Chapter Ninety-Eight: Zhong Shenxiu Takes Great Pains

The savage pain tore into Tony’s mind like a million ants gnawing at his marrow.

He was almost unconscious; his awareness had thinned to the brink. And with his right arm gone, the Iron Armor had lost its balance, while the flow of energy through his abdomen had been blocked. It could no longer keep Tony suspended in the air.

He fell again.

Thud.

This time he struck the ground even harder than before, sending dust and dirt exploding into the air.

A long while later, as Tony’s consciousness returned once more amid Jarvis’s intermittent warnings, he found that the figure still shrouded in red light had already come to stand beside him.

Those eyes, as cold and distant as a god’s, were looking down at him just as Tony had once looked down at others.

“Who... who are you?” Tony tried instinctively to flee, but his body would not obey him in the slightest. He could only ask in panic, his voice breaking.

Zhong Shenxiu gave him no answer.

After confirming that Tony’s wound would not prove fatal within a short time, Zhong Shenxiu turned and walked toward the wreckage of the mechanical armor.

With one grab, he tore out the Arc Reactor from the chest, the one piece still in relatively good condition.

That thing was the most valuable part of the armor, so it was naturally worth recovering.

As for the rest, he left it there. After all, it had already been reduced to scrap metal, and from such common materials, nothing useful could be traced.

As for why he did not also remove the Arc Reactor from Tony’s chest—

Primarily because Zhong Shenxiu was afraid he might die.

A living Tony was far more useful than a dead one. First, Zhong Shenxiu still needed him to drop the Heart of Steel. Second, he would also need Tony’s Stark stock to raise the funds required to build the Space Stone detector.

And the reason Zhong Shenxiu had deliberately pierced Tony’s abdomen with the Thunder Spear was the same. Though the injury caused by that high-voltage current looked terrifying—

In truth, precisely because it was high-voltage current, the wound in Tony’s abdomen had already been seared and cauterized to some extent. It would not gush blood like an ordinary abdominal wound, and thus would not kill him so quickly.

On top of that, Zhong Shenxiu had severed his right arm for two reasons. First, to ensure that Tony would absolutely come to him for treatment, since there were few who could perform limb regeneration besides him.

Second, to keep Tony from dying.

Someone once asked why a slit wrist could bleed to death, while a severed arm often would not.

The answer is actually related to the body’s arteries. Human arteries are highly elastic, and once fully severed, they recoil like springs back into the flesh.

For example, if someone’s arm is cut off above the elbow, the brachial artery might snap all the way back into the shoulder. This is why, in such surgeries, the most troublesome part is not anything else, but finding the artery that has recoiled to who-knows-where.

Finding it, pulling it out, and stitching it back together sounds almost ridiculous, but that is what it takes to properly complete an arterial repair.

This recoil is also a self-protective function of the human body, since it can indeed reduce blood loss from arterial injury.

Sigh... to preserve Tony’s life, Zhong Shenxiu had truly gone to great lengths—

Afraid he might kill him with too heavy a hand, yet also afraid that if he went too lightly, he would cause no real damage and all this trouble would be for nothing.

He glanced at Tony, whose breathing was weak but who could still hold on for quite some time, then stopped paying attention to him. Instead, he tucked the Arc Reactor into his pocket and took a small silver box from his thigh.

Opening it, he revealed six tiny metal canisters arranged neatly inside, each about the size of a fingernail.

Inside were blood samples. He had previously asked Ivan to prepare them for use with his Skrull Transformation Art.

No one knew what kind of black technology Ivan had used, but as long as these were kept in the little box, the blood inside the canisters could remain viable for more than a week.

Some of the fresher samples could even last ten days or more.

With this device, the limitations of Zhong Shenxiu’s Skrull Transformation Art were greatly reduced. He only needed to replenish the blood once every week or so.

So much more convenient than drawing it fresh each time, as before.

Zhong Shenxiu walked into a patch of shadow where no cameras or eyes could reach, then dismissed the chaotic magical power that had been veiling his face.

He opened one of the small capsules.

At once, his fingers turned green. A slit opened in them, and they absorbed every drop of the crimson blood inside the capsule.

Very quickly, Zhong Shenxiu had changed his appearance.

He became a burly redneck white man.

After that, Zhong Shenxiu repeated the same process, circling the area for a long while and changing his appearance several times. Only after he was certain it was absolutely safe did he head home.

He needed to get back quickly. Just now, as he was leaving, Zhong Shenxiu had sensed that the people of Shield had already arrived at Stark Weapons Development.

It seemed that before long, they would transport Tony to his Zhong Shen Clinic.

As for Ivan and Peter—

The two of them had already left.

That had long since been part of the plan. According to it, once the materials were loaded, Ivan would drive Peter along the prearranged return route to the secret base.

Zhong Shenxiu was reasonably at ease about their safety.

After all, they had Spider-Man providing escort.

—

“So we’re just leaving like this? We’re not waiting for Xiu?”

Peter hung upside down from the ceiling of the cab and looked toward Stark Weapons Development in the distance, where artillery fire was raging and white-blue lasers were exploding into countless flashes of light and electricity.

At his words, Ivan glanced in the rearview mirror at the fiercely fought battle at the weapons facility and was somewhat astonished.

Who exactly could be fighting the boss to such a degree?

Then he looked away and continued driving the truck, answering Peter, “No need to wait. The boss planned for us to leave first. He’ll catch up later. Don’t worry.”

Though he said not to worry, the booming crashes of exploding energy were enough to make even Ivan feel uneasy.

“Maybe I should go back...” Peter began.

Before he could finish, Ivan cut him off.

“Follow orders. Our task is to escort this truckload of materials. Don’t go making trouble.”

“Oh.”

Peter nodded rather listlessly, but his gaze remained fixed on the fiercely raging battle at the weapons development site, full of longing.

Ivan, however, paid no attention to the child.

He slammed the accelerator.

It was nearly as if he meant to drive the pedal straight into the fuel tank.

At the same time, Ivan kept watching the lonely, desolate road through both the rearview mirror and the windshield.

He had... a strange feeling.

Hard to explain.

But it always seemed as though someone was watching him.

That was the main reason he had hastened their return.

I hope it’s just my imagination... Ivan thought, looking at the pitch-black emptiness around them.