Chapter Summaries

Lin Xiao’s dinner with Hill was interrupted when Betty told him that her father had gone to Brazil to hunt Banner, so Lin Xiao decided to go after her. Hill joined him under the pretext of supervising a high-risk mission, and years later Fury saw her pregnant and blamed Lin Xiao.

• Lin Xiao tried to get closer to Hill during dinner, but Kara repeatedly interrupted them before they could share a moment.
• Betty called Lin Xiao and said her father had taken a unit to Brazil to hunt Banner, and she feared he would be hurt.
• Lin Xiao told Betty to wait at the airport so they could travel to Brazil together, and Hill offered to accompany him as an official supervisor.
• Lin Xiao sent Tony a message saying he owed him a favor, then joked that Fury would regret allowing Hill to go to Brazil with him.
• Years later, Fury saw the pregnant Hill at S.H.I.E.L.D. and muttered Lin Xiao’s name.

Lin Xiao left Betty asleep at the hotel and rushed to the destroyed military camp, where he found General Ross gravely wounded and Abomination responsible for the devastation. After using his life energy to keep Ross alive, Lin Xiao confronted Abomination and fought to protect Ross, ending with Abomination charging at him.

• Lin Xiao comforted Betty at the hotel, promised to take her to General Ross in the morning, and left Hill to watch over her.
• Lin Xiao flew to the military camp and found its soldiers dead, its command post destroyed, and Ross barely alive.
• Lin Xiao used his blue silver grass and life energy to stabilize Ross, despite Doupao warning that the effort could seriously harm him.
• Abomination confronted Lin Xiao and admitted he had attacked the camp after Ross's experiments transformed him and Ross tried to capture him.
• Lin Xiao refused to let Abomination kill Ross, declaring that he would judge Abomination himself.
• Abomination charged, and Lin Xiao dodged his punch and drew the Blink Dagger.

Lin Xiao fought Abomination through the rain and finally knocked him down, but he collapsed beside him, unable to reach the still-living Thaddeus Ross. Abomination got back up and struck Lin Xiao as his consciousness faded.

• Lin Xiao stabbed Abomination, blinded one eye with lightning, and endured a series of punishing counterattacks while trying to protect Thaddeus Ross.
• Lin Xiao used lightning, blue silver grass, and repeated blows to weaken Abomination, then fought him hand to hand as Heartsteel began to crack.
• Lin Xiao landed a final punch that toppled Abomination, then collapsed in the mud, thinking of Betty, May, Gwen Stacy, Natasha, and Sif.
• Abomination's fingers moved, and he slowly rose while Lin Xiao lay unable to move.
• Abomination charged and struck Lin Xiao, whose consciousness faded as he watched the camp disappear into darkness.

Lin Xiao survived Abomination’s fatal attack when Unyielding Heart revived and healed him, then defeated the monster after pouring his saved attribute points into strength. He buried Emil Blonsky and carried the unconscious Thaddeus Ross out of the ruined military camp as dawn broke.

• Abomination punched through Lin Xiao’s chest, but Unyielding Heart activated, healed him, and blasted Abomination into the ruins.
• Lin Xiao recovered and fought Abomination while Heartsteel accumulated 52 stacks, then assigned his saved attribute points to strength until it reached 715.
• Lin Xiao overwhelmed Abomination with his enhanced strength, smashed him into the ground, and left him motionless.
• Lin Xiao identified the dead Abomination as Emil Blonsky, dug a grave with Blue Silver Grass, and buried him.
• Lin Xiao checked on the unconscious Thaddeus Ross and carried him out of the destroyed camp near dawn.

Lin Xiao brought the wounded Thaddeus Ross back to Betty, then recovered at the hotel while S.H.I.E.L.D. investigated the destroyed Brazilian military camp. After seeing the deaths blamed on an accident, Banner decided he could no longer keep hiding.

• Lin Xiao returned to the hotel carrying Thaddeus Ross, reassured Betty that her father would recover, and concealed how badly he had been hurt.
• Military personnel took Thaddeus Ross and Betty to the hospital, and Hill stayed with Lin Xiao as he struggled to walk.
• Coulson and Hill inspected the destroyed camp, where 175 people had died, while Lin Xiao rested and considered secretly collecting Banner's blood.
• Banner saw the news report about the camp and rejected its account of the deaths as an accident.
• Banner left the bar and resolved that he could not keep hiding, since the thing inside him might emerge again and kill more people.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. searched Brazil for Banner, Lin Xiao kept Banner’s location secret and focused on winning over Hill. Hill admitted she did not dislike his attention and agreed to meet him again the next morning.

• Lin Xiao told Tony to prepare a laboratory for Banner and concealed Banner’s planned route from S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Lin Xiao courted Hill with coffee, food, and a heart-shaped stone, while Hill quietly noticed his stash of similar stones.
• Lin Xiao staged a jealous-making encounter with a Frenchman, then waited for Hill to respond; she called and arranged dinner.
• At dinner, Hill told Lin Xiao she had seen through his tricks and did not dislike them, then softly agreed to his request not to share such evenings with others.
• Hill asked Lin Xiao to meet her downstairs at eight the next morning, and he replied with a teasing message offering a wake-up service.

Lin Xiao claimed a Super Spirit Bomb and learned its power depended on willingly offered spirit energy, then examined an ill-fitting Invisibility Cloak and his growing list of powerful rivals. As Lin Xiao went to sleep, Hill lay awake holding the heart-shaped stone he had given her.

• Lin Xiao watched Banner sneak out of the church and messaged a mysterious number, “We move tonight.”
• Lin Xiao claimed the Super Spirit Bomb, learned it could draw energy from people who willingly offered it, and decided to save it for a true crisis.
• Lin Xiao received an Invisibility Cloak that left his legs exposed, then saw his combat rating had reached A+.
• Lin Xiao learned that Tao Yuhan had also reached A+ because Lin Xiao’s actions had strengthened public awareness of superheroes and mysterious powers.
• Hill replayed her dinner with Lin Xiao, pressed the heart-shaped stone to her chest, and kept holding it as she lay awake.

Banner escaped Brazil aboard a smuggler’s ship but was captured by Walker, who brought him to Lin Xiao. Lin Xiao persuaded Banner to join him by offering medical care and a private lab, then hid him from Coulson’s search.

• Banner boarded a smuggler’s ship bound for Argentina, but Walker knocked him unconscious and took him to an abandoned warehouse.
• Lin Xiao explained that he wanted to recruit Banner rather than hand him over, and offered him medical insurance and a dedicated laboratory.
• Banner accepted Lin Xiao’s offer after asking whether he could trust him and what would happen if Hulk emerged.
• Lin Xiao hid Banner nearby when Coulson and his agents arrived, and Walker misdirected them while Lin Xiao falsely claimed to be at the hotel.
• Coulson searched the empty warehouse, spoke with Lin Xiao by phone, and left without finding Banner.

Peter and Ned traveled to Kamar-Taj while Lin Xiao remained away in Brazil, hoping to learn from the sorcerers. The Ancient One tested Ned’s Sling Ring skills, then had Wong take the boys to settle in, leaving Ned hopeful that she had accepted him as a disciple.

• Peter and Ned decided to visit Kamar-Taj, prepared gifts, and traveled from Tibet’s airport up the mountain to the temple.
• Wong led them to meet the Ancient One, who recognized Peter’s spirit entity as a presence from another universe and connected it to Lin Xiao.
• Ned bowed to the Ancient One as a prospective disciple, and she silently challenged him to use what he knew by tossing him a Sling Ring.
• Ned opened a stable portal to the mountain gate with his old Sling Ring, and the Ancient One nodded before asking Wong to help them settle in.
• Wong took Peter and Ned to a room in the side courtyard, where Ned wondered whether the Ancient One had accepted him.

Lin Xiao admitted to Hill that he had taken Banner to Vought’s lab, and Hill destroyed the recorder and covered for him before they became intimate. In Kamar-Taj, Ned began Mordo’s balance training while Wong taught Peter to meditate, leaving both young men facing demanding lessons.

• Hill confronted Lin Xiao about Banner’s disappearance, and he admitted arranging Banner’s trip to Vought’s lab with Tony and Happy.
• Hill smashed Fury’s recorder and reported that Banner’s whereabouts were unknown and Lin Xiao had not participated in the operation.
• Lin Xiao told Hill he wanted to take responsibility for her, and the two went into his room and became intimate.
• At Kamar-Taj, Ned struggled through morning exercise before Mordo assigned him to hold a bowl of water steady as the first step in learning magic.
• Wong told Peter to meditate because he lacked focus, and Peter sat in the bamboo grove while Wong eventually left him there.
• Ned managed to hold one bowl steady, but Mordo required him to repeat the exercise for thirty bowls.

After spending the night with Lin Xiao, Hill returned to work and covered for him in her report to Fury. Fury received Lin Xiao’s warning, while Natasha discovered a metal box in an Arctic plane wreck and saved photos of it to send later.

• Hill left Lin Xiao’s hotel room, met Coulson, and told him to report that Lin Xiao had not participated in the Banner operation and his whereabouts were unknown.
• Fury received a book from Lin Xiao with a warning not to target his people again, then told Natasha that Lin Xiao was on leave.
• Natasha told Fury she had dealt with her target and would return in two or three days, adding that she had spotted something she wanted to discuss.
• Natasha found a sealed metal box in the wreckage of a plane on an Arctic ice field and photographed it and the wreck for later.

Hawkeye identified the Arctic wreck as a Hydra Valkyrie bomber tied to Steve Rogers’s disappearance, prompting Fury to order a full excavation. As Hill and Lin Xiao prepared to return to New York, Lin Xiao guessed that Captain America was involved, while Natasha’s team detected something buried beneath the aircraft.

• Hawkeye matched the wreck’s insignia and serial number to a Seventh Column bomber from 1945, and Fury ordered Natasha to excavate it and determine whether Steve Rogers was aboard.
• Fury told Hill that the bomber might be the plane Steve disappeared in and ordered her and Lin Xiao back to New York to coordinate the excavation.
• Lin Xiao overheard the call, inferred that the discovery involved someone frozen beneath the ice, and messaged Tony that Captain America was about to wake up.
• Natasha’s team detected a strong metal response about two meters beneath the aircraft, and she ordered the agents to keep digging.

Lin Xiao returned to S.H.I.E.L.D., drafted a superhero rental contract, and learned that Hill was leaving to oversee the Arctic excavation of a likely frozen Captain America. As Lin Xiao planned his next visits, Ned and Peter continued their training at Kamar-Taj.

• Lin Xiao wrote a Vought superhero rental contract and sent it to Tony Stark, who teased him about the prices and agreed to arrange a pig-feed advertisement.
• Tony told Lin Xiao that Banner had settled in and received a five-million budget for his research into controlling Hulk.
• Hill told Lin Xiao that Natasha had found a likely frozen Captain America beneath the Arctic aircraft and that Hill was leaving to oversee the excavation.
• Lin Xiao and Hill shared a brief kiss before Hill left, and Lin Xiao considered visiting Thaddeus Ross, Betty, May, Jane, and Gwen Stacy.
• At Kamar-Taj, Mordo made Ned continue his water-holding exercise while Peter resumed meditation after sneezing.

Lin Xiao visited Thaddeus Ross in the military hospital, where he confronted him about his choices and stopped him from attempting suicide. Ross accepted Lin Xiao as Betty’s partner, and Lin Xiao left with Betty and May as Ross considered his suggestion to take up fishing.

• Lin Xiao reunited with May and comforted her before entering Thaddeus Ross’s hospital room with Betty.
• Lin Xiao spoke privately with Ross, criticizing his decision to create Blonsky and listening as Ross confessed his guilt over the soldiers who had followed him.
• Lin Xiao took a fruit knife from beneath Ross’s pillow and told him to live with his mistakes rather than end his life.
• Ross acknowledged that Betty had chosen Lin Xiao and entrusted her to him, prompting Lin Xiao to joke about the wedding and bride price.
• Lin Xiao suggested that Ross try fishing, then left the hospital with Betty and May while Ross quietly called him a brat.

Tony reviewed Lin Xiao’s superhero rental contract and discovered that its hidden fees could turn each deployment into a $31.4 million charge. Back at Lin Xiao’s mansion, Natasha reported a person-shaped anomaly beneath the Arctic plane wreckage, which Lin Xiao identified as Captain America.

• Tony read Lin Xiao’s contract, calculated its fees with JARVIS, and found the net charge for a six-hour deployment was $31.4 million.
• Tony told Lin Xiao they needed to discuss several clauses and instructed Happy to shoot a pig feed commercial using the client’s script unchanged.
• Lin Xiao, May, and Betty rested together, and Betty told Lin Xiao that her father had urged her to focus on her own life.
• Natasha called Lin Xiao to report a person-shaped anomaly under the Arctic plane wreckage, where Fury had sent the Arctic station team.
• Lin Xiao told May and Betty the discovery was Captain America, then decided to leave the contract and Arctic news until tomorrow.

After a night with May and Betty, Lin Xiao was accidentally pulled through Ned’s portal from his Manhattan home to Kamar-Taj. He set off with Ned to find the Ancient One, intending to get warm and confront Ned’s master about starving his disciple.

• Lin Xiao woke beside May and Betty, then called Tony to ask for two housekeeping robots.
• Ned opened a portal into Lin Xiao’s living room, collided with him, and dragged him through to Kamar-Taj.
• Lin Xiao learned Ned had opened the portal to escape hunger and had secretly put croton seeds in Mordo’s porridge.
• Mordo watched Lin Xiao and Ned from the ridge, decided to make Ned copy the Mind-Calming Mantra twenty times, and returned to the front hall.
• Lin Xiao headed up the snowy path with Ned to find the Ancient One, telling Ned he was angry but would handle his business at Kamar-Taj first.

Lin Xiao met the Ancient One at the mountain sanctuary and offered her a broken Ten Ring, hoping to repair and use it. After she warned him that the rings’ nature depended on what their wielder saw in them, she let him stay overnight and Wong arranged robes for him.

• Wong rebuked the young sorcerers for mocking Lin Xiao’s clothes, while Mordo punished Ned for secretly putting pills in his porridge.
• Wong led Lin Xiao through a moon gate to meet the Ancient One, who said her good days were almost over.
• Lin Xiao offered the Ancient One a broken Ten Ring as an introductory gift and admitted that he wanted to repair and use it.
• The Ancient One explained that the Ten Rings recognized a master who could see themselves in them, and asked Lin Xiao what he saw; he said he did not yet know.
• The Ancient One told Lin Xiao to choose a meditation room and stay the night, then Wong gave him robes and offered to have his pajama pants washed.

Lin Xiao reunited with Peter at Kamar-Taj, explained his unexpected arrival, and called May, Betty, and Tony. After reflecting through the night on what he wanted the ten rings to mean, Lin Xiao awakened the power of protection and restored its shattered ring.

• Peter found Lin Xiao at Kamar-Taj and learned Ned had opened a portal that brought him there.
• Lin Xiao borrowed Peter's phone to reassure May and Betty, then told Tony he was in Kamar-Taj; Tony used JARVIS to confirm his location and realized magic was real.
• Lin Xiao told Peter to focus on his training and went to the back mountain to contemplate the ten rings.
• At dawn, Lin Xiao decided that he wanted to protect the people he loved, and the shattered ring of protection repaired itself and awakened its power.
• The system revealed Lin Xiao's new protection skills: Energy Protection, Absolute Domain, and Energy Reflection; he put on the restored ring and headed toward the mountain gate.

Lin Xiao reunited with Tao Yuhan at Kamar-Taj and learned that Tao wanted his help finding Dr. Wu Zhengkai, a man tied to a storyline Lin Xiao recognized through Doupao. Tao began explaining why the search mattered.

• Lin Xiao joined Ned and Peter in the dining hall, where Ned ate a huge meal after missing dinner the previous night.
• Wong brought Lin Xiao to the side hall, where Tao Yuhan attacked him with fire and ice to test his strength.
• Lin Xiao blocked Tao Yuhan's combined attack with the Ring of Protection, and the two went to a village restaurant to eat.
• Lin Xiao noticed that the restaurant was an S.P.E.A.R. outpost and guessed Tao Yuhan had come to recruit him.
• Tao Yuhan showed Lin Xiao a photograph of Dr. Wu Zhengkai and asked for help finding him, while Doupao identified Wu as a character from Iron Man 3 whose storyline was still locked.

Lin Xiao agreed to help Tao Yuhan find Wu Zhengkai to operate on the injured Heartfire, in exchange for a personal favor. Tao introduced Clarice Ferguson, codename Blink, as Lin Xiao’s companion for the journey, while a military transport carried a mysterious specimen frozen for seventy years.

• Tao Yuhan showed Lin Xiao a photograph of Heartfire, who had been critically injured by rebar while saving three workers from a chemical plant fire.
• Tao Yuhan explained that S.P.E.A.R. could not find surgeon Wu Zhengkai, and Lin Xiao agreed to help locate him in exchange for a personal favor from Tao.
• Tao Yuhan introduced Clarice Ferguson, codename Blink, whose teleportation powers would help Lin Xiao on his return journey.
• Lin Xiao mistook Blink for Lord Fan, and Tao Yuhan explained that her past captivity had made her distrustful of others.
• Two women aboard a military transport discussed a scan of the sealed specimen pod, noting that its occupant had been frozen for seventy years.