Replacement

The three of them took a quick look around the entire villa. Only then did Tony lead them to their accommodations: a few guest rooms that were rarely used.

The house consisted of three circular sections of different sizes. The largest contained his living room and lab, with a secret lab below that extended into the mountain.

The three sections above it contained a huge bedroom, a row of guest rooms, and, at the very top, an exceptionally high observation deck.

Fang Bie and the others picked two rooms at random from the row of guest rooms.

"Tony, I don't think you need to bring us to your home. You could've just dropped me off anywhere. I have my own home to go back to!"

Yinsen said, clearly uncomfortable. He had a home of his own. There weren't any family members there, but all the same, he felt much more comfortable living in his own place.

"Of course!" Tony replied with a serious nod, glancing at him. "Fang Bie doesn't have anywhere to go, so I brought him here. As for you, Yinsen..."

He led them into the lab. The door opened automatically, and Jarvis's voice sounded right on cue. "Sir, should I add these two gentlemen to the room access list?"

"Of course. Add them to the access list for every room except the underground lab. And not my bedroom!" Tony said casually.

Neither Fang Bie nor Yinsen thought much of it. They had no idea this was practically the highest level of access he could grant anyone apart from his secretary.

Tony quickly continued, "Jarvis, give me the materials needed to make a miniature Arc Reactor."

"Sir, the Arc Reactor requires palladium, which is highly radioactive. Should I take precautions to contain it?" Jarvis asked almost as soon as Tony finished speaking. The mechanical arms, however, didn't stop working; they continued their other tasks at full speed.

Fang Bie couldn't tell how the materials were related, but Yinsen recognized traces of the materials they had used to build things in the cave.

"No need. See the Arc Reactor in my chest? It's what's keeping me alive." As he spoke, Tony briskly took off his suit jacket, revealing the solid muscles he had built up while training in the cave.

At the same time, the mechanical arms took a ring-shaped piece of palladium from a refrigerator and placed it in front of him.

"Yinsen, do me a favor. Just like we did in the cave..." Tony hadn't paid any attention to the busy mechanical arms. As soon as he took off his jacket, he lay down on a chair, pulled out several wires, and connected them to the reactor in his chest.

Yinsen hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital and have them disinfect everything? I know a method of sterilization. Give me some basic medical equipment, and I can do it myself."

"Mr. Yinsen, the lab has been sterilized with ultraviolet light, so there won't be any germs. Please proceed with the surgery without worry." Jarvis's voice came from above them. A moment later, a mechanical arm extended a remarkably elegant-looking reactor toward them.

Before either of them could react, the highly intelligent robotic butler had already assembled an Arc Reactor.

Unlike the Arc Reactor Tony had built by hand in the cave, this one was filled with mechanical elegance and a futuristic blue glow. Even its power indicator was several tiers more advanced.

"All right!" Yinsen nodded and skillfully took surgical tools from the workbench, mostly things like tweezers and cotton swabs.

Fang Bie, meanwhile, had been drawn to another device Tony had taken out.

"Fang Bie, this is the Smart Simultaneous Interpretation Device I told you about. Hold it by your ear, and you'll get this effect. We are in the United States, after all, so you need to get used to the environment as quickly as possible!" Tony casually tossed him a device that looked like a Bluetooth earpiece from a pile of machinery nearby.

He was lying on the bed and still had the presence of mind to think about something like this. Talk about nerves of steel.

Fang Bie caught it easily and hooked it over his ear. Looking in the mirror, he saw the slender device, barely thicker than a finger, unfold by itself as if it were alive and settle beside his ear canal. A small screen appeared in front of his right eye.

"How amazing!" Fang Bie exclaimed. There was no denying that this kind of technology, far ahead of its time, had a charm all its own. As he watched the two men work, he examined the device.

Tony and Yinsen were still speaking English to each other, since it was their mother tongue. With the device, Fang Bie could clearly understand what they were saying.

He could also quickly pick out unfamiliar words as they appeared before his eyes. This learning device was incredibly useful to him!

Meanwhile, once Yinsen had familiarized himself with the tools, he quickly slipped into the role of an old hand at medicine.

He pulled several nerve leads connected to different parts of Tony's body over to him and stuck them against Tony's skin. The tweezers in his hand had already separated the tangled wires, which had gone unattended for days. Carefully, he pulled out the entire battery.

"Change the battery quickly, unless you want me dead!" Tony said urgently. The moment the battery was removed, he felt his blood flow slow and the pressure on his heart suddenly increase.

That was what would really kill him!

"Don't rush me. I've operated on your heart. I know what I'm doing." Yinsen calmly cleaned the wound with a cotton swab, then removed the iron ring around Tony's chest and replaced it with a new one.

He had made the iron ring too, to keep Tony's chest from growing over the device that was keeping him alive.

Now that they had to install another ring, they needed to keep one in place. But this time, they could use a material better suited to the human body, one that wouldn't trigger an automatic rejection. Steel-Chromium Alloy, for instance.

"Bzzzt..." Once Yinsen had cleaned the wound and reinstalled the electrolyte, electrolyte solution, and new reactor, color finally returned to Tony's ashen face.

"God, I thought you were sending me to meet the Lord!" Tony said, breaking into a sweat. He had been incredibly nervous during the replacement, too.

"I'm the doctor. You can't possibly know better than I do when you're doing well or poorly!" Yinsen replied casually. He was usually a very easygoing man, but when it came to his profession, he was stricter than anyone.

"Got it. You're a top-notch doctor!" Tony pulled the wires off himself and started to get dressed.

"I think you should put a cover over your chest. Otherwise..." Fang Bie ambled over to them. By now, his words had been translated into English.

He flicked his hand, and the reactor in Tony's chest came right out. He didn't pull out the wires inside, though; they were still connected to Tony's chest.