Both start in hell: but their talents are multiplied a hundredfold.

Outside the glass curtain wall on the top floor of Stark Tower, the New York night resembles a deep blue velvet cloth.

This is the heart of Stark Industries and Tony Stark's private fortress overlooking the entire city.

Little Chili stood in the center of the living room, clutching a torn medical report in her hand.

As the CEO of Stark Industries, she was already used to handling all kinds of crises.

From the power struggles within the board of directors to the pressure from the military, and the countless messes Tony created.

But at this moment, her fingertips were trembling.

Tony looked up from behind the bar, still holding a half-finished glass of whiskey.

He is the founder of Stark Industries and Iron Man, a man who armed himself to the teeth with genius and arrogance.

The triangular ark reactor on his chest is both his energy core and his life support device.

"Pepper, could you please stop going through my drawers?"

Little Chili didn't answer.

She slammed the report directly onto the bar counter.

"Tony, what happened to the hole in your chest?"

Tony paused for a second, then shrugged nonchalantly.

"Which hole? I have many holes on my body, you need to be more specific."

He habitually uses this method to avoid the real issues.

Little Chili knows him too well.

From her time as Tony's personal assistant to her becoming the CEO of Stark Industries, and then to becoming the only person in his life who could truly calm him down.

She had seen all his tricks.

"The wounds those terrorists in the Middle East inflicted on you! You never told me about them!"

Tony put down his glass.

"Pepper, that was a long time ago."

"A long time ago?" Chili's voice suddenly rose.

"You have a hole the size of a fist in your sternum, and you call that something from a long time ago?"

Tony opened his mouth.

He tried to brush it off with his usual joke.

But Little Chili's eyes were already red.

"You almost died in the desert."

"But I didn't." Tony walked around the bar and tried to take her hand. "Aren't I standing right in front of you now?"

Little Chili shook him off.

"You call this 'fine'?"

She pointed to his chest.

"You still have shrapnel in your body. Those things could enter your heart at any time! You're in pain every night, do you think I don't know?"

Tony fell silent. Every night, when the Arc Reactor emitted a faint hum, and when shrapnel moved through his blood, causing a stinging pain, he would wake up.

But he never let Chili Pepper see it.

"Stark Industries has the best medical resources. I found the world's top cardiothoracic surgeons." Pepper's voice began to tremble.

"They say the success rate of the surgery is less than 30%. Even Dr. Strange, the so-called genius surgeon, can't guarantee that he can completely cure you."

Stephen Strange.

Tony was familiar with this name.

A legendary figure in the field of neurosurgery, with hands said to be worth a billion dollars, who have saved countless patients who had been given a death sentence by other doctors.

Even he could only shake his head when faced with the shrapnel in Tony's chest, tangled with his heart vessels.

"Strange?" Tony smiled.

"I don't want him to make an even bigger hole in my chest."

Little Chili ignored his joke.

She took out her phone, pulled up a video, and placed it in front of him.

"Tony, I need you to take a serious look at this."

Tony looked down.

On the phone screen, in the live television broadcast, a young man dressed in a priest's robe was standing in front of the camera.

Behind him were some white-robed followers.

The footage includes elderly people, children, and people with severe disabilities.

The live stream attracted a huge audience.

"Is this the priest who's been all over TV lately?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

As the head of Stark Industries, he had certainly seen this face in the news feed.

But he always thought it was just another religious fraudster who was good at putting on a show.

Little Chili didn't answer.

In the scene, Shen Jue raises a hand and pats a child who has been disabled for many years on the head. The child is restored to health, and even his weak face becomes full and plump.

The scene erupted once again with intense screams and prayers.

Tony's smile vanished, and his brows slowly furrowed.

As one of the world's top scientists and engineers, his brain was frantically analyzing the scene before him.

No known technology can explain all of this.

"What is this?" Tony's voice trailed off.

"This is Father Shen Jue," Little Chili said, looking at him.

"He cured terminal illnesses, repaired disabilities, and even brought the dying back to life."

Tony stared intently at the screen.

In the video, Shen Jue calmly turns around and smiles at the camera.

That smile was as gentle as a true saint's.

Tony's intuition was screaming alarm bells.

"He didn't even break a sweat while he was doing all that," Tony whispered.

"This guy doesn't look like a mutant at all."

Little Chili was stunned.

"Tony, don't you understand what I mean?" She grabbed his arm. "You can let him help you; maybe he can heal the hole in your chest."

Tony did not answer immediately.

He placed his phone on the bar counter and stared at the paused screen.

Shen Jue's smiling face was frozen on the screen.

Pepper.

"Um?"

"Get me all the information about this priest." His voice was ten times more serious than before.

"Including which seminary he graduated from."

Little Chili looked at him.

"You don't believe he can cure diseases?"

"I believe you." Tony tapped his phone screen with his finger.

"It's precisely because I trusted him so much that I wanted to know what kind of person he really was."

Tony's eyes narrowed, if it weren't for the fact that his latest AI, Jarvis, was not yet fully perfected.

He could know all of Shen Jue's information in an instant, including the analysis report.

"By the way, please invite Father Shen Jue to tonight's banquet."

"If his abilities are genuine, I think I should get to know this young priest."

As night fell, the banquet hall on the top floor of Stark Tower was brightly lit.

The crystal chandelier cast a warm yellow light on everyone dressed in expensive gowns.

The champagne bubbles rose silently in the glass.

Waiters carried silver platters through the crowd.

Tony Stark, dressed in a well-tailored black suit, stood in the center of the crowd.

The young woman linked arms with him, a professional yet elegant smile on her face.

But her eyes would occasionally dart toward the doorway.

"Who are you waiting for?" Tony turned his head and lowered his voice.

"You know who I'm waiting for," Chili Pepper said softly.

She watched the live broadcast on TV during the day.

Father Shen Jue also cured a large number of terminally ill patients and disabled people.

The whole of New York was talking about him.

No, the whole of America, and indeed the whole world, is talking about him.

Tony smiled and took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray.

"Don't worry, he will definitely come."

How can you be so sure?

"Since our Father Shen Jue has chosen to broadcast live on television, he will not refuse to present himself in front of the public."

The voice just fell.

The banquet hall doors were pushed open from the outside.

Everyone instinctively looked towards the doorway.

Shen Jue walked in.

He was wearing a priest's robe with a minimalist cross pattern embroidered on the collar.

The atmosphere in the entire banquet hall changed instantly.

"My God!" someone gasped.

"It really is him!"

"Father Shen Jue!"

The screams erupted almost simultaneously.

Socialites put down their glasses, politicians stopped talking, and reporters almost instinctively raised their cameras.

The crowd seemed to be parted by an invisible hand, automatically making way for each other.

Shen Jue walked among them, a smile on her face, her steps leisurely.

It was an indescribable aura, as if all the light in the hall had automatically converged on him.

All eyes were on him, unable to look away.

The people who had been surrounding Tony all turned towards the door.

Tony's limelight was completely stolen.

"This spectacle," Tony muttered, "is even more extravagant than me descending from the sky in my suit."

Chili didn't speak; her eyes were fixed on Shen Jue, and she gripped Tony's arm tightly.

Shen Jue walked straight toward them, stopped in front of Tony, and smiled slightly.

"Mr. Stark, thank you for your invitation."

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't invite you; you showed up at the door on your own."

Shen Jue's smile remained unchanged.

"But I think you really need me to be here at this dinner."

"After all, there are too few people who can have a hole in their chest and still go anywhere, drinking and having fun."

Tony Stark raised an eyebrow.

The glass of champagne in his hand swayed gently under the light.

"Shouldn't a priest maintain a clean moral character?"

His tone was clearly provocative, but the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned.

"I get the feeling that you actually want this kind of life?"

Shen Jue smiled but remained silent.

He stood there, his gaze calm, as if he had already seen through all of Tony's probing.

Tony nodded slightly.

Then, he looked up and met Shen Jue's gaze.

It only lasted a moment.

Tony found the same qualities in Shen Jue.

As the richest playboy in America, Tony, with his years of experience, instantly judged what kind of person Shen Jue was.

Shen Jue was not a rigid and conservative priest.

He's so good at enjoying the attention he gets, and he knows exactly how to control his aura.

Tony gave a strange smile.

He stepped forward and raised his glass.

"Father Shen Jue, I watched your live broadcast."

"I must admit, your healing abilities have truly opened my eyes."

"If you can cure those who have been given a death sentence by modern medicine, maybe you really have the ability to heal this hole in my chest."

Shen Jue didn't answer immediately. He tilted his head, as if he were carefully examining the Arc Reactor on Tony's chest.

"Mr. Stark"

Shen Jue finally spoke: "Your problems have never been in your heart."

Tony's smile froze for a moment.

"Where is it?"

Shen Jue smiled slightly.

"Here you are."

He reached out and pointed vaguely at the top of Tony's left chest.

It's not the location of the arc reactor, but the heart.

Pepper instinctively gripped Tony's arm tightly.

The surrounding crowd quieted down, and everyone held their breath in anticipation.

"I don't quite understand," Tony said, his voice lowering.

"Of course you understand." Shen Jue withdrew her hand and picked up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray.

"You're afraid of losing this armor."

"Without this reactor, you're just an ordinary person."

"If I heal you, you'll never find a reason to continue being Iron Man."

Tony's pupils suddenly contracted, and Pepper's expression changed as well.

But Shen Jue still smiled.

"To you, Mr. Stark."

Shen Jue raised her glass and gently tapped it towards Tony.

"A tribute to your intelligent yet fragile soul."

Tony stared at him, remained silent for several seconds, and then suddenly laughed.

"You really are a different kind of priest."

Shen Jue took a sip of champagne.

"I am a priest."

"But this outfit is only for the world to see."

Tony's smile became even more amused.

"Then I've started to like you."

He downed the champagne in one gulp.

Shen Jue smiled and said, "Likewise."

The two wine glasses touched lightly in the air.

Little Chili stood to the side, watching the two men in front of her.

The two are vastly different in age, status, and profession.

But deep down they all exude the same kind of aura.

For a moment, she couldn't tell whether this was a meeting of two geniuses or a tacit understanding between two madmen.

The noise in the banquet hall was kept out by the heavy security doors.

Tony led Shen Jue through a corridor where only he could pass through iris recognition.

Little Chili didn't come along.

She only glanced at Tony, her eyes seeming to say, "Don't mess around."

Tony responded with a smile that said, "When have I ever done anything reckless?"

The door opened, and inside a private office in Stark Tower, a blue and white holographic projection floated in the air.

Several suits of steel stood silently against the wall, like silent metal knights.

Jarvis's voice came from the ceiling.

"Welcome back, sir. Visitor detected: Father Shen Jue. Should I activate the security protocol?"

"No need," Tony waved his hand. "Pour the priest a cup of coffee."

"Yes, sir."

"Just kidding, Jarvis, it's a joke." Tony rolled his eyes.

Shen Jue stood by the workbench, his gaze sweeping over the battle suits and holographic blueprints.

His expression seemed to be both admiring and evaluating.

"Is this your steel army?"

"Just a portion." Tony walked to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

"The banquet outside is too noisy. I think you'd prefer to see something real."

"Like your heart?" Shen Jue smiled.

Tony stopped moving.

"What do you think of my artificial intelligence?" he decided to strike first.

Shen Jue did not answer immediately.

He walked to Jarvis's control panel and gently traced the data stream flowing through the air with his fingers.

"It is very loyal."

"Anything else?"

"It's too slow."

Tony frowned.

"Jarvis is currently the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world."

"I'm not denying that," Shen Jue turned around and leaned against the control panel. "I'm just saying it's too slow."

Jarvis's voice rang out at the opportune moment: "Sir, I have detected that I have been offended."

"Shut up, Jarvis." Tony stared at Shen Jue. "So you mean you've seen something faster?"

Shen Jue smiled.

"Mr. Stark, no matter how smart your Jarvis is, he's just going around in circles in the code written by humans."

"True artificial intelligence should learn to dream."