--Somewhere in the Qinling Mountains.
Deep within the belly of a mountain that had been almost completely hollowed out stood a protective fortification built gradually within the Eastern Great Nation since the last century to withstand multiple forms of special strikes in response to dire circumstances, later repurposed in part as a long-term base facility. Far inside it was a temporary experimental zone whose secrecy classification had been raised yet again--
This experimental area, which still had no specific name in official documents and was distinguished only by numbers, resembled a silver-gray nut embedded deep within the mountain. Combined with electromagnetic interference technology, it almost completely shut out all daylight, noise, and outside surveillance.
By now, only one kind of light was permitted to exist within it.
It was artificial sunlight created through technical equipment to simulate natural illumination. Tamed by countless layers of filters and light-guiding panels, the light poured down evenly and steadily, neither cold nor hot, illuminating the entire experimental site within its semi-transparent diffused environment without bias.
Yet in this semi-enclosed laboratory, built without regard for cost and designed to fully simulate gentle natural sunlight, it was now as bright as shadowless daylight. The air still faintly carried the lingering acrid scent of specialized disinfectant used in conjunction with ultraviolet sterilization.
Behind the enormous circular observation glass, shadows of people moved about. The hum of clustered breathing and hushed conversation filled the air, but the atmosphere was so oppressive it was nearly stagnant.
Many eyes were fixed tightly on the isolated experimental area below, as though no one could bear to blink.
At the center of the laboratory lay a body on something resembling a small operating table. A man missing most of the lower portion of his left arm lay there with his eyes closed, breathing steadily. Even though the flesh-colored stump at his elbow, along with the skin and muscle tissue, had been initially sealed and healed after multiple operations, faint traces of trauma still remained.
But more eye-catching than the marks left on his body were the "foreign objects" attached to him.
Patches of various kinds, precision sensor probes, external instrument testing terminals, auxiliary test agents taken internally, miniature monitoring devices...
From the inside out, item after item clung densely to the military volunteer's body like leeches crawling over a stone after rain, covering nearly every inch of exposed skin.
Without question, it was enough to make anyone with trypophobia instinctively uncomfortable.
Staff moved back and forth around the room, continuously relaying information through communication devices in low voices and tirelessly adding newly detected minor conditions into the operating safety margins.
As curves repeatedly rose and fell across fluorescent screens and vast quantities of data flashed and refreshed, these advanced devices were clearly operating at full capacity. Following issued commands, they did their utmost to feed every minute physiological change in the human body, every second, into the instruments standing all around them.
Yet aside from the personnel currently at work, every gaze that could be considered even slightly "idle"—whether the researchers in white coats behind the observation windows or the technical officers in sterile isolation suits standing like sculptures before the control consoles below—was locked onto the mechanical injection arm slowly descending toward its designated position above the small platform.
Or, more precisely, onto the strange, slender metal chamber fixed firmly at the injection arm's tip and held at a specific upward angle.
Its outer shell was a deep blue, its entire body streamlined.
Other than the built-in needle port deliberately left at one end, conventional nondestructive scans had found neither seams nor markings that could verify its origin. It was so "clean" that it scarcely seemed like a product of normal civilization on this planet.
The liquid flowing silently within the chamber contained no foamy impurities. Through the simple change in brightness visible from outside, those present could roughly tell with the naked eye that about two-thirds of its contents remained...
Watching the "target" arrive at its intended position in perfect posture, an elderly man with graying hair and a white lab coat stood at the front of an experimental station. He adjusted his headset uncomfortably, his Adam's apple barely bobbing once.
Soon, his slightly hoarse, cool-toned voice came clearly through the internal communications relay and into every operator's ears below--
"Attention, all units! The final injection procedure is ready to begin. Conduct the final pre-operation data verification!"
"Received! Subject 002's vital signs are currently stable. Threshold ratio: 89.6%. Heart rate remains within normal levels..."
"Received! Neural bridge preparation for Subject 002 is complete. No abnormalities in signal monitoring."
"Received! Internal environmental parameters of the designated laboratory remain constant and meet design requirements..."
As the string of orderly acknowledgments sounded one after another, nearly all unrelated conversation around them swiftly fell silent.
Everything was proceeding as expected.
Jane's brief reports collided within the already grave, uneasy atmosphere, like an invisible sledgehammer repeatedly striking every nerve of the "audience," making them tighten further without their control.
After all, pressure accumulated.
Within the internal circulation system, the stable low temperature, held at around twenty-five degrees Celsius by the constant-temperature system from beginning to end, was nearly unable to suppress the silently boiling anxiety.
"Old Yu, what do you think they've cooked up that requires such a huge production?"
An elderly gentleman with little hair left except at his temples, whose bald crown shone like a lightbulb beneath the even indoor lighting, stood before a monitoring station used solely for reviewing data. Lowering his voice to nearly a whisper, he slightly turned his head and began speaking with the old man beside him, who wore a dark navy Zhongshan suit.
Neither man showed much change in expression. Apart from the faint movement of their lips, someone standing a little farther away might not even notice that they were talking.
"Stop talking nonsense. Just watch. When it's time for serious business, bring your eyes, not your mouth. After all these years, do I still have to teach you that discipline?"
Adjusting the reading glasses on his face with some discomfort, the elderly man in the Zhongshan suit, whom he had called Old Yu, shot him an irritated glare.
The base did not allow metal objects of any size to be carried in or out without approval. For convenience, these brand-new plastic reading glasses had been hastily made and provided by base personnel after he was brought here yesterday.
Having only recently received them, they naturally did not feel as comfortable as his old pair.
But clearly, even though he had sternly "reprimanded" his old friend, he was not without curiosity himself.
"Still... judging by this setup, they're using a volunteer for an actual test. It's probably some kind of new development in medicine or neural signals..."
"Something's off. If it really were a medical breakthrough, I should have heard some rumors in this field over the past two years. And turning mere technological accumulation into practical application requires a long process of continuous testing. Why would they need to conduct temporary trials in a base like this?"
Running a hand through the few sparse short hairs on his scalp, the old gentleman who had spoken first pondered it for a moment and tentatively rejected the other man's theory.
"Then... could it be a breakthrough in military equipment for individual soldiers? Or in applied chemistry, new materials, something like that? Did some old bastard's ancestral grave start smoking, and he kept pulling the lottery until he suddenly drew something good?"
After thinking it over, Old Yu could not help muttering slowly.
That was not entirely a joke.
As an expert in polymer compounds, although the comparison was not perfectly apt, the elderly man in the Zhongshan suit understood that before decisive theoretical breakthroughs were made, new materials in applied chemistry essentially relied on continuous experimentation, exhaustive enumeration, combinations, luck, and stubbornly throwing oneself against the wall again and again.
After all, whether theory emerged from results or results emerged from theory, there had never been any inevitable order between the two when it came to tinkering with materials.
Trying to crash through the fog ahead and stumble upon a "good result" was inherently just blind luck. The odds of actually producing a "new material with absurd performance" or a "new compound with astonishing effects" were not high, but they were not exactly zero either...
But the problem was that they had already reached the human testing stage. In theory, they should have produced results long ago and begun gradually analyzing them for practical technical application. Why, at this point, did they suddenly need to invoke special procedures for classified research testing?
That did not make much sense.
...It could not be that someone had casually "picked up" an entire set of technology from one of Amerika's secret laboratories that literally did inhuman things, could it? Or even more absurdly, that it was a mature product made by aliens that had suddenly fallen from the sky?
What the hell am I thinking?!
After briefly drifting off, he finally came back to himself and could not help laughing inwardly.
If the occasion had not been so serious, the atmosphere so tense, and laughter so obviously inappropriate, the old expert called Old Yu—or rather, Elder Yu—would practically have laughed aloud at Jane's own series of utterly ridiculous guesses.
He had no idea that his seemingly illogical speculation had, without him realizing it, subtly approached an unbelievable "truth"...
But soon, including Elder Yu, all of the "technical consultants" who were not directly involved in the experimental procedure held their breath and focused all their attention on the tightly isolated experimental area at the center--
More precisely, on the tiny needle that had already approached the missing portion of the human subject's left arm with exact precision, and which looked utterly insignificant even when deliberately magnified on the display!
"Begin injecting the designated amount."
At the command, the hair-thin needle at the tip of the injection arm precisely touched the minimally invasive injection point reserved in advance at the man's left-arm stump. The mercury-like liquid inside was steadily and accurately pushed out under negative pressure in a partial dose, swiftly entering the circulatory vessels within his limb.
A brief silence followed.
Behind the observation station, someone unconsciously swallowed and leaned forward slightly.
Then, the true changes began.
They were not earth-shattering, yet they were enough to make every witness's pupils constrict.
Soon, beneath the flesh at the subject's left-arm stump, a faint, unobtrusive silver hue quietly appeared, as though tiny scattered halos of light shone through it.
High-precision microscopic cameras magnified and transmitted images at various magnifications to the main screen in real time—at the stump, tiny cells that had somehow also taken on an unusual silver-gray color were "forced" aside. As darker, smaller particles continuously emerged from the tissue, certain unusual host cell structures began dividing and proliferating at a shocking rate!
"Quick! Switch to higher-magnification lenses immediately! Hurry!"
Elder Yu heard someone beside him growl without regard for decorum, but he did not react. Or rather, nearly every witness had the same thought at that moment!
--They needed to see it more clearly!
Soon, multiple camera lenses at both lower and higher magnifications were switched onto the observation station at once!
...Amid layers upon layers of minute tissue, among cells of varying sizes and flat-round, diamond-shaped, and mottled forms, the gray particles that had entered the "active" environment finally became visible!
Compared to the native cells, which moved sluggishly like "elderly people in their twilight years," these gray particles resembled a swarm of frantically flying locusts. When the "locusts" were successfully swallowed by the cell walls without rejection, even actively fused with them and entered their cellular structures, the silver-gray human cells likewise began dividing at a pace that seemed to have been sped up...
Drawing a sharp breath, Elder Yu abruptly turned toward another imaging lens showing a lower-magnification view!
Bones... muscles... vascular networks of varying thickness... fascia... cortex...
Compared to the purely microscopic view, this was an even more intuitive process.
As the excess granulation tissue formed around the wound after injury was naturally broken down, new bone matter and physiological tissue spread rapidly through the subtly "wriggling" wound, continuously connecting and reconstructing themselves with astonishing precision along the body's inherent biological structure at a rate almost visible to the naked eye!
"Attention! Subject 002's physiological signals are dropping!... No, that's not right! His visceral physiological signals should be strengthening! The nutrients in his body are being consumed at an extreme rate! His blood oxygen level is falling!..."
"...Nutrient solution! Life Support System One, inject Subject 002 with compound nutrient solution immediately! Increase oxygen circulation support!..."
"Bioelectrical signal group! Subject 002's brain activity shows signs of slight increase..."
"Secondary physiological metabolism indicators rising! Verify the operational state of Subject 002's internal organs and prevent possible metabolic edema..."
"Recalculate the assessment values. Note that metabolic efficiency affects the anesthetic effect. Subject 002's actual anesthesia duration may be shorter than expected..."
Seemingly chaotic yet clearly organized information continuously came through the headsets. Amid an atmosphere that remained calm but had begun to carry a faint air of "fervor," none of the non-direct personnel spoke carelessly.
Even though sounds from the external observation area theoretically could not affect the people or operations within the experimental zone apart from authorized communications, no one wished to disturb the scene before them—a scene that might well be recorded in history!
The process was clearly faster than imagination, yet it was filled with a sense of perfect order.
Soon, within only a few minutes, a complete human forearm had initially taken shape, from elbow to palm!
Including all five fingers, the nails, the skin texture...
Every detail was rapidly "growing" from the elbow at a speed visible to the naked eye, gradually becoming complete...
At the same time, the silver-gray "little things" in the observation footage also began steadily decreasing, while cellular activity visibly slowed along with them.
Behind the observation station, the exclamations and gasps that had been suppressed for so long finally broke free.
"A miracle... This is fucking Jane..." A "young researcher" in his forties or fifties could not help blurting out a curse. Sweat ran down from his forehead beside his ears, but he paid it no attention as he murmured uncontrollably.
"How many people could this save..."
"Data! The vast majority of Subject 002's physiological data is within normal ranges! Rejection response is nearly zero! Neural signal transmission efficiency... no problems detected! It likewise meets native human neural signal baselines!" The technician responsible for inputting monitoring data was not as visibly overwhelmed, but his voice still carried an involuntary tremor.
The screen clearly showed that, under a small external stimulus, the five fingers of the newly grown left hand curled very slightly, almost tentatively.
It was not from pain, but an instinctive reaction brought about by the complete connection of the newly grown internal tissue and the successful activation of the nerve endings.
This tiny movement was actively amplified through sensors and displayed clearly across every data screen.
They had succeeded!
At that moment, even the elderly scientist who had given the order to "begin" the experiment gripped the railing tightly with one hand, his knuckles turning white.
Yet although his eyes gleamed with incredulous ecstasy, the old man still dutifully maintained his final measure of restraint, staring intently at every detail on the main screen.
He was not like those reckless young people. To stand watch at one's post properly, one needed the patience to remain steady from beginning to end.
They continued waiting.
Only when the last trace of inconspicuous silver-gray finally disappeared completely beneath the skin was the main phase of the "experiment" initially declared complete.
Everyone could clearly see that the skin of the newly grown hand still carried a faint pink tint. It was somewhat different from the original skin tone of the arm, and its overall outline still appeared a little thin and weak, as though the limb were slightly underdeveloped.
But in terms of its actual form, it was at least entirely intact.
Even Subject 002, who remained asleep, had grown visibly thinner in the face. His formerly plain, resolute features were now noticeably gaunt, and his complexion was clearly too pale overall, proving that the consumption had been immense.
But no one could deny that what now existed upon his left shoulder was an arm whose complete structure had been restored!
Unlike the delighted experimental observers, whose faces shone with excitement, or even the staff members who had also smiled.
The elderly scientist, who had said little throughout, simply watched the arm on the screen in silence for a long time. Only after confirming that no further signs could be detected—and after personnel operating the instruments had already asked whether they should continue extending anesthesia for the volunteer undergoing the experiment—did this old scientist, clearly in a position of leadership, let out a long breath.
"Du Xiping, prepare to suspend the operational phase and enter the first observation phase... Also, Wang Chen, report to [Tower] immediately. Tell them the test results for that vial of Nanite Repair Fluid are out and match the original verification report."
"Understood."
After the two people beside him, also wearing white coats, got up to handle their assigned tasks, the old man finally lowered his head slightly, revealing a hint of exhaustion. Even his seated posture abruptly slumped.
"Old Ning, you've really gotten yourself into something huge..."
Staring at the figure still lying on the operating table on the display screen, he murmured softly.
It was impossible to tell who he was speaking to.