Malice

Doom had no such thing as empathy. Just as powerful people among humans usually discarded emotions like "sympathy" to make themselves stronger, the arms business demanded an especially hard heart—particularly when your boss was a member of the Blood Clan.

The Blood Clan members in movies and TV shows who fell madly in love with humans were merely using propaganda to lower humanity's resistance. Without someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, would those unknown writers really have written for love alone?

Likewise, Doom understood that this man calling himself "Doctor Death" wouldn't believe his words could sway him. This was a ruthless man who dared to experiment on Blood Clan members; even lowly non-pureblood Blood Clan members were still Blood Clan.

Wei Xiuming was absolutely certain that this man named Doom was lying.

The power of Magnetic Field Rotation let him sense a person's general mental state. He was extremely sensitive to emotional fluctuations and could tell almost immediately whether someone was lying—unless they were professionally trained, like Black Eggplant, Nick Fury. Wei Xiuming couldn't sense the slightest emotional fluctuation from Fury. He didn't know whether Fury truly had such incredible control over his emotions or was using some kind of high-tech device to achieve it.

Even as a middleman, anyone doing arms deals for vampires was certainly no good person.

Whether Doom truly wanted the people of Latovinia to live better lives or not, becoming a middleman—whether out of necessity or for some other reason—wasn't something a good person would do. The greatest difference between good and bad people was that good people had their own moral and behavioral boundaries.

Take that movie named after a certain hero. To wipe out a gang that was terrorizing the region, the protagonist changed his name and infiltrated the Black Tiger Gang, which trafficked people and smuggled opium. With his extraordinary skills and courage, he took out the gang's rival and helped the Black Tiger Gang grow stronger, earning the trust of its leader, Lei Gong. Lei Gong even treated him like his own son and made him his adopted son—only for the protagonist to turn on his adoptive father without hesitation when he finally brought down the gang, showing no regard for the feelings people ought to have for one another.

If the protagonist weren't the hero, and the character hadn't been established as one through decades of film and television, it wouldn't be wrong to call him a cold-blooded, unscrupulous villain who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Doctor Death handed Doom a smartphone. "If you ever change your mind, use this phone to contact me. The battery can last three years on standby without charging. I hope you'll have made up your mind by then."

If this Doom's characterization and background had fit Doctor Doom that well, Wei Xiuming wouldn't have bothered with him. But an idea had occurred to him, and it was spreading like a wildfire in spring, impossible to hold back.

Earlier, The Ancient One had clearly shown that the doors of the mystical arts were open to him. And when it came to technology, he was among Earth's best. At the very least, aside from its power source being inferior to the Arc Reactor, his self-developed Iron Man suit had already surpassed several of the top-ranked Mark series suits in many respects. If upgrades to the foundational industries could keep up, there'd be even less to worry about.

A supervillain who combined magic and technology, and...

"Additionally, there's something else I need Mr. Victor's help with." Doctor Death took a photograph from his pocket. It showed a man and a woman in white lab coats—none other than the Parker couple. "I need these two taken care of. I hope Mr. Victor or Mr. Bill can help me. I've already found out their exact itinerary."

One of the Shocker combatants handed over a rather elegant briefcase. Unlike the Shocker emblem printed on the surface of the vaccine case, this one bore a gilded, weathered-looking relief.

"In exchange, these two latest Amazon Cells are a gift for Mr. Victor. They're several times more potent than the standard version we've been trading. To suit the Blood Clan's tastes, I used the same species of vampire bat from South America to cultivate both batches. They have identical effects."

Wei Xiuming wouldn't have bothered to cultivate two versions of the same thing if he had that much free time. He'd done it to allay Victor's suspicions. If Victor really intended to inject himself with one of the two doses, he could randomly choose one to test.

"Of course, if Mr. Victor doesn't intend to fulfill this unreasonable request from an insignificant nobody like me, just consider these two things a gift."

Although he wanted the Parker couple dead because they were, to some extent, his competitors, Wei Xiuming didn't feel all that strongly about killing them. After all, Spider-Man's path inevitably involved losing his parents and sacrificing Uncle Ben—just as every Batman witnessed his parents being shot in Crime Alley as a child.

If that plotline never happened, no one could say how the superhero's future would unfold. Just look at the Flash next door: he traveled through time to save his mother, which triggered the Flashpoint crisis and caused the DC Comics universe to reboot yet again.

Doom took the briefcase, the photograph, and the printed itinerary for the Parker couple. "I'll make sure to pass this along to Mr. Victor."

At an airport somewhere, Richard Parker and his wife sat with their luggage, waiting for their flight.

Unlike their lab attire, they were dressed casually and had several bags with them. They chatted about their trip to some destination, looking like newlyweds off on their honeymoon or an ordinary couple taking a vacation.

After Wei Xiuming warned Nick Fury, Black Eggplant began arranging the Parker couple's relocation. It wasn't enough to simply move them somewhere else and have them assume new identities; that kind of vanishing act would only raise more suspicion. The couple's resignations were handled through proper channels, and the transfer of laboratory equipment, records, and personnel all followed the relevant procedures.

Norman Osborn hadn't initially intended to let the couple who had cost him billions of dollars walk away so easily. But thanks to some backroom maneuvering, he was no longer the Osborn Group's largest shareholder. Though the major shareholder generally didn't interfere with company policy, S.H.I.E.L.D. could make itself heard when it wanted to. And Wei Xiuming, whose influence was considerable, had also given his approval.

To protect his old friends, Black Eggplant arranged new identities for the couple and reactivated their agent status, raising their clearance within S.H.I.E.L.D. so that only a handful of people could access their files.

Their route had been thoroughly rehearsed, with everything from traffic jams to car accidents factored in. Every leg of the couple's journey was kept within a safe timeframe, all the way until they boarded the plane. Their safety in the air was left to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fighter jets: three planes escorted them the entire way, until their flight landed safely.

Several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, disguised as ordinary people of all shapes and sizes, were also assigned to protect the couple. They looked nothing like the strikingly beautiful men and women so recognizable from movies and TV. Most had the kind of forgettable faces you'd see on passersby.

After all, Wei Xiuming spoke in hints and allusions. Relying on his skills as an agent and his powerful imagination, Black Eggplant had managed to find corresponding explanations for nearly everything Wei Xiuming had more or less made up.

Doctor Death, who led the Shocker organization's transformation of its monsters, was a close friend of Black Eggplant's. On an emotional level, Black Eggplant desperately hoped that the warning wouldn't prove true and that his old friend wouldn't suffer the same fate.