The elevator glided to a silent stop on the top floor. Fury withdrew his hands from his pockets, peeled off his hat to expose his gleaming scalp, then removed his mask with practiced ease, revealing his perpetually stern features.
"You wanted to talk?"
Hong Fei exhaled through his nose, one eyebrow quirking upward.
"Do I look like I have anything to say to you?"
Fury took an instinctive step back, his posture shifting into guarded tension. One hand slipped discreetly behind him.
"Get to the point."
Hong Fei turned toward the panoramic window, gazing at the river and skyline beyond.
"Tell me about yourself," he mused. "What mischief have you been up to?"
"Classified."
"Former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and you still have secrets worth keeping?"
A razor-edged glint flickered in Fury's eye.
"That falls under personal privacy."
"Privacy?" Hong Fei's laugh was sharp as a blade. "A spymaster preaching privacy? Where's your dignity?"
Fury inhaled deeply, the muscles in his jaw tightening.
"I said it's classified."
"Everything's discussable."
Hong Fei tilted his head.
"Did you skim agency funds to build yourself a secret hideout?"
Fury's expression darkened, the furrow between his brows deepening.
"You gamble too much," Hong Fei continued, turning back with a smile. "Ever consider what happens when you lose? Pierce trusted you blindly—saved his daughter, yet he never made you family. Too old? Too ugly? Or did he just think you weren't good enough?"
He spread his hands.
"You should've sued. My legal team would've taken the case—same ones who humiliated you in court and cost you your directorship. You remember how good they are."
Fury turned his face away, silent, but anger radiated from him like heat.
A knock rattled the elevator doors before they slid open, revealing Pierce's anxious face. Fury didn't move, his gaze locked on Hong Fei.
Hong Fei glanced over.
"Problem?"
Pierce forced a smile, sensing the tension.
"Mr. Hong, please, let's remain calm—"
"Get out."
Pierce's smile stiffened into a grimace.
Hong Fei turned back to Fury.
"Pathetic. Is this how a director acts? No composure, missing an eye—how did you last this long?"
Fury's lips parted—
"Curse at me," Hong Fei cut in, voice dropping to a lethal whisper, "and I'll put you in the ground."
Fury's concealed hand jerked out from behind his back, clutching a pager-like device. His knuckles whitened; his stare turned deadly.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D. Keep your threats to yourself."
Hong Fei burst into laughter.
"You're threatening me in front of a high-ranking official?"
The mirth vanished as fast as it came. His expression twisted into something vicious, eyes burning with unchecked violence.
"You're utterly lawless!"
The shout detonated like a gunshot, reverberating through the corridor. Pierce flinched. Fury's eyelid twitched violently.
Pierce opened his mouth—then clamped it shut, remembering Hong Fei's past displays in New York. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
Instantly, the sonorous voice echoed back and forth in the corridor, the aftershocks lingering for a long time! Fury drew a sudden, sharp breath.
Bracing against Hong Fei's pressure, he widened his eyes and spoke rapidly in accusation: "The lawless one is you! You're the one who kidnapped Tony Stark in the first place, you're the one who blew up the Statue of Liberty, and you're the one who drove a tank onto the streets of Tokyo! You purged the Rand Building, and neither The Hand nor S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents escaped your clutches! You are the one who is truly lawless!!"
After finishing, Fury was still panting heavily, his anger clearly not yet dissipated. Faced with this long string of accusations, Hong Fei didn't choose to refute them directly. Instead, he asked curiously, "How did you know I drove a tank in Tokyo?"
"So you admit it! Right?!"
"That's right, I admit it."
A hint of excitement seemed to surge onto Fury's face.
"It did take me quite some time, but how could your deals with those countries not be found out? You don't deserve to be a superhero at all!"
"I never intended to be a superhero, nor did I ask anyone to promote me. Whether it's S.H.I.E.L.D. or your government, I have never personally told you what role I should play. On the contrary, it's you—you all believed I did the right thing, which is what a superhero should do. In fact, I did it better than them, so even if you were unwilling, you had to publicly label me a superhero. To put it another way, did you get my permission before calling me that?"
Fury was momentarily choked up, then added, "That's because they don't know what you did before. If the number of people you killed in Tokyo and the tank incident were exposed, do you think you could still be a superhero?"
"That's rich! The people I killed were from The Hand. Besides, was I the one who dropped the nuke back then? Are you implying those people aren't heroes?"
"That's just sophistry!"
"You're not even worthy of my sophistry."
"Then what other reason could you have?"
"Reason? Do you think I need a reason? You know who I am, so you should understand that what I did in Tokyo is not for a bunch of ungrateful wastes like you to criticize! Even if it were London! Washington! Paris! Berlin! Moscow! Vienna! Budapest! Rome! So what? It was just a tank; did I start a fire? Did I commit a massacre? Did I wipe out your race? Or scalp your whole family? Did I send blankets laced with smallpox to your home? Or order your leader hanged? Not yet, so what are you getting so excited about? Imagine what your ancestors were doing back then! You're standing here lecturing me? Please, at least go to a hospital and find a way to get yourself some whiter skin first, alright?!"
Under the barrage of refutation and sarcasm, Fury's facial muscles twitched, and his breathing became increasingly heavy. Hong Fei steadied his breathing, looked down at Fury's hand, and said directly, "Press it."
Fury's eyelids trembled slightly. Hong Fei glanced at the Pager in his hand again.
"I told you to press it."
"You're crazy."
Instead of pressing it, Fury moved his thumb away.
"I'm crazy? I've never been crazy. From the first time we met, I've always been very calm. At least when I shot you, I didn't even blink. Forgotten?"
Fury's jaw muscles bulged as he spoke with a drawn-out tone: "You have no idea what you're doing. You're like a virus, caring for nothing but yourself, regardless of who lives or dies."
Suddenly, Hong Fei took a step forward, and Fury backed away. With a dull thud, Fury's back pressed tightly against the wall.
"Whether I'm a virus is not for you to decide."
Hong Fei raised his hand and lightly patted Fury's face, staring straight into his eyes.
"Even assuming you're right, that is simply the way a virus survives. If you were capable, you could naturally create a vaccine against it, but you clearly don't have the skill."
Hong Fei jabbed Fury's chest with his index finger, punctuating each word.
"Hearts as high as the sky, lives as thin as paper!"
The phrase rolled off his tongue in Chinese. He paused, his voice dripping with mockery.
"Do you understand?"
Fury winced, pain radiating from his chest.
"I'm more knowledgeable than you think," he ground out, his jaw tight.
"Sure you are."
Hong Fei's lips curled into a sneer.
"Your ancestors didn't pick cotton and gnaw on watermelons here for nothing."
"Motherf—"
Boom! A shimmering veil of Golden Qi erupted, dissipating like gossamer in the wind. The room trembled violently—the ceiling, the floor, the walls—everything shook.
Fury's face twisted as a strange red-and-white hue surged beneath his dark skin. Hong Fei loosened his fist and casually wiped the back of his hand against Fury's coat. Fury glanced down at Hong Fei's palm, then his strength gave out. He couldn't even lift his head.
A guttural retch escaped his throat, and a stream of dark red blood sprayed from his mouth, splattering the floor. Fragments of internal organs mingled with the blood. Before the droplets could reach Hong Fei, a Qi Shield expanded from his body. Simultaneously, a series of low, sickening cracks echoed from within Fury's body—his bones shattering inch by inch.
With each crack, Fury's facial muscles twitched violently, as if electrocuted. Before his body could collapse from the loss of skeletal support, Hong Fei grabbed his collar and slammed his head toward the building's outer wall. Two sharp cracks rang out as the elevator and building's glass shattered simultaneously.
"You see?"
Hong Fei pressed Fury's head beyond the glass curtain wall. Shards of glass embedded themselves in Fury's bald scalp, and the icy wind whipped the blood from the corners of his mouth across his cheeks. Distant cries of alarm drifted up from the ground below.
"I insult you because I'm stronger than you. I can kill you anytime I want. But you dare insult me to my face? How dare you?"
Only a wheezing gurgle escaped Fury's lips. Blood bubbled from his trachea, frothing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes glazed over, and his pupils dilated rapidly in the biting wind.
"If you curse at me, I'll kill you. Now you can believe it."
With that, Hong Fei gave a gentle push.
The two layers of cracked glass in front of Fury disintegrated into dust. His body plummeted, gravity yanking him downward. The falling glass caught the attention of Agents on the ground, who looked up just as Fury's body hurtled from the heights.
As he passed each floor, the sudden flash of his shadow sent staff members scrambling. One person standing by a window, coffee in hand, caught a glimpse of Fury's blood-streaked face and screamed in terror. Seconds later, urgent alarms blared throughout the building.
The wind roared through the gap in the glass wall, whipping Hong Fei's clothes and hair into a frenzy. He turned to see Pierce staring at the scene, frozen in shock. Their eyes met, and Pierce stumbled back, his aged legs giving out. He collapsed onto the floor with a thud. Hong Fei smirked coldly.
Glancing sideways, he saw the Pager lying quietly on the floor, a single drop of blood staining its surface. On its aged screen, a pattern of red, blue, and white suddenly flickered to life.