Chapter One: Severed Arm Reborn

8:30 p.m., March 16, 2011. At this time, perhaps people in rural areas or small cities are already asleep, while most are at home watching various TV programs. But for Haicheng, this international metropolis with a population of over ten million, this is just the beginning of nightlife.

The city, illuminated by lights, is even more beautiful and vibrant than during the day. All kinds of advertising lightboxes and the glow of vehicles flaunt the city's prosperity.

At this moment, in the inpatient department of Haicheng Second People's Hospital, inside a private ward, a young man was staring in terror at his left hand, wishing that his arm could be as far away from him as possible. His face was covered in sweat, which kept streaming down from his forehead, soaking his hair.

"What a pity, this David Carter is actually quite good-looking."

"Yeah, so young and already had his arm amputated. His future is ruined."

"What a waste, another resource gone. If only I had met him earlier..."

"Stop daydreaming. Hurry up and change his dressing, and check if he's fully awake. If he wakes up and finds his arm amputated, who knows how he'll react emotionally. If he can't take it, it'll be a big problem."

...

As David Carter stared in horror at his left arm, he suddenly heard the nurses talking, because the person they were discussing was him. In fact, he had woken up yesterday, but was still groggy and not fully conscious. He only remembered that on his way home from work, he saw someone moving house, and a cabinet suddenly toppled over. There was a little girl nearby, and David Carter reached out to support it. He couldn't remember anything after that.

When he woke up again, still in a daze, he overheard from the conversations around him that his arm had actually been amputated. At that moment, his mind went blank—he was completely stunned. After that, people from the hospital came and went, but he remained in a confused state. But all of this was real. Nearly two days had passed since the surgery, and he had been lying there the whole time—not because David Carter couldn't accept the blow, but mainly because he felt sore and weak all over, exhausted and powerless. The area where his arm had been felt as if it were being bitten by countless bugs, with the itchy pain of new flesh growing, his blood seemed to be boiling, and his internal organs ached from time to time, keeping him in a semi-comatose state.

It wasn't until just over ten minutes ago that these sensations suddenly disappeared, and David Carter instantly felt clear-headed. But when he sat up, he saw that his left arm, which had been amputated, was perfectly intact.

Hearing their conversation, David Carter became a bit more alert. Although he didn't know why his amputated arm had regrown, someone was about to come in. If anyone saw this... David Carter's head felt like it was about to explode. He didn't want to be treated like a monster, or be taken away by some special department for dissection and research, and he definitely didn't want to stay here any longer.

Thinking of this, David Carter suddenly got up. At that moment, there was still an IV drip attached to his right arm. As David Carter moved, the bottle swayed, and the IV stand toppled over.

"Clang... crash..."

"Hey... was that noise from 106? Go check it out..." At this moment, David Carter heard the nurses' voices again. He couldn't care about anything else, grabbed the neatly folded hospital clothes from the bedside, glanced around and saw that he was on the first floor, opened the window, and jumped out. David Carter had been an athlete at school—he could easily get down from anything below the third floor.

David Carter jumped down without noticing that the door to his ward had always been closed. The nurses' voices weren't loud, and even when the IV stand fell, they only vaguely heard something as they approached.

David Carter couldn't worry about any of that now—he was completely panicked, leaping straight out of the ward. As soon as he landed, he saw the beam of a flashlight not far away—a security guard was patrolling in this direction.

He couldn't let anyone see him, couldn't let anyone know. That was the only thought in David Carter's mind. He pushed off with his feet and dashed out in an instant. Just over ten meters away was the perimeter wall—he was there in the blink of an eye, moving so fast even he was surprised. He didn't even have time to try to stop himself, and was about to crash into the wall.

How could this be? David Carter's mind was in a daze. But just as he was about to crash into the wall, his left arm instinctively lifted, his feet pushed off slightly, and his arm landed on the wall over two meters high. With a light push of one hand, his whole body rose up—one press, one lift, one burst of strength, and he was over the wall.

"Thump... thump... thump..." Only now did David Carter feel his heart pounding rapidly. Strange things happen every year, but today, damn it, they all happened to him. It was unbelievable.

"Hey... where is he?"

"Look, the window is open. He just had surgery—where did he go?"

"Did any of you see anyone?"

"No, there's no one here."

"Notify the doctor, quick, find him..."