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Hearing that Tony's two requests were actually so simple, Ryan immediately felt that thinking for even one more second would be a sign of disrespect to that 5% stake, so he agreed right away.
Killing one person and saving two people once in exchange for a 5% stake in Stark Industries worth at least tens of billions—what was there to hesitate about!
This deal was simply too good to be true!
It directly allowed Ryan to leap from a net worth in the single-digit hundreds of millions to a net worth in the three-digit hundreds of millions!
Of course, even if he got this 5% stake, he wouldn't be stupid enough to cash it out directly.
Unless Tony Stark himself died, cashing out shares of Stark Industries would always be the most foolish move.
The most correct approach was to keep them in Stark Industries and wait for Tony to make his money grow!
Seeing Ryan agree so readily also brought a lot of peace of mind to Tony's heart.
Tens of billions of dollars was a lot, but for him, money could always be earned back quickly once it was gone.
But he only had one life!
Especially after experiencing this kidnapping by the Ten Rings Gang, Tony understood even more the importance of having a powerful backup plan.
Otherwise, after being kidnapped, there really was no hope from the outside at all; everything had to depend on himself!
And Ryan, this extraordinary guy who could find him in the vast desert even before the Military, was undoubtedly the most reliable backup!
So for Tony, using a 5% stake to buy a future life for himself and Pepper was really not expensive!
In fact, relatively speaking, he was the one who profited!
As Tony upgraded from a five-hundred-million-dollar client to a fifty-billion-dollar client, his treatment with Ryan naturally rose to the highest standard.
On the drive back, Ryan not only provided Tony with a constant supply of blankets, water, food, and snacks, but he even pressed the accelerator much more gently.
Tony and Ethan, who had been beaten from time to time in the cave, enjoyed a long-awaited sense of home-like security and soon fell into a deep sleep in the smoothly moving car.
On the way back, because Ryan already remembered the route he had taken coming in, he deliberately avoided them and did not encounter any other local Terrorists.
Until they drove to the nearest airport in Afghanistan.
The people Kingpin had already arranged immediately brought three plane tickets for the trio and took them through a special channel; they didn't even go through security, boarding the plane through a back door.
After several transfers, it took three days from the cave for the three of them to successfully return to America.
Actually, it couldn't be said that all three returned, because Dr. Ethan was actually a native of Afghanistan.
However, his home in Afghanistan had already been destroyed by the Ten Rings Gang, and with nowhere else to go, he could only follow them back to New York.
In Afghanistan, not only his home, but even his wife and daughter had long since died under the guns of the Ten Rings Gang.
This left Tony in extreme shock when he first learned this news on the plane.
Because back in the cave, Ethan hadn't told him that.
At that time, Ethan kept encouraging him in the cave, motivating him to survive together for his family and for the people they loved—to survive no matter what!
It was precisely because of Ethan's constant encouragement that Tony, who didn't have many attachments to begin with, never gave up hope.
In the end, you're telling me that Ethan was actually the one who had completely lost hope in life?
At least Tony Stark still had Stark Industries left to him by his father, Howard Stark; to continue his father's legacy, his life still had something to look forward to.
But Ethan didn't even have a home anymore... and Ethan also told Tony the truth on the plane.
He indeed had nothing left long ago; his home, his family, and even his hometown had been completely destroyed.
And it was destroyed by Stark Industries missiles used by the Ten Rings Gang.
When he first met Tony and was ordered by the Ten Rings Gang to perform surgery on him to remove the shrapnel, he actually had a momentary thought of killing Tony, the culprit.
But in the end, he gave up... because he understood that the fault never lay with the weapon, nor the creator of the weapon, but with the person using it.
Even if it hadn't been Stark Industries missiles that destroyed his hometown that day, missiles from other arms industries would have fallen and destroyed it.
Moreover, Ethan believed that a person like Tony, who stood at the pinnacle of human intelligence, should not waste his talent only on war, but should make a difference in changing the World.
That's why Ethan did everything he could to save Tony and wove a kind lie, pretending to be someone who gave Tony hope in a desperate situation and who shared the same goal of escaping... until the very end, Ethan hadn't even thought he would survive.
Instead, he intended to use his own life to buy Tony a chance to live, while he remained in this land where his wife and daughter were buried.
As it turned out, Ryan's arrival changed everything...
After hearing the truth from Ethan, Tony remained in a daze until they got off the plane and stepped onto the soil of New York again.
He didn't feel the joy of escaping death; instead, he felt his shoulders grow heavier...
Before, he had lived heartlessly.
But two months ago, Ethan gave him an artificial heart in the cave, giving him a second life.
Now Ethan had used his words to inject something heavy into this artificial heart... and that thing was called... responsibility!
As Ethan said, Tony Stark shouldn't just be an arms dealer, a playboy, a billionaire, a genius scientist, a man who slept with every cover girl; he could also be... a Superhero who changed the World!
When Tony looked up again, the light in his eyes had changed, becoming more dazzling and more determined!
The two people who noticed the change in Tony beside them had different expressions.
Ethan felt gratified, glad that he hadn't misjudged Tony and that his efforts hadn't been in vain.
Ryan, on the other hand, twitched his lips, feeling somewhat helpless and speechless.
As expected, no matter how vast the World is, the will of the Universe is the greatest; even with his own intervention and changes, Tony Stark ultimately walked the path of Iron Man!
However, although he didn't change Tony's will to become Iron Man, it wasn't without any changes.
For example, during this return, Tony didn't make a high-profile comeback like in the original story, holding a press conference as soon as he returned to announce to all of the World that their Stark Emperor was back.
Instead, he returned low-key to his Seaside Villa with Ethan and Ryan, without notifying anyone.