Following that came a slight tingling sensation that spread from the wound, as if countless microscopic lives were nimbly jumping and weaving beneath the skin, repairing and reorganizing the damaged cells bit by bit.
Wesley and Cross, standing to the side, instantly widened their eyes, their faces filled with unbelievable shock.
Under their gaze, that originally swollen wound was actually shrinking and smoothing over at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The damaged skin healed bit by bit, the swelling quickly subsided, and even the surrounding bruising faded away little by little.
In less than three minutes.
Alice withdrew her hand, took a sterile cotton pad, and gently wiped away the residual traces of the paste on Fox's cheek.
Fox subconsciously raised her hand, her fingertips brushing against her left cheek.
What her fingertips touched was smooth and delicate skin, without a trace of a scar or any unevenness; it was even more delicate than the surrounding skin.
That hideous wound seemed as if it had never existed.
"It didn't even leave a scar."
Fox's fingertips repeatedly stroked her smooth cheek, her eyes filled with disbelief.
She was too familiar with this kind of cell regeneration effect; the repair wax in the basement of The Fraternity also had such an effect.
But even the best repair wax would take at least a day for such a wound to heal, and it would still leave a faint scar.
Yet, this small bottle of paste from Alice had completely healed the wound in just three minutes, without leaving a single trace.
"Compared to the effect of the repair wax, this seems to be no less impressive." Fox looked at Alice, her eyes filled with complexity.
"Sloan uses the repair wax on you so that you can return to the battlefield to die faster."
Alice put away the cobalt-blue bottle and placed it back in the refrigerated cabinet. Her tone was flat, yet carried a piercing sharpness.
"And I healed you because I hope that in the future, you can look in the mirror with a clear mind and see clearly who you really are. See clearly that you are not just a gun that only knows how to kill; you are a living, breathing human being."
Of course, she would not tell Fox that although t-1 essence was a masterpiece she created by combining Ai Haibara's pharmaceutical talent with the extract from the Super Spider that had bitten Peter Parker.
But in essence, it was just an extremely efficient epidermal cell regeneration skincare product.
It could perfectly treat epidermal wounds, fade scars, fight skin aging, and even repair minor damage to the dermis.
But when facing severe injuries like broken bones, organ repair, or penetrating wounds, neither in production volume nor absolute repair power could t-1 currently be compared to that repair wax extracted from the Loom Moth, which defied biological common sense.
...
On the other side, Wesley, who had walked into the laboratory for the first time, shifted his gaze from the rows of electronic scales precise to the microgram, the high-speed centrifuges, and the nanometer-precision microscopes on the workbench, slowly moving toward Alice, who was operating the instruments with full concentration.
The girl's profile appeared exceptionally clear under the cold light, with a hint of lingering baby fat still on her face, yet the calmness and focus in her eyes were steadier and more determined than any big shot he had ever seen.
He suddenly thought of his own twenty-five years of life.
At that time, he was still in that four-square-meter cubicle, nodding and bowing to that fat pig of a supervisor for a reimbursement slip of a few dozen dollars, enduring all kinds of humiliation.
The only sense of accomplishment every day was counting the painkillers in his drawer to see how many more days he could endure the torture of migraines.
His life was like a pool of mud; he could see the end at a glance, and apart from despair, there was nothing.
And this little girl before him was nearly ten years younger than him.
Yet she had casually overturned The Fraternity that had entrenched itself in New York for hundreds of years, taken out Sloan, the devil that made him tremble with fear, and even built such a massive biotechnology company, changing countless lives with small tubes.
"This is unfair, really."
Wesley turned his head and looked at Cross, who was standing to the side, his eyes filled with frustration and deep-seated self-doubt.
His voice was very low, as if talking to himself, and also as if seeking an answer.
"If intelligence can really fold space, then what does our curve shooting, which we've practiced so hard for so many years, count for in front of these little blue bottles? Some kind of outdated acrobatics?"
Cross did not speak.
His eyes, accustomed to observing wind direction, calculating trajectories, and capturing killing intent, were scanning every corner of the laboratory like the most precise scanner.
He noticed the high-speed centrifuges running automatically, the precise incubators with temperature, humidity, and oxygen concentration accurate to two decimal places, and even more so, he noticed Alice's hands operating the instruments, terrifyingly steady; even when transferring a fraction of a microgram of reagent, there wasn't the slightest tremor.
As a top-tier assassin, he naturally knew what this extreme stability meant.
It meant absolute rationality, a powerful heart undisturbed by any emotional fluctuations, and absolute control over one's own body.
Sloan controlled them with fear and lies, using the pretext of destiny to make them willingly work for him and die for him.
And this girl used truth and hope.
She showed them a brand-new World, gave them a brand-new path, gave them the possibility of redemption, and gave them the meaning of life.
Deep within Cross's eyes, a trace of deep vigilance could not help but flash.
No matter how one thought about it, the latter was the hardest shackle to break free from.
Sloan's lies would always be exposed one day.
But the hope Alice gave, once grasped, no one would ever be willing to let go of again.
In the next half day, there was only the slight humming of instruments in the laboratory.
Among the three, Fox was the quietest one.
She did not speak, nor did she lament; she just stood quietly to the side.
Her gaze kept wandering between the cobalt-blue bottles containing t-1 essence in the refrigerated cabinet and the row of Loom Moth larvae placed in the constant temperature and humidity incubator on the other side of the laboratory.
The incubator was fully transparent, lined with a specially made nutrient base, and over a dozen Loom Moth larvae were hanging on metal racks, rhythmically and slowly wriggling.
They had extremely thin sterile tubes inserted into them, and the milky white raw repair fluid was dripping down through the tubes into the sterile collection bottles below.
The incubator's parameters were adjusted to the most suitable state for their survival; the nutrient base was specially formulated by Alice, and every larva had its own unique ID and monitoring data, and even the duration of light exposure was precisely controlled.
They were no longer tools to be squeezed, but were treated as precious research subjects, treated as living lives.
Fox looked at the larvae in the incubator, her heart aching.
Compared to these bugs, what difference was there in her previous life?
She had been locked in the cage of The Fraternity by Sloan, having every bit of her value squeezed out, using her gun and her life to fill Sloan's desires. When the day came that she had no utility value, only death would await her.
Just like those Loom Moth larvae that had their secretions squeezed dry by Sloan and were casually thrown away.
And now, Alice had given these bugs a new life, and also given her a path she had never thought of before.
"I have studied the Loom Moth brought back."
Alice's voice rang out again, interrupting Fox's train of thought.
She walked to the computer, her fingertips typing rapidly on the keyboard, and a string of extremely complex biological dynamic equations and a long gene sequence map instantly popped up on the screen.
"Their secretions, which you call repair fluid, have a core component that is a biological synthetic enzyme never before discovered in the biological World. I have tentatively named it G-Loom Factor."
Alice turned her head, looking at the three of them, her tone calm and professional: "The cell activation value of this enzyme is astonishingly high, which means it can forcibly activate the regenerative potential of mammalian somatic cells, and even repair damaged telomeres and reverse cell aging. In order to squeeze out output, Sloan used forced stimulation to keep these organisms in a state of extreme malnutrition and stress; not only was the yield extremely low, but it also rapidly shortened their lifespans."
She paused, tapped her finger on the screen, and pulled up a nutrient base formula: "I have already formulated a special nutrient base based on their gene sequences and metabolic patterns. At Umbrella Corporation, even bugs must be operated in the most efficient and healthy way. It is expected that within a week, the production of the repair fluid can be increased to twenty times that of the Sloan era. Within three months, we will be able to achieve stable mass production."
Fox stood to the side, looking at the woman who was alone in the laboratory but seemed to rule the entire microscopic World, a sense of absurdity and shock surging in her heart.
The Fraternity had guarded the Loom Moths and the repair fluid for hundreds of years, only treating them as tools to get assassins back to the battlefield faster, and as cash cows for accumulating wealth.
And this girl had seen through the essence of the repair fluid in just half a day, found a way to optimize it, and even saw a broader future for them.
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