"Of course I remember—Leo drowned and left Kate a widow~~"
The ever-chatty Luis immediately chimed in.
---
Down in the basement, Scott got to work again. He gathered various chemical reagents and used a drill to bore a hole into the steel door.
Next, he poured the prepared chemicals into the hole and followed it up with an entire canister of liquid nitrogen.
Before long, frost began to spread across the steel door. The ice rapidly expanded, visible to the naked eye. Then, with a violent burst of flying fragments—
Boom!
The steel door crashed to the ground.
Scott quickly stepped inside the vault—but the moment he crossed the threshold, he froze.
There was nothing.
No gold, no cash, no jewels—just a bunch of useless bottles and jars, covered in dust and cobwebs.
"Hey man~~~ what's inside? Cash? Jewelry? Gold bars?"
Luis's voice rattled nonstop through the earpiece.
"There's… there's nothing!!"
Scott was dumbfounded. He'd been told there were valuables here—so where was everything?
"What?! What do you mean nothing?!"
Back in the van, Luis and the others were just as stunned.
Scott hurriedly searched the room. The only thing he found on a shelf was a black-and-red suit and a strangely designed helmet. Aside from that, it was all junk.
"There's… a suit. Like… an old motorcycle outfit?"
Scott picked it up. Following the principle of never leaving empty-handed, he stuffed the suit into his bag.
"A suit? How much is a suit worth? Where's the cash? The jewelry? The gold?!"
Luis complained endlessly.
"There's nothing, Luis. This job was a total waste."
Scott looked dejected. He had been counting on this score to regain custody of his daughter. After his divorce, custody had been granted to his ex-wife—and now she had a new boyfriend, a cop. Scott feared his daughter might be mistreated in the future, so he wanted her back.
But he had nothing—no money, no job, fresh out of prison. This job had been his only hope.
"Sorry, Scott… this one's on me. I thought this would help you out…"
Luis understood Scott's situation all too well. He had hoped this job would turn things around for him—but instead, they'd been played.
Scott slung his bag over his shoulder and left, discouraged.
What he didn't notice was a small ant with a camera mounted on its back, quietly watching him from a corner of the shelf. Every move he made had been clearly observed by someone on the other end.
---
In a monitoring room, an elderly man with graying hair sat calmly in front of a computer, sipping coffee. On the screen were not only surveillance feeds, but also lines of complex code and dense streams of data.
---
Late at night, Karl got out of bed and walked to the window. Beside him, Wanda slept soundly, completely unaware that he had gotten up.
Standing by the window, Karl found himself reminiscing about the time before he had obtained the system. Back then, he had been just like now—an ordinary person, constantly worried about the countless dangers of the Marvel world.
Only after awakening the system had those fears disappeared.
Thinking back, it had already been twenty-five or twenty-six years since he transmigrated. The memories of his previous life had grown faint. Sometimes he couldn't even recall his old home's exact address—his parents' faces were becoming blurred.
He was gradually becoming part of this world.
Sitting in a chair, Karl gazed out at the bustling streets and towering skyscrapers. Though he was only in his twenties, his mental age was the sum of two lifetimes.
That was why Tony treated him as an equal friend—because his mindset and worldview were far more mature than his appearance suggested.
"Can't sleep?"
Wanda's sleepy voice came from behind. She reached out and found the space beside her empty, prompting her to get up. She spotted Karl sitting by the window, staring into the night.
"Not really. Just thinking… What do you think would happen if I stayed a normal person forever?"
Karl looked at her. Her red hair draped over her shoulders like silk, her eyes shimmering softly in the dark.
"Hmm… then things would just stay the same, I guess. I'm not leaving you anyway. Wherever you go, I go."
Wanda didn't care whether Karl was ordinary or not. It didn't matter to her—as long as she could stay by his side.
Karl smiled.
In this life, he had family and people he loved. Though his past life had faded away, he was no longer alone. The Stacys, Skye, Wanda—and friends like Tony.
"Let's sleep."
Karl returned to bed, wrapping his arms around Wanda as they drifted off together.
---
At a tech company laboratory, a researcher led a fluffy white lamb into the testing room. Outside, a man and a woman stood behind a glass wall, observing.
The researcher placed the lamb onto a platform. On one side of the platform stood a device, aimed directly at its center.
"I thought you'd use a mouse," the woman said, glancing at the man beside her.
Her name was Hope—the daughter of the company's founder, and the future Wasp. At the moment, however, she was still at odds with her father, who refused to pass the Ant-Man suit down to her.
The man beside her was her father's former protégé—Darren Cross, a bald man with a clearly rebellious streak.
"Is there really any difference between a mouse and a sheep?" Darren replied, turning to her.
Under Hope's uneasy gaze, Darren pressed the intercom.
"Commencing experiment. Trial number thirty-four. Initiating organic matter reduction."
Hope frowned. The current technology could only shrink non-living matter. Research on shrinking living organisms was still purely theoretical—this was extremely dangerous.
"Darren, maybe we're rushing this a bit—"
Before she could finish, Darren cut her off coldly.
"Shrinking organic tissue is the core of this technology. I'm not selling an incomplete product."
His expression was firm. He had already conducted thirty-three experiments—every single one had failed. The test subjects had all turned into something resembling tomato paste.
He was out of time.
And so were the buyers backing him.
As a former student of Hank Pym—the original Ant-Man—Darren had been studying Pym's shrinking technology for years. But Pym had refused to share critical data, believing Darren to be morally unfit.
Left with no choice, Darren had obtained most of the research through Hope.
But the most crucial piece—the ability to safely shrink living organisms—remained out of reach.
Because that secret…
Was known only to Hank Pym himself.
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