Tony Stark's disappearance only threw Wall Street into a panic for one morning, and the "Red-Clad Killer Murder Case" only caused chaos on Wall Street for a while.
Inside the trading hall, coroners collected the bodies, forensic technicians took photographs and gathered evidence, detectives questioned witnesses, and cleaners scrubbed away flesh and blood...
Meanwhile, the traders continued taking calls from clients and discussing the day's stock market. Veteran investors gathered nearby, sometimes glancing at the busy police officers, corpses, and scattered flesh and blood, and sometimes staring fixedly at the display screens on the walls.
The two groups occasionally interacted, yet neither disturbed the other.
Even if a world war broke out or aliens invaded Earth, the New York Stock Exchange would not stop operating. This heart of capital might only cease beating once capital itself had lost every last trace of life.
Under pressure from the securities regulators, Stark Industries had no choice but to publicly disclose that Tony Stark had been kidnapped. Investors dumped their shares in droves, cursing the playboy for running off to some dangerous place to get himself killed and costing them enormous losses.
Other than Pepper Potts, Producer Man Happy, and his friend Rhodey, no one in all of New York truly cared whether Tony Stark lived or died. Instead, a doctor whose family had been destroyed by weapons made by Stark Industries had reached out to help him. Not only had he saved Tony's life, he had even sacrificed himself to cover Tony's escape.
Afghanistan, the mountains of Kunar Province.
Inside a deep cave, dim lights flickered.
A man covered in bandages lay on a metal bed. A long tube was inserted into his nostril, while a magnet was embedded in his chest. Two wires extended from the magnet, their other ends connected to a car battery taken from a vehicle.
Beside the bed, a bald man wearing glasses was shaving while looking into a mirror. Under the dim light, he shaved with great care and a steady hand, as though performing surgery.
Suddenly, the man on the metal bed opened his eyes. He looked around blankly at first, seeing the dim hanging lamp and the filthy, disorderly cave.
He pulled the tube from his nostril and coughed twice from the irritation. Pain seemed to shoot through his chest, and he hurriedly lowered his head, seeing the bandages and the foreign object beneath them.
Terrified, he frantically tore away the bandages. At last, he saw the magnet embedded in his chest and followed its wires to the car battery.
Waking up to find a magnet suddenly stuffed into one's chest was enough to make any normal person collapse.
The man gasped violently and let out a weak roar.
"You're awake?" Yinsen, who had been shaving, glanced at him through the mirror.
"What did you do to me?" Tony Stark's voice carried both fear and fury.
"What did I do?"
Yinsen smiled, as though he had merely done something trivial.
"I saved your life."
"Even though I did my best, a lot of fragments are still inside your body. They're traveling through your blood vessels toward your heart." Yinsen set down his razor, picked up a small glass vial from the table, gave it a shake, and tossed it to Tony Stark on the metal bed.
Tony Stark caught the vial and held it up to the light, seeing the tiny fragments inside.
"I've seen many wounds like this in the village. People call them 'the living dead.' In about a week, the shrapnel will enter your organs, and no one will be able to save you."
"Before they die, they'll suffer terribly, like countless venomous insects tearing at their bodies. They want to live, but all they can do is wait helplessly for death."
Yinsen seemed to recall the past, and his expression turned cold.
"How does it feel to be wounded by weapons you made yourself?"
Tony Stark had no answer, but he had not begun reflecting on himself yet. He still viewed things from the perspective of a weapons manufacturer.
He touched the wires, followed them to the car battery, and began to think.
Yinsen took out a frying pan and set it over the fire to cook porridge. Seeing that Tony was ignoring him, he brought up something else. "Actually, we've met before, at a technology seminar in Bern."
Tony Stark glanced at him again and shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Of course not. If I were drunk like that, I probably couldn't even stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits." Yinsen stirred the porridge in the frying pan.
Tony looked up, saw the surveillance camera on the wall, and asked, "Where is this?"
Yinsen was just about to answer when footsteps sounded outside the iron door.
"Quick, get up!" He set down the frying pan and urged Tony, "Do as I do later. Remember!"
A group of vicious-looking armed men barged in.
Yinsen clasped his hands over his head, and Tony copied him.
"Tony... Stark!" The bearded leader raised both hands, his tone exaggerated. "Welcome, America's most famous mass murderer."
Then the bearded man rattled off a long string of incomprehensible words. Yinsen translated beside him, "He wants you to help him make missiles—the Jericho Missile you demonstrated."
Yinsen took a black-and-white photograph and showed it to Tony.
Stubborn as ever, Tony refused outright. Then he received an enthusiastic spa treatment. There was water, and the wires on his chest periodically erupted with bursts of electrical sparks.
A double dose of water and fire, though unfortunately the attendants were not the lovely Technician No. 88.
After the business reception, the client covered Tony's head and led him out of the cave to show the worker his strength.
"See?" The bearded man turned in a circle before Tony and pointed at the weapons and ammunition piled outside the cave. "We have all the materials you need here."
Tony Stark was filled with alarm. Everywhere he looked were weapons produced by Stark Industries, yet he had clearly only supplied those weapons to the American military.
Tony might have been an arms dealer, but unfortunately he was not as mature as Great Demon Lord Lin Hao. He had foolishly believed that his weapons were supplied only to the American military to safeguard peace in the free world. He had yet to grasp the principle that an arms dealer who did not sell weapons to both sides of a war was not a good arms dealer.
How could free America possibly lack arms dealers willing to sell weapons to the enemy?
"Get to work immediately. Once you're done, I'll let you go!" the client promised.
This time, Tony Stark became more mature. He had great confidence in his talent and abilities. Once the terrorists had him, they would only keep forcing him to make weapons. There was no chance they would release a hen that laid golden eggs.
So he could only save himself. Fortunately, before this happened, he had come up with a decent idea and had even put it into practice once.
For a genius like him, having something and having nothing were entirely different concepts, especially since he had already tested it once.
Tony finished the blueprint in the shortest possible time. The prototype was more streamlined than in the original story, and its design was more reasonable.
While Tony Stark struggled to save himself, Lin Hao had already finished contacting the surviving agents around New York State. Every time, he adopted a different identity, and every identity was a real, existing cover.
To be fair, during his ten years in S.P.E.A.R., Lin Hao had used the bureau's resources to do quite a few things behind Zheng Xian's back. For example, Zheng Xian did not know that Lin Hao possessed artificial human technology. At most, he thought Lin Hao had developed a few subordinates of his own, which was standard practice for a senior agent.
If there were traitors among those people he contacted, their corresponding covers would be exposed, allowing Lin Hao to determine who the traitors were.
This was fishing, with his cover identities serving as bait.
When no further clues could be found, he could only resort to this clumsy method. Ordinary agents would have to suffer losses using this tactic, but Lin Hao did not care.
After contacting the last surviving agent near New York State, Lin Hao received a Den Den Mushi video call. On the screen was a weathered man with a bitter expression.
"Director, I've searched western Hunan, southern Hunan, eastern Sichuan, and northern Guizhou several times, but I couldn't find any legends about Ta Lo Village. Jia Ying's village was wiped out eighteen years ago. There was a mudslide at the time, so it never drew the bureau's attention."
"Also, I searched the plateau and found no villages inhabited by Inhumans. They may very well be in another dimensional space."
"As for Kamar-Taj, the director probably has a few planted agents there. I... I can't get near them!"
"Oh." Lin Hao replied blandly.
Seeing that the Great Demon Lord was about to hang up, the man nicknamed Sabre hurriedly pleaded, "Director, I want to go out on field duty!"
"I wasn't even included in the last attack on Wakanda..."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Lin Hao scolded with a stern face. "That was resource development, peaceful coexistence!"
Sabre was left speechless, then forced out a clumsy fawning smile. "Director, office staff can handle investigations like this. I'm in the Special Operations Team, a dignified Level Seven agent!"
"Oh?" Lin Hao casually tossed back, "Who can you beat? You can't even beat a single Pacifista, and you still have the nerve to ask for field duty?"
"..." Sabre had nothing to say.
There were 150,000 people in the bureau. How many could take on a Pacifista one-on-one?
He regretted it!
Back then, he should not have acted so cheap and volunteered to "guide" Director Lin in martial arts practice, only to be sent flying with one slap and have the grudge held against him for all these years.
The Great Demon Lord really was petty.
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