Heart

The specific heat capacity of sand is quite low. Coupled with the lack of vegetation cover and scarce moisture, the desert heats up particularly quickly during the day. At noon, the ground temperature can reach 80 degrees Celsius. If you bury a raw egg in the sand, it will turn into a soft-boiled egg in no time.

Even desert peoples will choose to hide in the shade at this time, otherwise the heat and dehydration will be fatal; moreover, there are few clouds in the desert and the sunlight is very strong, so it is easy to get sunburned if you don't protect yourself properly.

However, Tony Stark still stumbled through the desert in these harsh conditions. He was no longer the glamorous figure he appeared to be in the newspaper headlines, surrounded by women on both sides; he looked extremely haggard.

His hair, which hadn't been washed for days, was greasy and clumped together; his face bore the marks of time and hardship; his meticulously trimmed mustache was also messy from neglect; and his expensive suit was wrinkled and dirty.

He appeared suddenly in the vast desert, without knowing when or how, wearing nothing but a set of clothes. It was the middle of the night, and the desert temperature was below freezing. The cold night wind quickly took away Tony Stark's body heat. Even though the young master, who wasn't wearing a jacket, wrapped himself tightly in his expensive shirt, it was to no avail. He could only bury himself in the sand to feel a little better.

During the day, the high temperature and sunlight were torture for him. To prevent sun exposure and wind and sand from damaging his skin, the young master, who only wore a vest under his shirt, had to do as a child, unbuttoning the sleeves of his shirt and folding the hem over his head.

Using the stars in the night sky and the sun in the daytime to determine his location, the young master, struggling to survive, headed in one direction during the less extreme mornings and evenings, trying to find an oasis or someone who could take him away from here. For several days, although he had not eaten or drunk anything, and hunger and thirst still plagued him, he had not lost his ability to move due to hypoglycemia and dehydration. Only mental and physical exhaustion continued to torment him.

For a moment, Tony Stark wanted to give up, but deep down he had a feeling that if he did, he would be trapped in this desert forever. Especially today, he seemed to see the edge of the desert, and felt that if he couldn't get out, he would never be able to leave. So, contrary to his usual behavior, he stumbled and walked towards the outside under the scorching sun.

"Cheeseburger... cheeseburger..." Stark kept repeating what he missed most, trying to hypnotize himself and forget the physical pain and fatigue.

But humans always have their limits. After walking for an unknown amount of time in the desert under the scorching heat, the young master finally couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed to the ground. However, Tony Stark, who still retained consciousness, did not feel his body making contact with the ground. Instead, he felt a familiar sensation beneath him, like a mattress.

"How could there be a mattress in the desert?"

With this question in mind, Tony Stark opened his eyes with all his might, and then saw a person wearing a white coat and a mask standing next to him.

Upon seeing him awake, the doctor-looking man said with a smile, "You're awake. Congratulations! Your gender reassignment surgery was a great success, and the facial feminization surgery was also excellent... Tony, oh, no, Miss Jenny Stark."

"Wang Defa! Where is this place?!" Tony Stark tried to shout, but his lips moved only a few times before the voice came out barely audible.

The doctor ignored Tony Stark and turned to leave. A short while later, accompanied by the sound of high heels, a woman hurried over. It was Tony's secretary Pepper Potts.

"Pepper, where am I?" Tony saw a familiar face, tears welling up in his eyes, and then murmured to his secretary, "I'm starving, please buy me some cheeseburgers."

"Tony, you've been in a coma for two weeks. Your bodily functions haven't fully recovered yet. The doctor said you can only eat liquids right now." Pepper Potts's eyes were filled with tears, but she still refused Tony's request, just like she had when she was working.

"I'm unconscious. What happened to me?"

As Tony Stark remained conscious for longer, his voice became clearer. He raised his hands and saw an IV drip attached to the back of his right hand, finger clips for a multi-parameter monitor clamped on the fingers of his left hand, and his ring and little fingers wrapped in gauze and splinted. Both arms were wrapped in thick gauze.

Pepper Potts said, "Obadiah is Worms mimic. It was exposed to the Worms detection device, then stole your Iron Man suit and caused a huge disturbance. You were injured and knocked unconscious while trying to stop it."

A simple sentence triggered Stark's memories. He recalled the firepower of the Iron Monger suit, the Worms disguised as Obadiah dissecting his own mind, and the suit that looked cooler than functional, which he saw before he died.

"My... my heart." The Worms's piercing wound reminded Stark of something. He subconsciously reached for his chest, only to find that he was touching his Arc Reactor, and he could still feel his heart beating.

Just then, the doctor who had been joking came in again, but this time he was carrying a clear, sealed glass jar filled with some kind of liquid, in which a lump of rotting flesh was soaking. "Your heart is here... Do you want to keep it as a souvenir?"

"When you arrived at the hospital, you were practically dead. Your heart was completely destroyed by the knife, and even the best surgeons today couldn't repair it. I'm the one who saved you."

"What unprofessional language, and the way you joke with patients. I really doubt if you're even a doctor. You should go back to college for another five years." Tony Stark retorted without hesitation. He still remembered what the other person said when he first woke up. If he hadn't already confirmed that he wasn't missing a single piece of flesh, he probably would have cried his eyes out.

"You noticed that? I'm definitely not a doctor." Placing the Biological preservation device containing Stark's heart on the bedside table, the doctor-looking man said, "I didn't even go to college. Let me formally introduce myself, my name is Kent Clark."

"You're the guy who developed the Knight System armor." Hearing that name, Tony Stark recalled many things, then turned to look at the mass of flesh where the outline of a heart was barely discernible. "My heart..."

"What's beating inside you now is the latest artificial heart from the Osborn Group. Because the energy problem hasn't been solved, it's been in the laboratory stage," Wei Xiuming said. "But someone sent you your Arc Reactor, and I made it function externally, so this heart can beat normally."

"Although we haven't conducted human trials and can't verify the effects of an artificial heart on human personality, congratulations! You will absolutely not have any heart problems in the future, and when you are 120 years old, it will still be beating as healthily and powerfully as it does today."