Mind Control

It was a quiet night.

Yuri, Silly Cat, and Silly Bird kept at it until Yinsen arrived at the shop for work. After breakfast, Yuri moved the two beds belonging to Kate and Vanax from the second floor to the third, finally putting Vanax's deep-seated resentment to rest.

"Your task today is to learn about all the prospecting tools you can find online. By the time I get back, I want to see five sound, workable plans for exploring and searching the Arctic."

After giving his orders, Yuri grabbed his car keys and headed out. He was going to Wall Street to invest the 500 billion dollars he'd borrowed from Tony and turn a profit. He'd given his plan a rather fitting codename: Borrowing a Chicken to Lay an Egg.

That was right. He planned to spend all five hundred billion dollars buying shares in Stark Industries. If he remembered correctly, the biggest stock fluctuation of the year would happen there. After Tony announced the closure of the weapons manufacturing division, Stark Industries' stock price would plummet. In the eyes of ordinary people, an arms company that no longer made weapons was worthless. Fortunately, Obadiah managed to pull the company back from the brink, stabilizing its stock price through one press conference after another. But, just as his plan was about to succeed, his own nephew Tony killed him on the roof of their company headquarters, branding him a criminal.

No one thought a playboy could save the crumbling company, even if he was a notorious genius inventor.

With Tony deliberately managing things, and the powerful assistance of the AI Jarvis, Stark Industries' stock had hit the lower limit more than a dozen times without rising by even a fraction. Given that trend, several media outlets had already speculated that "Stark Industries is on the verge of being delisted"...

Yuri knew perfectly well why Tony was doing this. He just wanted to buy back the publicly traded shares and strengthen his control over the company's decisions.

Everyone knew Tony and Yuri were brothers who'd been through life and death together. Even S.H.I.E.L.D.'s visit had made that clear. So what belonged to Tony belonged to Yuri. Those five hundred billion dollars' worth of shares Tony had planned to buy would be just as well off in Yuri's hands. Besides, when it came to running the company, Yuri had always been a loyal supporter of the former.

Tony, you must be so glad I trust you this much...

"Good morning, sir. How may I help you?"

The receptionist wore a sweet smile. At a glance, she could tell that this young man, who was looking around, was not only handsome but also wealthy and from a prominent family. "Do you have an appointment?"

Yuri gave a noncommittal hum. A financial firm on such prime, expensive Wall Street real estate owned an entire building, so its business couldn't be bad. His golden eyes turned faintly white, and he effortlessly influenced the ordinary human in front of him. "Is the boss here? If he is, tell me where he is."

"The boss is here."

The receptionist didn't notice a thing amiss. She readily gave Yuri all the information he wanted. "His office is on the top floor. You can take the private elevator to save time."

Then she smiled and handed Yuri a black card edged in gold. "You'll need this to get in~"

Yuri smiled warmly as he took the card. "Thank you, beautiful."

Then he met the eyes of another receptionist who was about to stop them. The hand she'd raised immediately fell, and the confusion on her face gave way to a genuinely sweet smile. "It's our pleasure to serve you."

The private elevator was a must. The public elevators just a short distance away were packed with employees in suits and ties, but the elevators in front of them kept moving between floors without ever coming down to the first. In the short time it took Yuri to walk from the front desk to the elevators, he'd already seen several office workers give up waiting and take the stairs instead.

Amid a host of envious and jealous glances, he easily swiped the black-and-gold elevator card and opened the private elevator doors, which had been waiting on the first floor. He stepped into the car at an unhurried pace, his long legs carrying him inside, then made sure to wave goodbye to the two blonde receptionists who'd been watching him.

"Ding!"

The elevator stopped on the top floor, the seventeenth, and its tightly fitted steel doors slowly opened onto a lavish corridor lined with burly bodyguards in black suits. One of them looked Yuri up and down, then held out an arm to stop him. "Sir, the company's board of directors is in session. Please wait in the reception room."

Yuri glanced at the bulge at the man's waist and didn't sense even the slightest threat. His eyes turned completely white, and his powerful mental force took control of everyone present. "Take me to the boardroom."

The bodyguard immediately lowered the arm he'd used to block Yuri and led the way to the end of the corridor. His voice was full of deference and respect. "This way, sir."

Yuri followed him leisurely to an ornate double door and watched as the man pressed his finger against a spot to unlock it.

"Click."

The heavy boardroom doors slowly swung open, and the clamor inside spilled through the gap. As Yuri strode into the room beneath a sea of uncertain, startled looks, he heard a fat, greasy-looking middle-aged man sitting near the very end of the table ask, "Where did this guy come from? Did one of you invite him?"

"Click."

The doors closed and locked again. Yuri surveyed the financial tycoons gathered around the enormous round table, each wearing a different expression, and got straight to the point. "Until now, I haven't known any of you. But from this moment on, you've been selected to carry out a project for me."

"With all due respect, sir."

A man seated fairly high up the table, though still some distance from the head, took a long drag on the cigar between his fingers. Under Yuri's gaze, he slowly exhaled a pale blue cloud of smoke and spoke with arrogant disdain. "I don't know how you got our bodyguards to open the boardroom doors for you, but what makes you think any of us here will be as stupid as those idiots outside and obediently follow your orders to help with your damn project?"

"This."

Yuri pointed to his eyes, which had turned white. In an instant, he took control of the souls and minds of all twenty-six shareholders in the financial firm. The white-haired old man who'd been sitting silently at the head of the table quietly gave Yuri his seat, fetched a clean glass, and carefully poured him half a glass of clear liquor.

Yuri snapped his fingers. His eyes, now pure white, swept across the shareholders again. "From now on, you'll do everything in your power to acquire Stark Industries shares for me. Use every company resource at your disposal and every method or trick you can think of to turn this check worth 500 billion dollars into Stark Industries stock as quickly as possible."

"If you want to acquire the largest possible stake, it will take some time, sir."

The bespectacled man on Yuri's right worked at the computer for a while, then looked up. "We'll need a week."

Yuri drained his glass in one go. The glass met the solid wood table with a pleasant sound, and he stood and headed for the boardroom doors. "A week is perfectly acceptable. Also..."

He pointed at the two shareholders who'd spoken earlier and smiled. "If we come up a little short on funds, have those two make a selfless contribution. I'm sure they're generous men, aren't they?"