Chapter 2669

"I'm serious, Stephen, for the sake of our past friendship..." Shiler sat next to the dining table, tilted his body to one side, leaned over and said to Strange.

"What past friendship do we have?" Strange interrupted him mercilessly, glanced at him and said: "The friendship of you threatening me to see a doctor with a flying cane?"

"Why are you still dwelling on this?!" Shiler picked up the wine glass, took a sip of wine, and then said: "Wasn't it just that one time? After that, I introduced you to so many job opportunities, don't you remember them?"

"If you have something to say, just say it." Strange's tone was still very cold, clearly in a bad mood.

Shiler smiled and said: "You know I am a professional psychologist. I just did a psychological assessment for Tony a few days ago. He indeed has symptoms of anxiety disorder, and his current mental state is not very normal, so in case he says something later..."

Strange had long seen what happened with Shiler's few time travels in the Eye of Agamotto, found that Shiler was still making futile struggles, and said with feigned confusion.

"What did he say?"

"Anyway, those things that don't get along with you..."

Strange stared at him, and then Shiler reacted. He looked at Strange and said: "You used the past tense?"

Then Shiler slowly widened his eyes and looked at Strange and said: "You knew it all?"

Strange held the wine glass and nodded reservedly, cast his eyes toward Shiler and said: "I am considering whether to report you, this time criminal, to the Time Variance Authority."

"That's still unnecessary. I'm not the same as that bunch of people. I have made sufficient preparations and won't cause any trouble."

"Do you believe this yourself?" Strange revealed a sneer and said: "Guess if Nick or others really know you did this kind of thing, what will they think?"

"They will think I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy for the first day."

"You know this can't be fudged, Shiler. I also really want to ask you, why are you so persistent in changing this kind of future? What's wrong with it?"

"Since you saw it, then you should know that my past is..."

"But you have already changed your past now, which means even if you become famous, the past others investigate won't have any problems, and what Nick investigates will also be logical. Then why are you still persuading me, trying to reverse the future where you become famous?"

"Very good, you caught the point." Shiler turned back to drink, paused for a while, flipped the hand that wasn't holding the wine glass and said: "I think this is completely unnecessary. I don't want to be a big star like Tony. That for me..."

"Why don't you want to?" Strange asked: "No one doesn't enjoy the praise and pursuit of others, doesn't enjoy being the center of attention..."

"I don't enjoy it." Shiler said in a low voice.

"You don't want others to know you, why?" Strange asked.

"Because those empty names have no meaning to me." Shiler was clearly trying to find a reason. He said: "Being paid attention to makes me uncomfortable, especially this kind of large-scale excessive attention, which makes me feel I have no privacy."

"You know that's not the reason. If you want to protect your privacy, you have plenty of ways, and you are not a person who takes privacy very seriously, even ready to take out your secrets to exchange at any time. Except for what you want, nothing is truly precious."

Shiler was silent. Strange said: "It's better to say that if others know you well enough, they will be like me. You are not as invulnerable as you appear. Once others grasp your lifeline, you will be in an unfavorable situation."

"That's right." Shiler said: "So I don't want people to know me, any problem?"

"But I think this is actually not the reason either." Strange supported his head with one hand, his elbow on the table, and said: "Exposing too many secrets leading to weaknesses being revealed to others is indeed terrible. Some people choose to hide behind the scenes for this reason. Only being mysterious enough can be invincible."

"But I don't think you are completely like this. You don't want to be famous, more out of an instinct, and only that kind of instinct would make you do such irrational things."

"What's irrational?"

"Everything you did before, can even be called obsessive-compulsive disorder, because your reason is very clear about how dangerous it is to jump through time in this way, and it might even make all the efforts you made before go down the drain."

Shiler looked at him with a frown.

"Doing it to this extent is not to avoid exposing weaknesses to others." Strange's fingertips tapped the table lightly. He said: "Thanks to our past friendship, I can also be considered a decent psychologist, right?"

Shiler took another sip of wine, shook his head with a smile and said: "You are still far behind." Then said: "Let me see if you are qualified."

Strange directly pressed the hand Shiler was holding the wine glass with, took the wine glass from his hand and said: "Didn't you notice? Once your state starts to lose control, you will instinctively seek the comfort of alcohol and drugs. The word 'addict' really didn't wrong you."

Shiler wanted to grab the wine glass back, but didn't want to attract the attention of Stark opposite, so he had to withdraw his hand somewhat sheepishly and said: "I originally wanted to say you should treat me to a drink, because you are one of the culprits of all this trouble, but if your analysis is good enough, I can let you off."

Strange put Shiler's wine glass far away, and then said: "I don't understand those theories, but I can tell you your current state from an objective perspective."

"You look very nervous and anxious, and what you do starts to be driven by instinct rather than reason, which means your state is not good, which means you might be in the early stage of the disease or just sick."

"What disease do I have?"

"It's hard to say, you are too complexly crazy, but if you want me to describe it, it's the discomfort brought to you by breaking the original regular life. I guess this should be a symptom of autism."

Shiler was just about to open his mouth to say something, but Strange interrupted him again and said: "This onset didn't just start now. Ever since you came back from Battleworld, you've been a bit wrong. Remember? It was the same in Battleworld, everyone knew you, and the name Shiler can be called infamous."

"It's renowned." Shiler corrected.

"In short." Strange took a sip of ice wine and said: "Your habit has always been to hide behind the scenes. This is the life rule you follow, but one day, this rule was broken, perhaps even earlier than you imagined."

"Solar System Development Plan? The change of Asgard, the collapse of the Superhuman Registration Act, and even the establishment of the Avengers? Anyway, when all the forces were twisted into a rope by you, wanting to stay behind the scenes steadily was almost impossible."

"To go deeper, when you started to have contact with superheroes, instead of just treating us as a part of your plan, a tool to achieve goals, all of this was already destined."

Strange turned to look at Shiler beside him. He was sure he saw a trace of imperceptible pain on Shiler's expression, still unthinking, instinctive.

It seems my choice is right, Strange thought.

Accompanied by Stark's loud laughter, the atmosphere of the banquet started to gradually reach a climax. Just the moment Stark looked over, Strange raised his head, sparks burst between their eyes, but a trace of unclear meaning was hidden under the aggressive gaze.

Time returned to 20 minutes ago. Strange watched Shiler's back walk into the banquet hall, but he didn't follow Shiler in, but turned and walked to the bathroom beside, stood in front of the window and took out the Eye of Agamotto.

Strange turned around, just in time to see Stark walking quickly toward the banquet hall, his figure tall and straight, fleeting.

The light gradually lit up, and the moment time froze, Strange's figure disappeared. When he appeared again, he had returned to Columbia University Medical School. The time point now is 14 years ago, which is six years after Shiler's chase battle with the agents.

Strange didn't stay long. He found the dormitory he was in, opened the door with magic, put a magic spell on himself at this time point, and used magic to turn into his young appearance. After putting on the windbreaker he often wore at this time, he came to the professor's office.

"... Yes, I am ready, Professor. I know this risk is too high, almost betting my career, but I have to do this. I can't watch the patient die in pain..."

Strange knew how real the compassionate expression he made on his face was, so real that even he couldn't tell whether he really had a few points of pity for this patient who completely changed his career.

The professor opposite had a not-so-good expression, looking not expectant, but Strange also knew that choosing him was a last resort. If it weren't for that old professor who had been famous for a long time suddenly falling ill, and others couldn't afford the responsibility of surgical failure, it wouldn't have been the turn of this novice surgeon who was not even 30 years old.

But Strange had full confidence, because a few months before the banquet started, he had just finished a perfect neurosurgery, and the type of surgery and the patient's condition were exactly the same as now.

Sure enough, he performed perfectly, shaking the entire medical community. No one knew why this young doctor under 30 could perform so perfectly, but this didn't prevent them from singing praises to Strange and putting him on the altar.

This surgery changed Strange's life, and he became a true Hand of God.

But this was just a starting point. Strange accepted all those praises and compliments, attended various experience sharing meetings and teaching surgeries as usual, until one day, Strange met Obadiah.

He was clear that Obadiah at this period was still Stark's good uncle, and ambitiously wanted to take the Stark Group to a new level.

No one would not want to have a good relationship with a highly skilled and unique surgeon, even if he was not even 30 years old, just a young man, but as long as he possessed the technology of bringing the dead back to life, he had sufficient capital to talk to anyone on an equal footing.

Under Strange's deliberate performance, Obadiah soon noticed this rising star in the medical community, and unsurprisingly wanted to win over Strange to join his private medical team.

The requirement Strange put forward to continue working at the Presbyterian Hospital, in Obadiah's view, didn't count for anything at all. The vast majority of his private medical team were part-time, and one more didn't matter.

Just like this, Strange joined Obadiah's private medical team, which was also Stark Group's, and entered this company he least wanted to come to in the future as a private medical consultant.

And unsurprisingly met young Stark.