No Need

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was in trouble."

Tony sighed and said helplessly, "They were researching the Tesseract, which opened a portal. Someone came through and stole it."

"The Tesseract? What is that?"

Banner looked curious. He had never encountered such a thing before, so naturally, he was intrigued.

"Something with unlimited energy."

Tony sighed and continued, "I thought it was just a legend, but S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually researching it in secret."

"Researching weapons?"

Banner sneered coldly. He knew S.H.I.E.L.D.’s habits all too well.

"Yeah. I hacked into their database and found that they really were researching weapons."

Tony did not think much of S.H.I.E.L.D. either. If they had not still been of some use to him, he would never have agreed to become their special consultant.

S.H.I.E.L.D. still had considerable influence. With that identity, Tony found it much easier to do many things.

"Tch, why should we care what they do?"

Already having no favorable impression of S.H.I.E.L.D., Bruce Banner said irritably, "Let them solve it themselves. They get into trouble and expect someone else to clean up their mess? What a joke."

"I don’t want to get involved either, but the Tesseract has to be recovered."

Tony sighed and continued, "It’s too important. If it falls into the hands of someone with bad intentions, it’ll only cause unnecessary trouble."

It was a helpless choice. Loki had stolen the Tesseract, so they could not simply ignore it.

Although Tony did not want to deal with this chaotic nonsense either, he had no choice.

"And you’re the person on Earth who knows gamma radiation best. Only you can find the Tesseract."

Tony sighed. This time, he had come to see Bruce Banner partly because he genuinely wanted to invest in public welfare and greenery, and partly because S.H.I.E.L.D. had asked him to.

"Also, the people at S.H.I.E.L.D. hope you can return to America and work for them."

"Haha, that’s hilarious. Work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Bruce Banner looked utterly disdainful. Return to America? What for?

"I’m Chinese now!"

As he spoke, Bruce Banner proudly pulled a card from his pocket.

Yes, a Chinese ID card.

"See this? A Chinese Green Card!"

Bruce looked smug. At this time, a Chinese Green Card was one of the hardest things to obtain. Moreover, China had now achieved universal evolution, making it even more difficult for foreigners to obtain one.

"…"

Tony was speechless. Once upon a time, people all over the world had racked their brains over getting an American green card.

Some had even joined the American military just to get one, then sworn that they could take up arms against anyone, including their homeland and even their own parents.

Yet now, Bruce Banner was immensely proud of his Chinese Green Card.

"Are you really not considering returning to America?"

Tony asked curiously.

"Before I came to China, I thought Chinese people had all been brainwashed by the government. But after coming here, I realized that I was the one who had been brainwashed."

Bruce Banner spoke with an angry expression.

"Tony, I consider you a friend, but you must remember this: I’m proud to be Chinese now, and I will never go to America."

"Rather than that, I think it would be better if you joined China. Only in this country can you truly put your intelligence to use and use all your inventions and creations to benefit the people."

"China is a very inclusive country. If you joined it, I’m sure you would make many friends as well."

"…"

Tony was speechless. This was not right, was it? He had clearly come to persuade Bruce Banner to return to America, so why was Bruce Banner now trying to persuade him to become a Chinese citizen instead?

What was even stranger was that, for some reason, Tony actually felt tempted.

Indeed, ever since escaping from the terrorists, Tony had reflected on himself and shut down Stark Industries’ weapons manufacturing division. He wanted to use the technology he developed to truly benefit all humanity.

And that was precisely what China had been quietly doing all along.

China’s inventions and creations were rarely used to make weapons. Setting aside everything else, there was the Arc Reactor alone.

Tony had also achieved a breakthrough in this technology and was finally able to stably harness the energy produced by the Arc Reactor.

But compared with China and Chen Mu, he was a full two or three years behind.

During that time, China had already begun promoting this form of energy on a comprehensive scale.

In China, clean energy produced by large Arc Reactors had long since entered countless households.

But in America, when he tried to promote this cheap, clean energy, he encountered countless obstacles.

There was no helping it. This new energy source was cutting off the lifeline of those energy tycoons.

It was simply impossible to rapidly promote Arc Reactor Energy in America.

Tony was deeply conflicted. His ambitions were basically impossible to realize in America.

"Won’t you really reconsider? Don’t you still have many friends in America? If you don’t want to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D., you can come to Stark Industries. I need your help. With the wisdom of the two of us, we can change the entire world."

It had to be said that Tony had his eye on Bruce Banner’s intellect.

Proud as Tony Stark was, there were only a few people on Earth he respected. Chen Mu was one, and Bruce Banner was another.

Only people with exceptional intelligence like that could become friends of Tony Stark.

"Recently, I’ve been planning to create an Iron Legion to protect Earth. Countless iron soldiers that would prevent war from ever breaking out on Earth again and bring true peace to the planet."

Tony Stark looked at Bruce Banner with a serious expression and continued, "You may not know this, but there are many alien civilizations beyond Earth. Not long ago, someone from Asgard appeared in America and caused a lot of trouble. Several thousand people in a town died because of it."

"Building an Iron Legion can effectively protect this world. When facing extraterrestrial threats in the future, Earth will have the power to fight back."

"You’re planning to build a mechanical legion to protect Earth?"

Banner frowned, then waved his hand and continued.

"There’s really no need, because my country has already built the Interstellar Defense Network. With the power China possesses, aliens are nothing to fear."

"Your Iron Legion would be quite suitable for planting trees, though."

"…"

P.S. Thanks to Huawei You Don’t Have to Like It for the grand certification. I’ll add another chapter shortly.