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Synopsis
Eighteen years ago, the federal government launched a top-secret project code-named "The Cradle" to activate dormant supernatural genes in a very small number of newborns. Eighteen years later, five selected young people were removed from their respective life trajectories and formed a special operations team with no number, no files, and no recognition of its existence. Their mission is to handle tasks that conventional forces cannot solve. Protecting important personnel, infiltrating behind enemy lines, and tracking mysterious signals - they are the Federation's sharpest knives. But outside of the mission, they lived in an ordinary villa. Some people plant cherry trees in their yards, some get up in the early morning to chop dumpling fillings, some use guitars to accompany harmonicas, and some make New Year's wishes in the candlelight of a power outage. However, as the investigation deepens, a truth hidden behind the Cradle Project gradually emerges. Before them, there was a group of adult experimental subjects called "Pioneers", and those survivors who were betrayed by the country still live in the darkness, with unhealed anger. When two generations of people who have been harmed by the country stand on opposite sides, they must choose between loyalty and conscience. Concept: We are designed gears, but we bite into our own trajectory. The core proposition explored in the story is - when a person is deprived of the right to choose from the beginning of his life, can he still live something that truly belongs to him within the framework of destiny. The five people have been injected with genetic drugs since they were babies. Their abilities, their encounters, and even their tacit understanding with each other are all the result of precise calculations to a certain extent. But in their designed lives, they made countless small choices of their own: Chen Du bought an old harmonica with his first singing tip, Pei Lu chose to push open the door of the fantasy world and walk out when he was fifteen, Jiang Yubai chose to plant a cherry tree in the yard, Jiang Zhinan chose to choose the one he liked best among every option within the framework, and Song Zhihan chose to turn his ability from a wall into a bridge. The choices are small, but every one of them is real. At the same time, the story also examines the moral dilemma between state power and individual rights through the "Pioneer Project", the predecessor of the "Cradle Project". The Federation launched inhumane genetic experiments during the war crisis. Those sacrificed pioneers lost their right to choose forever, and the birth of the Cradle Project itself was a continuation of this original sin. Director An chooses to be the one who bears the moral price. He knows that what he does is ethically untenable, but he also knows that if he doesn't do it, someone more ruthless will do it. The story neither defends nor convicts him, but merely presents the full weight of a man's choices in the torrent of history and the consequences he bears. In this framework nested layer by layer by genes, country, and destiny, five young people answered the same question in their own way - can people live something that truly belongs to them in a designed life. Their answer is yes. Not by overturning the framework, but by making every small but real choice within the framework. What is decided is only the starting point; how they finish the road is their own choice. They were deprived of their initial right to choose, but they chose to become a family every day.