What the hell was that? Why were they suddenly saying things I couldn't understand?
Coulson's face was clouded with worry. He had originally hoped to learn what plan Evenson and Melinda were discussing through their conversation. But the moment they opened their mouths, they started chattering away in a language that left him completely baffled! Forget extracting useful intelligence from it—he had not even figured out what country's language they were speaking.
This showed just how important it was to master a foreign language, and that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified matters were truly not so easily understood by unrelated people.
But if he backed down over such a small difficulty, he would be underestimating the great Agent Coulson. Based on his many years of knowing Melinda, he believed that language he could not understand was most likely Chinese. And though he did not understand its content or meaning, his solid agent skills had somehow allowed him to forcibly memorize the rough pronunciation of those words.
So now, all he needed was the meaning behind those pronunciations. Three books lay open before Coulson. He took a deep breath, buried his head in the pile of old books, and began flipping through them over and over.
The first book was Basic Mandarin for Beginners. The second was the Xinhua Dictionary. The third was How to Use a Dictionary. He had placed all his hopes on these three books.
"Still haven't figured it out?" After some time, Skye sat impatiently across from the table. Fitz had already removed the mechanical exoskeleton from her body.
Coulson looked up at her and replied just as impatiently, "Not yet. I found many words with similar pronunciations, but none of them make any sense. Put together, they're simply incomprehensible. So..." Coulson irritably closed the books. "I think that even