Zhang Lan watched with interest as Tony prattled on.
Tony was recounting his two-month cave adventure, and once he had set the stage sufficiently, he dropped the bombshell.
"I've seen it, I've realized it," Tony said, standing up from the floor and walking over to the microphone. "I can contribute more to the world than just making weapons. So, I've decided to shut down the weapons division of Stark Industries, effective immediately."
As soon as he said this, the reporters, who had been sitting on the floor, still stunned, sprang to their feet, forgetting even their professional questions, utterly astonished.
The old fox Obadiah, on the other hand, reacted quickly, stood up, patted Tony on the shoulder, and subtly pushed him away from the microphone, chuckling nervously.
"Okay, everyone, you've got your news. Our main focus today is that Tony is back safely, and—"
But who would pay attention to Obadiah's official-sounding reply? Naturally, everyone chased after Tony.
Seeing that the excitement was over, Zhang Lan glanced at Coulson and Pepper, who were clearly also very surprised, and smiled knowingly.
"Pepper, aren't you surprised?" Zhang Lan teased Pepper. "Don't you like Tony even more now?"
"Ah, yes, you're right," Pepper replied instinctively before she could fully process it. When she realized her answer was ambiguous, Zhang Lan had already gestured to Coulson and headed to the reception room.
"He's my boss," Pepper mumbled softly, not sure who she was talking to, or perhaps just to herself.
Meanwhile, Zhang Lan, who had been teasing Pepper, waited for Coulson to finish reporting on the incident before getting to the main topic.
"So, Coulson, what do you want to know?"
"Mr. Zhang, is it okay to address you that way? In China, you put your surname first, I remember."
"Of course, your memory is very good. Relatively speaking, I prefer you call me Zhang Lan, or Lan. Just like you, um…" Zhang Lan glanced at the business card in his hand. "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division? S.H.I.E.L.D.? How about the name S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"That's a very good name; we'll consider it." Even with Coulson's professionalism, he found it a little hard to keep up with the breadth of Zhang Lan's jump in conversation.
"So, Zhang Lan, according to our intelligence, you returned to New York from Afghanistan one day before Tony, on one of Tony's private jets. However, there's no record of you leaving the country. What's your take on this?" Coulson went straight to the point.
"Ah, Stark, that sharp-tongued fellow, is so tight-lipped?" Zhang Lan was a little surprised and blurted it out subconsciously. Then he realized Tony was covering for him, so he didn't say anything more.
"Well, I was on the same plane as Tony when I went."
"But there was no record of you on that plane at the time, and we asked Colonel Rhodes, who also didn't see you." Coulson naturally wouldn't believe it.
"Then there's nothing I can do. I swear I'm telling the truth." Zhang Lan shrugged, indicating that Rhodes, who didn't know about the Transformation Jutsu, naturally couldn't see him.
"Then, Lan, can you tell us why you came back before Tony? And how much do you know about Tony's attack?"
"My mission was completed, so I came back." Zhang Lan answered as if it were obvious. "As for Tony's matter, why don't you ask him? I almost suffocated earlier talking about him."
"Lan, I hope you can cooperate with our work." Coulson indicated that what Zhang Lan was saying was worth absolutely nothing.
"But that's all I know." Zhang Lan grinned, revealing a set of pearly white teeth, with a faint glint.
"If that's the case, then thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Zhang." Seeing Zhang Lan's lack of cooperation, and due to his relationship with Tony, Coulson had no choice but to give up, though his tone became much stiffer. "Then I won't disturb you any further."
With that, after receiving a nod from Zhang Lan, Coulson pushed the door open and left.
What a polite agent! He truly lived up to his reputation as the "Agent Template" as rated by Baidu.
Upon exiting, he immediately saw Hogan, Tony's Caucasian bodyguard, who, in his previous life, was the director of Iron Man 1. Tony had asked him to wait there for Zhang Lan and invite him to Tony's villa.
The villa he was barred from entering the first time he went.
"Hi, Jarvis, we meet again." Zhang Lan said, smiling at a camera when he arrived outside the villa, knowing that Jarvis could see him.
It's worth mentioning that Zhang Lan's appearance now was the same as when he first visited the villa, both being another form created by the Transformation Jutsu. The jutsu's consumption mainly occurred during its activation; maintaining a form consumed very little chakra, and Zhang Lan's usual chakra recovery was completely sufficient to sustain it.
Zhang Lan decided to temporarily use this appearance to interact with the superheroes, while his other, true face would be for living as an ordinary person, without wanting to interact with anyone.
The model for Zhang Lan's transformation was a male celebrity he had liked very much before, Hu Ge.
As for his name, in his legal identity in America, his name was Lan Parker, while in his current transformed appearance, he continued to use his original name, Zhang Lan.
"Welcome, Mr. Zhang from China."
Jarvis's distinctive electronic voice sounded, and then the main gate opened directly, and Hogan drove the car into the villa.
In the living room, Zhang Lan only saw Pepper Potts.
She was on the phone, and from her constant explanations, it seemed to be related to Tony's earlier statement. This Tony, he really found such a thoughtful Pepper.
"Pepper, how big are your hands?" Suddenly, Tony's voice came from a fixed tablet on the bar.
"What?" Pepper had just hung up the phone and looked at her palm. "Lan is here too. Do you want to come up and see him?"
"Lan is here too? Hey, Lan, great that you're here too. Can you come down for a bit? I've run into a bit of trouble." Tony was delighted to hear Zhang Lan was there and invited him down.
Pepper was clearly a bit surprised that Tony would let Zhang Lan into his basement, which was Tony's private lab, a place even Obadiah couldn't enter.
"Pepper, you should go down. Trust me, Tony needs you more." Zhang Lan indicated that he didn't want to ruin Tony and Pepper's chance to get closer.
"Hey, Lan. I haven't hung up yet." Tony's voice came through. "Now… it's not really suitable for Pepper to see this, I—" Before he could finish, Zhang Lan hung up directly.
Zhang Lan acted as if he had completed a trivial task, casually picked up an apple nearby, and took a bite. Hmm, other people's stuff is always better.
"If you don't go down soon, Tony might die, you know." Seeing Pepper still hesitating, Zhang Lan made a few gestures on his chest, which made Pepper's face tighten, and she scurried downstairs.
Zhang Lan could only help Tony so much. He wandered around the living room, which had many high-tech products. Zhang Lan had only seen them in movies seventeen years ago, and now seeing them in reality, he was very curious.
While studying the gadgets, the flustered Pepper apparently forgot to close the door. From time to time, exclamations and Tony's feigned cries of pain came from the basement. Zhang Lan was amused by it all. Not long after, Tony and Pepper came up together.
When Zhang Lan looked over, Pepper Potts was frantically shaking Tony's hand away.
"We're just, um… Tony is my boss, you know." Pepper was a bit incoherent.
Zhang Lan just smiled understandingly at this and didn't say much, which made Pepper grab her documents and flee.
"What? Haven't you confessed yet?" Zhang Lan said to Tony. Back in the cave, Tony had chatted with him about his feelings for Pepper.
"Why should I?" Tony retorted. "Don't you think the ambiguity before solidifying a relationship is wonderful? Besides, she looks quite cute right now."
"Hmm? If that's what you truly think, and not because you're embarrassed, well, I believe you." Zhang Lan had long seen through Tony's mindset.
"Hey, let's not talk about that. I've already communicated your request." Tony quickly changed the subject. "I'll have Hogan take you there in a bit. That little inventor is already preparing for launch. I got you an identity as his assistant."
He paused for a moment, then continued, "This cost me nearly fifty million dollars in equipment. Can you tell me why you absolutely have to go? Space isn't fun."
That's right, Zhang Lan's roundabout strategy was all for Tony to help him board the spaceship of Reed Richards, also known as Mr. Fantastic—the Rubber Man—from the Fantastic Four.
As the richest man in America and the owner of the country's top weapons manufacturing plant, Tony undoubtedly possessed such capabilities.
"Want to know? You can come along too." Zhang Lan extended an invitation, as getting a wash in that energy storm wouldn't do any harm.
Tony flatly refused, saying that for the next period, he needed to thoroughly improve his Iron Man suit, which he had named the Mark series of iron armor.
To this, Zhang Lan could only say that he wasn't the one losing out.
Eager for the space trip, Tony, as the CEO managing such a large company, naturally saw Zhang Lan's obvious eagerness, but he wouldn't let him go, even dragging Zhang Lan down to the basement to discuss the design of Mark II.
The Mark I was the iron lump that got him out of the kidnappers' den. Although it was ugly, its effectiveness was undeniable. The kidnapper leader there was currently collecting its remnants.
As for confidentiality, on one hand, the Mark I was completed with Zhang Lan as a witness, and he had personally delivered the materials. On the other hand, it was Tony's intuition.
His intuition told him that Zhang Lan held no ill will towards him.
Tony's original plan was just to tease Zhang Lan. Anyway, he wouldn't understand it, and he'd eventually make a request once his patience wore thin.
It wasn't about face or schemes; Tony simply wanted to see Zhang Lan "beg" him.
However, events once again unfolded beyond Tony's expectations. Although Zhang Lan was completely clueless about mechanical structures, he actually proposed more precise values than Tony's original settings for the appearance, system weapon configurations, and some flight data.
It was a joke. Zhang Lan was a man who had watched the Iron Man movie series. Later, for a period, when translating subtitles, he had briefly looked at some Iron Man comics to make the translation more accurate.
He didn't understand the technology, but he had a grasp of the future Tony Mark N+1 designs for appearance and concepts.
As a result, this conversation lasted from around eleven in the morning until ten at night.
As a chakra cultivator, Zhang Lan felt little pressure, but Tony, a normal human, finally couldn't take it anymore and declared that he would treat Zhang Lan to dinner.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Lan just looked at Tony with a half-smile, neither refusing nor leaving, just watching Tony, not responding no matter what Tony said.
"Okay, okay, I'll invite that little scientist, um, Reed Richards? We'll have a late-night snack together, and as for why you're late, I'll handle it."
In the end, Tony was still the one in the wrong and declared he would take responsibility for his own actions.
"Where are we eating?" Seeing that his goal was achieved, Zhang Lan knew when to stop.
Afterward, Zhang Lan successfully met Reed at a Chinese restaurant. He had no idea how Tony managed to get a fanatical scientist, who was about to execute his research plan, to come out at eleven at night.
One must remember that Reed's fanaticism for science was such that he was still repairing the military's requested locator device even moments before marrying Sue, played by the sexy goddess Jessica Alba.
Later, Zhang Lan witnessed why Tony was called a genius. He was clearly a mechanical weapons expert, yet he could discuss everything under the sun with Reed, and his points on biological genetics were always valid.
Was Reed Richards a genius? There was no doubt about it. In the movie, Reed was portrayed as a brilliant scientist with low emotional intelligence.
When one genius met another, the sparks that flew were no less than those between good buddies. Zhang Lan didn't interject, listening quietly while continuously chewing. Maintaining the Transformation Jutsu all day had consumed a lot of his physical energy.
Finally, with all three parties in good spirits, the time for going into space was set for three days later.
Zhang Lan was also very excited. Finally, his golden finger, though a bit unreliable, was still a golden finger, and it was much faster than leveling up on his own.
He was also very much looking forward to the adult gift package for completing the mission. After all, with a "big" in the name, it had to be much better than the beginner's gift package, right?
Hmm… it should be, right?
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Please don't vote for this book with recommendation tickets. My new book, "Naruto: Playing a Fake God," has been released. I beg all my lords for your collection and recommendation ticket support!
Regarding the "Zhang Lan website" issue, it's not a bug; it's a planned plot hole. Don't expect all transmigrators to be omnipotent and capable of arranging all their escape routes.