And in this room, on a metal restraint bed, the man who looked almost identical to Robert Downey Jr. was struggling violently. Beside him, a Bald Doctor was wearing blood-stained medical gloves, quickly removing shrapnel from the man's body.
It should have been a scene where a skilled physician miraculously saved a patient from the brink of death.
But this surgical room, which looked entirely unsanitary, coupled with two assistants who seemed like complete idiots, made Gwen sigh involuntarily.
"The only reason Tony Stark can return alive is thanks to the protagonist's halo."
The Shapeshifter stopped lingering. Fine ripples appeared on its surface, and it began to writhe like a mass of black living matter.
Innumerable tiny tentacles extended from her edges, firmly adhering to the rough cave wall.
As the tentacles contracted and extended, the Shapeshifter rapidly climbed upward, moving agilely through the uneven rock face.
Soon, she reached the highest point.
Beside her was an old camera. Its metal casing was heavily rusted, and the lens was covered with a thick layer of dust, yet the indicator light stubbornly glowed red.
This must be the camera from *Iron Man* with the touching (terrible) resolution.
The Shapeshifter attached itself without hesitation, with the speed of lightning covering one's ears.
In an instant, the camera emitted several dazzling sparks, but the crackling sound of electricity did not attract the attention of the three people performing the surgery below.
After all, the chief surgeon and his assistants were currently arguing fiercely.
The originally rusted metal casing began to twist and deform. The surface patterns spread and reorganized rapidly as if alive, quickly transforming into a technologically advanced black and green circuit board pattern.
The red indicator light also turned purple, and an antenna slowly sprouted from the top of the camera, like a bamboo shoot growing.
Meanwhile, inside the Off-road Vehicle in the distant desert, Dr. Contradiction was leaning back in his seat, reading a magazine.
Suddenly, the Tablet Computer placed in the passenger seat emitted a faint hum, and the screen automatically lit up.
Attracted by the sudden anomaly, Dr. Contradiction picked up the tablet. The pages on it rapidly jumped, and soon, the screen displayed a real-time feed: the scene behind the metal door inside the cave.
The camera, enhanced by the Shapeshifter, was crystal clear, showing the scene behind the metal door inside the cave.
The Mustachioed Man was still struggling painfully on the bed. The Bald Doctor, wearing bloody gloves, was precisely picking up pieces of shrapnel with tweezers.
His movements were gentle and steady. The tweezers moved through the bloody wound as if they were extensions of his fingers; every extraction was perfectly executed.
Dr. Contradiction watched intently and couldn't help but exclaim, "This man's hands are truly skillful! Such delicate operation would be considered top-tier even in a professional operating room. I never expected to see it in a place like this."
Before they arrived, Gwen had also inquired in New York about a surgeon named Strange.
Although Dr. Contradiction didn't know how good his skills were, the fees were truly expensive.
As for the Bald Doctor in the picture, aside from occasionally needing to argue with his two assistants, all his operations were smooth and flawless.
"So this is the talent you've set your sights on?"
Gwen's slightly digitized voice immediately came through the tablet: "That's right, it's him."
Dr. Contradiction rubbed his chin, his eyes full of confusion: "Didn't you say you were going to start a company? Why suddenly come looking for this Doctor? Has the plan changed?"
"I'm just here on vacation, and I'll have to leave in a few months," Gwen's voice was relaxed and casual, yet certain. "So before I leave, I need to find a reliable person to run the company, and he is very suitable."
"But isn't this Ethan a Doctor?" Dr. Contradiction was also relaxed, raising an eyebrow as he asked curiously, "Company operation and medicine are two completely different things. Aren't you afraid he'll run you into bankruptcy?"
"Haha, don't worry about that." Gwen laughed, her tone full of confidence: "This man is considered an All-rounder Talent; medicine is only part of his skill set. Moreover, when the time comes to cooperate with Stark Industries, his involvement provides an advantage. Tony Stark won't stand by and watch his Life-saver become unemployed."
At this moment in the cave, the surgery was still proceeding intensely.
Inside the camera, Gwen's Shapeshifter body transformed into countless tiny tentacles, delving deep among the camera's various components. She continuously adjusted the circuit connections, perfectly integrating the reinforced and modified parts with the camera's original system.
At the very least, when she left the camera, it wouldn't short-circuit.
Once everything was complete, Gwen's body began to contract and condense, gradually detaching from the camera and reverting back to the Shapeshifter.
And the camera reverted from the cool black and green color scheme back to white with a red light.
The Shapeshifter, like a Black Lightning bolt, attached itself to the electrical wires on the wall and sped towards the cave exit along the path it had taken to arrive.
Along the way, no one noticed her at all.
Or perhaps the Shapeshifter was simply too well hidden; even if the Patrol Personnel noticed it, they would only assume it was an insect or something similar.
Soon, the Shapeshifter rushed out of the cave along the wires, disappearing into the vast desert night outside the cave, where a purple light flashed again.
Kabul, airplane baggage compartment.
The metal hatch slowly rose, and humid air mixed with the smell of engine oil rushed in.
Four staff members wearing orange reflective vests pushed Hydraulic Baggage Carts and filed in. They wore safety helmets, had walkie-talkies clipped to their waists, and their eyes showed a mix of proficiency and exhaustion.
"The usual rule: fragile items on the top layer!" the leading worker shouted at the top of his lungs, then crouched beside the conveyor belt, ready to receive the bags.
A slightly overweight worker shuffled towards the back of the baggage compartment, his rubber soles making dragging noises on the metal floor.
He followed the sound and looked down, his movements suddenly freezing.
Right where he had just stepped was a mass of Milky-white Gelatinous Substance, shimmering with an eerie luster and slowly wriggling with the slightest vibration.
The worker's face instantly turned pale, his Adam's apple bobbed, and his stomach churned. He felt like he was about to vomit bile.
He could only hypnotize himself into believing it was a wad of Spider Silk, not the kind of thing he was imagining.
Wait! Didn't this plane fly over from Doha today? It's not India!
But since he had the bad luck to step on it, he could only suppress his nausea, frown, and vigorously scrape his foot against the metal floor of the cabin repeatedly.
"Damn it, what bad luck!" he muttered while continuing to try and scrape the sticky substance off the sole of his shoe.
The roar inside the cabin drowned out the faint sounds overhead. He was completely unaware that a figure in a Red and Blue Bodysuit was hanging upside down from the ceiling.
At the entrance, the Worker Foreman wore an orange safety helmet, and the whistle hanging around his neck swayed gently with his breathing.
He just stared at the people working inside the baggage compartment, fully embodying the principle that "supervisors never look up."
When he spotted the worker scraping his sole on the spot, his brows immediately furrowed. He strode over quickly and started berating him severely: "Slacking off, are we? We have so much luggage waiting to be moved, and you're dragging your feet here? If you don't want to work, scram now!"
The scolded worker felt extremely wronged, offering both an explanation and showing the sole of his shoe.
Taking advantage of this moment, Spider-Man, still hanging upside down from the ceiling, fired two streams of web fluid from his Web-Shooters.
Using the elasticity of the web fluid, he launched himself out like a slingshot.
Drawing a beautiful arc in the air, and using the momentum to swing in a loop, Spider-Man accurately swung onto the outer wall of the Kabul Airport Terminal Building.
With his palms firmly adhered to the wall surface, he quickly climbed until he stopped in an unpopulated area.
After cautiously looking around left and right and confirming no one was paying attention, Spider-Man took out his everyday clothes from his backpack and changed into them, finally letting out a long sigh.
"Alright, Little Spider... where should I go next to rescue Mr. Stark?"