"Yifang, remember not to be late tomorrow. Scott's combat practicum is in the morning, after all. You know how that stiff-necked guy is—he's not as easygoing as I am." Storm finished her earnest reminder to Lu Yifang and walked outside.
He glanced at the sky. The sun was already sinking, and it had taken them half the day to clean the house.
"Got it, Miss Storm." Lu Yifang waved to her, watching as Storm and Wolverine headed off.
"Then I should be going too," Coulson said from nearby. His only job had been to bring Lu Yifang here.
If not for Storm and Wolverine, Coulson would have left ages ago. He had other assignments to take care of. That bloodsucking old skinflint Fury could sit in the director's office sipping coffee, while ordering his agents to run themselves ragged all over the world without a second thought.
This rotten capitalist lifestyle was truly... enviable. Coulson secretly vowed that if he ever became Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he'd spend his days lounging in an air-conditioned room, drinking coffee, then head out to show off every week or so, once he got tired of sitting around like Fury. He'd stay far away from the backbreaking life of running around all day.
Of course, that was all just wishful thinking. He still hadn't heard back about the Level Eight agent application he'd submitted. Worried about his future prospects, Coulson hurriedly drove Lola away.
Taking a deep breath, Lu Yifang looked at the now-quiet house and went inside. He picked up the bag containing several takeout containers, tossed it in the trash, and then closed the door.
The setting sun shone through the window onto the floor. Dust motes drifted faintly in the air, and Lu Yifang could just make out the musty scent of rotting wood from the bookshelves.
After glancing at the bookshelves on the first floor, Lu Yifang chose to go upstairs. The house had changed hands seven years ago, but it seemed the new owner hadn't changed its layout. More accurately, the owner had never even moved in.
The first floor was still a bookstore, the second floor was living quarters, and the third floor was for storing miscellaneous things.
With Storm and Logan's help, the first and second floors had been cleaned enough to be livable, but they hadn't really touched the third floor. Hoping to get it all done in one go, Lu Yifang decided to clean that floor too.
He wouldn't be going up there often anyway, so a quick tidy-up would do. It shouldn't take too long.
Creak!
The old door swung open, and a strong smell of mildew hit him. Lu Yifang frowned, hurried to the window, pulled back the curtains, and opened it.
Light and fresh air poured in. As Lu Yifang breathed a sigh of relief, the contents of the room came into view.
More or less as he'd expected, the room was mostly piled with broken furniture and moldy bookshelves and books.
"There's a little more here than I expected. Cleaning the room won't be hard, but dealing with all this junk might be a pain. Whatever—I'll just dump it all outside for now and get someone to clear it away later." Having made up his mind, Lu Yifang got to work. With his powers, moving things was easy.
The only thing he had to watch out for was getting dust on his clothes. But as he carefully shifted the clutter aside, one small drawer table suddenly caught his attention.
Unlike the other junk, the table was old but completely dust-free, as if someone had just wiped it down.
Had someone cleaned it? The thought had barely occurred to Lu Yifang when he immediately dismissed it.
Even if someone had wiped the table, all the dust Lu Yifang had kicked up while moving things around would have settled on it. But there wasn't a speck of dust to be seen.
As Lu Yifang stood there, puzzled, he shifted position, and a ray of sunlight happened to fall across the table from behind him.
In that beam of light, Lu Yifang finally noticed what seemed to be a mysterious layer of energy surrounding the table, keeping all the dust in the air away.
"Something's off." Lu Yifang narrowed his eyes and focused.
In the real world inside his mind, he sensed the flow of magnetic energy around the table. The source of the field seemed to be something inside it.
Lu Yifang walked over and carefully opened the drawer. A black leather-bound journal came into view.
"Learning Journal!" Lu Yifang picked up the notebook-like book and saw the four Chinese characters on its cover.
He could clearly sense a strange energy contained within the seemingly ordinary notebook. It flowed in an extremely complex pattern. Just a brief glance at it through the real world made him feel dizzy.
After hesitating for a moment, Lu Yifang opened the journal. On the blank first page, three characters stood out: "Lu Shanyan."
"Father!" Lu Yifang traced the familiar handwriting. This was his father's journal.
Just as Lu Yifang lost himself in memories for an instant, golden light suddenly radiated from the pages. In the real world, he could clearly feel some of the energy concentrated in the journal stirring, transforming into golden specks that spilled into the air.
"What's going on?" Before Lu Yifang could figure out what was happening, the golden specks in the air suddenly began to whirl under the influence of some unknown force, forming a golden ring more than a meter in diameter.
Within the ring, space bent and stretched in an unimaginable way, eventually forming a passageway.
At the other end of the passage, a figure dressed in a yellow robe slowly stepped through and appeared before Lu Yifang.
The mysterious figure in yellow glanced around, then fixed her gaze on Lu Yifang. A gentle woman's voice came from beneath the robe.
"Long time no see, Yifang."
"It's you!" Lu Yifang stared at the woman before him, unable to hide his surprise.
"Very good. I see you still remember me." The mysterious woman in yellow nodded, sounding somewhat relieved.
"How could I forget you?" Lu Yifang looked at the mysterious woman, his expression conflicted.
"After all, you were the one who sent me to the Orphanage seven years ago!"
Before you continue