Commissioning a Design

Over the next two days, the underground lab at the Malibu mansion became much livelier.

The workbench was a complete mess: reagent bottles, circuit boards, and data blueprints lay everywhere, while three holographic displays glowed at once. Empty coffee cups were piled into a small mountain, takeout containers were crammed into a corner, and Mark Three parts had been shoved aside to make room for a pile of unidentifiable instruments.

Tony leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples.

An elemental analysis report filled the holographic screen before him, packed with dense data. He had been staring at it for two days. He had tried every possible combination—palladium substitutes, alloys, isotope pairings. The results were always the same: either the output was insufficient, the toxicity was worse, or it was simply unstable.

"Sixteenth failure," JARVIS reported evenly.

Tony took off his goggles and tossed them onto the table with a smack.

"I'm about to wear out the periodic table."

Ethan poked his head up from the other side of the workbench, soldering a circuit board. He put down the soldering iron, unscrewed a bottle of water, took a drink, and said nothing.

Tony lowered his gaze to the black veins spreading across his neck. Two days ago, they had only reached his chin. Now they were almost climbing up to his cheeks.

"Less than two weeks left," he said softly.

Ethan set down the water bottle, walked over to the holographic display, and flipped through the data.

"Maybe it isn't an elemental problem. Maybe it's the reactor's structure?"

"I've modified the structure three times already." Tony shook his head. "The first time, it was a circular arrangement, but the output was unstable. The second was a split design, but the heat dissipation couldn't keep up. The third—" He paused. "The third nearly burned off my eyebrows."

Ethan fell silent for a moment.

"Try another approach. Don't look for a substitute. Find a way to eliminate the palladium poisoning."

"Tried that. Chelation therapy, dialysis, nano-absorption—" Tony counted on his fingers, then stopped. "They can only slow it down. They can't cure it. As long as the reactor keeps running, the toxins will keep being produced."

Ethan looked at the black veins on Tony's neck and said nothing.

Tony leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

"You know, Ethan, sometimes I feel like—"

A blue arc exploded in the corner of the lab.

A portal appeared. Chen Xiao stepped out, carrying a roll of paper—crookedly rolled, corners curled up, like it had just been dug out of a trash heap.

Tony did not even raise his head.

"Here to meddle again?"

Chen Xiao slapped the roll of paper onto the workbench and spread it open.

"Not meddling with you. I'm borrowing something."

Tony glanced at it—it was a hand-drawn weapon blueprint. The lines were crooked, the proportions were wrong, and the front and side views did not match. Some of the labels had been blurred by cola stains, while others were squeezed together like fighting ants. The Stick was drawn fairly long, but the two ends were different thicknesses, making it look like sugarcane that had been run over by a car.

Tony was silent for two seconds.

"...What is this?"

"My Stick. The blueprint." Chen Xiao sounded completely justified.

Ethan leaned over for a look, expressionless. "Looks like sugarcane that got run over by a car."

Chen Xiao glared at him. "Shut up."

Ethan picked up his coffee cup and stepped aside, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Tony picked up the blueprint and held it before his eyes. He tilted his head and studied it for three seconds, then put it down and looked at Chen Xiao.

"You came all this way just to show me this... abstract painting?"

"I want to borrow JARVIS to make me a proper one." Chen Xiao patted the blueprint. "Even I can't stand looking at these lines."

Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"You can't even draw what you want to make clearly, and you came looking for me?"

"That's why I came looking for you."

Tony stared at him for two seconds, the corner of his mouth twitching—not a smile, but the expression of someone wondering whether the other person was insane.

"JARVIS."

"Yes, sir?"

"Help him turn this... sugarcane into a blueprint."

The holographic display lit up. A scanner descended from the ceiling, blue light sweeping across the paper. A few seconds later, a crude 3D model appeared in the center of the screen—a long Stick with uneven ends, blurry surface markings, and missing dimensional data.

JARVIS said evenly, "Scan complete. Mr. Chen, please provide detailed dimensions, materials, and functional parameters."

Chen Xiao opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Tony raised a brow. "You haven't even figured out what you want to make?"

"I have," Chen Xiao said. "It's just... I can't express it for the moment."

Tony rolled his eyes. He rose from his chair, walked to the holographic screen, and made a few swiping motions through the air, straightening the crooked model.

"JARVIS, create a new project. Name—"

"Stick," Chen Xiao said.

Tony ignored him and tapped a few keys.

"Project name: Stick. Client: a wizard who can't even draw a blueprint."

Chen Xiao pretended not to hear him.

Tony turned to look at Chen Xiao. The exhaustion that had hung in his eyes these past two days had faded a little, replaced by something else—as if some irrelevant problem had sparked his interest.

"Go on. What kind of weapon do you want? I'll design it for you."

Chen Xiao froze for a moment.

"You'll help me?"

"It's not like I have anything better to do." Tony said it as casually as if he were commenting on the weather, but his fingers were already resting on the keyboard.

Ethan stood beside them with his coffee, looked at Tony, then at Chen Xiao. Without saying anything, he silently went to pour a third cup of coffee.

Chen Xiao cleared his throat and stepped in front of the holographic display.

"First, it has to be a Stick. A long Stick. About..." He gestured from the floor to his chest. "This long."

Tony nodded and tapped several times on the virtual keyboard. The hazy wireframe on the screen transformed into a straight, silver-gray cylinder.

"One-point-five meters long, three centimeters in diameter. Material?"

"Uru Metal," Chen Xiao said. "From that pile of Destroyer wreckage I have."

Tony's fingers paused.

"That Asgardian metal lump?"

"Yeah."

Tony glanced at him without asking further questions, then added a note in the parameter field.

"And then?"

"It has to be able to shrink. Small enough to fit in a pocket."

Tony frowned.

"A telescopic structure? Possible. But it will affect the strength. The joints will become stress concentration points. Uru Metal may be tough, but if the connections—"

"I don't care," Chen Xiao interrupted. "It has to extend and retract."

Tony stared at him for two seconds.

"You're the client. You call the shots."

He added a note to the screen: "Telescopic structure. Strength issues to be optimized later."

"Also," Chen Xiao continued, "it has to be able to turn into a staff. Like, the top can unfold into a magic circle, or there's something there to act as a focus when I cast spells."

Tony's fingers stopped again.

"Are you a wizard or a guy who fights with a Stick?"

"Both."

Tony took a deep breath and added another line. "Transformable top structure. Reserve magic circle interface."

"On top of that," Chen Xiao said, his eyes lighting up, "it has to be able to fly back by itself. Like Mjolnir."

Tony's fingers came to a complete stop.

He turned around and looked at Chen Xiao.

"You want me to install intelligent navigation, attitude control, and a propulsion system with enough thrust inside your Stick?"

"More or less."

"That's called a missile."

"Mjolnir isn't a missile."

"Mjolnir is magic," Tony said. "I do engineering."

"So?"

Tony was silent for two seconds, then turned back and began typing.

"JARVIS, add module: return system. Don't include it in the current technical proposal. Put it under 'dreams.'"

"Recorded, sir."

The corners of Chen Xiao's mouth lifted.

"Also," he said after thinking for a moment, "it would be best if it could grow bigger and smaller. Not telescoping—enlarging as a whole. Like..."

He got stuck.

How was he supposed to explain the Golden-Hooped Rod to a white guy who had never read Journey to the West?

Tony looked at him. "Like what?"

Chen Xiao chose his words carefully. "It's... a Stick, normal-sized, but you can make it instantly become as thick and long as a pillar. Not through physical stretching. More like using energy to fill its volume, or... I don't know how to explain it. When it gets bigger, it can hold things up. When it gets smaller, it can fit in your ear."

Tony was silent for three seconds.

"You're asking me to make you a Stick that violates the laws of physics?"

"Yes."

Tony stared at him for five full seconds.

Then he turned to Ethan. "Three extra sugars in my coffee."

Ethan held the coffee pot. "You already added some just now."

"Add three more."

Ethan did not move. He only looked at him.

Chen Xiao asked, "Can you do it or not?"

Tony did not answer. He stood before the holographic screen, fingers hovering in midair, silent for a long time.

The screen's light reflected on his face, revealing the lines of exhaustion and the black veins spreading across his neck. But there was something more in his eyes now—not excitement, but a long-lost focus caught by a concrete problem.

He began typing.

"JARVIS, create a new parameter module: variable scale. Don't worry about feasibility yet. Just record the requirements."

"Recorded, sir."

Chen Xiao watched Tony's back, the corners of his mouth slowly rising.

Tony did not turn around.

"Don't smile. Keep talking. What other unreasonable demands do you have?"

Chen Xiao thought about it.

"That's all for now."

Tony turned around and looked at him.

"For now?"

"Yeah. I'll tell you when I think of more."

Tony drew a deep breath, then turned back to the screen.

"JARVIS, add a note: client requirements may increase at any time."

"Recorded, sir."

Chen Xiao smiled.

Ethan walked over carrying coffee, handed it to him, and said quietly, "Your Stick is harder to make than Trump's wall."

Chen Xiao took the coffee and sipped it. Bitter.

He looked at the bare cylinder in the center of the holographic display, already thinking about what runes to engrave on the top, whether to add anti-slip grooves to the shaft, whether it should glow or emit smoke when it grew larger...

"Oh, right." He put down the coffee cup. "Can my name be engraved on the shaft?"

Tony did not turn around.

"Engrave 'This side toward enemy'?"

"No. Just engrave 'Chen Xiao.'"

"Chinese characters?"

"Yeah."

"Write them out first. Let me see if they'll shorten my life."

Chen Xiao picked up the electronic pen on the table and scribbled his name crookedly in the corner of the screen. The handwriting was messy, but recognizable.

Tony glanced at it.

"Do you draw everything yourself?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Just confirming you didn't hire a ghostwriter."

Chen Xiao rolled his eyes and stopped bothering with Tony. "I'm going to take a look around your collection room." With that, he turned and headed for the stairs. He had just stepped onto the ladder when he heard a thud, followed by Ethan's loud shout.