Chapter 835: Red Hero Alliance

"Why, Gal?" Setting down her coffee cup, Natalie Portman stared at Gal Gadot. "Why are you doing this? I've never done anything to wrong you."

"Why?" Gal Gadot's lips curled into a slight smirk before she let out a soft sigh. "You're smart enough to figure it out."

They locked eyes in silence, the air in the booth seeming to freeze.

After a long silence, Natalie Portman finally spoke. "I never thought something like this would happen between us."

Gal Gadot's long eyelashes fluttered. "I can only apologize, Nat. That's Duke Rosenberg. Forced to choose between you and him, no one is going to choose you."

Hearing that cursed name, Natalie Portman, who had been trying so hard to maintain an exceptionally calm facade, finally lost her composure. "You're working with the devil! This won't end well for you!"

Watching Natalie Portman's shifting expression, Gal Gadot suddenly smiled. "I've already signed with ICM."

"So what?" Natalie Portman finally let a mocking tone slip. "I used to be very close with Duke Rosenberg, and he made promises to me too, but he never kept them. Do you really think he's going to do everything he says?"

Gal Gadot took a long, hard look at her. She had never known Natalie Portman had that kind of history with Duke Rosenberg...

However, thinking about the absurd rumors of what Duke Rosenberg had done in his youth, he had probably just treated Natalie Portman as a plaything back then.

She had no interest in digging deeper, nor did she want to get involved in this personal grudge.

"It's a pity, Nat, but that's not going to happen."

Pulling back a little, Gal Gadot crossed her arms and looked down at Natalie Portman. "I'm already confirmed to star in Duke Rosenberg's next film. It's a two-hundred-million-dollar mega-production, and I'm the female lead!"

Although Natalie Portman's excellent upbringing prevented her from doing anything too rude, she still sneered, "Not every film Duke Rosenberg makes is guaranteed to succeed."

Gal Gadot just shrugged carelessly.

Natalie Portman continued, "His movie lost to Fast and Furious 5 this Friday!"

"Nat, your news is out of date!"

Using the same mocking tone, Gal Gadot replied, "That was Friday. It's Sunday now. I checked the Saturday box office statistics before I came. The Avengers made 39.16 million dollars yesterday, while Fast and Furious 5 only made 29.27 million!"

With that, Gal Gadot stood up. "Haven't you ever heard the saying? An early lead does not guarantee victory!"

She strode away on her long legs, leaving the booth and walking out of the coffee shop to completely sever their relationship.

Natalie Portman stared blankly in the direction Gal Gadot had gone. The frustration that had been weighing on her mind ever since that year's Oscars still lingered. It made her want to scream at the top of her lungs, to drive to Malibu and kill that devil...

He was her nightmare. Natalie felt that if she kept bottling it up, she would definitely slip into depression.

At almost exactly the same time, Duke concluded his itinerary in China and was preparing to take his private jet out of Shanghai.

Because of the weather, his group couldn't take off immediately upon arriving at the airport, leaving them to wait patiently in the VIP lounge.

While waiting, Duke browsed the Chinese internet out of boredom and stumbled upon something quite interesting.

"Red Hero Alliance?"

Sitting next to him, Scarlett heard Duke's translation and asked curiously, "What's that?"

Duke waved a hand at her. "You wouldn't understand."

Scarlett leaned closer anyway. "I can't read Chinese, but you can translate it for me. If you don't want to, there's always Tina, the China expert."

As she spoke, she winked at Tina Fey.

Looking at the computer screen, Duke shook his head. "Tina wouldn't understand either."

Unless someone had lived in this country for a long time and was extremely familiar with the local film and television culture, a so-called "China expert" would absolutely never be able to understand it.

This was another Chinese version of the hero alliance created by Chinese fans after watching The Avengers. It was just that, unlike the story he had received last time, this one was complete satire.

What Duke was looking at was a post about the "Red Avengers Alliance."

"Although I might just look like a nobody, and not even my parents know this, my real identity is actually a Level 2 Agent Clerk at the Kaoshantun Office of the International Avengers Alliance in China."

"Under the correct leadership of the Party and the government, our country's social order has always been excellent. Evil forces are generally nipped in the bud, and even bio-mutated animals were forbidden from becoming spirits after the founding of the nation. As a whole, society hasn't seen any major hostile forces emerge."

"But more than sixty years ago, China's avengers had to shoulder a very heavy historical responsibility. During that period—the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression—China's avengers, also known as the Red Avengers, made enormous sacrifices for the great cause of the nation. My grandfather served as a political commissar among the avengers back then and collected a lot of information on the Red Avengers. Today, I'm going to expose it to everyone..."

Reading this, Duke already knew what the text was referencing.

"First, Captain China!"

"Captain China and Captain America's experiences are actually very similar. If there's one major difference, it's that Captain America uses a shield—he's a scrub who defends first and then attacks. Captain China, on the other hand, is an assault type who uses a submachine gun. His 'I'll gun down anyone in my way' aura is just insanely cool!"

"As early as the Qing Dynasty, Captain China already realized that the eight-year War of Resistance was coming. Hating the Japanese devils to his bones well in advance, he picked up his big submachine gun and opened fire for the rise of the Chinese nation. Unfortunately, he was later betrayed by the Qing government and fell into an enemy ambush during a mission. Rather than hand over his submachine gun, Captain China resolutely leaped into the North Sea, sinking into the depths of the ocean. His body and weapon were frozen into a solid block by the freezing waters, plunging him into the slumber of history."

"With the outbreak of the War of Resistance, our army wanted to increase its combat power, so they dispatched my grandfather to the North Sea to fish Captain China out. After being thawed, Captain China was back!"

"However, during the ensuing anti-Japanese battles, they discovered that on a battlefield where heavy machine guns were already widespread, the captain charging to the front lines with a submachine gun didn't seem to be of much use..."

"Second, Steel Cannon Hero."

"To solve the problem of Captain China's insufficient firepower, our army decided to invest in researching high technology, and thus Steel Cannon Hero was born. Steel Cannon Hero was covered from head to toe in heavy weapons and could spray two thousand bullets a minute. On the battlefield, he was known as the 'Bullet Glutton.' Rather regrettably, due to a shortage of blacksmiths, Steel Cannon Hero didn't have a full-body mech suit like Iron Man, but was only equipped with a small motorcycle."

"But this small motorcycle was already extremely cool on the battlefield at the time. Whenever the Japanese army heard the rumble of a motorcycle and the rat-tat-tat-tat of his gunfire, they knew Steel Cannon Hero was back. Without even thinking, they would immediately turn and run!"

"Later, our army discovered that because Steel Cannon Hero's small motorcycle was too flashy, many female comrades who didn't care much about their image really wanted to take a ride on it. This caused too much drama within the troops, and the leadership wasn't very satisfied..."

"Third, Shaolin Giant."

"So when developing the next avenger, the troops paid special attention to consciously combining three points: combat power, being ugly, and not being flashy. Thus, the Shaolin Giant appeared."

"Just how fierce was the Shaolin Giant? With the Iron Cloth technique plus the Black Tiger Steals the Heart, he could beat the enemy to the point of being unable to care for themselves with just two moves. To this day, his great deeds of tearing Japanese devils apart with his bare hands still circulate among the people..."

"The leadership was very satisfied with this war machine, but the grunts below weren't having it. The Shaolin Giant was always tearing Japanese devils in half. After a battle, the entire battlefield would be littered with half-people. Cleaning up the battlefield made them throw up their overnight meals..."

"Fourth, the God of War."

"Originally, having these three avengers in the team was more than enough, but then an old man suddenly showed up and told us he wanted to join too. My grandfather took a look at him, smacked his lips twice, and said, 'Old man, let's not join the fun. Setting aside how old you are, if the leaders see your retro Qing Dynasty outfit, they'll say I've made a political error.'"

"Right at that moment, the Japanese devils happened to attack the city. The old man said, 'Wait here a minute,' and then he charged out carrying a Green Dragon Crescent Blade."

"Relying on nothing but a Green Dragon Crescent Blade, this old man hacked away an entire Japanese battalion. Everyone in the county town was stunned! Because his combat style was truly too ferocious, the leadership made an exception and recruited him into the avengers team. It was only later that he told us he was actually the God of War from the Rift Wave Star System, and that he had visited Earth once before, hundreds of years ago, under the alias Guan Yu..."

"However, the leadership was still a little uneasy about him. He was still loyal to Great Emperor Ding Ri of the Rift Wave Planet. The leaders felt he wasn't one of our own, so they instructed us, 'He goes to hack the Japanese devils; you guys attend the meetings, got it?'"

"Fifth, Sky Eye."

"The Red Avengers' Golden F4 had assembled, but they still needed a few deputies to help them. After careful selection within the troops, they actually found two more good candidates. The first was Sky Eye."

"The name Sky Eye means being able to see things at the edge of the sky. Never mind whether Earth is round or not—as long as he tried hard enough, Sky Eye could look straight ahead and see the back of his own head. With such awesome vision, of course he was meant to be a sniper!"

"Sky Eye's shooting ability was also absolutely fantastic. He started playing with gunpowder and bullets as a child, fought the Japanese devils at age eight, and blew up a whole squad at age ten. In terms of combat power, he was a perfect match for the strength of the avengers team. And his greatest achievement..."