A shield needs a hand to heal its wounds. An eye needs a physician to mend its strain. With his Titan and his Oracle secured, Wei Heng turned his attention to the final foundational pillar of his nascent organization: the Hand of Life.
His target was a man who, in the original timeline, had been a beacon of hope before tragically burning himself out: Dr. Sun An.
Target Profile: Sun An.
Codename: Lifeweaver.
Age: 24.
Current Occupation: Surgical Resident, Fuzhou First People's Hospital.
Known Affiliations: Top graduate of Fujian Medical University.
Original Timeline Awakening: Latent A-Rank Biokinetic Healer.
Original Timeline Fate: Deceased. Died of life force exhaustion while performing a mass-healing during the 'Third Wave' invasion of Shanghai.
Wei Heng remembered the stories. Dr. Sun was a miracle worker, a man who could supposedly regrow limbs and cure incurable diseases. But his power came at a terrible cost, a fact no one understood until it was too late. He poured his own life into his patients, and his brilliant flame was extinguished far too soon. Wei Heng would not allow that to happen again.
His approach for Sun An had to be more nuanced than his previous recruitments. A man of science and logic would not be swayed by simple displays of power or promises of strength. He had to be presented with an irrefutable, unsolvable problem, and then offered an impossible solution.
Wei Heng's first move was, as always, financial. Through a newly established shell corporation named 'Veridian Bioscience', he made a substantial, anonymous donation of 50 million yuan to the Fuzhou First People's Hospital. The donation was earmarked for the creation of a new 'Advanced Pathological Research Wing'. The hospital administration, perpetually underfunded, accepted with stunned gratitude.
The second move was to provide the new wing with its first research subject. Wei Heng delivered a sample of biological tissue, carefully preserved in a cryogenic container. It was a piece of the Gorgon-Crawler he had killed weeks ago, stripped of any overt monstrous characteristics. The official story was that it was a newly discovered, extremophilic organism from a deep-sea trench, possessing unique cellular regenerative properties.
The final move was to create the puzzle. Wei Heng spent a week in his loft, using the alchemical knowledge from one of his 100,000 legacies. He didn't create a poison; he created a complex bio-agent. It was a masterpiece of cellular sabotage, designed to mimic a hyper-aggressive, degenerative neurological disorder with symptoms that defied all known medical science. He then hired a professional actor, a man in his late forties, and paid him an exorbitant sum to become the world's first and only patient of this fictional disease.
The 'patient' was admitted to the Fuzhou First People's Hospital, his case immediately baffling the top neurologists. His condition deteriorated at a terrifying but precisely controlled rate. The case was quickly escalated to the new, Veridian-funded research wing.
And just as Wei Heng had predicted, it landed on the desk of Dr. Sun An.
Wei Heng, now using a forged ID that listed him as a junior research assistant from Veridian Bioscience, began his observation. He saw a young man running on pure caffeine and willpower. Sun An was brilliant, his diagnostic process sharp and intuitive, but he was also a ghost haunting the hospital corridors. He worked thirty-six-hour shifts, slept in on-call rooms, and subsisted on stale coffee and instant noodles. His eyes held a haunted, desperate intensity—the look of a man trying to outrun a memory. Wei Heng knew that memory: the death of Sun An's younger sister from a rare genetic disorder five years prior. It was the failure that both fueled his genius and drove him toward self-destruction.
For days, Sun An threw himself at the case. He was the only one who made any progress, noting microscopic similarities between the patient's degenerating cells and the 'deep-sea organism' sample. He was getting close to an answer that didn't exist, a testament to his incredible intellect. He was also killing himself in the process, his exhaustion palpable.
On the fifth day, Wei Heng initiated the crisis point. He sent a coded signal to a micro-device he had given the actor, activating the final stage of the bio-agent. The patient went into full systemic shock, his vital signs crashing.
The ward exploded into controlled chaos. A "code blue" was called, and doctors swarmed the room. Wei Heng stood in the corner, a silent, unnoticed observer in a lab coat. He watched as the senior physicians tried everything—defibrillation, adrenaline, experimental drugs. Nothing worked. The patient was flatlining.
"We're losing him!" the chief resident shouted.
It was in that moment of absolute failure, the scene a horrific echo of his sister's final moments, that something inside Sun An broke. A desperate, primal scream of "NO!" tore from his throat. He shoved his way to the bedside, placing his hands on the patient's chest, not for CPR, but as an instinctive, desperate gesture.
And then, the power awakened.
A faint, emerald-green light, visible only to Wei Heng's Spiritual Sense, enveloped Sun An's hands. The frantic beeping of the heart monitor, which had become a flat drone, suddenly blipped. Once. Twice. Then it returned to a steady, rhythmic beat. The patient's blood pressure stabilized. The seizures stopped. On the monitors, vital signs returned to normal with impossible speed.
The room fell into a stunned silence. The other doctors stared, mouths agape, at what could only be described as a miracle.
But the miracle had a price. The vibrant, desperate energy that had filled Sun An moments before was gone. The haunted look in his eyes was replaced by a deathly pallor. He swayed on his feet, his own life force almost completely drained, and collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Before anyone else could react, Wei Heng moved. "He's in hypoglycemic shock from the stress!" he announced, his voice carrying the authority of a seasoned professional. "I've got him."
He knelt beside Sun An, his movements shielding him from view. He placed a hand on the doctor's back and channeled a minuscule, almost undetectable stream of pure Qi into his body. It was just enough to stabilize his life force, to pull him back from the brink of death. To the onlookers, it appeared as though he was simply checking his pulse before the nurses arrived with a gurney.
Later that night, Sun An awoke in a private recovery room. The first thing he saw was the young research assistant from Veridian Bioscience, sitting calmly in a chair by his bed.
"You're awake," Wei Heng said. "How do you feel?"
"Like I ran a marathon and then got hit by a truck," Sun An rasped, his throat dry. "The patient...?"
"Stable. Making a full recovery, miraculously," Wei Heng replied. "They're calling you a god."
Sun An frowned, trying to piece together the chaotic memories. The green light... the feeling of life pouring out of him... "What happened?"
"You awakened," Wei Heng said simply. "You have an ability. A power to heal, to manipulate biological processes on a cellular level. You poured your own life energy into that man to save him. Had you continued for another ten seconds, you would be dead."
Sun An stared at him, his scientific mind rebelling against the words, but his own experience screaming that they were true. "Who are you?"
"I am your benefactor," Wei Heng said, his expression unyielding. "The patient, the disease, the deep-sea organism—all of it was a fabrication. A test, designed for you and you alone."
The revelation hit Sun An like a physical blow. "You... you risked a man's life?"
"The actor was never in any real danger. I was in control of the entire process. I needed to push you to the absolute limit to force your awakening under controlled circumstances. In the real world, your first miracle would have been your last."
Wei Heng leaned forward, his ancient eyes locking onto the doctor's. "Your power is a gift, but you are using it like a fool. You are trying to fill a cup with water from your own veins. You will run dry. I can teach you how to draw water from the ocean instead."
He laid out the terms, the same way he had for Gao Qiang and Mei Ling. He spoke of a coming war, of the need for people with extraordinary abilities. He offered Sun An a cultivation technique, the 'Wood Spirit Life-Balancing Art,' which would teach him to channel ambient life energy—from plants, from the air, from the very earth—to fuel his healing, preserving his own vitality.
"I will give you a fully-funded, state-of-the-art laboratory," Wei Heng continued, his voice a quiet temptation. "Unlimited resources. The freedom to research cures for diseases that plague humanity, to push the boundaries of medicine and biokinetics. You will be able to save not just one life at a time, but millions. All you have to do is pledge your skills, your genius, and your loyalty to my cause."
Sun An was silent for a long time, his gaze distant. He thought of his sister. He thought of the countless patients he had lost, the limits of science he had railed against. This boy was offering him the one thing he had always craved: the power to truly cheat death, without paying the ultimate price himself. It was an insane, impossible proposition, but the feeling of Qi that Wei Heng had left in his body, a small, warm seed of vitality, was undeniable proof.
"What is the name of your organization?" Sun An finally asked.
"For now, it has no name," Wei Heng replied. "But its purpose is to be a shield for humanity. An Aegis against the coming storm."
Sun An looked at his own hands, remembering the feeling of life flowing through them. He had a choice: to return to his life of quiet desperation, haunted by his limits, or to step into a new world of impossible power and responsibility. For a man who had dedicated his life to fighting the inevitable, there was only one answer.
"When do I start?"
The Hand of Life was now his. The Shield, the Eye, and the Hand. The three core pillars of Aegis were in place. The foundation was complete. Now, it was time to build.