Chapter Ninety-Five: Ulysses Crow

"The boss and his men have the tunnel surrounded. How are you supposed to get out?" Li Yiyi asked.

"Simple. I’ll just suit up and break straight through," Wang Jing said carelessly.

At that moment, Song Guohua came over and said, "The particle accelerator and all the experimental equipment are complete. All that’s missing now is vibranium."

"Understood. We move tomorrow night. Make sure everyone is ready," Wang Jing said with a nod.

Late the next night, with no sign of Wang Jing to be found, Nick Fury had no choice but to pull back his men and reopen the road. After all, this was a main thoroughfare, and more than ten thousand vehicles used it every day.

With no progress to report, even Nick Fury could not afford the consequences of a massive traffic jam.

Still, to be safe, he left more than a dozen agents behind to guard the tunnel.

"Why is it always us who get stuck with these lousy jobs? Damn mosquitoes—I’m practically being drained dry!" complained a third-rate agent as he slapped a huge mosquito off his neck.

His partner beside him sighed. "Who told us to be the least favored third-rate agents? Besides, people in our line of work live with their heads tied to their belts. If they’ve assigned you to an uneventful shift like this, you should count yourself lucky."

"You think I came here to be a cop who just enjoys a comfortable job?" the first agent said unhappily.

"Isn’t that the point?"

"I became an agent so I could be a superhero like Captain America, punishing evil and upholding justice!"

"Buddy, then you should’ve become a police officer, not an agent. Cops get to fight crime every day—especially in Queens!" the other agent said with a laugh.

"Forget it. The mortality rate for the police in Queens is even higher than ours. I still want to live a few more years."

While the two of them were chatting, a deep rumble came from behind them, growing closer and closer.

The two agents turned toward the pitch-black tunnel entrance. Just as they were wondering what on earth it was, a tiny point of light shot out.

They only felt a gust of wind sweep over their heads. In the faint moonlight, they saw something vaguely human-shaped streaking past overhead.

"Was that Iron Man?" one of the agents asked uncertainly, staring at the rapidly receding point of light.

"Who cares what it was? Report it first!" the other agent said, pulling out his communicator.

At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, inside the Triskelion, Nick Fury received the report Hill had passed along.

"Can the radar scan him?" Nick Fury asked.

Hill shook her head. "No. There’s no response at all on the radar."

"And what about Tony Stark? Any luck there?"

"Nothing. Stark has been holed up in his basement, working on a replacement for palladium," Hill said helplessly.

"Then tell Natasha to speed things up and figure out as soon as possible whether that armor Wang Jing is wearing came from Stark."

"And reopen that tunnel, search it again. There has to be a hidden room or a concealed door somewhere in there," Nick Fury ordered.

"Also, increase surveillance and review of all the cameras in New York City. Find their accomplices as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

On the other side, Wang Jing, flying in his armor, circled high in the air for a long while before heading toward Africa—the meeting place he had agreed on with Ulysses Klaue.

After three hours of arduous travel, Wang Jing finally reached Africa. For the entire journey, he had been flying in a crouched position. If not for the armor’s soft cushioning material, he suspected he would have ended up with a slipped disc.

Just thinking about the entire world suffering from slipped discs at once made Wang Jing feel absurdly amused.

Not far from the agreed meeting point, Wang Jing stopped and brought Bumblebee and Liu Peiqiang over from the main world.

The two of them rode on Bumblebee and arrived at a shoreline lined with more than a dozen stranded cruise ships.

From a distance, Wang Jing could already see unmistakable signs of human activity on one of the ships. Bumblebee came to a stop in front of that abandoned vessel, where several men stood, their clothes filthy, but the weapons in their hands were all the latest single-soldier arms produced by Stark Industries.

Seeing that familiar standard, Wang Jing raised an eyebrow, then said to the few men clearly acting as outer guards before him in a haughty tone, "We’re here to do business. Bring your boss out!"

"Wait here!" one of them replied just as rudely, then called something toward the cruise ship behind him.

A short while later, a somewhat disheveled Ulysses Klaue came over with a crowd of underlings around him, smiling broadly.

"Haha, if I’m not mistaken, you two must be the customers who said online two days ago that you wanted to buy my vibranium!" Ulysses Klaue said with a hearty laugh.

Wang Jing nodded, then said impatiently, "That’s right. Hurry up and show us the goods. The sooner we trade, the sooner this is over."

"Take it easy, mate. This isn’t buying vegetables at the market. We have to do things properly. Where’s the money you brought?" Ulysses Klaue asked, glancing past Wang Jing and Liu Peiqiang at Bumblebee behind them.

Wang Jing took out a phone and said, "A five-billion deal? A transfer is faster, of course." As he spoke, he showed Klaue a forged bank balance.

Seeing all those zeroes, Klaue’s grin widened even more. "Haha, come with me!" he said, turning toward the abandoned cruise ship.

Wang Jing and Liu Peiqiang exchanged a look, then followed him inside.

After entering the ship, Wang Jing saw that a large number of people were busy manufacturing all kinds of missiles and weapons. Their group clearly drew the attention of those workers, who all looked over with curious expressions.

Led by Ulysses Klaue, they came to a hidden door. He lifted the panel, revealing a row of barrels containing nuclear waste. But then those barrels began to slide downward, exposing the vibranium above them, each piece wrapped in a small metal container.

Klaue stepped forward, took one canister, and tossed it to Wang Jing, then said with a smile, "This is the most labor-intensive material in the world. At five billion, you’re absolutely getting your money’s worth."

"Mm-hmm, we really won’t be losing out. All right, let’s do the transfer. What’s your bank account number?" Wang Jing asked, taking out his phone.

Klaue recited a string of numbers. Wang Jing pretended to enter them, then handed the phone to Klaue and said, "Check it again. I don’t want you blaming me later for sending it to the wrong account."

The instant Klaue took the phone, a powerful current burst out from it, jolting him into violent convulsions.

At that very moment, Wang Jing reached out, grabbed the trembling Ulysses Klaue, and activated his passage ability.

Meanwhile, Liu Peiqiang on the side activated the energy shield on his chest. The soldiers around them, realizing something was wrong, raised their guns and opened fire on Liu Peiqiang.

Fortunately, the energy shield held firmly against the hail of bullets.