Chapter 4867

Stark's solo scenes wrapped up quickly; word was the process went smoothly. After all, playing Iron Man was second nature to him. Only, before filming his younger-era scenes, he spent two days adjusting his condition. Besides altering his appearance, he also had to recapture his youthful bearing.

First up were the scenes between Stark and Shiler. Simply put, Shiler returns from the Soviet Union and the two reunite after a long separation. For both of them, it truly counted as a long-awaited reunion.

The moment Stark saw Shiler walking over, he knew he wasn't Greed. However, his previous interactions with Pride had made Greed's friends less reactive, too.

The other traits were indeed bizarre. When wearing a face identical to Shiler's, there was an uncanny valley effect. But this newcomer had a young face and wore his hair half-long, differing considerably from the usual Shiler, so Stark didn't find him so repulsive.

Even so, he still waited reservedly in place, looking this Shiler up and down. If asked to describe young Shiler's appearance, it would be "normal to the point of being abnormal."

Stark had lived a very dissolute and chaotic youth; he moved through pleasure quarters and had seen countless beauties, possessing a far deeper understanding of sex and love than ordinary people. He knew well that the ultimate attraction in this world is sexual attraction. And what kind of person possesses sexual attraction can always be summed up.

Beautiful features, sexy figure, dressed in magnificent clothes, expression natural and vivid, bearing elegant and confident — such a person is liked at first sight and is the center of attention wherever they go. Seeing such a person being pursued is completely unsurprising.

Stark was like that in his youth; even setting aside his status as a Stark family Young Master, he had ample capital to be a heartthrob. He was handsome and tall, had a pair of limpid, affectionate eyes, was widely knowledgeable, skilled at flirting, and who knew how many went crazy for him.

Yet, strangely, young Shiler came across as very ordinary. Disheveled hair covered his brows and eyes; perhaps because he was mixed-race, his features were slightly softer than a typical white person's, lacking that strong impact. He dressed plainly, too, and didn't seem the type to be talkative and cheerful. This kind of person could never become a heartthrob.

But eerily, this young Shiler possessed a very special attraction that made one involuntarily curious about him.

This contradictory feeling made Stark's hair stand on end. He truly saw nothing in Shiler's appearance worth being curious about. He looked perfectly normal, like a very ordinary college student. Yet there was an inexplicable attraction.

As Shiler walked toward him, Stark instinctively stepped back several paces. He watched him with extreme wariness, wishing he could turn and run. But strangely, no one else felt that way.

Whether Stark's life experiences gave him keener perception, or Shiler's unique attraction was released only toward a specific designated person, regardless, Stark was the only one seeing ghosts on set.

Everyone else just found it baffling. A stagehand came over and asked, "About time; ready to roll, Mr. Stark? Or do you two want to chat a bit longer?"

Stark wondered if he was having an anxiety attack, leading to persecutory delusions. He couldn't tell the difference, so he could only treat it as such for now, forcing down the abnormal thoughts in his heart, clearing his throat and saying, "Fine, let's begin."

The first shot was an embrace.

Stark stood there, wanting to beat to death the version of himself who had approved the script. This was like seeing a ghost in broad daylight and then immediately having to hug the ghost. "Ghost" couldn't even describe it well; it should be called a monster only he himself could see.

It's all fake, all hallucinations from persecutory delusions... Stark kept hypnotizing himself in his mind, then walked over and gave Shiler an embrace.

Naturally nothing happened. Shiler didn't bite his head off, or suddenly unleash some move to send him flying. It was just a perfectly ordinary embrace.

But the more ordinary it was, the colder Stark felt all over, so he kept spacing out during the subsequent scenes. The director was getting a bit helpless.

"Sorry, Mr. Stark, are you feeling unwell? Should we call a doctor?" The director couldn't afford to offend him either, so he could only try to coax him as best he could.

Stark waved his hand and said, "Sorry, might be an anxiety attack, really a bit unwell. Let me rest a while."

Stark went to rest, but he still had to find a way to solve this problem. He took out his phone and sent Greed a message, roughly asking what was going on and whether he was sick again.

Greed replied quickly with a somewhat baffling message: "I'll have him rein it in a bit."

Back on set afterward, Stark felt something had changed. The previous hallucinations had vanished, that strange attraction was gone too. This young Shiler had become as unremarkable as he appeared on the surface. Aside from those gray eyes, nothing drew attention.

Stark immediately understood — this was the young Shiler's doing. Either a superpower, or psychological manipulation. But Stark didn't know his purpose; was it just to scare him?

At the next break, Stark downed a mouthful of ice-cold beer, leaned against the bar, looked at this young Shiler, and asked, "What was that about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know." Stark frowned. "Don't play dumb with me. What just happened?"

"Just a little trick." Shiler smiled. "Alright, actually it was to create some pressure for you, to prevent you from pressuring Shi Difen."

"Create some pressure?" Stark repeated his words. "You nearly scared me to death!"

"Sorry, I didn't gauge the degree well." Shiler paused, then said, "I thought you all fell for this routine."

"You all — who do you mean by 'you all'?"

"The Iron Men." Shiler answered truthfully. "Honestly, you're the first one to spot the problem; at least to me, you're the smartest Iron Man in the entire multiverse."

Stark was clearly pleased, but he still forced himself to keep a straight face and said, "What about the others? They just fell into the trap like that?"

"More than that. Swinging on vines, swimming in swamps, taking up residence inside a Kraken's belly."

Stark was amused by these metaphors, but quickly realized he shouldn't be laughing. He shook his head in annoyance. This guy must have realized the previous trick didn't work on him, switched tactics, and he nearly fell for it.

"Talk to me less." Stark kept him at arm's length.

"Is that so? I thought you'd rein it in a bit after getting married." Shiler raised an eyebrow toward a direction.

There was a female assistant there, seemingly sneaking glances this way. Stark was sure he saw her throwing flirtatious looks. He frowned and said, "I don't know her, nothing happened between us, don't slander me."

"But if you weren't here chatting with me, she'd definitely have some work question to ask you. And Mr. Brock seems very regretful that he's never been able to break a scandal about you." Shiler looked toward another direction; Eddie was writing something in a notebook.

Stark covered his face. Wolves ahead, tigers behind — he really regretted filming this movie a bit. No wonder they say God stands on Captain America's side; how come Steve didn't have all this trouble when filming? Oh, he didn't have to go in person, so never mind.

But no matter how Stark complained, the filming had to continue. In the afternoon there was a dialogue-heavy dramatic scene, mainly the two sharing what they'd done over the years, plus some envisioning-the-future beats.

Shiler acted superbly; he was deep in character, as if it had really happened, performing naturally and effortlessly, carrying Stark into the scene as well. The director finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Afterward, everyone was lavish with praise, complimenting Stark to the point of embarrassment. He turned to look at Shiler. He genuinely suspected whether Shiler had fabricated a timeline where they'd actually said these things, he acted so much like it.

"Seriously, if you weren't Tony Stark, you'd be the male lead of a very popular youth film." Shiler looked at him and said, "Your eyes are full of stories; just looking into your eyes while speaking, I don't even need to deliberately think about lines."

"Oh, God. I'm not a Bond girl." Stark couldn't take it. "Don't play these cheap tricks on me, I won't fall for them."

But he was still a bit embarrassed and hurried away. However, in the subsequent filming, a great many people praised his eyes, making Stark a little suspicious of himself.

Of course, Stark knew his eyes were good-looking; who knew how many had mentioned it. But these film people's focus wasn't on how captivating the eyes looked — they always said this pair of eyes had "narrative depth."

Stark didn't really understand what "narrative depth" meant. And didn't he have the same eyes when young and now? Why did no one praise him for narrative depth when older?

He felt these people were just mindlessly flattering. Stark wasn't stupid; he knew when you have money and power, you meet a pile of nice people wherever you go. He'd heard too many flattering words since childhood, so he didn't take this slightly unusual description seriously, just treating it as these film folks inventing some novel vocabulary to curry favor, hoping he'd give more money.

But unexpectedly, when Shi Difen's scenes started filming and he arrived on set, he also stared at Stark's eyes and froze.

"You..." Shi Difen started to speak but stopped.

"What's wrong?" Stark felt creeped out by his stare. He rubbed his arms and said, "How come you didn't get younger?"

Shi Difen still looked the same, seemingly not wanting to change too early. But he didn't answer Stark's question; instead he stood there looking at Stark for a while, then said, "Has anyone ever told you? You have a pair of 'pure' eyes."

Stark broke out in goosebumps: "What the hell are you doing?"

Shi Difen seemed not to hear; he even walked toward Stark. Stark instinctively stepped back; only then did Shi Difen realize his loss of composure. He narrowed his eyes and said, "How can you have such a pair of eyes?"

This made Stark a bit unhappy. First praise me, then question me — what new mind manipulation technique is this?

"Cut it out!" Stark bristled like a cat. "I've had these eyes all along; how come you never said anything before? You're definitely in cahoots with them messing with me..."

"No..." Shi Difen seemed to have fully entered Sorcerer Supreme mode, a faint glimmer flashing in his eyes. "No no, Tony Stark, you're simply... inconceivable."