Captain America (Part 2)

"Many thanks for this. I'll take my leave." Fury asked a few more questions about the aliens, then stood up to go, seemingly having forgotten about Shen Fei's identity as a mage.

"No need to rush. Since the Director has graced me with his presence, how about we make a deal?" Shen Fei's words made Fury immediately sit back down.

"What deal?" Fury asked in a low voice.

"One piece of intelligence in exchange for one hundred kilograms of Vibranium." Wakanda's Vibranium wasn't scarce in the outside world—back in the day, Howard had gotten enough to forge a shield, let alone what S.H.I.E.L.D. had now.

"Do you know what Vibranium is?" Fury's eyes went wide, wide as saucers.

"Of course I do. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made this request." Shen Fei said with a smile.

"Since you know, you should realize how much that much Vibranium is worth." At current black market prices, one hundred kilograms of Vibranium was valued at one billion—and that was just theoretical; with that quantity, the actual value would be even higher.

"I know, but I believe my information is worth that price." Shen Fei's expression didn't change.

"Tell me what the information is first." After a moment of silence, Fury asked.

"News about Captain America." Shen Fei said bluntly.

"What?" This time, it wasn't Fury who spoke, but Coulson. As a die-hard fan of Captain America, hearing that, he couldn't stay indifferent.

"You know where he is." Fury shifted in his seat and asked in a low voice.

Captain America was a legend. Even Fury wavered at this news.

"I didn't think you'd be that kind of person. That's the Captain—you'd use his remains for a trade?" Coulson's gaze toward Shen Fei shifted instantly, filled with contempt.

As a die-hard fan of Captain America, having someone insult the Captain like this, Coulson was already showing restraint by not drawing his gun on Shen Fei right away.

Beside him, Melinda and Fury's expressions also changed.

"Don't look at me like that. I have the utmost respect for the Captain. But I heard this information from others. If they find out I leaked it, it'll be hard to get any more intel from them in the future. I have to compensate them with something, and there aren't many things on Earth they'd want." The three's stares made Shen Fei quickly explain.

Just as their expressions softened slightly, Shen Fei suddenly tapped the table in front of him, a meaningful smile crossing his face, and added, "Besides, who told you the Captain is dead?"

"The Captain is still alive?" Including Fury, all three of them couldn't help trembling—this was excitement. Even Fury, the spymaster, was no exception.

Melinda wasn't a fan of the Captain, but don't forget who brought her up. Melinda had earned such high trust in S.H.I.E.L.D. because she was raised by Carter.

Carter's relationship with the Captain was well-known.

"This information—one hundred kilograms of Vibranium isn't too much, is it?" Seeing their gazes shift from contempt, Shen Fei finally breathed a sigh of relief. Making up lies wasn't easy either.

But not all of it was false. Shen Fei hadn't considered telling Fury and Coulson about the Captain for free.

However, thinking that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Vibranium would just end up benefiting Hydra anyway, he came up with the trade idea.

Originally, the Captain wouldn't have been discovered for several more years—after all, Tony hadn't become Iron Man yet. But thinking of the Captain lying frozen in the ice, Shen Fei decided to let him out early for some fresh air. Whether it would spook Hydra wasn't his concern.

"Alright, forget the Vibranium. I'll just stop getting information from them from now on. It's not like it's useful to me anyway. They don't know the exact location either—they just happened to pass by Antarctica and saw the Captain. You can calculate based on the flight path of the Captain's plane back then. At worst, it'll cost some manpower and resources to search." Shen Fei said this as if he'd made a sacrifice.

"Director." Coulson's eyes were like those of a lovelorn man, fixed on Fury.

"I understand. Goodbye." With that, the three secretly returned to the Triskelion Headquarters.

"Director." Back in his office, Coulson urged Fury impatiently.

"Coulson, calm down. The intel hasn't been confirmed yet." Melinda quickly grabbed Coulson.

"I'll take a team there." But Coulson wasn't paying her any attention.

"I know. Hill, come here." Fury called Hill over. As a Level 9 agent, Hill was in charge of information processing.

"Found it." Using S.H.I.E.L.D.'s supercomputer simulation, Fury's team quickly confirmed the circumstances of the Captain's crash and roughly pinpointed the location.

Back then, Howard had searched for years to find the Captain's remains, only recovering the Tesseract and never finding the Captain.

It wasn't that Howard hadn't tried. The reasons he couldn't find the crashed plane were, first, the limitations of the technology at the time, and second, the glacier issue.

Plus, the Tesseract was found at the bottom of the sea, so Howard and Carter assumed the Captain had also sunk to the ocean floor and stopped searching.

The Tesseract, which had fallen into the sea, could be found, but the Captain couldn't—because the Tesseract emitted energy, something the Captain couldn't do.

Back then, the Captain's plane had crashed straight into deep underground ice. Antarctica was vast, making it hard to find. But over the years, global warming had thinned the glaciers, and modern technology could probe deeper underground, which was why the Captain was eventually found.

Antarctica.

It was currently the period of polar day, which saved Coulson, leading the team, a lot of trouble.

"Search carefully. Don't miss a single inch." Coulson loudly commanded the agents starting work. These agents didn't know what they were looking for—they just had to find anything unusual.

Nearly thirty Quinjets and over two hundred Strike Team agents—that was the authority Fury had given Coulson.

The numbers were decent, but against the vastness of Antarctica, even with a rough range, it was a drop in the bucket. The cold was brutal, and blizzards struck without warning.

So after two weeks, there was still no progress.

By then, most agents were grumbling, and the search had become perfunctory. Even S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strict discipline couldn't do much about the situation. The only one who never complained was Coulson, who had been working on the front lines from day one.

Though Coulson repeatedly asked Fury for more personnel, Fury had his own difficulties. Sending so many people and wasting so much time searching for someone confirmed dead—even as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he faced many constraints: questions from the United Nations Security Council, inquiries from Pierce.

"Does S.H.I.E.L.D. have too much funding? Wasting it on finding a dead man?" That was the Security Council's reasoning. Of course, the exact words weren't that blunt—the Captain had been made a hero. Saying that outright, if it got out, would cost them their positions.

"No way. Still not found? Do I have to wait until that time?" Shen Fei kept getting calls from Coulson, not to verify the intel's truth, but to ask him to narrow down the exact location, even a little.

But the problem was, Shen Fei couldn't do that. If he could, he'd have dug up the Captain himself.

Half a month later.

"Coulson, give it up. The director can't hold off the pressure anymore. This intel might be fake." Melinda, bundled up tightly, pleaded bitterly at Coulson's side.

"No. How can I let him keep lying here?" Coulson said, ignoring Melinda as he continued his search. As for the other agents, they were even further behind.

Perhaps heaven rewards the faithful, or maybe Coulson's conviction moved the gods—the instrument in his hand suddenly began flashing red without stopping.

"There's something here." Coulson immediately dropped the instrument, grabbed a pickaxe nearby, and started smashing at the ice. Melinda quickly stepped in to help.

"Come over and help!" The other agents around immediately started calling for people.

"Found it." As the ice broke open, a plane embedded in the ice appeared below—it was the very aircraft from the final battle between the Captain and Red Skull. Coulson remembered its shape all too clearly.

"Captain." Coulson charged into the frozen plane first, and immediately spotted the Captain's iconic Star Shield up ahead, frozen solid.

"Nick, the Council has issued an ultimatum. Just pull them back—there's still room to maneuver." In Fury's office, Pierce earnestly tried to persuade him.

Whether they found the Captain's remains or not, Pierce couldn't care less. Even if they did, it was just a dead man.

Just as Fury was about to say something, Hill suddenly walked in from outside. Spotting Pierce, she immediately smiled and nodded.

"Found him. The Captain is alive." Then Hill said, a little excitedly.

"Found him, huh." Fury closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, as if calming his excitement, but in truth, he was thinking about Shen Fei's issue.

This time, Fury supported Coulson's operation for two reasons: finding the Captain was one, and the other was verifying the truth of Shen Fei's intel.

As the King of Spies, Fury wasn't so easily stirred.

Pierce's smile stiffened at Hill's words, but he recovered his composure in a moment. "So what if he's found? Just an old geezer. And besides, maybe this way—"

The Captain's significance wasn't just symbolic—it was practical too. After all, he was the first successful super-soldier. Red Skull's enhancement didn't count as a success.