Chapter 105: Genius Sets Off Again (Part 3)

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

Schiller was pressing an earphone into Stark's ear. Stark dodged and said, "This is cheating, right??? Damn it!! Don't do that!! My ear! I've already learned those things, I don't need..."

"You didn't really expect to learn everything I learned from college to doctorate in a few nights, did you?"

"You planned to be an off-site instructor all along!!! You liar! You clearly told me that if I didn't learn these things, Stark Group would be finished!!!"

"That was just on a macro level. I wasn't wrong. One day you have to learn these things, so why couldn't it be yesterday?" Schiller said.

Ignoring Stark's dodging, Schiller still pressed an earphone into one of Stark's ears. He said, "Don't make a fuss, I'm just an off-site translator, this is very common, right?"

"My Healing Game"

Steve said on the side, "Actually, those politicians will also do this when they talk about things. Behind them is their staff team, including when they accept some important interviews, they will wear this kind of earphone. Of course, this kind of equipment in my era was much more expensive and much rarer. Only the most important few can have..."

Stark was bitten by a flea, desperately fiddling with the earphone stuffed in his ear. He said, "Damn it! Then why did you render the atmosphere so desperate before? And stuffed me with so many books, I stayed up all night to memorize them all!"

"That's right. If I didn't do that, you wouldn't have looked at them once in your life." Schiller said.

"Fine, ignore these for now, but are you sure this works?"

"Damn it... I should have thought of it earlier! You vampire doctor! If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have used your old-fashioned earphone! I would have made a more advanced one, a whole set of monitoring system..."

Stark patted his forehead and was very regretful. He said, "Why didn't I think of it before! I could have let you do it for me! I could just be a repeater at the venue. Even if I don't know, as long as you know, isn't that enough?!"

Stark was really a bit angry, but he wasn't angry at Schiller, but angry at himself for not turning this corner.

Of course, this was all Schiller's fault. When he came to Schiller to seek a solution, he was very anxious, and Schiller used a very serious attitude and tone, using wordplay to make Stark fall into a thinking trap, feeling that it was abnormal for him not to know these things.

That was Stark who didn't care about worldly affairs, otherwise he would know that Obadiah also had a whole think tank behind him. The entire Stark Industries couldn't be decided by Obadiah's brain alone.

Stark was a big tycoon. It didn't matter if he didn't know these things. As long as he had money, there were plenty of people who knew. If he used this whole day to hire staff, he would have built a dream team long ago.

But Schiller's misleading made him feel that he was paying for his previous willfulness, so he didn't consider his money power and genius scientific research ability at all.

Not to mention anything else, even if he wrote an AI expression analysis system, it might be faster than him memorizing books himself.

"Is this psychology?! You liar!!" Stark gritted his teeth and said, "You study psychology just to make people fall into this kind of predicament, and then you can charge them a high price for treatment?!!"

"Don't make me sound like an unscrupulous quack."

"Aren't you an unscrupulous quack?"

"Although I am a bit unscrupulous, I am definitely not a quack."

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

"Alright, alright, that's it." Stark still seemed a bit nervous: "It can only be like this."

Schiller patted him on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, after you arrive, you will find that you are not an outlier."

Stark got in the car and arrived at the negotiation venue after a while. He came relatively late, and most of the people here had already taken their seats.

Stark glanced and found that almost everyone was wearing earphones, and some were blatantly holding computers for video calls. On the other side of the computer was a large group of people sitting at the conference table, which was another small venue.

Stark said to Jarvis: "Deduct Schiller's consultation fee... deduct it all!!!! Don't let me see his name on the year-end financial report!!! This damn bastard played me!!!!"

Jarvis said: "The earphone has been connected for thirteen minutes."

Schiller's voice sounded in Stark's ear: "It doesn't matter, you can of course deduct all the previous consultation fees, but this kind of political consulting service also needs to be paid. The price is 200,000 USD per minute..."

"Shit, you vampire doctor!"

"If you don't agree, I'll hang up immediately."

"Don't! No, no... wait, I think we can still talk about it. 200,000 USD is too expensive, but don't hang up yet. The negotiation is about to start. What should I say?"

On the other side, in the psychological clinic, Peter and Steve were both sitting at the table listening to Stark's anxious voice. Steve was quite gloating, but Peter couldn't bear it. He said, "It seems a bit too expensive, Doctor. I think we can be a bit cheaper..."

"You guys are also Stark's staff team now. When the money arrives, we'll split it in half."

Before Peter could continue to say anything, Stark's voice came again: "Hello? Hello? The negotiation is about to start. What should I do?"

"Nothing. Just wait. Actually, you can completely zone out for the first 30 minutes. You don't have to listen to whatever they say."

"Does this really work?" Obviously, Stark was in a state of high tension. It was his first time seriously participating in this kind of occasion, and he always felt that he should do something immediately to show results.

"Believe me, just stay there."

Afterwards, Stark sat in place skeptically. Soon, he found that Schiller's words made a lot of sense, because the first person who spoke, he actually started from World War II.

The military representative began to recall their glorious years from the Pearl Harbor incident. Before 20 minutes had passed, Stark was already sleepy. This spokesperson sent by the military could actually tell various classic battles like a running account, and when blowing about the military's achievements and resumes, it was always that set of grand and upright words.

No one could listen to this kind of speech for 10 minutes. Finally, after the military's first round of speeches, more than half of the people below were drowsy.

Next was the S. H. I. E. L. D. representative. As soon as he opened his mouth, Stark wished he could faint immediately, because he started from the Iron Curtain speech.

S. H. I. E. L. D. agents were slightly better than military representatives, knowing everything about various intelligence wars and the history of special service organizations, but Stark thought, he was here to participate in negotiations, not to learn modern history.

After about 40 minutes, it was Stark's turn to speak. Schiller said: "Open the first draft, and then read it. Just finish reading it."

As soon as Stark opened the draft, his eyes went black, because this draft started from the Industrial Revolution.

He read for a full 20 minutes before finally stumbling through the draft. After finishing, he turned on the earphone and said: "My God, this is the first time I have fully understood the development history of Stark Industries..."

What made Stark feel desperate was that this wasn't over yet. Immediately after, starting from the military, they began to talk about the evolution of future military organizations, the development direction of future weapon systems, and the possibility of World War III, chattering for another 20 minutes.

The S. H. I. E. L. D. agent came up and was the same. He opened his mouth and closed his mouth about the importance of intelligence organizations being independent of the supervision system, the development of future individual combat and intelligence information warfare, and the establishment path of the global intelligence system...

Stark whispered to the earphone: "I request to halve this part of the consulting fee. This has no practical significance at all. This is completely different from what I thought..."

"What did you think it would be like?" Schiller's voice came from the earphone, "Various conspiracy theories in a dark room?"

"You have to know one most important thing. Actually, this kind of negotiation is just going through the motions." Schiller said.

"Everyone knows what bargaining chips the other party has, and everyone knows what bargaining chips they have. The result of this negotiation was doomed from the beginning. Actually, even if you were a freak like before, thinking nothing and listening to nothing, the result wouldn't change."

This gave Stark a feeling more absurd than learning those theoretical knowledge, as if you learned various flashy fighting techniques, but in the end, you only needed one punch to defeat the enemy.

Then, when it was Stark's turn to look forward to the future, he had learned to close his eyes and read according to the draft, even if what was written on it about the development direction of mechanical industry was completely nonsense in his opinion.

The draft forcibly combined some terms together, creating some high-sounding words that sounded like tech scammers, but Stark still closed his brain and read the draft without waves.

Then it entered the session of the host and guest enjoying themselves. One of the old generals with some white hair said to Stark: "I remember the glorious era of Stark Industries. You Starks were all geniuses. Your father was, and so are you. The hover car he researched at that time was surprising, but you also know that the military didn't cooperate with him out of some conservative needs at the beginning. We are really sorry..."

Before Stark could answer, Schiller said in the earphone: "He is scolding your dad for being useless, scolding you for not being as good as your dad. Scold back."

Stark was stunned, and then learned what Schiller said in the earphone: "Indeed, I believe that most people in the military, like you, a respectable general, are far-sighted, but the era is developing too fast now..."

At this time, Nick Fury, who was sitting at the very end of the conference table, said: "In large-scale land landing battles, ordinary weapons still have some effect. Although armor can significantly improve individual combat capability, in group operations, it is also necessary to consider adaptability..."

Schiller's voice came from the earphone: "He is giving you a step, easing the negotiation atmosphere. You can return him a smile."

Then Stark smiled at Nick. Nick got goosebumps from his smile. He felt that Stark today was very strange, really too strange.

Both the military and S. H. I. E. L. D. found that Stark was a bit wrong, so they cut to the point earlier than ever before.

Then Stark found that the main topic of this negotiation didn't even take up one-tenth of the entire negotiation time.

First, Nick Fury pointed out the fact that the military might have kidnapped Dr. Connors. The military bit back and said it was S. H. I. E. L. D.'s self-directed and self-acted play. The two sides pulled for a while. Finally, the military lost a bit and stated that they would question some officers who might have committed excessive behavior.

Listening to their dispute, Stark asked Schiller in the earphone: "They really don't know that we hid Connors?"

"The military may not, but Nick definitely knows. He just needs such an attitude to show that we should unite to deal with the military. He had already expressed his position to me before, you can rest assured to connect..."

Next, Stark and S. H. I. E. L. D. joined forces to beat the military until they were powerless to parry. After all, they had many bargaining chips, the main body of the Red Iguana, the healing serum that Connors might have developed, some evidence mastered by S. H. I. E. L. D., the armor delivered by Stark Industries to the military, etc.

In short, this negotiation ended with a very fast rhythm and a very absurd ending. Everything was exactly as Schiller had predicted at the beginning.

The military launched a scapegoat, which was the Tartus officer faction led by Robert. They were purged, and then this account was written off. The military and S. H. I. E. L. D. joined forces to fabricate losses and jointly demanded an increase in military spending.

Stark Industries Group will establish a stable cooperation system with the military and S. H. I. E. L. D. at the same time, providing some auxiliary individual armor exoskeletons, as well as restarting medical research projects, and will occupy a larger part of the results.

Stark, who returned to the psychological clinic, pulled off the earphone and said angrily: "You damn bastard doctor..."

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

Stark turned around, Pepper ran in angrily, her eyes filled with tears. Stark hugged her, and he heard Pepper's heartbeat very fast.

Pepper said: "I went to find you early in the morning, and you were gone! You didn't even wear armor! I asked Jarvis, and he didn't say anything. I thought something happened to you! You scared me to death, you bastard..."

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

In the dim room, there was only Pepper's low sobbing and Stark's somewhat vague bass.

The road of a genius is always destined to be harder than others. The sensitive heart of Stark, a genius, always suffers more than ordinary people.

But at least, this fledgling bird that had just prepared to leave the nest, when he was swaying in the biting cold wind, still had branches willing to let him land.

He saw Peter, who was hiding behind the porch and waving at him with a smile, and Schiller and Steve who were also standing there.

He saw the TV in the clinic's living room flash suddenly, and a smiley face made of symbols appeared on the screen.

He thought, Stark, you are really a genius.

Not only the smartest genius in the world, but also the luckiest genius in the world. ===== CHAPTER 106 =====