Boom!
A massive fireball swelled in midair, wild currents of electricity crackling through it.
The people below looked worried as they all stared into the center of the fireball.
When he saw a figure plummeting from the sky, Steve's heart clenched, and he hurried toward where it would land!
Li Ang quietly glanced at the people below. Seeing someone holding up a phone to take pictures, he immediately relaxed.
His suit had certainly been blown to shreds, hanging from his body like scraps of rag.
As for the explosion hurting him? That was impossible.
Without exaggeration, that explosion had felt less intense than eating chili peppers.
The whole reason he was pretending to have been blasted out of the sky was to play the victim and rake in traffic!
If you were strong, people would admire you!
If you cared about the public, people would respect you.
If you were strong and cared about the public, even willing to suffer for them, then you were Jesus!
They would worship you!
That was right. That was exactly what Li Ang was after.
He did not use his flight ability to slow himself down, simply plunging straight toward the ground.
From this little height, forget getting hurt-he would not even scrape his skin.
Steve ran flat out toward Li Ang's landing spot and finally caught him just before he hit the ground!
Only now did he have a chance to get a close look at the boy in his arms.
He was so young. For a child this young to have the resolve to carry a bomb away from a crowd reminded him of his younger self!
At that moment, Steve saw the label "no spirit of self-sacrifice" from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s file in his mind.
That was complete fucking bullshit!
"I'll call an ambulance right away!" Happy said immediately.
Soon, hospital staff and police took over the street. Li Ang was wheeled into an ambulance, but Steve did not get in. S.H.I.E.L.D. picked him up.
Only Happy stayed by his side.
In the ambulance, Li Ang lay with his eyes closed, but he had already opened the system panel in his mind to check his gains.
As expected, the bonus rewards had arrived.
With three doses of Compound V5 in hand, Li Ang asked the system, "This stuff won't make me explode and die after I use it, will it?"
[Rest assured. Apart from being impossible to reverse-engineer, its success rate has been enhanced to 100%. It has never received a bad review. Compensation guaranteed if you explode!]
The corners of Li Ang's mouth twitched. Of course there were no bad reviews. Anyone who thought it did not work had already become a different kind of firework.
At the same time, he wondered who he should give these three doses of Compound V5 to.
While he was still thinking about how to distribute the Compound V5, the doctor immediately began examining him. Only then did Li Ang remember: would it not be awkward if the tests showed he was completely unhurt?
He asked the system, "Is there any way to alter the test results?"
[Yes. Temporary access to the system's artificial intelligence will solve the problem. Only 2,000 Presence.]
Two thousand it is!
You can't catch a wolf without risking a child. How would anyone come to admire me if I didn't play the victim?
On second thought, Li Ang asked, "How much would it cost to upgrade that to permanent access?"
[20,000 Presence required.]
Hearing that, Li Ang decisively chose the upgrade. He could still afford twenty thousand!
[Upgrading. Unlocking functions...]
No sooner had the words ended than two beeps sounded. The formerly rigid voice in Li Ang's mind transformed into one that sounded like a real person speaking.
[Network skills unlocked. Modifying test results.]
"Huh, these vitals are all stable. It doesn't look like... oh, shit!"
The doctor performing the preliminary examination clenched his buttocks in fright at the plummeting readings on the monitor. He hurried to administer emergency treatment, making Happy's heart race as he watched from the side.
Li Ang was taken all the way to the hospital, where he was examined and wheeled into an operating room.
Then something happened that left the doctors dumbfounded. His internal organs were injured, yet neither scalpels nor laser cutters could leave so much as a scratch on him!
That gave the doctors quite a fright.
Only after they detected that Li Ang's body was healing itself did everyone breathe a sigh of relief. They then fed a tube into his mouth to give him nutrient solution and wheeled him back to a ward.
The story of Li Ang flying high into the sky with a bomb to save people immediately became a trending topic!
Twitter was full of videos of him.
Not only that, Katherine Monahan, a reporter for the New York Daily News, reported:
Yesterday afternoon, a vicious assault occurred in Harlem. An unidentified man pursued Stark Industries' newly appointed CEO, Ms. Pepper Potts, and her bodyguard, Happy Hogan, through the street.
At the critical moment, the superhero Li Ang descended from the sky. After subduing the attacker bare-handed, he carried him high into the air when the man activated a self-destruct device, allowing it to detonate there and preventing casualties on the ground.
The attacker died at the scene. Li Ang himself was knocked out of the sky by the blast wave and subsequently hospitalized...
Of course, people were complicated.
Where some were moved, others would take the opposing view.
Daily Bugle, page two: Jameson.
Superheroes don't pay taxes, but someone has to pay for super-destruction!
Another heroic act, another complete mess: seventeen cars, twelve shops, and a major road shut down for four hours.
Who foots the bill? The taxpayers!
Lying in his hospital bed, Li Ang read the article, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"That old fucker. Looks like I really do need to have a chat with him!" Li Ang was so angry his mouth twisted.
Old Jameson really had no idea what playing dirty meant!
If he did not have a chat with him, the man really would take him for a superhero who cared about protecting his reputation.
"No, why pick a special day to beat him up? I'm going today!" With that, Li Ang threw back the covers and was about to leave when footsteps sounded in the hallway.
They were accompanied by Tony's irritable voice.
"You've got him in a place like this? Are you kidding me? Transfer him to the hospital I invested in, immediately! Get the best doctors!"
As he spoke, the ward door was pushed open.
Li Ang saw Tony hurry in, with Happy following behind him.
Seeing Li Ang awake, Tony let out a relieved breath. Guilt flashed in his eyes before he said, "You should've woken me up. If I'd been there, I could've come up with a better way."
Li Ang could see the concern in his eyes, but he still did not go easy on him.
"Fuck you," Li Ang cursed, noticing several bruises on Tony's face. He looked as though he had been beaten up.
"Did someone beat you up?" Li Ang pointed at Tony's face.
Tony gave two dry coughs. "Uh... I gave Rhodey a suit of armor. To shut the military up, you know."
Li Ang believed that. After all, Tony could have shut down Rhodey's armor with a single command. Their supposed falling-out was merely an act Tony had put on because he knew he did not have much time left.
As for why he had still done it when Li Ang had already helped relieve his palladium poisoning, that was anyone's guess.
"All right, enough about that. We're transferring you now!" Tony cut off whatever Li Ang was about to say next.
Although the medical care here was already among the best in the city, it was clearly more than one level below the team of global specialists he had booked.
While the two were talking, a familiar voice came from the hallway doorway.
"This is the first time I've seen you hurt. If it weren't for the medical report, I really wouldn't have believed it."
Nick Fury's voice rang out. In the hallway, Nick Fury leaned against the doorframe.
When Nick Fury had seen the report of Li Ang's injuries, he had declared it flatly impossible.
According to the data sent back from the field, that explosion had, at most, the TNT equivalent of a single missile. Could that possibly injure Li Ang?
And Nick Fury had come this time for one thing.
"Recently, a hammer fell out of the sky in New Mexico, in the United States. No matter what we try, we can't move it, so we'd like you to go take a look."
A hammer? Li Ang raised an eyebrow and immediately thought of Thor.