In an unremarkable neighborhood in Queens.
It was already afternoon and the sun was setting, leaving a long shadow of a street lamp on the street. There were no vehicles or pedestrians on the street at the moment, so the shadow looked a little lonely.
But soon, a gradually elongated black shadow suddenly appeared next to it.
A short man turned from the corner of the street and walked towards the setting sun. Not long after, he walked into an inconspicuous grocery store.
The light in the grocery store was dim, with only a faint yellow light providing some illumination, but this was unable to cover all areas of the room, causing the face of the owner behind the counter to be dark, with only half of his face visible.
However, just this half face is enough to give people nightmares.
It was a face that looked neither human nor human, with the corners of the mouth grinning so exaggeratedly that you could vaguely see the fangs inside. Looking up, there were rough and hard flakes on both sides of the nose, forming dry and cracked lines that spread all the way to the eye sockets and finally surrounded a red eye.
There was a vertical child tightly fixed in the middle of the eyeball, which looked weird and scary.
"I need better medicine. I feel like I can't hold it back any longer." At the junction of light and darkness, the shop owner twitched the corners of his mouth, appearing extremely painful.
Hearing this, a short man slowly walked out from the shadows of the aisle shelves.
He was wearing sunglasses, had a thin face, stubble on his chin, and a barely perceptible smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Jack. This is the best medicine. The abnormal factors in your body are too active, and the laboratory can't keep up with the speed of updating the medicine."
After hearing this, Mutant Jack seemed to be poured with a bucket of cold water, and roared in a low voice: "But you said you could cure me!"
"Yes, that's what I told you at the beginning. It was originally a very simple matter." The bearded man shook his head and then said sarcastically, "But you are reluctant to give up this kind of power."
"You were originally just an ordinary person, an ordinary gangster. The power you suddenly gained made you lose yourself. Don't you know where this power comes from?"
"Are you laughing at me?" The mutant Jack narrowed his eyes and stared at the man in the shadow, wishing he could tear him to pieces.
"Oh no, no, no, I'm just clarifying that your current condition has nothing to do with me." The bearded man waved his hands hurriedly, but his tone did not change at all.
"Medicine, give me medicine!" Mutated Jack was a little crazy. He was fed up with this kind of ridicule.
Seeing this scene, the bearded man in the shadows smiled and shook his head. His goal had been achieved, and he immediately said:
"There is always a way, Jack. I didn't come here to attack you. Look, I brought a gift."
As he spoke, he lifted a suitcase onto the counter, removed his gloves and opened it.
There are three tubes of potion inside, two white and one blue.
"What is this?" Mutated Jack had never seen this kind of potion before.
"Two powerful inhibitors and one adrenaline." The bearded man picked up a tube of reagent and shook it.
"Hehe, how long can these things last?" The mutant Jack's eyes shook. He didn't think this was a panacea.
At first, after accepting the other party's potion, he restored his original appearance while retaining the speed and strength of the mutant, which made him very excited. But after a few days, he found that the mutation was taking over his body again.
He had to accept new reagents, but they were all only effective for a short time, and the duration of effect was even shorter each time.
Now, he is very disappointed.
However, even though he had prepared for the worst, the other party's answer still caught him by surprise.
The bearded man uttered two words in a calm tone:
"one day."
"You're kidding me!"
Mutated Jack stretched his neck forward, revealing his entire terrifying face under the light.
"Don't be so angry, Jack." The bearded man calmly withdrew his hand from the counter and continued, "It's true that it only works for one day, but it can help you find a permanent solution to the problem."
"You'd better not play with fire." There was a sound of gritting teeth in the mutant Jack's words. He was trying hard to control his temper.
He is on the verge of going mad, and once he goes mad, he will lose control and turn into a damn crocodile man.
"Hehe, I didn't play with fire, including what I said to you before, I wasn't playing with fire either."
The bearded man lowered his head to put on gloves, and with both hands he adjusted the wrinkles and details on his fingers, trying to make them smooth.
"When I said you can't be blamed for what you've become, I meant that you should think about who you should blame. It's Tony Stark, isn't it? That time you followed the Snakeheads to deal with mutant creatures caused by a laboratory leak for Sith Industries, but no one told you that it was full of dangers. Then you became what you are now, hiding in the cracks of rocks and sewers underground all day long, and people run away when they see you..."
"Enough! What do you want me to do to Stark?" The mutant Jack understood what the other party meant.
"No, you misunderstood. It's not about doing something for me, but for yourself." The bearded man finally adjusted the gloves to a satisfactory shape, then raised his head and looked at the mutant Jack, and continued, "Every action has its effect, your—"
"Your treatment plan is in the Sith Industries laboratory. Since it was Stark's secret experiment that caused you to become like this, as long as we find his experimental results, we can solve your problem from the root." The bearded man finally got to the point.
"Haha, is this why you're here? But I'm not stupid enough to provoke Iron Man."
"No, you misunderstood again." The bearded man shook his head and said, "This is not a deal. This is your only chance to survive."
"And all I did was to provide you with some help and then get the benefits that are insignificant to you."
“Our interests are aligned.”
After saying this, the bearded man took off his sunglasses and stared at the distorted face of the mutant Jack.
This made the latter stunned, because even though they had met many times, he was still afraid of the pair of mutilated eyes covered with scars and rotten flesh under the sunglasses.
"Give me some time to think about it." Mutated Jack calmed down.
"It's too late, Jack. The mutation in you is erupting."
The bearded man produced a tiny scalpel from somewhere, held it in his white gloves, gestured to the other party, and then cut a gash on the latter's arm.
Red blood then gushed out, and there seemed to be nothing unusual.
However, when the blood came into contact with the tablecloth on the counter, it quickly seeped into the fabric, corroded the original cloth, and immediately rebuilt into a mass of flesh and blood.
"I have to say, Stark's research results are truly amazing." The bearded man praised sincerely.
"What does this mean?" Mutated Jack narrowed his eyes.
"You only have five days."
There was a long silence, but finally—
“What should I do?”
Mutant Jack has thought about it.