Those Who Refuse to Adapt

Sitting in a café on Hollywood Boulevard, Henry enjoyed his aromatic coffee while reading the Vedas.

This set of fundamental scriptures of Hinduism and Brahmanism was a gift that Kingo gave me one day with a strange look on his face. Of course, it was not a translated version, nor even in the India or Sanskrit used today.

The evolution of the script in this ancient Eastern country, from seal script to clerical script and regular script, is basically just a difference in writing style. Considering the convenience of writing, there are also cursive script, running script, and other styles.

The meaning represented by characters did not differ much from dynasty to dynasty. Although the official language of each dynasty was different, it was only a difference in pronunciation. Therefore, it is not too difficult for modern people to recognize ancient characters.

As a member of the Indo-European language family, the difference between Old Sanskrit and Modern Sanskrit is more like the difference between Latin and English—they are practically different languages.

Then, numerous city-states of varying sizes emerged, and foreign cultures were introduced, causing languages to evolve and change, further increasing their complexity.

As a result, India today has nearly 1,400 identifiable mother tongues. While Hindi is the only official language and English is the second official language, there are as many as 22 legal languages and six officially recognized classical languages.

This means that understanding the gift from Kingo is no less challenging than deciphering a new language.

Moreover, a common problem with ancient classics is that they are intentionally or unintentionally altered during their transmission. Henry once looked for the Vedas preserved in the Los Angeles Library, and sure enough, they differed from the contents of Kingo's gift.

I was working on Kree language and Skrull a while ago, but after a little research, I realized I couldn't understand them at all, so I put them aside for the time being. I only picked them up again today.

I compared the Vedas from the library with the ones I remembered, and then translated them into India.

Unfortunately, the translator focused too much on fluency and elegance, neglecting the most basic aspect of faithfulness. Moreover, even after multiple translations, if the meaning doesn't leap off-topic, it's still a significant departure from the intended meaning. Henry initially assessed that the translation was quite different from the original.

Just as Henry felt he was beginning to understand the Vedas that Kingo had given him, a familiar face sat down opposite him.

The waitress who had accepted Henry's tip from the beginning had intended to come over and help us move the customer out. Besides, there were plenty of other empty seats in the restaurant, so there was no need to share a table.

Henry reached out and stopped the young girl, who also harbored Hollywood dreams, and greeted her, "Mr. Coulson, would you like a cup of morning coffee?"

"Caffeine helps keep your mind sharp and alert all day, at least in the morning. I recommend pairing it with their cookies; they taste really good."

With his signature slicked-back hair, Phil Coulson's usually shiny forehead now seemed to be shrouded in shadow.

The so-called "darkness between the eyebrows" refers to this facial appearance.

This usually mild-mannered man, unusually showing anger, said, "Mr. Brown, we just received news of a car bombing in Detroit. The driver and the police officer who handled the incident died after arriving at the hospital."

"What a pity. You wanted me to adapt their story into a movie? But I've already resigned and am no longer the CEO of Stark Studios. You should know that, right?"

"The deceased pilot was one of the core members of the former Red Empire's Siberian Alien Research Institute. Mr. Brown, do you have any explanation for this?"

"Yes, I admit to killing them, I bombed them. I was the one who stabbed Jesus to death with the Spear of Longinus, and I was involved in stabbing Caesar to death in front of the Senate. I was also Jack the Ripper. Hmm, wait, let me think of any other unsolved cases that no one has taken responsibility for, I'll admit to them all."

Phil Coulson was initially disappointed, then became furious. "I'm not kidding! An innocent police officer has been killed."

"So I said I'm sorry. Or do you think I should say something gloating? I'm not that kind of jerk."

"But you just admitted you did it. How did you do it?"

"I don't know either. Shouldn't this be your job to investigate how I did it? Maybe the first step should be to check the Passenger information of major airlines to see if there's any record of me going to Detroit and coming back."

But you're Kryptonian!

"Good heavens, this topic just won't go away." Henry took off his glasses and placed them on the closed book, rubbing the bridge of his nose impatiently.

Phil Coulson looked through his glasses and noticed that the text in the book was distorted. He asked in surprise, "Are you nearsighted?"

"Is it strange to be nearsighted after staring at a tiny screen all day at Stark Studios? As a programmer, it's the odd ones out if they're not nearsighted, okay?"

Henry retrieved his glasses, put them back on, and began packing his things. "Anyway, if you think I did it, call the police and have me arrested."

"What If...? you want to frame me, at least fabricate some plausible evidence. Anyway, I'm already out of the picture, Stark Industries ' lawyers won't be there to help me anymore."

"Those top lawyers aren't people you can just hire with money. The lawyers I can find can't handle people like you."

Stop doing such wicked things.

Henry left the bill and tip on the table and then left.

Phil Coulson, his face ashen, remained seated, unwilling to leave.

The staff should have cleared the table and asked the customer who hadn't made a purchase to leave. But his face was so unpleasant that the young women in the shop were afraid to approach him.

When another Black man walked into the store, he plopped down in Henry's seat. Nick Fury immediately asked, "How long have you been staring at that guy today?"

Despite his bad mood, Phil Coulson quickly regained his composure and replied, "From the time he entered the coffee shop until he just left, it was one hour and fifty minutes. Well, thirty minutes ago, another target in Chicago was killed in a close-quarters attack. He was in the suburbs; apparently, a local gang mistook him for an enemy of the Russian Mob and stabbed him to death with a butterfly knife."

"Does he have accomplices?" Phil Coulson asked instinctively.

Nick Fury frowned deeply at the question. "I thought you were the kind of person who supported the presumption of innocence in law."

"But he's the one with only a motive."

"I would say his motives were indeed stronger than most people's. But whether he was the only one is another matter. Do you have complete knowledge of everything those people did in Russia, or during the Red Empire era? And what about after they came to United States?"

"So Nick Fury, you think he wasn't the one who did these things? Or that someone is trying to mislead us?"

"Let me put it this way. What If...? he did nothing wrong, and he really is the Kryptonian you imagine, how would you deal with him? Use Kryptonite? Does such a thing even exist on Earth?"

So we're just going to accept this?

Nick Fury offered a final word of advice. "Stop expecting a living person to live like a fictional character in a comic book."

We can have doubts, but ultimately we must rely on evidence.

"What If...? you remain trapped in these emotions, unable to break free and objectively face everything, how will you shoulder responsibilities in the future? Are you going to doubt that man the first thing you do when you encounter any problem?"

"Don't forget, the CIA also recovered another unidentified body with an 'S' on its belt in Central Park, New York."

Although he was wearing a yellow and blue battle suit, not a red and blue one.

"I heard that the deceased's physical strength was terrifying, and his blood sample was even more unusual. Finding a way to get that body back from the CIA is our priority right now."

"These kinds of matters aren't under the CIA's jurisdiction, and they don't have jurisdiction domestically either. Unfortunately, our inside contacts can't find out the location of the body; even the director doesn't know."

While the Infinity Stones ' wish-granting mechanism corrected many things, the bodies of Sentry died under the influence of forces from another universe were still left behind and recovered by the U.S. government.

Perhaps neither the Sentry nor the Void are so easily and completely destroyed.

Phil Coulson made a final, almost groaning, struggle. "Sir, What If...? the real Superman isn't what we imagine, what about Captain America? He's a real person, after all."

"I don't know. I've never fought alongside that captain, nor have I ever seen him in person."

"Is there really no way for us to prove these things?"

After thinking for a moment, Nick Fury said, "We can prove that an ordinary person is not ordinary at all; he lied and pretended to be someone else. But how do we prove that someone who is already extraordinary is actually very special?"

"He never hid his special characteristics from the beginning. For a long time, he was regarded as a ' Mutants ' within the organization. What everyone thought was a foolish act of self-disclosure at the time has now become an obstacle for us to prove that he was lying."

"Because most tests targeting him can be withstood by his Steel Body. Unless you disregard his human rights as a taxpayer and arrest him for research in a laboratory."

"But then, how are you any different from those former researchers of the Red Empire? This can hardly be called a righteous act."

Frustrated and unsure of what to do, Phil Coulson rambled on, "Perhaps we can create an accident around him, causing a major crisis that ordinary people couldn't handle. Let's test if he has super strength and Super Speed."

"Are you serious, child? Don't you want to listen to what you're saying? Testing that man with the lives of innocent people. What If...? he really doesn't have those abilities? Or can he just heartlessly ignore everything that's happening?"

After calming down, Phil Coulson said dejectedly, "I'm sorry, sir. I—I don't know what to do."

"He's Henry Brown, not Clark Kent. Remember that. This is the last time I'm reminding you."