The Abomination's surveillance room. Hong Fei and Frank stood side by side, eyes fixed on the screen. On the high-definition, full-color large screen, Abomination lay on his back, his protruding chest bone armor rising and falling, causing his muscles to twitch slightly.
"He's about to wake up, right?" Hong Fei asked, uncertain.
Frank replied, "I suspect he wasn't just under anesthesia for three days."
"What do you mean?"
Frank glanced at Hong Fei before saying, "I think it's possible you poisoned him right from the start, and he's been constantly self-healing his internal injuries for the past few days. Otherwise, based on his previous performance, if it were really just anesthesia, it probably wouldn't have lasted three whole days."
Hong Fei's face twitched slightly. Although he was reluctant to accept Frank's theory, the hypothesis was clearly valid.
The rise and fall of Abomination's breathing grew increasingly pronounced. As that thunder-like sound echoed in the secret chamber, Abomination's eyes on the screen suddenly snapped open. The next second, he flipped over to rise, but just as he was about to take a step, his legs suddenly went weak, leaving him kneeling on one knee.
As his heavy, labored breathing came through, Frank gave Hong Fei a meaningful look.
Hong Fei snapped, "What are you looking at!"
Inside the room, Abomination panted while observing his surroundings. After a short while, he sat down, his fierce eyes fixed on the ground as he spoke: "General Ross, is this the cage you prepared for me?"
In the surveillance room, Frank nudged Hong Fei with his elbow: "He's mistaken you for someone else."
"Heh, he never noticed me following behind him, so of course he assumes General Ross captured him."
"So what do you want to do next?"
Hong Fei pondered for a moment, then shook his head: "Do nothing for now, and don't engage him. Since he thinks General Ross caught him, he should be aware of General Ross's methods. In the short term, he will temporarily show a cooperative side, so there's no need for us to reveal our identities."
Frank nodded slightly.
"Also, if he tries to escape, don't hold back on the electric shocks or fire or whatever. Like I said before, I'd rather kill him than let him out." This was said to the other subordinates in the surveillance room.
Turning back to the ground level, he happened to see Dr.
Helen Cho's car parked at the entrance, and the manor guards helped her move suitcases from the car. Dr. Helen Cho had finished handling her personal affairs. Now that the laboratory was about to start construction, she'd readily accepted Hong Fei's invitation and moved in, starting today. This would also make it easier for her to monitor the laboratory's construction and make adjustments at any time.
"Mr. Hong, I might bother you often in the future, my apologies in advance." Dr. Helen Cho smiled and bowed.
"You're too polite. It's no bother at all; in fact, it's exactly what I wanted."
The guards sent the boxes upstairs. Dr. Helen Cho took a document out of her bag and handed it to Hong Fei. "Mr. Hong, this is the list I've compiled. Please take a look, and if there are no issues, please sign it for me."
The Gonggong Laboratory had already been registered. The 500 million in funding that Hong Fei had promised had already been injected into the laboratory's account. However, as the sole investor, he also held the final financial authority.
Before even opening it, Hong Fei knew this was going to be a huge expense. Flipping through it casually, Hong Fei felt a jolt in his heart, though he remained calm on the surface. As expected, most of the items listed were equipment and materials Hong Fei had never heard of. The obscure words combined into sentences, making it even more baffling. He flipped directly to the last page, and a long string of eye-catching numbers made Hong Fei's pupils constrict.
Dr. Helen Cho said regretfully, "Some equipment is prohibited from sale, and some only exist in the hands of companies that hold the patents, so we'll have to rent them or apply for usage rights directly from them. But fortunately, such needs are few, and I've already found some substitutes. With this equipment, our laboratory will be 90% complete."
437 million. As a layman, Hong Fei truly didn't know that laboratory equipment alone could cost so much. He should have asked Obadiah or Tony for more. With two swift strokes, he signed his name.
"Cho, I'll leave the laboratory to you from now on. You can handle the personnel yourself, or you can ask Number One to help you; he has quite a bit of experience in this area."
Dr. Helen Cho took the document and put it away solemnly before responding, "Okay, but what is Number One's name?"
Hong Fei blinked. He didn't know either.
"Haha, well, you can ask him yourself. But we all call him Number One, so you can just call him that too. Alright, go check out your room. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. I hope you can be as comfortable here as you would be at home."
Helen Cho smiled warmly. "I definitely will."
Hong Fei returned to his room and sat on the spacious balcony, gazing out at New York. He was short on money again. The seventy million he had left personally hadn't been touched, but the laboratory's five hundred million had dwindled to sixty-four million in the blink of an eye. And there was still over a ton of gold in the warehouse. In total, it was nearly two hundred million, which seemed like a lot at first glance. However, judging from the experimental plans Dr. Helen Cho had mentioned, this amount of money would likely not last a year. Moreover, he had other expenses to consider.
"I really should have asked for more ransom. At the very least, buying some Stark Industries stock would have been nice." At the time, the ransom was an amount that wouldn't make things difficult for Obadiah while also being easy to launder quickly. The reason I didn't buy stocks was, firstly, I didn't want Stark to suspect my identity, and secondly, I preferred to avoid unnecessary trouble. At the time, I really felt it was enough. Now that I thought about it, the amount Stark Industries could offer for Tony was definitely not small.
I could have laundered it slowly. For the stocks, I could have found a way to split the positions; many drops make an ocean. In short, it was truly a poor man's mindset at work; my vision was still too short-sighted. In my previous life, I didn't have to worry about food and drink, but my savings never exceeded seven figures. Back then, I was only concerned with practicing martial arts, sparring, and challenging others; how could I have been interested in specializing in making money? Frank was a versatile man; his military expertise and life experience far exceeded mine.
But in terms of economics, I mostly relied on past knowledge and connections, and I wasn't particularly professional. Thinking of this, after a moment of reflection, I took out my phone and sent a text message to Frank: "Help me select a butler and a financial officer." Needless to say, this was another sum of money that would soon be spent. Making money had already become my only top priority at the moment. The secondary priority was naturally to hurry up and increase my energy limit.
Otherwise, even if he could condense a tank in the future, he wouldn't be able to supply shells in time, let alone have energy to replace fuel as the tank's power source. That would probably be equivalent to digging his own iron tomb, which was truly ridiculous.