the wall, and shakily poured two handfuls of pills into his mouth, swallowing them mechanically.
A few moments later, the medication began to take effect. He steadied himself slightly, clutching his knees as he gasped for breath. Hot tears slid down his numb, frost-chilled face as he muttered hoarsely, "They're not human… they really aren't… I didn't eat them…"
His body trembled. He buried his face in his knees, choking back sobs and apologizing incoherently. "Sorry… I'm sorry…"
Bai Liu crouched down and quietly handed him a soft cloth napkin.
Fang Xiaoxiao accepted it without a word and wiped his tears.
Bai Liu's voice softened. "What kind of monsters are they?"
"…Highly intelligent ones." Fang Xiaoxiao pushed himself up against the wall and answered in a hoarse voice. "When they first appeared, we were terrified. They looked exactly like our dead teammates. We thought they were ghosts. Later, we discovered they were bio-contaminants originating from Edmond Observatory."
"They actively imitate the most survivable organisms in their environment. They try to approach us… to learn our survival skills. They must have observed us for some time and noticed how deeply we mourned our fallen teammates. So they chose to take on those appearances to get close to us…"
He took a shaky breath.
"They probably thought that if they became someone we loved, we would accept them. But the sentries panicked. They shot them and dragged the bodies back for research."
"…During the research process, it molted again. After the second molt, it became even more human."
"It was an exceptional learner. After entering the base, it observed us and listened to our conversations. After its second transformation, its speech, appearance, and habits were nearly identical to those of the deceased teammate. Aside from some missing memories, it was almost as if the dead had returned to life…"
His eyelashes trembled. Tears dripped onto the scarf clenched in his hand.
"It was horrifying. We killed it again—this time with knives."
"We later discovered that no matter how we killed them, their cells remained highly active. As long as even one cell survived, it could differentiate on its own into embryonic stem cells and regenerate into a human form."
"…The only effective method was to first char their epidermis with fire to suppress cellular differentiation, then soak the remains in strong acid or alkali to destroy the cells completely. But we didn't have enough fuel or chemicals to do that."
"At first, even knowing the danger, we lacked the resources to deal with them. We had no choice but to dissect them and freeze them inside the ice crevasse so they couldn't escape."
He faltered. "But soon… very soon…"
His throat tightened as if gripped by invisible hands. His mouth opened, but no sound came out—only silent tears.
Bai Liu finished the thought calmly.
"But soon you realized that fire and chemical corrosion resemble the human processes of cooking and digestion."
"You happened to be short of food. Eating them would both eliminate the monsters and solve your supply problem. Killing two birds with one stone, wasn't it?"
Fang Xiaoxiao's eyes went blank. His chest rose and fell sharply. He turned away abruptly, covering his mouth as if about to vomit.
"I'm sorry. I don't feel well. Please… get some rest."
He hurried away.
After seeing him off, Bai Liu entered the cabin. Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda followed.
Tang Erda locked the door and stood there listening for a while before turning back. "The soundproofing is good. You can't hear footsteps from outside. Speak freely."
Mu Sicheng, still shaken, sat stiffly on the edge of the bed. A chill ran down his spine as he stared at Bai Liu.
"What the hell is going on here? Did the observatory staff really eat the monsters?"
"Not necessarily." Bai Liu leaned back lazily, propping his chin on one hand. "The more likely scenario is still what I mentioned earlier. What's here may all be human. Or it may all be anthropomorphic monsters pretending to be human."
Mu Sicheng frowned. "If they're monsters, why go through all this trouble to deceive us? What's the point? If they want to kill us, they can just do it. You heard him—they're practically immortal. They could fight us head-on."
"Why would they voluntarily reveal their own weaknesses?"
Tang Erda nodded. "I checked my monster compendium. The weakness Fang Xiaoxiao mentioned—fire combined with chemical corrosion—is accurate."
Bai Liu smiled faintly and suddenly shifted the topic. "Have you heard of the Turing Test?"
Both Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda nodded.
Mu Sicheng looked puzzled. "What does this have to do with the Turing Test? That's used to determine whether AI has human-level intelligence."
"There are similarities," Bai Liu replied. "AI and the creatures here are both artificially created species. If we treat this species as analogous to AI, how would you determine whether it possesses fully human intelligence?"
He looked steadily at Mu Sicheng.
"Do you remember the famous hypothesis associated with the Turing Test?"
Mu Sicheng shuddered as realization dawned.
"…If an intelligent AI truly develops human-level cognition, would it attempt to deceive humans in order to pass the Turing Test?"
"Exactly." Bai Liu's eyes were calm. "If the 'people' here are monsters who have worked hard to imitate humans and have evolved intelligence comparable to the scientific crew, then it's entirely possible they would conduct their own Turing Test."
"To see whether their human impersonation is convincing enough. To see whether they can fully integrate with us."
He lifted his gaze slightly.
"And we—outsiders, unfamiliar humans—are the perfect control group."
"The things Fang Xiaoxiao said may simply be a carefully constructed narrative. A simulation designed to convince us that they are human."
Tang Erda fell silent. Mu Sicheng curled his fingers into his palms, a chill running down his spine.
"Of course," Bai Liu spoke again, slowly. "This is only my guess. It's also entirely possible that the people here are just people—and that all of this is nothing more than my delusion."
Tang Erda asked calmly, "So, how do you intend to verify your theory?"
Bai Liu spread his hands and smiled lightly. "It's simple. Tonight, when they're all asleep, we'll dig into the ice crevasse and see whether the 'person' down there can come back to life."
-----------------
At Midnight
The Antarctic sun lingers long in February. By the time daylight finally faded, it was already early morning. Most of the observatory personnel were asleep, with only two sentries standing guard at the entrance. Avoiding them was not difficult.
The observatory enforced strict entry regulations, but it did not tightly restrict internal staff from going out. After all, in Antarctica, only someone with a death wish would voluntarily step outside at night.
Bai Liu and the others slipped out through the back door of the first-floor kitchen, where rubbish was disposed of. They circled around to the helicopter and retrieved the drilling equipment.
Thanks to the harsh Antarctic weather—wind, snow, and darkness reducing visibility to less than thirty meters—the sentries failed to notice them taking the equipment so openly.
Led by Tang Erda, the veteran among them, they hauled hundreds of kilograms of gear on sleds to a site they had previously scanned, more than ten kilometers away.
Mu Sicheng panted and sweated heavily. Bai Liu appeared unaffected, and Tang Erda barely allowed him to help, shouldering most of the weight himself.
Sweat soaked Tang Erda's skin from face to collarbone. His taut muscles gleamed faintly under the frost, his breathing only slightly heavier despite the immense strain.
Panting like a worn-out mule, Mu Sicheng stared blankly.
Damn it. Tang Erda, do you even know what a sled dog is? How can anyone pull that much weight?
Unaware of Mu Sicheng's resentful glare, Tang Erda set the equipment down and began drilling at the spot where they had previously detected a figure.
The heat and pressure melted through the ice layer by layer. When they were nearly through, Bai Liu gestured for him to stop. Tang Erda shut down the machine, extracted the cylindrical ice core, and lifted it out.
Trapped inside was a small, narrow human body—its limbs severed—compact enough to be extracted whole within the core. That was precisely why Bai Liu had chosen this site to drill.
The "human" encased within the two-meter-long, one-meter-diameter ice prism wore a frozen expression of terror, as though it had witnessed something horrifying enough to kill it outright. The limbs had been cleanly severed by something sharp; there were no signs of decay.
Bai Liu poured fuel and hot water repeatedly over the ice core. Before long, it began to melt.
"It's ice formed from compacted snow," Tang Erda concluded with certainty. "Real glacial ice wouldn't melt this quickly, nor this evenly."
Soon, the ice dissolved completely, and the limbless body lay motionless on the surface.
As Mu Sicheng froze for the third time and hugged himself for comfort, weak strands of flesh began sprouting from the creature's severed limbs. They wriggled like worms, intertwining and knitting together until fully formed arms and legs regenerated.
The creature slowly rose and knelt before Bai Liu.
There was no longer any doubt—the thing they had unearthed was a monster.
Tang Erda reacted instantly, too fast for the eye to follow. He kicked the creature backward and pressed the muzzle of his gun against its throat, his expression cold and ready to fire.
Bai Liu stopped him just in time and stepped forward, signaling Tang Erda to lower the weapon.
"I am the real Fang Xiaoxiao." His voice was hoarse, tears streaming down his face. He kowtowed desperately. "Those buried down there are the real personnel of Tarzan Observatory. Please save them!"
Bai Liu helped him to his feet and reassured him gently. "We will. Just tell us what happened."
"You've seen the monster in the observatory, haven't you?" Fang Xiaoxiao asked as Bai Liu helped him sit on the sled.
Mu Sicheng boiled a cup of hot water for the shivering meteorology graduate student, but Fang Xiaoxiao pushed it away with a bitter smile.
"Thank you. My body doesn't actually need warmth anymore. I just retain a residual human reflex to the cold—that's why I'm shivering."
Bai Liu placed the cup firmly into Fang Xiaoxiao's lap. "If you still have a human reflex to cold, then you're still someone who needs warmth. I think you do need this cup of hot water. Take it."
Something in those words broke Fang Xiaoxiao's composure. Tears streamed down his face.
He looked at Bai Liu through blurred vision and finally accepted the cup, choking back a sob. "Thank you… comrade… for reminding me that I am still human."
After taking a few sips to steady himself, Fang Xiaoxiao began to speak.
"A year and a half ago, in August, we were ordered to store a highly dangerous biochemical specimen here in Antarctica. At first, the head of Taishan Station refused. According to the Antarctic Convention, contaminated research materials are not allowed on this continent."
"But after prolonged negotiations, he eventually agreed. We never learned what was discussed, but he told us with a heavy heart that this last clean land in Antarctica would no longer remain clean."
"To protect the outside world—to protect a world full of desire—this final pure land had to be polluted."
Fang Xiaoxiao exhaled deeply. Bai Liu noticed that no white mist formed in the freezing air.
"We prepared to receive the aircraft transporting the body fragments. But while flying over the Ross Sea, the plane crashed. Instead of landing near our observatory, it went down near Archibald Station on the southern coast of Ross Island—the observatory belonging to Country A."
"Although we rushed to search the crash site immediately, three of the crates were missing. All five escorts on board were dead."
"We repeatedly contacted Archibald Station to retrieve the missing crates and even visited their station chief that very night. But soon after, they stopped answering our calls and refused us entry."
"Our team spotted a helicopter leaving Archibald Station for Edmond Station in the early hours of the morning, transporting something suspicious. We believe it was those three crates."
Fang Xiaoxiao's teeth chattered as he gripped the cup tightly.
"Edmond Station—another of their observatories—is located near the South Pole. It's heavily guarded and equipped with significant military protection. It was nearly impossible for us to approach. After they repeatedly ignored our calls, we had no choice but to communicate by fax."
"The head of Edmond Observatory is Edmond Allen. He has been stationed in Antarctica for more than thirty years and has always maintained a close relationship with us. He was willing to share many of his research findings—a truly 'Antarctic-minded' old man who made remarkable contributions to meteorology and biology on the continent. That's why the observatory was named after him…"
"After much persuasion, Professor Edmond eventually relented. He agreed to try to secretly return the crate to us and take full responsibility himself…"
Fang Xiaoxiao could no longer hold back his tears.
"But the political and military authorities of Country A wouldn't allow it. When they discovered Edmond's intentions…" His voice broke. "They persecuted Professor Edmond brutally—subjected him to psychological torture and experimentation, even administered mind-altering drugs. They drove him insane…"
He covered his face and sobbed openly. The title "Professor" slipped from his lips and became the more intimate "Teacher."
"They destroyed a great man! They used Mr. Edmond as a subject for biological experiments connected to those body parts!"
"They forced him down a path he never would have chosen!"
"Using those corpses, Teacher began breeding the corpse-creatures in large numbers. He spliced their genes with lower life forms, cultivating predatory organisms better adapted to the Antarctic climate. All those who persecuted him were eventually buried beneath those creatures…"
Fang Xiaoxiao clutched his head as if seized by an unbearable memory, his voice turning distant and trance-like.
"But then everything spiraled out of control. Those creatures began developing human-level intelligence. Raised by Edmond, they inherited his curiosity and thirst for scientific exploration. They started imitating what humans had done to them. They began experimenting on humans—replicating the same brutal procedures."
"And we, the humans stranded at the observatory, became their perfect test subjects."
Fang Xiaoxiao let out a sound that was half laughter, half sob.
"They cut us apart, dismembered us, sliced and sorted us by geography and sex… There wasn't much food left during the winter at the station. Soon, we would have starved. They didn't want us to die fragile deaths, so they forced us to eat seals, penguins—even their own flesh."
"Their flesh integrates into our bodies. We evolve as if grafted with another species, twisted and embedded within us. Eventually, we become monsters like them—resistant to the cold, stronger, harder to kill."
A tear slid down Fang Xiaoxiao's face.
"Soon, these clever monsters exhausted all the secrets of our bodies. They preserved us—failed experiments—beneath the ice. Then they entered the final stage of their research: human mutual recognition, communication, and mental induction."
"They need completely alien humans to complete the final phase of their experiments. But no new humans have arrived in Antarctica for a very long time."
"So they simulate human survival in extreme conditions. They even fabricate conflicts, stage killings, and then reopen the ice to throw down the bodies of the 'dead' monsters."
Fang Xiaoxiao's mouth twitched stiffly.
"Of course, those monsters didn't truly die. They were merely playing the role of defeated humans in a staged struggle before being frozen beside us."
When he finished, silence settled over the group.
Bai Liu patted Fang Xiaoxiao on the shoulder and told him to rest. He said they would drill out the others from Tarzan Station, then return to the drilling site.
Tang Erda stayed behind to watch over Fang Xiaoxiao.
Mu Sicheng, however, huddled beside Bai Liu, still shaken.
"Damn… It's exactly like you said. Those monsters at the observatory really are conducting a Turing test. The real personnel are in the ice crevasse!"
Bai Liu adjusted the instrument and gave him an expressionless look.
"How can you be certain that the 'people' in the ice aren't simply another round of Turing tests prepared long ago by these highly intelligent creatures—monsters that have thoroughly studied human psychology?"
Mu Sicheng froze, his scalp prickling.
"You mean Fang Xiaoxiao could also be a monster testing us?"
"Not necessarily," Bai Liu replied calmly. "He could be a real human."
"Who told you a Turing test only uses a single variable? Social species experiments like this are usually conducted across an entire map."
He glanced at Mu Sicheng.
"In short, all of Antarctica could be their experimental field for us—alien humans."
"To use an analogy: imagine placing an unfamiliar monkey into a group composed of both real and simulated monkeys. You observe how it reacts—which individuals it identifies as its own kind. Then you imitate those behaviors, pretend to be real monkeys, and approach it for further experimentation."
Bai Liu's gaze drifted toward Fang Xiaoxiao behind Mu Sicheng.
"For example—cut off a monkey's limbs and observe whether it seeks help from its own kind."
A chill crept through Mu Sicheng's body. Quietly, he removed his monkey-ear headphones.
Bai Liu shrugged lightly. "That's how humans study other species."