Huo Shaoheng’s speech was evenly paced. His extremely magnetic male baritone voice emanated from his chest cavity and seemed to have a natural echo to it. This forced Gu Nianzhi to feel immense pressure.
Her face became increasingly paler, her hands clutching the hem of her T-shirt so hard that she almost tore it into pieces.
Huo Shaoheng’s eyes were not on Gu Nianzhi but coldly looked towards Reinitz’s direction. His voice was slightly threatening as he continued, saying, “…Director Reinitz – the other people may not understand what I’m saying, but you must understand, right?”
Reinitz’s face was even paler than Gu Nianzhi’s.
He was a Caucasian man, so his skin was pale to begin with. Now he was so pale his face was completely devoid of any rosiness. He appeared white as a ghost.
Reinitz’s deep-set features were reminiscent of a fine jade carving. His eyes were always gentle, and from any possible angle, he always appeared like an elegant and handsome angel in a medieval religious painting.
But now his dark expression was without a single shred of kindness. Instead, he looked like an angel fallen from heaven to become a devil. The thick haze in his eyes was terrifying to look at.
“What aren’t you saying anything? Aren’t you already very familiar with everything that I am talking about?” Huo Shaoheng walked out from behind the desk, no expression on his face, and stood before Reinitz to look down at him.
“…During World War II, didn’t your Nazi predecessors pursue the exact same ‘human optimization’ eugenics program?”
Reinitz’s face twitched once before he braced himself against the chair to stand up. He looked at Huo Shaoheng with an even icier gaze and spoke to him directly in German, saying, “…What do you mean by that? The crimes committed by the Nazis have been completely cleared, why do you have to push their sins on us?”
They had repented and apologized for their war crimes, which was much better than the Japanese response.
Huo Shaoheng folded his hands behind his back and gave a mysterious half-smile. “No, I am not trying to accuse you of any Nazi war crimes. What I mean is to ask if you know if your predecessor’s race optimization eugenics program truly ended when they lost the war and surrendered?
“Anyone who has ever studied history would know that the Nazi eugenics program forbade any purebred Germans from marrying and producing offspring with anyone of other ethnicities.
“They believed that the marriage of purebred Germans was the only way of producing the best German offspring.
“…Director Reinitz, as the highest commanding officer of the Gestapo, do you know where your country’s program is still being conducted?”
Huo Shaoheng looked at Reinitz with a half-smile, like he was watching a bug flying straight into a spider’s web.
No matter how the bug struggled, it would never escape the fate of being captured.
Reinitz’s face became even paler when he heard Huo Shaoheng say this. He coldly retorted, “…You make this sound prettier than a song. It’s a shame you don’t write stories for a living.”
Huo Shaoheng wore a Bluetooth headset with a real-time interpretation program, so he was able to understand what Reinitz said and replied in English, “I am not trying to make up a story. This can be proven with historical sources.”
“Historical sources?” Reinitz’s heart stopped. “You have our country’s historical sources?! Historical sources that I haven’t even seen before?!”
“Of course I do.” Huo Shaoheng gave a small smile and walked back to his desk. He then opened a new folder to view several other research photos.
“These were historical records discovered around the same time as when the Japanese Borrowed Seed Program was being conducted and at the concentration camp located in the Northeastern region of the Huaxia Empire.” Huo Shaoheng used his cursor to point at the text in the file and said, “This was all written in Japanese, but we have already translated it. This record says that it wasn’t actually a Japanese program, but the Nazi race optimization eugenics program.”
As the photos appeared one by one on the curved screen TV, the English and Chinese translation also played on the screen and plunged the entire study into a dead silence.
“…The top Nazi commanding officers decided to modify the plan into a secret underground mission. On the XX day of XX month in the year of XXXX, they selected the best German men and women to be transferred into the mountain ranges of the Alps. Their children were raised as orphans from time of birth and sent to a high-level private school near Munich.
“According to our sources, the Nazis demonstrated extraordinary efforts for their race optimization eugenics program. The subjects selected for the eugenics program included elite representatives from all levels of German society. This included their last noble family, which consisted of several male descendants from the House of Hohenzollern.”
When the English translation on the screen displayed the family name, Hohenzollern, Reinitz covered his face and cried out in quiet anguish. He completely broke down and laid still on the ground.
The information video wasn’t very long, but it was already enough for Reinitz since too many of these clues matched up with his own life experiences.
He finally understood why he had no parents at birth, despite being the last member of the royal House of Hohenzollern. Instead, he was raised like an orphan in a high-level private school in the outskirts of Munich.
The school was fully equipped and raised children from newborns to daycare age, and finally, their high school years. Any one of the children born as orphans could be educated until their high school graduation without experiencing any interference from the outside world.
The campus itself was a hundred-year-old castle that had been carefully restored and furnished to the greatest comforts.
Although the children were orphans, each of them would treat their teachers as their own mothers and fathers.
As Reinitz grew up, he didn’t receive the unconditional love of only one father or mother.
Mother Hana and Father Li Dexi were both people who had tremendous influences on his life.
However, the materials being displayed by Huo Shaoheng seemed to instantly transform these people from morally perfect and kind angels into hideous demons.
What on earth were they thinking about when they taught these children who had been bred through animal-like mating?
Did they treat them like the hope and future of their people, or like mere lab rats?
Reinitz’s entire body shuddered horribly. It was like he was convulsing, shaking like someone inflicted with malaria.
On the curved screen TV, the video narration began to speak once again.
“…After a very long period of time, the executors of the Japanese Operation Borrowed Seed discovered that the results were not as optimal as expected. In other words, their results were extremely inconclusive. Or perhaps they didn’t even see any results at all.
“Just as their operation fell into deep troubles, World War II erupted. The Nazis became their comrades battling on the same front.
“As a result, the Nazi race optimization eugenics program quickly caught the attention of Japan and was adopted by their numerical units.
“However, the Japanese used slightly different methods than the Nazis.
“They were not looking at possibilities of optimizing within their own race.
“Because history has proven that when the Japanese married within their own race and produced offspring, each generation degenerated more than the last, they were completely unable to support the progression of their very own race.
“As for the Huaxia people they observed across the ocean – they grew stronger and stronger with each generation to create a brilliant and outstanding civilization. This was the target they admired and coveted, and this was also the basis and origin of Operation Borrowed Seed.
“But the operation did not succeed when Huaxia blood mixed within the Japanese race.
“The combination of these two races could barely prevent the Japanese from degenerating but did not allow them to truly optimize and develop. Nor did it allow them to produce true geniuses who could actually influence human evolution.”
…
Reinitz covered his ears and continuously rolled on the ground. He didn’t want to listen to the video narration anymore.
Gu Nianzhi was very heartbroken to see him like this, so she knelt down to gently nudge Reinitz’s shoulder with one hand and whispered, “Reinitz? Do you want to drink some coffee to calm your nerves?”
Reinitz suddenly reached forward to grab Gu Nianzhi’s hand, his brilliant blue eyes now completely bloodshot.
“Cereus, you don’t need to try comforting me! You are not any better than me!” Reinitz gritted the words through his teeth.
He glared at Gu Nianzhi. He wanted to see her cry and break down. When he saw other people break down and cry, his own suffering seemed to be shared, and he wouldn’t feel so sad anymore.
Gu Nianzhi bit down on her lip hard and shook her head quickly as she said, “No, I am not the same as you. I…”
“How are you any different from me?!” Reinitz was provoked into a state of speaking nonsense by the revelation of his own origins.
Although handcuffs still bound his hands, it merely restricted the motion of his wrists. His hands were still freely moveable.
He squeezed Gu Nianzhi’s hand tightly, standing up from the door and inching closer to her with a twisted expression.
“Cereus, do you know what kind of data we’ve been pursuing for half a century? It’s data from Operation Borrowed Seed performed by that Japanese numerical unit!
“After using Huaxia men and Huaxia women to mate countless times, they produced results of offspring optimization! They had succeeded! They succeeded once before!”
Reinitz screamed as though he had completely lost his mind.
Gu Nianzhi’s heart plummeted violently as she used all her body’s strength to push Reinitz’s hand away and shouted loudly, “That can’t be! They will never succeed! They will never ever succeed! You’re lying! You’re lying!”
She turned away and looked at Huo Shaoheng tearfully. Her lips trembled as she desperately sought a bit of solace from him.
However, Huo Shaoheng’s expression was aloof and completely unperturbed.
His eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s as he observed Reinitz’s every move. His eyes would occasionally sweep over Gu Nianzhi’s terrified and helpless face, yet he didn’t make any motion to console her. He didn’t even spare her a single glance.
This sort of attitude not only made Gu Nianzhi feel dejected but also infuriated someone else – He Zhichu.
He pulled Gu Nianzhi out of Reinitz’s grasp and embraced her in his arms as he gritted the words out from between his teeth, “That’s enough! You need to stop speaking nonsense! Nianzhi’s past has nothing to do with this filthy plan! Nothing at all!”
Huo Shaoheng forbade himself from looking at Gu Nianzhi’s pleading eyes. His heart had been hardened for so long, just because he was waiting for He Zhichu to say this.
In his plan to hit two birds with one stone, he began by targeting Reinitz and then implicated Gu Nianzhi. The truth was, his true and final target was actually He Zhichu.
Huo Shaoheng wasn’t sure what the truth actually was, but he was very certain that He Zhichu must know it.