Yang Ming's low voice suddenly sounded behind him.
Fury stopped, the faintest trace of an "all according to plan" smile curling his lips. He turned around and waited for Yang Ming to yield.
Yang Ming sat in his chair with his head lowered. Reflections on his gold-rimmed glasses hid his eyes.
He looked at the black card on the desk, then at the miniature projector beside it. The image of that taxi driver roaring with a wrench raised in his hand refused to leave his mind.
In his previous life, he had been a doctor. While trying to save a drowning child, his lungs had filled with river water, and he had suffocated.
After transmigrating here, he had used greed, scheming, and cold-bloodedness to disguise himself as a hedgehog. He had told himself that in this universe crawling with monsters, all he needed to do was look after his own little patch of turf.
But a doctor had a compassionate heart. Some things were etched into his bones and could never be washed away.
Yang Ming drew a deep breath and slowly raised his head. All the flippancy and mercenary calculation vanished from his dark eyes, replaced by a chilling absolute rationality.
"Fury." Yang Ming called him neither Director nor Black Egghead. "You played the emotional card. You won."
A flicker of delight passed through Fury's eyes.
"But-" Yang Ming changed tack. His long fingers pressed against the black card and slowly pushed it back.
"I refuse to join the Avengers."
Fury's smile froze, and his lone eye abruptly narrowed. "Why?"
"Because I don't trust you, and I trust the politicians behind you even less." Yang Ming stood, enunciating every word.
"Today, they can create Abomination for profit. Tomorrow, they can drop a nuke on New York for power. Put