"Damn, what a waste," Huang Wen muttered, his eyes flickering with a rare touch of genuine remorse as he stared at the empty space where his sword used to be.
He couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. Back when he first started accumulating rare materials, he had treated Adamantium like a luxury construction material rather than a strategic resource. Most of the high-purity Adamantium he'd scavenged or earned had been poured into the structural foundations of the Puppet's defensive shell and the 'Safe House' protocols. If he'd been just a bit more stingy, he could have forged a backup blade for the Wushuang Sword that wouldn't have snapped like a dry twig against a glorified shipping container.
But regret was for the weak. Back then, he hadn't yet stepped into the shoes of the Sword Saint Dugu Jian. He hadn't felt the soul-link with a legendary blade. At the time, having two small, lethal flying daggers made of the indestructible metal seemed like the peak of martial utility. He had wanted to give the Wushuang Sword its moment to shine, to prove that its spiritual edge could transcend mere physical density.
He had been wrong. The secondary Adamantium alloy—the "budget" version of the stuff in Wolverine's bones—was still leagues beyond standard terrestrial physics.
The thing about Adamantium that most people didn't get was its terrifying finality. Once that liquid cooled into a solid state, it was essentially locked out of the laws of thermodynamics. You could toss a block of it into the heart of a supernova, and it wouldn't even break a sweat. It didn't fear heat; it didn't fear pressure.
In some of the stories Huang Wen remembered, people talked about cutting through Adamantium with high-frequency heated blades—like what happened to Logan's claws in Japan. But in Huang Wen's eyes, that wasn't about the heat "melting" the metal. It was about two identical substances clashing, where the one backed by superior kinetic force and molecular vibration won out. It was physics, not a blacksmith's forge.
"Master? You're scaring us a bit," Huang Liang whispered, stepping closer. "Is that box... actually invincible? I've never seen you look at something with that much annoyance before."
"Don't tell me we're stuck with a very expensive paperweight," Peter Parker added, trying to lighten the mood but failing to hide his own nervousness.
"Boss, you want me to wake up Logan?" Silly Girl's voice chimed in from the ceiling speakers. "He's currently at a bar in the city. Based on his heart rate, he's about three shots deep into his 'nightlife' routine."
"Leave him be," Huang Wen said with a faint, wry smile. "Let the old wolf have his fun. Besides, even if he brought his claws here, he lacks the raw telekinetic precision to peel this thing open without turning the guy inside into a heap of sliced meat. And honestly? Even his bones might struggle against this specific alloy if he doesn't hit the angle just right."
He paused, a glimmer of light returning to his eyes. "And it's not like I'm completely empty-handed."
With a sharp mental command, two streaks of silver light hissed out from his storage space. They danced in the air around him, humming with a frequency that made the very air feel heavy. These were his Adamantium flying daggers—relics from his earlier days, forged for the singular purpose of puncturing the unpuncturable.
"Wait, Boss," Silly Girl's voice sounded genuinely confused. "Didn't you tell the logistics team last month that every gram of Adamantium had been used for the base's internal shielding? Where did those come from?"
Huang Wen's face stiffened for a microsecond. "These? Uh... these are vintage. Private stock. Stop asking questions and let me focus."
He didn't wait for a rebuttal. Controlling the daggers with the full weight of his telekinesis, he jammed them directly into the hairline fracture the Wushuang Sword had died to create.
SCREEEEEECH!
The sound was unbearable. It was the scream of two impossible metals grinding against each other. Peter Parker, with his enhanced spider-senses, actually recoiled, clutching his ears in physical pain. Zhong Qiang and the others weren't much better, their faces contorting as the vibration rattled their very teeth.
"There's the weak point," Huang Wen grunted. Even with his Indestructible Diamond Divine Ability backing his focus, the resistance was immense. "This secondary stuff is no joke. Without a real Adamantium 'key,' a normal legendary powerhouse would be banging their head against this wall for a week."
He could see why Fury felt so safe. Unless you were Magneto—who could probably turn this box into a metal pretzel with a flick of his wrist—this was the ultimate vault. Huang Wen wasn't a master of magnetism; he was brute-forcing his way through using divine sense and spatial manipulation.
K-CHAK!
With a final, violent shiver, the daggers pierced through. As the metal peeled back, Huang Wen spotted the culprit behind the psychic interference: a small, jagged fragment of dark, non-reflective stone embedded in the lining. It looked like a raw scrap of meteorite—or more likely, a leftover shard from the construction of Magneto's helmet that SHIELD had somehow scavenged.
Finally, the vacuum seal broke with a long, icy hiss. The heavy lid of the chest slid aside, revealing the contents.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Huang Liang and Zhong Qiang looked on with mild curiosity, seeing only a man trapped in a block of ice. To them, he was a historical curiosity, a relic of a war they only knew from textbooks. But for Peter Parker and Reese Fisk, the reaction was visceral.
"No way..." Peter whispered, his voice cracking. "Is that... is that really him?"
"The uniform. The stars. The stripes," Reese breathed, his eyes wide with a reverence that seemed out of place on a tough guy like him. "That's the Captain. That's Steve Rogers."
They had grown up in the shadow of the legend. In a world that felt increasingly chaotic and cynical, Captain America was the one constant—the symbol of a "purer" time. And there he was, looking exactly like the grainy newsreels from 1945, frozen in a silent, heroic pose.
And then there was the shield. Resting against his chest, the circular vibranium disk gleamed even under the base's fluorescent lights. It looked brand new, untouched by the seventy years that had passed since it last saw the sun.
"Mr. Huang Wen," Peter turned, his eyes swimming with a mix of awe and desperation. "Is he... I mean, he's been in there since the war. Can you save him? Like you did with Uncle Ben?"
Huang Wen leaned over the ice, his divine sense sweeping through the frozen body. He could feel the faint, sluggish rhythm of a heart that refused to stop. The Super Soldier Serum was doing more than just maintaining his muscles; it was acting as a cellular antifreeze, keeping the spark of life alive in a state of perfect suspension.
"He's not dead, Peter," Huang Wen said softly. "He's just... the world's oldest ice cream stick. He's been waiting for someone to pull him out of the freezer."
"That's amazing!" Peter cheered, pumping a fist. He looked at Huang Liang, expecting her to share the joy, but found her looking at him with a tilted head, as if he were a strange specimen in a lab.
"I mean, it's cool and all," Huang Liang said, shrugging. "But why are you acting like he's a rockstar? He's just a soldier, right?"
Peter opened his mouth, then closed it, looking at Zhong Qiang, who also seemed entirely unimpressed. The cultural gap was wider than he'd realized. To the guys from the other side of the world, Rogers was just another Western icon. To Peter, he was the icon.
"We need to keep this quiet for now," Huang Wen cautioned, his mind already racing through the logistics. "If the public finds out the Captain is back, the geopolitical fallout will be a nightmare. Not to mention SHIELD will probably try to lay claim to him before he even wakes up."
He looked at the frozen face of Steve Rogers. Thawing him out wasn't the hard part—it was the shock of the transition. Moving from the 1940s to a world of iPhones, aliens, and gods in New York could break a man's mind.
"I should probably call Tony," Huang Wen mused. "Stark's father was the one who built that shield. He has a right to know. Plus, I'm going to need Bruce Banner's expertise on the biological side. If we thaw him too fast, his cells might turn to mush."
He glanced at the clock. "Tony is definitely awake, probably tinkering with a new suit or drinking himself into a stupor. Banner... well, hopefully, the Other Guy isn't the one answering the phone tonight."