He couldn't figure out how Chu Yang had discovered him.
The leader suppressed the pain from his broken hand, raised the RPG high, and fired a shot at Chu Yang's position.
Unfortunately, Chu Yang had already predicted his actions and disappeared the moment he fired.
"Fuck!"
The leader looked as if he had seen a ghost.
He was about to fire another shot when the door behind him exploded.
An Iron Man armor, gleaming with cold light, appeared before his eyes.
The leader froze.
Bang!
The Iron Man armor raised its mechanical arm, and a cannon shot directly blasted him away.
"Ethan?!"
Tony, piloting the Iron Man armor, looked around and finally spotted Ethan lying on the ground, with another person standing beside him. Tony immediately launched an attack.
To avoid accidentally harming Ethan with the cannon, he chose to use a flamethrower to force back the person standing next to Ethan.
A high-temperature fire snake shot straight out of the nozzle.
When Chu Yang saw Iron Man appear, he thought the situation was settled, so he specifically went to check on the injured Ethan.
But he didn't expect Tony to treat him as an enemy!
The moment the high-temperature flamethrower spewed…
Chu Yang flicked out a card, severing the extended alloy gun barrel!
Tony: "???"
I must have seen wrong!
Tony felt like he was hallucinating, seeing a playing card cut through the Iron Man armor's weapon.
He even saw the face of that playing card!
Ace of Spades!
"Hey, boss, I'm an employee of Stark Industries, we're on the same side!"
"You're quite the joker, and your English is good too."
"I'm serious, today is my first official day of work."
"Shut up, you damn terrorist!"
Tony, who completely disbelieved Chu Yang, prepared to attack. The massive Iron Man armor faced Chu Yang, its shoulder-mounted machine guns and cannons rotating simultaneously.
"Tsk tsk, rich people are always impatient."
Under Chu Yang's control, each card precisely struck the exposed weld points of the Iron Man armor, sparking dazzling flashes of light.
After more than a dozen continuous flashes, Tony suddenly felt his body lighten.
Clink clank ~~~
The Iron Man armor instantly turned into a pile of scrap metal, falling off him one after another.
Suddenly, Tony felt as if he had been stripped bare, standing in front of Chu Yang.
He awkwardly raised his hands and waved them at Chu Yang, "Hello!"
Chu Yang smacked his lips.
This is over!
Tony's face turned ashen, and he began to imagine the scene of terrorists executing him.
"Cough cough cough, I promise I'll never play poker again in my life!"
Happy, whose insides were almost coming out, staggered in from outside the cave, his steps unsteady. At first, he didn't know how those people had died, until he later saw a Nine of Hearts stuck in someone's head.
"Happy?!"
Tony looked at his bodyguard and good friend, his pale face quickly flushed, and he shouted the other's name in surprise.
"Tony!"
Happy was equally excited.
Just as the two were about to share a big hug, Tony suddenly stopped, turned his head, and looked at Chu Yang in surprise, asking:
"Fuck! You're really my employee?!!!"
…
In the evening, the military pinpointed their location through intense artillery fire.
Colonel Law personally led the team to rescue Tony Stark.
When he arrived at the destination and saw the devastated base, his heart immediately tightened.
With such fierce fighting, even if they found Tony, he would probably be burned to ashes…
Thinking of this, Colonel Law was overcome with grief, and the eyes of the seven-foot man were red.
Beep beep beep ~~~
His phone rang.
Ignoring his sorrow, Colonel Law answered the phone.
"What?"
"He's already back!"
"Having a party at the hospital?!!!!"
"Fuck! Tony!"
…
Hospital.
"So, the guy who cut through steel with playing cards is only 16 years old, about to go to high school, and you just met him on the street?"
"And you've known him for less than twenty-four hours?!!!!"
Tony, lying on the hospital bed, stared at Happy with wide eyes until Happy became a little embarrassed and shyly turned away.
"Are you sure the information you found is true? That kid looks like he escaped from some secret base…"
Tony still found it hard to believe. Every time he thought of his meticulously crafted armor being as fragile as tofu in front of that kid, his pride felt like it had ten thousand ants crawling on it.
"I'm sure!" Happy said seriously:
"Pepper used all the group's manpower and resources to investigate him."
"Yang grew up in a small rural town. His parents and family were multi-generational Chinese immigrants who passed away when he was very young. He was raised by neighbors and the town's welfare agencies."
"He got into a public high school in Brooklyn, but for some reason, he didn't attend and instead chose to wander the streets, and then he met me."
Upon hearing "Brooklyn," Tony instinctively frowned and said with a tone of disdain, "If it were me, I wouldn't study there either. Tsk tsk, Brooklyn? That place only produces thugs and addicts!"
"Please watch your language, Mr. Stark." Pepper heard Tony's terrible remarks as soon as she entered the hospital room, and angrily reminded him, "Saying that will be seen as discrimination in the public eye, and it's very bad for Stark Industries' image!"
"I apologize!" Tony raised his hands, "Although I was being objective, you're right, Miss Potts."
Pepper was already used to Tony's brazenness. She helplessly said, "I've found all the information you asked for. Now, let's talk about how to handle that boy."
"God! He's only 16! He was actually forced to go to the Afghanistan battlefield to save people!"
"Happy, do you know how many laws we've broken just because he's a minor?"
"You said you met a formidable guy on the street, but you didn't say he was a minor!"
By the end, Pepper was almost yelling.
Her loud voice made Happy feel like he was standing in the eye of a storm.
"Hey, you know, I always have trouble telling Asian people apart." Happy wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and complained, "Normally, a minor couldn't possibly beat up so many black people."
Tony nodded empathetically, "Normally, a minor couldn't possibly destroy my armor with playing cards."
"Perhaps he has some special skill? Don't forget, he's Chinese!" Pepper was tired of listening to these two scoundrels' excuses and angrily demanded, "How exactly do we deal with him?!"
Tony and Happy exchanged glances and answered in unison.
"Of course, we keep him!!!"
"I'll say it again, he's a minor, we can't employ him! That's illegal!"
Pepper roared in exasperation!
She felt that Tony and Happy hadn't listened to a word she had just said!
"Oh oh! Calm down, Miss Potts!"
Tony flinched in fright and quickly explained, "I know he's a minor, and I know he has no living relatives. According to regulations, the Stark Philanthropic Foundation can sponsor his education, do you understand what I mean?"
Now Pepper understood: to gain guardianship of Chu Yang in the name of Stark Industries.
Tony smiled, "Find him a good school. In exchange, I need him to help me with some small tests."
Pepper suddenly thought of something and asked, "Help you test the strength of those iron toys?"
"Hey! You can't insult my crystallization of wisdom like that!" Tony said, flushed with anger and embarrassment, "The previous one was only a semi-finished product, that's why it was so fragile!"
"A semi-finished product broken by playing cards, isn't that just a toy?" Pepper sneered, then left the hospital room without looking back.
She wasn't worried about Tony's health; after all, how bad could the health of someone who could throw a party in a hospital be?
Happy stood quietly to the side, trying to make himself look less like a third wheel while the two bickered.
As Tony's friend and bodyguard, he was well aware of the inexplicable romantic tension between Pepper and Tony.
"She doesn't understand anything!" Tony's face was red with anger, and he kept defending himself, "I'm sure those playing cards must be problematic. Damn it, I should have taken some when I left!"
Happy thoughtfully reminded him, "Gustav has a lot of them. If you need them, I can get you a few boxes."
Tony: "…"