Tony Stark

Tony and Ethan remained completely still, as if they were truly fast asleep and had not heard Meng Zu at all.

The air around them grew utterly silent. An eerie scene unfolded in the cave: one man stood before two sleeping men, staring fixedly at them. This kind of scene seemed common in certain movies, except the protagonists had changed from young, beautiful women into two rough men.

All right, Meng Zu now understood what it meant when people said you could not wake someone pretending to sleep.

As Tony pretended to sleep, he suddenly heard the man in front of him muttering to himself in a low voice. "I heard that sleeping people react more slowly to pain. If I move fast enough, they might not feel it until three seconds later. Why not give it a try? If I quickly poke Little Tony with a knife, I wonder how many seconds it'll take Tony Stark to react."

Tony's heart skipped a beat at those words, but he immediately reassured himself. The man had to be trying to scare him. They still needed him to build weapons for them, so they definitely would not hurt him.

Although Tony thought that, about ten seconds later, he suddenly felt something sharp pressed against his waist, slowly sliding downward. Then he heard the man say, "Mm, right here."

The sharp pressure vanished, and an image immediately appeared in Tony's mind: a man raising a dagger high in his hand and viciously stabbing it down at Little Tony.

Tony suddenly opened his eyes with lightning speed, braced his hands against the ground, and jerked backward as he shouted, "OK, I'm awake!"

Only then did Tony see what the other man was holding. It was merely a thin piece of wire, not the dagger he had imagined.

The atmosphere instantly became awkward. Meng Zu smiled and tossed away the wire in his hand. "I thought you could keep pretending, but your expression just now was really quite something."

When Meng Zu had pressed the wire against Tony's waist, Tony's brows had involuntarily furrowed slightly. As the wire slid downward, Tony's expression grew stiff, and he was clearly gritting his teeth. When the wire touched Little Tony, his throat bobbed uncontrollably. Especially when Meng Zu lifted the wire, Tony's eyelids began twitching violently, as though he were about to wake at any moment.

Though the atmosphere was awkward, Tony refused to lose face. He bluffed threateningly, "What exactly do you want? I already agreed to build weapons for you. If you dare hurt me, I'd rather die than keep building weapons for you."

Meng Zu looked at Tony with an odd expression and teased, "Oh! So Tony Stark has such backbone."

At that moment, Dr. Ethan stopped pretending to sleep as well. He opened his eyes, looked at Meng Zu, and said, "All right, Tony. He isn't from the Ten Rings."

"He's not from the Ten Rings? Are you sure?" Tony asked Dr. Ethan, looking at Meng Zu's attire.

Dr. Ethan said with certainty, "Of course. Didn't you notice that he speaks English? Over the years, I discovered that aside from the Ten Rings' leader, none of the others speak English at all."

"I didn't expect you to figure it out from that alone." Meng Zu readily admitted Dr. Ethan was right.

"So who exactly are you?" Tony asked Meng Zu.

Meng Zu said to Tony, "Tony Stark, I was sent by Ms. Pepper to rescue you."

"Rescue me? How are you going to rescue me? You think you can take us out of the Ten Rings camp all by yourself?" Tony stood up and spoke to Meng Zu in a sarcastic tone, looking at him as if he were an idiot.

Meng Zu did not mind Tony's tone. After all, Tony was the target he had to protect, and there was no need to go against his employment points—or Franklin. "The appearance you see now is a disguise. There are two Ten Rings members in the cave. I can deal with them without alerting the people outside. Then you and I can disguise ourselves as them. Most of the Ten Rings members are already asleep. I'm highly confident I can get you out before they react."

Hearing this, Tony felt Meng Zu's plan might work. Pointing at Dr. Ethan, he asked, "What about Ethan?"

"Him? Sorry, he isn't part of my mission. I'm only responsible for rescuing you." Meng Zu shook his head.

Tony's temper flared at once. "If you won't take Ethan with us, then I'm not leaving."

"Mr. Stark, you need to understand that if we bring Ethan along, we might arouse the Ten Rings' suspicions. Then we could be exposed." Meng Zu tried to persuade Tony. After all, the easier it was to leave, the better.

Kind-hearted Dr. Ethan persuaded Tony, "Tony, don't worry about me. This opportunity is rare. You should leave with this gentleman."

"Ethan, don't say another word. You saved my life. I can't leave you here alone." Tony directly rejected Dr. Ethan's suggestion.

Seeing that Tony had made up his mind not to leave alone, Meng Zu could only say, "Fine. In that case, I have another idea."

"What idea?"

Meng Zu said, "I have Colonel Rhodey's number. I'll call and notify him, then have him send the U.S. military to get you out."

Tony raised a brow and looked at Meng Zu strangely. "What's your name?"

"Meng Zu."

"Mr. Meng Zu, did you drop out of school early?"

Meng Zu (╬￣皿￣)

"I graduated from college."

Tony said sarcastically, "Then the teachers who taught you must have been complete trash. Don't you know there are signal-jamming devices installed here? There's no way to contact the outside using electronic devices."

"All right, that was my mistake." Meng Zu took out his phone and checked it, only to find that it truly had no signal at all. After all, he had never planned to notify the U.S. military to rescue Tony in the first place. That would have earned him far too few employment points.

"You should have notified Rhodey directly from outside instead of sneaking in. I really don't know why Pepper hired you." Tony said dissatisfiedly to Meng Zu.

"That's enough. You can shut up now." Meng Zu snapped at Tony. "You want to save him too, right? Then how much are you planning to pay?"

"Money? Pepper hired you to rescue me. How much are you being paid?"

"Ten million dollars."

"Only ten million dollars?" Tony could hardly believe his ears. In his eyes, if someone could get him out of here, he would be willing to pay even a hundred million.

Then Tony said casually, "Fine. As long as you get Ethan and me out together, I'll give you another ten million dollars."

To Tony, twenty million dollars was no different from ten million dollars.

At that moment, a new employment mission was generated in the system: Rescue Dr. Ethan from the Ten Rings camp. Employment points: 100.

Looking at the new employment mission in the system, Meng Zu saw that both missions involved rescuing someone, yet Tony was worth a full 1,000 employment points while Ethan was worth only 100. The difference was tenfold. Meng Zu could now truly confirm that once a mission involved a superhero, the employment points became higher.

"Fine. Wait here. I'll be right back." Meng Zu accepted Tony's employment request, instructed the two men, then pushed open the door and left.