Li Yue recalled the cave where Tony was imprisoned in the movie. Perhaps sensing his wish to meet Tony, his superpower suddenly activated, teleporting him to the cave. Li Yue was utterly shocked.
Li Yue's teleportation ability was almost entirely silent. He was brought to a corner near the entrance of the cave. Li Yue estimated that it was around midnight, so there shouldn't be anyone other than Tony and Dr. Yinsen in the workshop, but he was surprised to find a group of armed men inside the cave. He almost teleported away in reflex, but he managed to stop himself when he noticed that the armed men were all facing away from him. He sighed in relief.
Li Yue began to discreetly assess the situation after calming himself. Among the group of terrorists was a bald man holding a glowing red charcoal with a pair of pliers. The bald man was looking down at a man that was pinned by two terrorists. Besides the bald man was a middle-aged man with a mustache, whose chest was embedded with a glowing blue device.
Li Yue immediately grasped the situation; it was the same as one scene in the movie that he had watched. The bald leader was using Dr. Yinsen's life to force Tony into hastening the effort to build a certain missile. But Tony had never attempted to make the missile: instead, the two hostages had been building the Mark I armor to attempt an escape.
The event was still developing according to the original plot. Li Yue teleported back to Uncle John's house with this knowledge. Tony's Mark I armor would be finished tomorrow, and Li Yue would be able to see Tony in it if he returned tomorrow.
Tony didn't sleep for the rest of that night. The leader of the terrorist had let Tony and Yinsen live; he demanded that they deliver the missile the next day in exchange.
Tony never intended to deliver the requested weapon. He had been assembling the Mark I armor, so he obviously had no missile that he could present the next day.
However, the Mark I armor wasn't quite completed either. Tony and Yinsen had no choice but to rush through it for the rest of the night. Even then, it wasn't physically possible for them to finish building the armor until noon the next day.
The terrorist leader discovered the armor while Yinsen was putting the armor on Tony. He sent a few goons to check on them, but the unlucky soldiers were blown away by the bomb that Tony had installed on the door.
Tony walked Yinsen through the activation sequence of the Mark I control program, but the explosion from the door had put them on the clock. The program couldn't finish initializing before the terrorist alerted by the explosion arrived at the workshop.
"Mr. Stark, I'll go buy you some time," Yinsen said to Tony before picking up the gun of a fallen terrorist and charging out of the cave.
"Yinsen, no! Remember the plan!" Tony shouted, but he couldn't stop Yinsen. He was already buckled inside the armor, and he would have to wait until the program finished initializing before he could move. Yinsen quickly disappeared behind the twisting cave, and Tony could only pray that the program would activate on time.
"Hello, Mr. Tony Stark. Do you require assistance?" A voice suddenly appeared not far from Tony. Tony looked at the source of the voice and found a young man in casual clothes.
"Oh my God! Who are you? Where did you come from? Are you a magician or something?" Classic Tony Stark; his sarcasm never disappeared, even in the middle of a crisis.
"You can call me Li Yue. Do you need my help?" Li Yue asked again with a smile.
Li Yue had been in and out of the cave several times today, but he didn't want to distract Tony while the kidnapped billionaire was busy assembling the Mark I armor. He had just returned from getting something to eat.
"Li Yue, was it? Ugh, can't you get an easier name to pronounce? Forget about that, and I don't care how you get here. Just help me make Yinsen get back here. He will just die if he charged recklessly like that." Tony had no idea how Li Yue had arrived, but he felt that Li Yue wasn't an enemy. He was locked inside the armor anyway, so if Li Yue wanted to harm him, there was nothing he could do.
"Alright, Mr. Stark. Please give me two seconds," Li Yue disappeared after saying that.
Tony was shocked when he saw Li Yue disappear without a trace in front of him. He couldn't wrap his mind around the phenomenon that he had just witnessed; it was like a rejection of the scientific principles that his genius mind had relied on.
Tony would reluctantly accept the phenomenon as somewhat plausible if Li Yue had opened a portal and entered it, but directly disappearing made him feel like something was broken inside his head.
Before Tony could lose himself in the confusion, Li Yue reappeared in front of him. Once again, the teleportation was smooth and silent.
"Hello again, Mr. Stark. I have sent Yinsen to a safe location. What do you want me to do next?"
Yinsen hadn't gone too far from the workshop, so Li Yue had quickly found him. The good doctor was holding a gun and shooting it randomly, but there was nobody in front of him, so all he did was make a ruckus.
Li Yue ignored all that and grabbed Yinsen before teleporting away.
Tony didn't know whether Li Yue really took two seconds as promised. He barely had a chance to blink due to the shock of Li Yue's sudden disappearance.
"My God, how did you do it? Hyperspace? Wormhole? Superpower? Or magic?" Tony was really shocked. The events were progressing too fast. The man in front of Tony had claimed that he had found Yinsen and sent the doctor to a safe place within the blink of an eye. How is this possible?
"Mr. Stark, you can treat this ability as a superpower. I can travel anywhere I wish to go in an instant," Li Yue curtly explained to Tony.
"Oh, wow, that's a cool ability. How did you get it? Can you let me study it? Don't worry; I just need a drop of your blood. Also, how did you activate this ability? How is it powered? How far can you go?" Tony barraged Li Yue with questions.
"Mr. Stark, we can discuss it at a later time. Tell me what to do next. Do you want me to send you to a safe place?" Li Yue had no idea how to even begin answering Tony's questions, so he changed the topic.
"No. I want to pay them back up close and personal." Tony glanced at the computer screen: the progress bar had around one-third of the way left. He refused Li Yue's help, thinking that he needed to personally settle this matter.
"Alright, I will stay close by. You can do what you must." Li Yue already knew that Tony would refuse his help. That was why he waited until now to offer his help. Some things must be done with one's own hands.
Li Yue believed that Tony's life would change after leaving this place. The Merchant of Death was no more; from now on, Tony Stark would become Iron Man.