After a friendly round of talks, Lin Hai saw Coulson to the clinic entrance. They exchanged polite farewells, and Lin Hai watched until Coulson got into a black sedan parked by the street.
Lin Hai turned and returned to the front hall, resuming the sorting of medicinal herbs that had been interrupted earlier, as though he had merely received an ordinary visitor.
He truly did not take Coulson's visit too seriously.
Although S.H.I.E.L.D. was a massive organization that handled supernatural affairs and sounded quite intimidating, Lin Hai had his own principles and confidence.
First, there was his network of connections. He maintained a good working relationship with Director Zheng Xian of S.P.E.A.R., and he was also on good terms with Kingpin and the others. Even if S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to do something to him, it would have to weigh the chain reaction it might provoke.
Second, as the saying went, "To strike iron, you need to be strong yourself." In Lin Hai's view, he was already strong enough to face S.H.I.E.L.D. So after seeing Coulson off, he temporarily put the matter out of his mind.
But clearly, one person did not see things that way. Or rather, he habitually considered matters in a more complicated light.
That person was Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current director.
That bald black man was a textbook case of advanced persecution paranoia, advanced firepower insufficiency anxiety, and advanced distrustfulness. In his eyes, Lin Hai and the small group gathered around him had already become a force that could not be ignored.
Based on Coulson's report, along with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s previous surveillance data on Lin Hai and his people, he could preliminarily determine that Doctor Lin was indeed a potential recruit for the plan he had been considering.
But the problem lay in Lin Hai's background. By sheer coincidence,