New Element

"It's here." Chen Xiao pushed himself away from the wall and glanced toward the door. Though a wall stood between them, his Observation Haki had already scanned the visitors.

Tony didn't move. He raised his chin. "Go take a look."

Chen Xiao rolled his eyes and went upstairs to get something.

On the surveillance screen, two agents in black suits stood at the door. One carried a sealed case, their expressions like they were attending their own funeral. Chen Xiao opened the door and leaned against the frame, not letting them in.

"Leave it there."

The agents exchanged a glance, set the case on the ground, and turned to leave. Neither looked back.

Chen Xiao bent down and picked up the case—it was a little heavy. Back in the lab, he set it on the workbench. Only then did Tony lift his head, his eyes falling on the old suitcase.

The case opened to reveal everything neatly arranged inside. On top was an old videotape, its plastic casing yellowed and its corners worn white. "Tony" had been written on it in marker. Beneath it was a transparent plastic model, a prototype of the Arc Reactor. Its structure was far more complicated than the current one, lines crisscrossing like a dismantled puzzle. At the bottom was a stack of handwritten notes in Howard's handwriting. Some parts had been blurred by coffee stains, while others had been revised over and over. Eraser marks were visible, along with indentations pressed into the paper beneath them.

Tony picked up the videotape without saying a word.

JARVIS's voice came from the ceiling. "Sir, I have digitized the contents of the tape. Would you like to play it?"

Tony's lips moved, but he still said nothing.

Chen Xiao picked up the printed blueprints from the table. It was a thick stack, the final version JARVIS had helped produce. Every line was crystal clear: scale, material annotations, tolerances for the telescoping mechanism, and a pile of messy data. He couldn't understand any of it, but that didn't stop him from thinking it looked professional. He gave JARVIS a thumbs-up, rolled up the blueprints, and stuffed them into his robes.

"I think you need some private time. Watch it yourself first. I'm heading back to deliver the Destroyer wreckage and the blueprints to Kamar-Taj."

Tony looked up at him. He didn't ask why, only nodded.

Chen Xiao walked to the wall and slashed his right hand through the air. Two blue portals opened facing each other in the corner of the lab, arcs of electricity crackling around their edges with faint sizzling sounds. One led to the warehouse, the other to Kamar-Taj. He raised his hand, electromagnetic force surging from his palm. The pile of Destroyer wreckage in the warehouse floated up, slid out through one portal, and glided into Kamar-Taj through the other.

As Chen Xiao stepped through, the portals closed.

Kamar-Taj's courtyard, late at night.

Moonlight fell over the stone path, casting a cold white glow. The butter lamps in the distant prayer hall were still lit, orange-yellow light spilling through the lattice windows like slender ribbons. The air was crisp and carried the scent of snowy mountains.

Chen Xiao piled the Destroyer wreckage in a corner of the artifact warehouse, then went to Ancient One's tea room. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and found half a cup of steaming tea still sitting on the tea table—but she wasn't there. He placed the blueprints on the table, pressed down their corners, considered leaving a message, then decided against it and turned to leave.

By the time he returned to Malibu, the tape had finished playing.

The media room was quiet. The holographic screen was frozen on the final frame—Howard's profile, smiling as the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes relaxed. That smile didn't look much like the one he wore when he was alive. He rarely smiled back then, at least not at Tony.

Tony sat before the workbench, his eyes slightly red, though there were no tear tracks at their corners. A faint curve rested on his lips, and he looked far more at peace.

Chen Xiao stood at the stairway for two seconds without making a sound. He set a cola on the table and twisted open the cap.

Tony spoke first. "Do you know what he said at the end?"

Chen Xiao leaned back against the wall. "What?"

"He said his greatest achievement wasn't any of those inventions." Tony stared at the screen, his voice low. "It was me."

Silence.

Chen Xiao said nothing. He looked at Tony's profile, at that slightly curved, stubborn mouth. A few days ago, this man had been worrying over palladium poisoning, sitting on the floor drinking whiskey and waiting to die. Now, he sat here holding something his father had left behind more than twenty years ago, his eyes red, but the light in them had returned.

"He never said things like that." Tony set the model on the table, his voice muffled. "When he was alive, all he ever said was, 'Tony, you need to do this,' or 'Tony, you need to do that.'"

Chen Xiao leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets. "Maybe he only dared to say it on a videotape."

Tony didn't respond, but the curve of his lips deepened slightly.

After a while of silence, Tony nudged the model and pointed at it, frustration in his tone. "This thing. What my dad left me was an Arc Reactor design, but it isn't complete. It's a concept. A model of a city and the core structure of a reactor. I understand every line and every parameter, but I just can't put it together. Like something's missing."

He rubbed his temple. "I've looked at it three times. I still can't find the structure of the New Element."

Chen Xiao looked at him without speaking.

He walked over to the holographic screen, hands in his pockets, and stared at Howard's frozen profile for two seconds.

"JARVIS."

"Mr. Chen?"

"Scan those models and create a three-dimensional hologram."

JARVIS paused for less than half a second. "Please wait."

Tony turned to look at Chen Xiao. "Didn't you say, 'What I need to tell you, I'll tell you'?"

Chen Xiao didn't turn around, his gaze fixed on the screen. "Yeah. Now's the time."

The holographic screen lit up. The city model Howard had left behind unfolded in blue light, becoming a densely packed floor plan. Every street and intersection was digitized into precise geometric lines. The core structure of the Arc Reactor floated beside it, lines interwoven like a shattered puzzle pieced back together.

The two images sat side by side, seemingly unrelated.

Chen Xiao frowned. He remembered that in the original story, Tony had seen the New Element in the city planning diagram. But now, all he saw were lines and numbers. It wasn't like a director could give him a close-up and make him suddenly understand.

After thinking for a moment, he pointed at several lines on the city model. "Look, this is the main building, and these are the branch venues. What do they resemble?"

Tony froze for a moment, then leaned closer.

Tony's pupils contracted.

"...My God." His voice trembled with something Chen Xiao had never heard before. "He hid the New Element's structure in the city plan. The layout of a city is the atomic structure of the New Element."

Chen Xiao stood beside him with his arms crossed, watching.

Tony swiped his fingers through the air, extracting the overlapping structures one by one. The streets of the city model peeled away layer by layer, leaving core lines floating on the screen. They aligned perfectly with the lines of the reactor's internal structure. A brand-new atomic model slowly took shape in the center of the display.

He turned around and looked at Chen Xiao, light in his eyes.

"You knew this."

"I did."

"You knew all along."

"I did."

Tony stared at him for two seconds. Then he smiled, a little annoyed and utterly helpless.

"You're really irritating."

Chen Xiao's lips curled up. "You're pretty accurate when you insult yourself."

Tony ignored him and turned back to the keyboard.

His movements were fast, his fingers flying across the virtual keyboard. The new atomic model on the screen kept rotating, enlarging, and refining. Parameters appeared line by line, energy input formulas were recalculated, and the reactor casing structure formed simultaneously on the other side. The blue light of the holographic screen reflected off his face, illuminating every exhausted line.

Ethan walked in from the corner carrying coffee. He glanced at the screen, then at Chen Xiao, then back at the screen.

"What is this?"

Tony didn't even raise his head. "My next thirty years of life."

Ethan looked at Chen Xiao. Chen Xiao shrugged.

Ethan didn't ask any more questions. He set the coffee beside Tony, then turned back to rest. He had been awake for two days as well, staying by Tony's side the whole time.

Chen Xiao leaned against the wall, staring at the New Element structure Tony was gradually reconstructing on the holographic screen. After a long time, he spoke.

"I delivered the blueprints. Once I get it back, I'll let you see it."

Tony's fingers didn't stop. "You're really going to make that lousy stick of yours?"

"Of course. I'm the chief disciple of Kamar-Taj, after all. What kind of chief disciple doesn't have a weapon that suits him?"

Tony snorted. "Chief disciple? Who gave you that title?"

Chen Xiao's lips curved. "You guess."