Truth Shouldn’t Be Spoken Carelessly

S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion Headquarters.

After dealing with the Winter Soldier and the missing Obelisk, Egghead stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands behind his back, enjoying a rare moment of empty-minded peace.

Yet as he watched the clouds drift and shift overhead, that adorable orange cat suddenly turned into a slightly plump figure.

Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the more he looked, the more it resembled a certain detestable fellow.

"Hmph!"

Egghead felt a surge of irritation and decided to send up a Quinjet to stir up the clouds and make that eyesore disappear.

Just then, Hill strode in on her long legs.

"Agent Hill."

Egghead returned to his usual calm, turned around, and looked at his tall, athletic assistant. "What is it?"

"A shallow earthquake occurred in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several places in the old city collapsed. Fortunately, the quake ended quickly and caused no deaths."

Hill placed a document on the desk. "Seawater flooded back in, and an ancient underground city has reappeared. Its architectural style is unique, unlike any era or civilization. The investigation shows that an earthquake should have been impossible in that area unless someone was up to something."

"You mean someone was conducting experiments? Explosive tests? Or using explosions to explore the underground city?"

Egghead glanced through it and recalled The Hand’s recent actions. "Could it have been Hydra? Did they discover something?"

"Our people are investigating," Hill replied.

Egghead frowned.

Puerto Rico?

San Juan?

It seemed someone had set up a laboratory there and even lured my two precious scientists over.

Could it be related to him?

Why is everything related to him?

"Contact the San Juan government and seal off the site. Assemble folklorists, historians, geographers, ancient linguists, architects, and the best agents into an investigation team. Put the results directly on my desk."

Egghead pondered for two seconds. "Send Coulson there."

He could not trust anyone else.

Since this matter involved Little Fatty Wang, it was better to send someone familiar with him. Otherwise, if Little Fatty Wang got angered, Gungun would get very angry, and the consequences would be severe.

After dismissing Hill, Egghead braced both hands on his desk and sank into thought.

Other than that playboy being kidnapped, did every major event recently seem to have something to do with Little Fatty Wang?

Was that guy a born calamity? Trouble wherever he went, deaths wherever he arrived, and always in huge numbers?

He opened the document and read it carefully, soon drawn to a date.

"The earthquake happened less than half a day after I last saw Iron Fist?"

"His laboratory is studying the Darkhold."

"Was the earthquake related to the Darkhold, or to the Obelisk he had just acquired?"

"Does that guy have supersonic movement abilities, or spatial displacement abilities?"

Egghead continued reading and soon found several images.

They were structural diagrams of the underground city, drawn by San Juan agents after scanning it with high-tech equipment. Due to limited time, and even more so because of the seawater flooding and the collapse of most areas, only a small section had been completed.

Looking at the dense concentric circles on the diagram, along with the lines running north to south and perfectly overlapping with longitude and latitude, Egghead immediately thought of something else:

The Obelisk.

Similar patterns covered the Obelisk’s surface, though there were too few of them to reveal anything specific.

Over the past sixty years, S.H.I.E.L.D. researchers had made many guesses.

Some believed they were merely decorations. Some thought they were connected to ancient totems. Others believed the patterns concealed mathematical or astronomical knowledge that had yet to be discovered.

But no one had ever considered that it might be a map.

A map of an ancient underground city.

"Could that city have been built by the Kunlun People?"

"Immortal Iron Fist… just how many secrets are you hiding?"

Egghead picked up his phone, hesitated for several seconds, and ultimately did not call Old Wang.

There were still some things he had not figured out.

And some people still needed investigating.

At almost the same time, the same investigation report was secretly delivered to someone else.

As he looked at the report in his hand and those unfamiliar yet familiar structural diagrams, an indescribable frenzy and excitement appeared on Whitehall’s face.

"So this is where the Obelisk’s secret lies!"

From the first time he saw the Obelisk in 1945 until now, a full sixty-three years had passed. He had studied it constantly; he even dreamed about it.

The Obelisk had become his nightmare, a part of his life.

He had endured from youth into white hair, then from white hair back to black. If he could not solve the Obelisk’s mystery, he would never know peace in this life.

Now, the veil of mystery had finally been lifted at one corner, and Whitehall felt as though he had glimpsed the view beneath a skirt.

"Transfer the best people to me."

Madness seeped through Whitehall’s voice. "Go to San Juan!"

"Our people may not be enough. We’ve suffered too many losses recently."

A Hydra member said, "Immortal Iron Fist and Ghost Rider are difficult to deal with. We need help."

"Pierce will help us."

Whitehall appeared calm again, but the fire of madness in his eyes burned ever brighter. "He lost the Winter Soldier, so he will definitely want to take him back. This is his best chance. He will cooperate with me!"

Outskirts of San Juan.

With one call from Old Wang, Fitz quickly arrived at the scene with testing equipment.

After a simple test, Fitz was stunned. "What? There’s an ability like that in this world? Doesn’t that make you a human-shaped vibrator? A full-spectrum one at that—you can go fast when you want, slow when you want?"

"Fitz!"

Skye’s face darkened, her fists clenched as she looked ready to explode.

You really can’t just say the truth, Fitz. He really is too young… Old Wang hurriedly held Skye down, sending a stream of True Qi into her body and vibrating alongside her. "Don’t get worked up, don’t get worked up. Young people don’t know any better. Calm down!"

What if Fitz got killed by accident? There were only a handful of scientists of his caliber in the world. If one really died, at the very least it would be Old Wang’s loss; at the very worst, it would be a loss for all humanity.

For the sake of all humanity, calm down!

Fitz was not actually stupid. He merely lacked emotional intelligence and had no relevant experience.

He had only thought Skye’s ability would be pretty useful for whipping eggs…

This young scientist, already eighteen yet still a virgin, became awkward for a moment, unsure whether he should apologize or disappear.

He was a little worried that if he did not disappear voluntarily, he might soon disappear involuntarily…

"So? Can it be done?" Old Wang changed the subject.

"Uh… we’ll need to design a miniature, omnidirectional, high-precision spectrum analyzer. We’ll also need high-strength, high-toughness materials capable of resisting vibrational damage, with a sufficiently effective shockproof structure. Then we’ll need a full-spectrum wave generator that creates a shockwave of the same amplitude and frequency, with a half-wave delay, the instant Skye generates one, so they cancel each other out."

Fitz quickly formulated the entire plan in his mind and spun his marker. "It’ll take time. Also, our laboratory doesn’t have the necessary high-precision equipment. Either we commission S.H.I.E.L.D.’s technology division to make it, or we have to buy it."

Buy it?

That meant money?

Skye froze, then hurriedly asked, "Is it expensive?"