Heat filled his body, but it couldn't escape with his sweat. A stifling pressure weighed on him from within, as if something heavy were pressing down on his chest. Though Lu Yifang lay in bed with his eyes tightly shut, the discomfort on his face was plain to see.
He had a fever!
In that half-awake, half-asleep state, Lu Yifang's muddled consciousness felt a pair of aged hands stroking his head. All the while, those hands kept tapping his forehead.
He wanted to do something, but his body seemed to be out of his control, as if his soul were trapped inside it. He couldn't move at all.
It was an awful feeling. It reminded him of the time right after he'd transmigrated and become a baby. His mind had already matured, but his frail infant body held him back. Forget moving around—even thinking was a tremendous burden. All he could do each day was eat and sleep, drifting through those first few years in a daze.
Lu Yifang could only struggle with all his might to regain control of his body. After fighting desperately, he finally managed to force his eyelids open.
Through the dim, blurry haze, the first thing Lu Yifang saw was a gleaming... bald old man. He wore a suit and was leaning over Lu Yifang's chest, stroking his head with a large, aged but pale hand. Every so often, he gave it a tap.
Lu Yifang tried to make out the man's face, but could only see a vague outline. When Lu Yifang opened his eyes, the blurry-faced old man seemed to notice. The bald old man lowered his head slightly and flashed Lu Yifang a strange smile!
"Ah!!" Lu Yifang shouted as he opened his eyes.
"Child, what's wrong?" A gentle woman's voice rang out. Warm hands took hold of Lu Yifang, trying to soothe him.
The bald old man had vanished from his view. In his place stood a blonde woman. She looked to be in her fifties. Even careful attention to her appearance couldn't hide the wrinkles around her eyes, but her still-beautiful face hinted at how lovely she must have been in her youth.
"Ms. Emma, it's you." Seeing the blonde woman, Lu Yifang breathed a sigh of relief, then apologized.
"Sorry, I had a nightmare."
"It's all right, child." Ms. Emma shook her head, the same kind smile on her face as always. She was a kind and gentle woman.
As the head of Howard Orphanage, she treated every child who came through its doors with the same warmth, caring for them like a mother. She never held back her tenderness or affection, even for a child like Lu Yifang, who was nearly eighteen and still hadn't been adopted.
"Yifang, can you tell me about the dream you just had?" Ms. Emma asked, holding his hand.
"There's not much to tell. I just dreamed about a strange... bald guy," Lu Yifang said casually.
"A bald guy? What did he look like?" Ms. Emma pressed.
"He was... um, I remember he was..." Lu Yifang scratched his head, as if he'd forgotten—or perhaps couldn't quite put it into words.
"Was he like this?" As Lu Yifang watched, Ms. Emma suddenly yanked off her long blonde wig, revealing the same strange smile as the bald old man.
"Ah, a bald head!" Lu Yifang shouted, sitting bolt upright in bed.
At the same time, a startled girl's voice rang out.
Lu Yifang turned to look. The girl wore dark blue jeans and a black leather jacket and looked about fifteen or sixteen. She had long, dark brown hair. Though she hadn't fully grown into her figure yet, her curves were already quite pronounced.
"Hey, Katie. What are you doing here? Cough, cough..." Lu Yifang said, coughing dryly. His memories had come rushing back, but the feverish heat and tightness in his chest from the dream hadn't improved at all—because he really did have a fever.
"Ms. Emma asked me to keep an eye on you. She also told me to give you this fever medicine when you woke up." The girl named Katie had calmed down by now. She handed Lu Yifang a glass of water and a few pills.
"Oh, thanks!"
"No problem. We're friends, after all." As soon as Lu Yifang took the water and medicine, Katie turned and sat back down at the desk, expressionlessly tapping away at the keyboard.
"The Wi-Fi in your room really does have the best signal in the whole Orphanage. I'm so jealous."
Lu Yifang: "..."
He couldn't help wondering if the reason the girl had patiently watched over him had less to do with Ms. Emma's request or their many years of friendship at the Orphanage, and more to do with her coming over to freeload off his Wi-Fi.
"Were you having a nightmare?" The sound of typing suddenly stopped, and the girl turned her head slightly to ask.
"Yeah. A two-hundred-percent terrifying nightmare within a nightmare. Cough!" Lu Yifang said through gritted teeth as he coughed.
"What did you dream about? You kept talking in your sleep just now, mumbling, 'Bald head, what a scary bald head!'" Katie looked at Lu Yifang. Her expression barely changed, but she couldn't hide her curiosity.
"If you don't bring up bald heads in front of me, we can still be friends," Lu Yifang said irritably. He didn't know what was wrong with him lately. He'd been having nightmares every day, and they were always about bald heads.
Could I really be haunted by a bald ghost? If you've got the guts, show yourself! I'll go buy ten or eight pounds of crosses at the church. Even if I can't exorcise the bastard, I'll beat him to death with them... Hmm, the priest at the church charges too much. I'll go to the general store instead.
"Do you want to see a doctor? You've had a fever for days now," Katie asked.
"Forget it. Too much hassle." Lu Yifang shook his head. "There's only one private clinic nearby. Unless it's something urgent, you have to wait two or three days just to get an appointment."
"It's fine. I just hacked into that clinic's computer. If you want to go, I can make sure you're first on the appointment list," Katie said without changing her expression.
Lu Yifang knew all about Katie's hacking skills, but after thinking it over, he still refused.
"Better not. It's only a mild fever. I haven't even hit thirty-nine degrees. I can just take some medicine and tough it out. Besides..." Lu Yifang's voice trailed off. He suddenly sighed, his smile turning bitter.
"You know I'll be an adult in another half a month. If I hadn't gotten sick, I'd have already left the Orphanage. I don't have much money to spare once I'm out, so I should save where I can. Just booking an appointment costs ten dollars. I have health insurance, but it won't cover everything for free."
"Suit yourself." After hearing what Lu Yifang had to say, Katie turned back to her computer and paid him no further attention.
The keyboard clattered away. To Lu Yifang, it sounded like a lullaby. The medicine must have been kicking in. He hoped the fever would go away completely after he got some sleep.
And one more thing... Don't let me dream about bald heads again. I hate bald heads.
Ten minutes later, Katie stopped typing and frowned at Lu Yifang, who was lying in bed. He was mumbling in his sleep. "Bald head... damn bald head. So many damn bald heads!"
Meanwhile, beneath an ordinary-looking school somewhere in New York, inside a huge spherical metal chamber, a bald old man in a suit and wheelchair was taking a device helmet off his head.
"Professor, did you find the awakened child?" A man wearing glasses that looked like a pair of scanners came up behind him and asked with concern.
"I found him, but I didn't." The bald old man rubbed his brow wearily. Given his mental power, using Cerebro Amplifier once shouldn't have left him this exhausted. But this child was different.
"He's special. He can block my power. My mental power can't enter his mind, so I can't speak with him. His ability even interferes with my efforts to pinpoint his location, making it difficult to determine how far away he is."
"So this child's ability is Psychic-type?" The man considered the bald old man's words.
"Not at all." The bald professor shook his head.
"Though I don't know exactly what his ability is, my experience tells me it has nothing to do with the Psychic-type. We need to find him as soon as possible. His ability hasn't fully awakened, and it's extremely unstable.
"I can sense that the child is very anxious and uneasy right now. I tried to calm him, but it didn't seem to help much. So I can only do my best to locate him and speak with him in person."
Though he looked tired, the bald professor picked up the helmet again.
"Professor, you should get some rest. You've been overexerting your mental power for days to find this child." Seeing his teacher pick up the helmet again, the man finally couldn't hold back.
"Professor, I don't understand. There are many Mutants in this world. Our goal is to help Mutants in need, but many don't need our help. They can live among ordinary people just fine.
"So why are you so determined to find a Mutant child whose abilities haven't fully awakened? Maybe he doesn't need our help that badly."
"Scott." The bald professor looked at his finest student.
"Whether this child needs our help or not, we have to find him, because, as I said, he's special."
After a moment of silence, the bald professor continued, explaining, "Through Cerebro, I can vaguely sense the immense power this child possesses. Even my old friend and I are far inferior to him."
Scott sucked in a sharp breath, his voice filled with disbelief. "Professor, you mean..."
"That's right. This child may very well be a Level 5 mutant." As he spoke, the bald professor put the helmet back on.
"We have to find this child as soon as possible—at least before my old friend Magneto does."
Before you continue