Chapter 3107: Romantic

"I have two in my room, why?"

"I want to film a cooking video, but if I put the phone too far away, it won't pick up the audio. I wanted to borrow your microphone."

"No problem, it's in the second drawer of my nightstand. Go ahead and take it... Oh, thank you for the gift, fan! The Doctor is going to film his video, let me continue telling you about this irrigation system..."

After Shiler left, Ultron was still livestreaming to his fans in the fields. This made Shiler feel a bit of emotion; the internet version changes every single day.

However, it wasn't quite the era of universal influencer marketing yet. The current form of livestreaming was still relatively simple—just opening a stream to chat with everyone...

Wait a minute, what did Ultron just say? What was he going to introduce to his livestream audience?

Shiler felt something was off. Logically, shouldn't it be about the daily lives of superheroes? Why did this guy run to the fields to introduce an irrigation system?

He wasn't actually selling products, was he?

Shiler arrived at Ultron's room. Sure enough, he found the microphone in the nightstand drawer. There were many other things Ultron used for his streams, including a smartphone.

Shiler secretly turned on the phone screen. Of course, Ultron's phone was locked, so he couldn't open it, but a notification that looked very familiar appeared on the standby screen.

Wasn't this WeChat?

Shiler had almost forgotten about this app. People in the US didn't use WeChat, though there were similar apps, used by different demographics.

What surprised him even more was that the message received was in Chinese, and the sender was labeled "Xu Shangqi."

The content read: "Five days as agreed. The money has been transferred, don't forget to feature the brand!"

Good heavens, Ultron really was selling products—cross-border influencer marketing, no less.

If Shiler guessed correctly, the product was the "Multi-functional Field Butler" mentioned earlier, an irrigation system equipped with watering, pest control, and disease prevention features.

Shiler thought about it carefully. He felt that compared to Chinese farmers, this product was better suited for American farmers.

American farms were large, and the farmers were wealthier. To increase production efficiency, they were willing to spend money, and the terrain in the US was relatively flat, making it suitable for large-scale installation of such equipment.

Conversely, Chinese farmers had less land per person, and in many southern regions, the terrain was complex with fields on mountains, lacking the conditions for large-scale cultivation. One person's small plot didn't require this, and the farmers themselves might be reluctant to buy it.

Of course, some large farms in the north could use it, but if it were state-procured, there wouldn't be much profit. Exporting to earn foreign currency was a decent idea.

Unlike S. H. I. E. L. D., the S. P. E. A. R. organization was not international; it was entirely a Chinese organization. It managed almost everything in China, including commercial aspects.

However, S. P. E. A. R.'s thinking was quite flexible. They could think of using a robot to sell products—a robot selling agricultural products was actually quite professional. Who said products couldn't speak for themselves?

Shiler got the microphone, tested it, and found the audio quality was quite good. He set up his phone to record and then started muttering into the microphone.

The cooking process wasn't particularly interesting—just washing, cutting, and stir-frying. However, Shiler diligently commented on every step of the recipe, saying everything he could think of.

While filming, Shiler heard some noise behind him, but he was focused on cooking and didn't look back.

By the time he finished filming and editing, and uploaded the video, he realized Peter and Gwen, Wanda and Jarvis, and Harry and Mary had gathered together.

"Hey, Doctor, is dinner ready? Is there anything I can help with?" Peter seemed a bit apologetic. "You're always the one cooking, it's really hard work. Let me do it next time."

"No need. I'm filming a recipe review video lately. By the way, what have you all been talking about?"

"We're planning a couples' night!"

"Looks like I'm being excluded."

"Not at all! Doctor! If you want to come, you're very welcome!"

"I'll pass. I promised Nick I'd go night fishing at sea tonight. You guys have fun. But why the sudden idea?"

"Wanda wanted to film a video," Peter grinned. "Harry brought a new board game. It's been very popular in New York lately, and a lot of people are playing it. We thought we'd try it too."

"What is it?" Shiler curiously leaned over to look at the box on the table.

"Superhero Sha!"

"What?" Shiler seemed to have caught a faint pronunciation of a Chinese word. He couldn't have heard it wrong, could he?

"Superhero Sha!" Peter said. "'Sha' seems to mean death."

Sure enough, he hadn't heard it wrong. Peter's last syllable was the Chinese word "Sha" (kill).

This stirred up some unpleasant memories for Shiler.

"That's not it," Harry countered. "The word 'Sha' is Chinese. It means to kill the other person, as in we kill each other."

"But how can superheroes kill each other?"

"It's not real killing," Wanda said. "If you kill Captain America in the game, does he actually die?"

"The implication isn't great either," Gwen said helplessly. "Captain America is one thing, but if you kill Iron Man, Tony would be furious!"

"Then don't play with him," Pikachu said irritably. "He's so petty, always wanting to take back his moves. I don't want to play board games with him."

"So where did this come from?" Shiler asked curiously.

"I bought it in Hong Kong. When I bought it, it wasn't on Amazon yet, but it seems you can buy it now," Harry said.

Shiler picked up the box and examined it carefully, finding the Disney logo on the back. No wonder—the rights to the images of these superheroes were mostly held by Disney, thanks to Nick's efforts.

But he noticed a line of small text under the Disney logo that read "Disney China."

"Is this imported from China?"

"Yes. It seems to be a board game product created by Disney's China branch. It wasn't very popular in China, but after a New York influencer reviewed it, it became a hit over there."

Harry explained, "However, it hasn't been officially exported yet. You could only buy it in Hong Kong. It was very hard to get before, and I had to use some connections to buy it."

Shiler found the box had been opened, so he opened it himself. Inside were many props and cards, all with simplified Chinese characters.

"Can you read them?" Shiler asked.

It wasn't strange that these people knew a little Chinese, as there were many Mandarin influencers on short-video apps and major video platforms, and many foreign fans followed them.

But speaking and writing Chinese were two completely different levels of difficulty. It was normal to know how to say a few phrases, but learning to recognize characters was hard because there was no correlation between pronunciation and the characters. Even learning Pinyin took a long time. Aside from him and the two robots, it was unlikely anyone in this house could read Chinese.

"You can't read it just by looking," Harry said. "Put these on and it'll be different."

Harry pulled out several pairs of glasses from somewhere and excitedly asked everyone to try them on.

Shiler took a pair and put them on. The moment he looked at the cards, the Chinese characters were erased, replaced by English.

Good heavens, translation glasses with real-time editing and text embedding?

Translation glasses had existed for a long time, but the magic of these was that they could "Photoshop" reality, erasing the original text and replacing it with the desired language in the same spot, with no flaws.

Shiler shook the playing card in front of his eyes, then turned his head, and the words remained perfectly still, as if they were printed on the card. It was quite magical.

"This is the latest product from Oscorp," Harry said. "I'm fully responsible for it. What do you think?"

"It's perfect," Shiler evaluated. "But it doesn't look like an Oscorp product; it looks more like something from Stark Industries."

"My dad said the same thing. He doesn't really approve of me doing this, but I think this is definitely the future trend," Harry said. "Don't look at how it only translates Earth languages now; maybe it'll translate alien languages later? And maybe it can be made into contact lenses?"

"There are so many alien languages. If humans wanted to learn them all, it would take decades. But if we connect to alien networks later and want to watch their short videos, we'll still need to understand their languages. This will make it much more convenient."

Shiler nodded, agreeing with Harry. While there was a universal language in the universe, it was like English—many people used it, but not everyone. Most people used translation software.

Besides, the three major empires basically used their own native languages, only using the universal language for formal diplomatic occasions. To understand their native cultures, one had to know their languages.

The three empires' languages each had their own merits. The Skrull and Kree empires used alphabetic languages, while the Shi'ar Empire's language was similar to Chinese—a logographic language where every character had meaning.

Moreover, each character had three sides and had to be read in a fixed order, making it extremely difficult to read and write. Humans would have to study for years just to learn it.

Even worse, just like Chinese, Shi'ar characters had several versions. Court etiquette was written in their ancient language. Shiler had once caught a glimpse of it at Professor X's place; if the Professor hadn't explained it, he would have thought the mutants were learning to draw talismans.

Back to Harry's invention—promoting interstellar diplomacy was a story for another day. It was indeed convenient for playing games and reading comics now. However, it wasn't without its flaws: different languages had different lengths.

Shiler picked up a card at random and found it was the "Fungoid" from the New Warriors faction. Its ability was to plant spores on two random enemy characters, dealing damage before each attack action; defense didn't trigger damage. After three turns, the spores turned into bacteria, infecting two people per turn. Friendly units could also be infected. Once everyone on the field was infected, the bacteria turned into hallucinations, changing the action queue to random draws. After one turn, a "Corruption" card was added to the draw pile. If a character drew a Corruption card, they gained one point of Corruption. At three points, the character turned into bones.

This was already quite long in Chinese, so the font size was one level smaller than other cards. But after being translated into English, it broke through the limits—the original frame couldn't hold it, and the small comic of the Fungoid was erased, replaced entirely by text.

The Fungoid was a minor character in the superhero team, yet it had so many skills. Just as Shiler was wondering if it was a bit too complex, he saw another card next to it.

Then he realized the skills of these cards were linked. For example, it wasn't just the Fungoid that could spread bacteria; many characters with the "Chemist" tag could do it, like the Lizard, Dr. Connors, who could spread lizard bacteria by biting.

And it wasn't just him who could cause hallucinations; Doctor Strange and many other mages with the "Mage" tag could do it too. Moreover, "Bones" could be resurrected by characters with the "Death" tag.

And it's not just him who can perform hallucinations. Doctor Strange and many other mages with the "mage" label can also do it, and "White Bone" can also be resurrected by characters with the "death" label.