Tony Stark

Tony and Yinsen remained perfectly still, as if they had truly fallen asleep and had not heard Meng Zu at all.

The air around them grew silent. An eerie scene took shape in the cave: one man stood before two sleeping men, staring fixedly at them. This sort of scene often appeared 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 they said you could not wake someone who was pretending to sleep.

As Tony pretended to sleep, he suddenly heard the man in front of him mutter to himself, "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 try it? If I quickly stab Little Tony, 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 other man was probably just trying to scare him. They still needed him to build weapons for them, so they definitely would not hurt him.

Although Tony thought so, after about ten seconds, he suddenly felt something sharp pressed against his waist, slowly sliding downward. Then he heard the man say, "Mm, this is the spot."

The sharp sensation 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. At the same time, he shouted, "Okay, 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 a little awkward. Meng Zu smiled and tossed the wire aside. "I thought you could keep pretending, but your expression just now was really quite entertaining."

When Meng Zu had pressed the wire against Tony's waist, Tony's brows had already begun to twitch. As the wire slid downward, Tony's expression stiffened, and he was clearly gritting his teeth. When the wire reached Little Tony, his throat bobbed uncontrollably. Especially when Meng Zu lifted the wire, Tony's eyelids began to tremble violently, as though he were about to wake up at any moment.

Although 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 this much backbone?"

At that moment, Dr. Yinsen 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 isn't from the Ten Rings? You're sure?" Tony asked Dr. Yinsen, eyeing Meng Zu's clothing.

Dr. Yinsen said with certainty, "Of course. Haven't you noticed that he speaks English? Over the years, I've 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. Yinsen 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 alone think you can take us and fight our way out of the Ten Rings' camp?" Tony rose to his feet and spoke to Meng Zu with the look one gave an idiot.

Meng Zu did not mind Tony's tone. After all, Tony was the target he needed to protect, and there was no need to make an enemy of Contract 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 quite confident I can get you out before they react."

Hearing that, Tony felt Meng Zu's plan was somewhat feasible. He pointed at Dr. Yinsen and asked, "What about Yinsen?"

"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 Yinsen with us, then I'm not leaving either."

"Mr. Stark, you need to understand that if we bring Yinsen along, the Ten Rings may grow suspicious. We might be exposed then," Meng Zu tried to persuade Tony. It would be best if they could leave as easily as possible.

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

"Yinsen, don't say any more. You saved my life. I can't leave you here alone." Tony directly rejected Dr. Yinsen's suggestion.

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

"What method?"

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

Tony raised an eyebrow 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 your teachers really were garbage. Don't you know there's signal-jamming equipment installed here? There's no way to use electronic devices to contact the outside from here."

"All right, that was my mistake." Meng Zu took out his phone and looked at it, only to find that it truly had no signal at all. After all, Meng Zu had never intended to notify the U.S. military to rescue Tony. That would have earned him far too few Contract Points.

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

"All right, you can shut up now." Meng Zu said irritably, "You want to save him too, right? Then how much are you planning to pay?"

"Money? Pepper hired you to rescue me. How much was the reward?"

"Ten million dollars."

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

Then Tony said casually, "All right. As long as you get Yinsen 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 contract mission appeared in the system: rescue Dr. Yinsen from the Ten Rings' camp. Contract Points: 100.

Looking at the new contract mission in the system, Meng Zu saw that although both missions involved rescuing someone, Tony was worth a full 1,000 Contract Points while Yinsen was worth only 100. The difference was tenfold. Meng Zu could now truly confirm that once a mission involved a superhero, the Contract Points would become higher.

"Fine. Wait here. I'll be right back." Meng Zu accepted Tony's contract, gave the two of them an instruction, then pushed open the door and left.