Norman Osborn

The experimental base was right beside the Golden Gate Bridge, in an exceptionally prime location.

Back when he had acquired this plot of land, Carlton Drake had paid an enormous price and made countless promises to the San Francisco city government.

From a business-return perspective, this location had also brought the Life Foundation immense exposure.

You might make a killing, but I would never lose out.

It was worth mentioning that the base alone had cost several billion dollars to build.

Adding in the years of internal development, the purchase of medical and experimental equipment, and so on, the total easily exceeded ten billion dollars.

It was an astonishing amount of wealth.

Yet for a behemoth like the Life Foundation, those assets were merely its tangible holdings.

As a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, its pharmaceutical patents were the real prize—a mountain of gold coveted by countless people, who wished they could seize it for themselves.

"Release the volunteers!"

"Homeless people deserve human rights and freedom!"

"Damn the Life Foundation! Damn Carlton Drake!"

"Boycott the Life Foundation! Drake must step down!!"

At that moment, people had blocked the entrance to the experimental base, shouting incessantly. Their disgust for the Life Foundation was plain to see.

The security personnel stood inside the gates with firearms in hand, staring helplessly at the marchers outside, unsure what they were supposed to do.

To people like them, who were merely paid to do a job, what was the life of a homeless person worth?

Carlton Drake stood high up in the base, watching the agitated crowd through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The fury in his eyes was nearly tangible.

"A bunch of idiots!"

He gritted his teeth, admitting that he had underestimated the Daily Bugle.

Its advantage in steering public opinion had reached heights the Life Foundation could never hope to match.

Besides, by this point, this was no longer a simple matter of public opinion.

Even the higher-ups in the San Francisco city government had begun questioning him.

The implication was clear: the Life Foundation could only accept its misfortune.

If things went badly, he might even end up in prison.

"Eddie Brock."

He repeated the name a few times, clenched his fists, and asked the assistant beside him, "Have you looked into it?"

The assistant said, "Eddie Brock is now the editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, but he hasn't appeared there for a month. We found his last travel record: a plane ticket from New York to San Francisco."

"So Eddie Brock should be in San Francisco now."

Drake fell into thought. "Then Eddie Brock filmed the video. The cause of this incident must have something to do with that bastard!"

After a pause, he asked again, "What did the Daily Bugle say?"

"Uh..."

The assistant hesitated. "They rejected our request."

"Very good."

Drake's face remained expressionless. "It seems this matter can no longer be resolved through conventional means."

Meanwhile.

Inside the experimental base, at the Symbiote Research Center.

Eddie, locked inside a glass room, had no idea what was happening outside.

Seeing the homeless people around him, many of them listless and some even lying motionless on the floor, filled him with a terror beyond words.

He suddenly felt some regret.

Tap, tap, tap!

A researcher in a white lab coat suddenly walked toward him.

Eddie looked at the woman before him and swallowed. He guessed that she was about to take him away for those illegal human experiments.

He was utterly despairing.

The instant the glass room door opened, Eddie tried to escape, only to be subdued by the security personnel beside the woman.

"Tie him up."

The woman spoke casually. "He's a valuable volunteer. Under the current circumstances, every one we use is one less we have. Who knows whether there will be any left in the future?"

"Don't worry. We won't damage your toy."

The security guard chuckled.

Eddie's heart sank to the bottom of the sea.

When Eddie was taken to another glass room, the security personnel seemed to foresee something and hurriedly kept their distance.

Only the female researcher remained.

"You won't have a good ending, bitch!"

Eddie could not help cursing.

"Eddie, saying something like that in this situation... you should know whose ending won't be good, right?"

The female researcher spoke with a faint, ambiguous smile.

Eddie was stunned, frozen in place.

"Y-you, you, you..."

He could barely speak. The shock in his heart was written all over his face. "You know who I am?"

"Of course. Eddie Brock, the famous reporter and the first idiot who dared provoke Drake."

The female researcher stared at Eddie and said slowly, "To be honest, I'm your fan."

Outside the experimental base.

Phil stood at the very front of the marching crowd.

In his view, the Daily Bugle already held an absolute advantage. In this war without gunpowder, they had practically won a resounding victory.

From the moment the matter was exposed until now, the Life Foundation had only been able to take blows passively, with no ability to fight back at all!

"Boss, we've got Carlton Drake pinned down at the Life Foundation's experimental base. Their reputation is in ruins. Under such immense public pressure, if Drake wants to salvage the Foundation's reputation and limit its losses, I think he'll soon hold a press conference and promise to release the volunteers."

Phil was extremely excited as he spoke to Anton on the phone. "This idea was brilliant. Using public opinion to pressure the Life Foundation—you're a genius."

It was precisely because he had followed Anton's orders that he had begun organizing the march.

Once the marching crowd had taken shape, he had withdrawn and hidden among the crowd.

At that point, he could no longer control the marchers. At the same time, exposing his identity would only put him in danger.

After all, San Francisco was still the Life Foundation's territory.

"Very good. Stay safe, keep hiding, and don't let the Life Foundation discover that you're a reporter. Report to me immediately if anything happens."

Anton gave him patient instructions.

After hearing Phil's report, he knew that the Life Foundation was probably already preparing to raise the white flag and admit defeat.

After all, with Carlton Drake's intelligence, there was no way he would fail to realize that the current abnormal level of attention could not possibly be the work of the Daily Bugle alone.

Although Phil had played a part in how smoothly the march had formed, other people working behind the scenes had most likely helped push it along as well.

At least half of the marchers were actors hired by those people.

Ring, ring, ring!

Suddenly, Anton's phone rang again.

The caller was Jonah Jameson.

"Old man, you can praise me now." Anton smiled after answering. "I hope what I've done hasn't disappointed you."

"Don't get carried away. Do you think this was all your doing?"

Jameson showed no mercy as he knocked him down a peg. "Come downstairs now. I sent a driver to pick you up. You're coming with me to meet someone."

"Huh?"

Anton was startled. "Meet who?"

"You'll know when you get there."

Jameson said nothing more and decisively ended the call, giving Anton no chance to press him further.

After Anton got into the car, the driver did not say a word.

Very soon.

To Anton's astonishment, the car pulled up in front of Osborn Tower.

Jameson had been waiting for some time.

"Let's go."

Jameson led Anton into Osborn Tower. "Someone wants to see you."

"Who?"

Anton realized it the moment he spoke.

"Norman Osborn?"

It was rather unexpected.

Though he was already fairly certain, he could not help asking the old man, "The person behind the Daily Bugle, fanning the flames—was it Norman Osborn?"