Genius Sets Off Again (Part 2)

"Wait!! You planned to have me use this method all along??? Then why did you make me read so many books????"

Schiller was pressing an earpiece into Stark’s ear. Stark dodged as he said, "This is cheating, isn’t it??? Damn it!! Don’t do this!! My ear! I’ve already learned all that stuff, I don’t need…"

"You weren’t seriously expecting to learn in a few nights what took me from college through my doctorate to learn, were you?"

"You planned to be an off-site advisor from the start!!! You liar! You told me Stark Industries would be finished if I couldn’t learn this stuff!!!"

"That was true in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t wrong. You’d have to learn it eventually, so why couldn’t that have been yesterday?" Schiller said.

Ignoring Stark’s attempts to dodge, Schiller still pressed an earpiece into one of Stark’s ears. He said, "Don’t make such a fuss. I’m just an off-site interpreter. This is common, isn’t it?"

Steve said from nearby, "Actually, politicians do this when they’re discussing matters too. They have advisory teams behind them. They wear these earpieces during important interviews as well. Of course, in my day, this kind of equipment was much more expensive and much rarer. Only the most important people could have them…"

Like he had been bitten by fleas, Stark desperately fiddled with the earpiece stuffed into his ear. "What the hell! Then why did you make everything sound so hopeless before? And dump so many books on me? I stayed up all night memorizing every last one!"

"Exactly. If I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have looked at them even once in your life," Schiller said.

"Fine, forget that for now. But are you sure this will work?"

"Damn it… I should have thought of this sooner! You vampire Doctor! If I’d known earlier, I wouldn’t be using these outdated earpieces. I’d build something more advanced—a whole monitoring system…"

Stark smacked his forehead in regret. "How did I not think of it before? I could have had you do it for me! I could just be a parrot at the venue. Even if I don’t know it, as long as you do, that’s enough, right?!"

Stark really was a little angry, but he was not angry at Schiller. He was angry at himself for failing to make that connection.

Of course, Schiller was to blame for that too. Stark had come to him in a panic, and Schiller had used a very serious attitude and tone to talk him into a mental loop, making Stark feel that not knowing these things was somehow abnormal.

Stark spent all day ignoring mundane affairs. Otherwise, he would have known that Obadiah had an entire think tank behind him too. There was no way all of Stark Industries could be decided by Obadiah’s brain alone.

Stark was a billionaire. It did not matter if he did not know these things. As long as he had money, there were plenty of people who did. If he had spent the entire day hiring advisors, he could have assembled a dream team by now.

But Schiller’s misdirection had made him feel like he was paying the price for his past recklessness, so he had not considered his money-powered abilities or his genius research skills at all.

For that matter, even writing an AI facial-expression analysis system would probably have been much faster than cramming books himself.

"So this is psychology?! You liar!!" Stark gritted his teeth. "You studied psychology just to trap people in situations like this, then charge them a fortune to treat them?!!"

"Don’t make me sound like some unscrupulous quack."

"Aren’t you an unscrupulous quack?"

"I may be a little unscrupulous, but I am absolutely not a quack."

"Mr. Stark, the car has arrived," Jarvis reminded him. "The meeting will officially begin at 10:30. You are expected to arrive at 10:20."

"All right, all right. This is how it is, then." Stark still looked somewhat nervous. "It can only be this way."

Schiller patted him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry. Once you get there, you’ll find that you aren’t the odd one out."

Stark got into the car and soon arrived at the negotiation venue. He was fairly late, and most of the attendees were already seated.

Stark swept his gaze across the room and found that nearly everyone was wearing an earpiece. Some were even openly video-calling on laptops. On the other end of the screens, a whole group of people sat around conference tables, like another smaller meeting venue.

Stark said to Jarvis, "Deduct Schiller’s consultation fee… Deduct all of it!!!! Don’t let me see his name in the year-end financial report!!! That damn bastard played me!!!!"

Jarvis said, "The earpiece has been connected for thirteen minutes."

Schiller’s voice rang in Stark’s ear. "That’s fine. You can certainly deduct all the previous consultation fees, but political consulting services cost money too. The price is two hundred thousand dollars per minute…"

"Bullshit, you vampire Doctor!"

"If you disagree, I’ll hang up immediately."

"Don’t! No, no… Wait, I think we can still negotiate. Two hundred thousand dollars is too expensive, but don’t hang up yet. The negotiation is about to start. What am I supposed to say?"

Back at the psychology clinic, Peter and Steve were both sitting at the table, listening to Stark’s anxious voice. Steve was thoroughly enjoying Stark’s misery, but Peter felt a little bad for him. "That does seem a bit expensive, Doctor. I think we could lower it a little…"

"You’re part of Stark’s advisory team now too. Once the money comes in, we split it evenly."

Before Peter could say anything else, Stark’s voice came through again. "Hello? Hello? The negotiation’s about to start. What should I do?"

"Nothing. Just wait. For the first thirty minutes, you can completely zone out. You don’t have to listen to anything they say."

"Can that really work?" Stark was clearly in an extremely tense state. It was his first time seriously participating in an occasion like this, and he always felt that he should immediately do something to show results.

"Trust me. Just sit there."

Stark sat there half-convinced. Soon, he discovered that Schiller had been absolutely right, because the first person to speak actually began with World War II.

The military representative began reminiscing about their glorious days, starting with Pearl Harbor. Before twenty minutes had passed, Stark was already unbearably sleepy. This military speaker somehow managed to turn even relatively classic battles into a dry chronological account, and whenever he praised the military’s achievements and record, he always used the same lofty, predictable phrases.

No one could endure more than ten minutes of that kind of speech. By the time the military finished its first round of remarks, over half the audience was drowsy.

Next up was the S.H.I.E.L.D. representative. The moment he opened his mouth, Stark wanted to pass out, because he began with the Iron Curtain speech.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was slightly better than the military representative. He knew the history of intelligence warfare and special operations organizations inside out, but Stark thought he had come here for negotiations, not to study modern history.

About forty minutes later, it was Stark’s turn to speak. Schiller said, "Open the first script and read it. Just finish reading it."

The moment Stark opened the script, his vision went dark, because it began with the Industrial Revolution.

He read for a full twenty minutes before finally stumbling through the entire script. When he finished, he opened his earpiece channel and said, "Good God, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten a complete understanding of Stark Industries’ development history…"

What drove Stark to despair was that it still was not over. The military went next, launching into lengthy discussions about how future military organizations should evolve, the direction of future weapons systems, and the possibility of World War III. They droned on for another twenty minutes.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was no different. Every other sentence was about the importance of intelligence agencies remaining independent from oversight systems, the future development of individual combat and information warfare, and how to establish a global intelligence network…

Stark whispered into his earpiece, "I want this portion of the consultation fee cut in half. This has no practical meaning at all. It’s completely different from what I imagined…"

"What did you imagine it would be like?" Schiller’s voice came from the earpiece. "Conspiracy theories in a dark room?"

"You need to understand something very important. This kind of negotiation is really just going through the motions," Schiller said.

"Everyone knows what cards the other side holds, and everyone knows what cards they hold themselves. The outcome of this negotiation was decided from the beginning. Even if you acted like your old eccentric self and thought about nothing, listened to nothing, the result would not change."

That felt even more absurd than making Stark learn all that theoretical knowledge. It was like learning every flashy fighting technique imaginable, only to find that one punch was all it took to knock down the enemy.

Then, when it was Stark’s turn to envision the future, he had already learned to close his eyes and read from the script, even though the supposed direction of mechanical industry development written on it looked like complete nonsense to him.

The script forcibly stitched together several terms to create lofty-sounding buzzwords. It was exactly like the work of a tech con artist, but Stark shut off his brain and calmly finished reading it anyway.

Then came the part where everyone was pleased. An old General with somewhat white hair said to Stark, "I remember Stark Industries’ glorious era. You Starks were all geniuses. Your father was one, and so are you. The hovering cars he researched back then truly astonished people. But as you know, the military did not cooperate with him at the time due to certain conservative concerns. We truly regret that…"

Before Stark could answer, Schiller said through the earpiece, "He’s insulting your father for being useless, saying you’re even worse than your father. Insult him back."

Stark froze, then followed Schiller’s wording. "Indeed. I believe that most people in the military, respected generals such as yourself, are far-sighted. It’s simply that this era is developing too quickly…"

At that moment, Nick Fury, seated at the far end of the negotiating table, said, "In large-scale Army landing operations, conventional weapons still have their uses. Although armor can significantly improve individual combat capability, compatibility must also be considered in group combat…"

Schiller’s voice came through the earpiece. "He’s giving you an out and easing the atmosphere. You can smile at him."

So Stark smiled at Nick. The smile gave Nick goosebumps all over. He thought Stark was very strange today—far too strange.

Both the military and S.H.I.E.L.D. noticed that something was off about Stark, so they got to the main issue earlier than usual.

Stark then discovered that the actual subject of the negotiation took up less than a tenth of the entire meeting.

First, Nick Fury raised the possibility that the military had kidnapped Dr. Connors. The military bit back, claiming it had been staged by S.H.I.E.L.D. The two sides argued back and forth, and in the end, the military lost slightly and stated that it would question certain officers who might have acted excessively.

Listening to their argument, Stark asked Schiller through the earpiece, "Do they really not know we hid Connors?"

"The military may not know, but Nick definitely does. He just needs that attitude to show that we should join forces against the military. He already made his position clear to me before. You can safely follow his lead…"

Next, Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. joined forces and hit the military so hard that it could barely respond. After all, they held quite a few cards: the Red Iguana’s body, the blood-treatment serum Connors might develop, certain evidence S.H.I.E.L.D. possessed, the armor Stark Industries had delivered to the military, and so on.

In short, the negotiation ended at a very fast pace and with a very absurd conclusion. Every result unfolded exactly as Schiller had predicted from the start.

The military internally produced a scapegoat: the Tartarus officer faction led by Robert. They were purged, the matter was written off, and the military and S.H.I.E.L.D. joined forces to fabricate losses and jointly demand an increase in military funding.

Stark Industries would establish stable cooperative systems with both the military and S.H.I.E.L.D., providing auxiliary individual armor exoskeletons and restarting medical research projects, while taking a larger share of the resulting benefits.

Back at the psychology clinic, Stark tore off the earpiece and said furiously, "You damn bastard Doctor…"

Before he could finish, a voice came from behind him. "You damn bastard!!! Stark…"

Stark turned around. Pepper rushed in angrily, tears glinting in her eyes. Stark hugged her and heard her heart beating rapidly.

Pepper said, "I went looking for you first thing in the morning, and you were gone! You weren’t even wearing your armor! I asked Jarvis, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought something had happened to you! You scared me to death, you bastard…"

Stark held Pepper tightly and comforted her in a low voice.

The dim room contained only Pepper’s quiet sobs and Stark’s muffled murmurs.

A genius’s path was always destined to be harder than anyone else’s. Stark’s sensitive heart, being that of a genius, was always fated to suffer more than an ordinary person’s.

But at least, when this fledgling, just preparing to leave the nest, flew unsteadily through the biting wind, there were still branches willing to let him rest.

He saw Peter hiding behind the entryway, smiling and waving at him, with Schiller and Steve standing there as well.

He saw the television in the clinic’s living room flicker suddenly, a smiley face made of symbols appearing on the screen.

He thought, Stark, you really are a genius.

Not only the smartest genius in the world, but also the luckiest one.