Hela suddenly grabbed the knife from Xing Lan's hand and snatched it away.
Everyone froze, especially Xing Lan herself. But before anyone around her could react, Hela brought the knife down on her own left hand.
The sharp short knife sliced her left hand off in an instant, leaving it in Xing Lan's grasp.
At the sight, Xing Lan's brain crashed.
She slowly raised the hand gripping Hela's and saw a severed left hand. "Ah!!" A scream burst from her mouth, spreading like a virus and making everyone except Sun Hai and Nanming scream too!
"Hela, don't be angry! I didn't mean that I didn't trust you!" Xing Lan trembled as she held Hela's left hand.
"Ah! Don't be scared, Miss Hela! I'll get you some gauze to stop the bleeding right away!" Si Xiaobei scrambled toward the infirmary to fetch gauze.
"Hello! 120! Someone here's had a hand cut off! Get your best surgeon ready, quick!" Feng Xuan hurriedly dialed 120.
Liu Xiaogang was scared witless once again.
The scene descended into chaos. Only Sun Hai quietly breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his hand from a black grip inside his clothes.
Hela blinked at Xing Lan, who stood before her, frantically assuring her that she hadn't meant to distrust her.
Then the surface of the wound on her left arm turned into black slime and began to squirm rapidly. Before long, a brand-new left hand had grown back.
Xing Lan suddenly fell silent, staring dumbfounded at Hela's newly grown left hand. She was probably feeling much the same way Liu Xiaogang had when he saw Hela, who had been cut in half at the waist, put herself back together.
The others stopped what they were doing and stared blankly at Hela. At that moment, their expressions became identical.
"Hello, sir, has something happened with the patient? Hello? Hello?"
"Uh... never mind. Sorry to bother you." Feng Xuan then stiffly hung up.
They all stared at Hela in a daze, and the air fell silent.
"Can... can that severed hand move?" After a long while, Nanming finally spoke, breaking the silence. The others came back to their senses and looked curiously at Hela.
Hela nodded, and the left hand still held in Xing Lan's grasp suddenly clenched into a fist.
Xing Lan's hand twitched, then her eyes lit up with stars and she grew excited. The others were all a little excited too, except for Si Xiaobei, who looked somewhat horrified.
What did that mean?
It meant Hela really was a Symbiote, and the one she shared a symbiosis with was the [HeLa Cell].
That was the [HeLa Cell] that had wiped out an entire city in a single night. Leaving aside how much of its strength remained after entering a symbiosis with Hela, its powerful regenerative ability alone was extremely rare among ability users and Variants alike.
"It looks like we can be certain now. Hela really is a [Symbiote] sharing a symbiosis with the [HeLa Cell]," Sun Hai said with a nod.
"Hey, wait!" Xing Lan suddenly looked at Hela with stars in her eyes and excitedly asked another question. "Hela, can your severed left hand regenerate on its own too?!"
Everyone's gaze returned to Hela.
Hela froze for a moment, then nodded. The wound on the severed left hand also healed rapidly.
Seeing this, everyone was noticeably less excited than before. A trace of disappointment even showed in Xing Lan's eyes. She had thought an entirely new Hela could grow directly from it, but all it did was heal the wound.
Xing Lan shook her head and smiled. After all, people shouldn't be too greedy. This was already quite good; at least it meant Hela wouldn't die easily in the future.
But just then, Hela's lips quivered slightly, and she spoke with difficulty. "Hungry..."
"Ah, are you hungry?" Xing Lan looked around. Si Xiaobei, standing beside her, caught on and immediately pulled his last three strawberry-flavored candies from his pocket and handed them to Xing Lan.
Xing Lan thoughtfully tore open the wrappers and placed the candies in Hela's hand. "Have a few candies to tide you over. We'll cook in a little while."
Hela held the three candies without eating them. Instead, the severed hand in Xing Lan's grasp began to change again. Its palm squirmed, and then a horizontal slit slowly opened, like a mouth.
Seeing a mouth grow on Hela's severed hand, Xing Lan seemed to guess something, and her cheeks began to flush with excitement.
Hela then stuffed all three candies in her hand straight into the mouth on her left hand, and Xing Lan placed the severed hand on the table.
The mouth on the severed hand chewed a couple of times and swallowed all three candies. Then the entire hand began to squirm.
Before everyone's horrified eyes, the hand slowly grew into a complete forearm before finally stopping.
"Wow!" Xing Lan watched, her heart pounding with excitement.
"So as long as she has energy, Hela can make a complete copy of herself," Feng Xuan said, stroking his chin.
Sun Hai nodded gently, even more certain that Hela was a [Symbiote] sharing a symbiosis with the [HeLa Cell].
"Then what do we do with this hand?" Feng Xuan asked.
Hela blinked, then picked up the forearm and proceeded to stuff it straight into her mouth.
Everyone: ?!!!!
By rights, Hela's small mouth shouldn't have been able to fit it, but the entire arm seemed to turn soft like jelly, and in just a few motions she swallowed the whole forearm.
"Mm~!" Si Xiaobei covered his mouth with his hand and rushed toward the restroom. "Uegh-!"
The others were utterly dumbfounded and shocked as well. Nanming coughed softly twice. "It seems the [HeLa Cell] has had quite a big influence on Hela."
Liu Xiaogang turned his head and spoke in a trembling voice. "I wouldn't call that quite big. It's very, very big!"
Hela continued sitting there as though nothing had happened.
After everyone had more or less recovered, Nanming asked Sun Hai, "So, Captain, what do you want to do with Hela?"
"Hela's ability is very powerful. I think she should become a Night Star," Sun Hai answered without the slightest hesitation.
"B-but, Captain, you know Hela's situation too. For someone like her to become a Night Star would be very dangerous, even with her regenerative ability.
"I think it would be good to just let him be an ordinary girl and live here." Liu Xiaogang looked at Hela worriedly.
"I support the captain. Hela's ability really is very powerful, and she should become a Night Star. If she were just an ordinary, unremarkable girl, it would be a waste for all of Great Xia." When Feng Xuan finished, Liu Xiaogang glared at him, while Feng Xuan shrugged.
Xing Lan looked at Hela, conflicted. When she had first met Hela, she had actually hoped Hela could become a Night Star and fight alongside her.
But now that the moment had come, Xing Lan didn't quite want that anymore. She wanted to fight alongside Hela, but she was also afraid Hela would run into danger.
She scratched her head and, in the end, made no decision.