Chapter 19 - 19: Discovering New Abilities
Chapter Nineteen: A New Ability Unveiled
The knife was razor-sharp and it instantly cut into Xiang Kun’s fingertip, followed by blood gushing out and a sharp pain signaled to his nervous system.
It seems being impervious to knives and guns was an unrealistic thought…
Xiang Kun sucked his finger, apparently his own blood had no therapeutic effects.
Just as he was about to get up and find a bandage to cover the wound, he suddenly had a second thought upon examining the cut closely under the light and stayed sitting.
After licking away the blood from his fingertip, the wound did not bleed further. The cut that was about 6 or 7mm long now barely left a mark and seemed to be healing?
He scraped the wound with his fingernail but could not feel any pain.
Xiang Kun forcefully pulled apart the healing wound and opened it again, releasing transparent plasma. He applied heavy pressure around the wound with his thumb, and only then did fresh blood start to ooze out.
Clearly, this wound was healing faster than those of an ordinary person.
Xiang Kun didn’t continue inflicting self-harm, instead, choosing to document the healing process on his phone one picture per minute. Thirteen minutes later, the wound was barely noticeable.
Although it was a small and shallow cut, he was confident that this level of regeneration was impossible before his mutation.
This rapid healing ability must be part of his physical transformation.
After a while, Xiang Kun picked up the knife again and gave a different finger a 6 or 7mm long cut.
This time he did not lick the blood off but used cotton swabs and alcohol to clean the wound – ruling out the possibility that his saliva aided in the healing process.
He started timing again, and approximately fifteen minutes later, the wound had healed to near invisibility.
It seemed like the healing took the same approximate time as the previous experience if he timed from the moment the cuts ensued.
Xiang Kun documented his findings and aimed the knife towards his palm next.
After measuring, he made a more significant cut of 3.2cm, deeper than the ones on his fingers.
The bleeding was still minimal. After cleaning off the blood, Xiang Kun observed his palm wound, intentionally keeping the gash open and unable to individually mend.
Surprisingly the tissues around the wound began to automatically close and tighten together from within, the cut was barely visible after a few minutes.
Xiang Kun forced the wound apart again, and more plasma seeped out.
The repetition of this process confirmed that the wound was still fully healed at around 15 minutes and 17 seconds.
It seemed the healing speed had no correlation with the size or severity of the wound.
Biting his lip, Xiang Kun moved his ‘experiment’ onto his thigh and made a deeper and longer cut.
All night, he wounded himself over and again, anyone who would have seen this would have considered him a masochist with self-destructive tendencies.
By eight something in the morning, Xiang Kun had created over thirty various size and depth punctures on his body and quite a lot of blood was lost as a result.
In the earlier hours, regardless of the wound’s size, the recovery duration was between 14 minutes and 50 seconds to 15 minutes and 30 seconds.
Once, in a fit of courage, he had pierced right through his palm, and recovery time was still around 15 minutes.
Later, however, the healing process began to slow after two hours had passed, prolonging to 17 or even 18 minutes for minor cuts.
Xiang Kun formed two assumptions; one, the large amount of blood loss after so many healing sequences could have reduced the healing capability. Two, the ability was possibly suppressed by daylight after sunrise.
Comparatively, Xiang Kun was more inclined to the latter introspection since the healing speed’s reduction began after sunrise.
Xiang Kun discontinued any further ‘experimentation.’ That being said, he had proven that his bodily mutation could be trained and guided, perhaps, it might be possible to instruct his body to enhance the fast recovery ability, so it was improved upon his next blood-drink mutation.
Perhaps after several rounds of blood-drink upgrades, wound recovery speed could be accelerated to within 5 or even 2 minutes?
This ability was extremely enticing to Xiang Kun despite not having an immediate use typically. After all, accidents are unexpected and unpredictable, aren’t they?
Any ability beneficial to survival must be highlighted.
Around 9 a.m. just as Xiang Kun was about to step out, he was visited.
A female reporter and a cameraman arrived, after their line of inquiry, he had found out it was regarding the previous night’s event. They had information from the grocery store owner that Xiang Kun had been the Good Samaritan and came to interview him with his landlord in tow.
But Xiang Kun firmly rejected the interview, initially by downplaying the significance of the event.
Unable to reason with the persistent journalist and his landlord who continually chimed in with her, he finally claimed an apprehension of retribution from the culprits as his reason to decline.
The journalist offered a disguised identity with voice alteration, and they could even shoot without revealing him, recording only the voice-over and then hinting monetary compensation.
Xiang Kun hesitated and refused yet again.
For now, he wanted to lie low and not bring attention to himself over this matter.
The reporter remained persistent, “Mr. Xiang, it is truly a commendable action worth sharing. Rest assured, the perpetrator is already under the jurisdiction of the police authorities, the bare minimum sentence would be at least three years, there is no chance for him to cause troubles for you. Moreover, the video of your heroic act has been spreading all over the internet– it’s among the top trend on the local forum.”
Xiang Kun was taken aback, “Video?”
“You weren’t aware?” The reporter pulled up the most extensive social forum of the city on her phone and showed him.”Look at this. It has been watched over a million times with thousands of replies since last night, and its popularity is still increasing. Many people have shared it on Weibo as well. You might be trending on Weibo soon…”
The video seemed to have been filmed by someone from a neighboring building. The entire sequence, starting from the culprit chasing after the young couple with a knife, followed by the grocery store owner attempting to intervene with a mop – albeit hesitantly. And then a figure sprang from the side building entrance, delivering a flying kick, knocking the wrongdoer to the ground and loosing his flip flops, swiftly climbed atop the failed assailant and threw a punch that knocked him out.
The entire incident took merely two seconds, smooth as if choreographed, watching the emerging figure with his large shorts, bald head, and flip flops all making him appear as a martial arts master…