Chapter 172: Superman And His Self-awakening!
In the world of consciousness.
Clark felt a wave of dizziness, his body uncontrollably falling backward. He plunged into a boundless starry sky, surrounded by twinkling stars and deep darkness.
Superman instinctively raised his hand, trying to grab something, only to find his super strength utterly useless here. He couldn’t fly, couldn’t control his descent, and could only watch as the white-dressed woman, who called herself “Paradox,” gradually shrank in his vision until she disappeared into the distant starlight.
A hint of that mysterious smile seemed to linger on her lips.
Meanwhile, in the real world.
“Clark! Clark!”
Lois had no idea what had happened to Clark; she just suddenly saw him stiffen, his eyes roll back, and his whole body fall backward like a puppet with cut strings.
Fortunately, as Superman’s wife, Lois reacted quickly, catching Clark and dragging him to a corner, thus preventing his unconsciousness from being discovered.
“Clark! Wake up! Clark!”
She kept calling, patting Superman’s cheeks. Seconds later, Clark convulsed and opened his eyes—obviously, Lois’s voice had pulled him back to reality.
He abruptly opened his eyes, finding himself in his wife’s arms, his irises still holding the afterimage of a drifting white scarf, like the last trace left by that woman.
“That woman! That woman is not right!” Clark abruptly stood up, his gaze unfocused, his breathing rapid, his forehead covered in cold sweat, but he couldn’t afford to care about his own condition now.
After regaining consciousness, Superman immediately began to scan his surroundings again. Every corner of the planet was being scrutinized, but the white-dressed woman had vanished without a trace.
No matter where his gaze shifted on Earth, he couldn’t seem to locate the white-dressed woman’s presence anymore; she had disappeared from this world as if into thin air.
“What just happened to me?”
Clark looked at his wife.
“You just fainted. It was about half an hour; I couldn’t wake you no matter how I called you,” Lois’s words made Clark feel incredibly surprised.
He had clearly only experienced about five minutes passing.
“Time Lord…”
Clark recalled the woman’s self-appellation. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. It wasn’t a hallucination, not a dream, but some extremely special experience. With just a glance, she had “banished” his consciousness beyond the universe, something that ordinary beings could absolutely not do.
“Was it magic, or some other method?” The more he thought, the more he trembled. Although Superman’s Super Brain had activated, he still couldn’t discern whether the mysterious woman was friend or foe.
If one were to say she was a bad person, she had also prevented a major chaotic disaster, but if one considered her a good person, her smile and domineering demeanor made one inexplicably uneasy.
“Who could she be?”
Clark was deeply worried.
Just then.
“Wooo—wooo—wooo—”
A piercing alarm suddenly blared.
“This is bad! The underground base has fallen! All one hundred and eighty-six nuclear missiles are gone!” The officer’s shout came from underground, and Clark’s expression immediately turned grave.
Everyone knew how terrifying and important nuclear missiles were. Because of this, he had no time to explain or think. He flickered and instantly disappeared before Lois.
“Did that woman take the nuclear missiles too? What does she want to do with them?” Clark was filled with unease, and the next second, he appeared at the nuclear weapons storage base, thousands of meters underground.
This should have been one of the safest military facilities in the world, with walls made of radiation-resistant alloy and twenty-four-hour quantum surveillance; any unauthorized approach would trigger a global alarm.
But at this moment—the missile storage area in the center of the base was completely empty.
No, not “gone.”
They were being moved.
Dozens of soldiers in black exoskeleton armor were loading individual nuclear warheads and the intercontinental missiles themselves into specialized transport containers, moving them through a secret tunnel to an unknown location.
And in front of the control room.
Sam Lane was fiercely arguing with a creature in a five-star general’s uniform of the US military. Yes, a creature, because its gender was ambiguous and undefinable.
The general was neither human nor non-human, neither male nor female. Although the figure was robust, the makeup on its face was very seductive, and its movements had a flair that could only be seen in the imperial palace before the Qing Dynasty fell.
“Are you insane?! Damn it! Walker!” Sam Lane’s voice was filled with suppressed fury, “The consequences are unimaginable once these weapons are leaked!”
He had always known about the military’s corruption, and he was even part of it himself, but such an absurd thing as this, even the shortest link in the chain of corruption like Sam Lane found it hard to believe.
“Sam, don’t be so rigid. With that woman to take the blame, who would suspect us?” The five-star general of the Army merely sneered in response to the accusation.
The voice was also very multifaceted.
It slowly tidied its cuffs.
“Besides, the buyer paid a very good price. So, in a way, we are secretly supporting an ally.” The five-star general hadn’t learned many skills, but when it came to affected speech, it was extremely adept; its tone carried both the firmness expected of a man and the femininity usually possessed by a woman.
“Revenue generation?!” Sam Lane almost roared, “This is treason!”
“Treason?” The general chuckled, “In this era, loyalty is the cheapest commodity. The buyer is very generous, paid in full, and settled via encrypted cryptocurrency.”
“If you don’t want this money, plenty of others do. As an old friend, I advise you to do some self-hypnosis; we are just making a… reasonable transaction.”
Its voice carried a hint of threat.
“Damn it! You… you’ve really lost your minds!”
Sam Lane’s expression changed continuously. His orders did not extend to the soldiers who were moving the cargo, which made his expression increasingly annoyed and displeased.
“No, this is precisely proof of our rationality. You love reading history, and you must understand that while there are no thousand-year empires, there are ten-thousand-year families.”
“We serve the nation, and the nation should naturally give us some sustenance,” the five-star general’s tone remained nonchalant. It looked at the nuclear missiles being moved with a very calm expression.
Standing nearby, hearing the five-star general’s statement, Superman’s worldview was on the verge of collapse. He stared blankly at the busy soldiers and the items they were moving.
Yes, the nuclear missiles hadn’t been stolen yet, but they were in the process of being stolen.
“These weapons should not be traded,” Clark’s pupils contracted slightly. Snapping back to attention, he quickly stepped forward and stated his opinion in a very serious tone.
However.
“Oh? Superman is also meddling?”
The general turned its head, saw Superman, and a flicker of mockery flashed in its eyes.
“These nuclear missiles will start wars and kill countless civilians.”
Clark warned gravely.
“Civilians? Don’t worry, no one will actually use nuclear weapons like this; we’re not selling them to terrorist organizations,” the general raised an eyebrow noncommittally.
Its smile looked very cold.
“Actually, in this world, everything has its price, including you, Superman. That you can be a hero in this country is already thanks to our mercy and tolerance.”
The five-star general, with a mortal body, mocked the God of Man.
Clark clenched his fists.
However, he ultimately didn’t throw a punch—he was no longer a hot-headed youth in his teens or twenties; many political and corrupt issues couldn’t be solved with super strength alone.
The five-star general looked at Superman’s fist, its eyes filled with intoxication from its own power. Power was so wonderful; even Superman feared him, so what else was there to fear?
“Go save those who have fallen and almost been hit by a car. Don’t meddle in things that are not your business.” With that, the five-star general, who disregarded Clark with disdain, pulled out an all-black encrypted mobile phone.
It walked to a corner and spoke in a low voice.
“Sir, the cargo is boxed and will be delivered in three hours… Don’t worry, no one will interfere.” This unashamed behavior clearly showed the five-star general’s confidence.
“Crack~crack~crack~”
Clark stood in place, his fists clenched.
He could shatter this base with one punch, subdue all the soldiers in an instant.
But he knew—it was meaningless.
Behind this, there was a larger network.
This “General” was not an individual.
But a system.
A puppet network controlled by the deep state. Today there could be a “General,” tomorrow a “President,” “Judge,” or “Scientist.”
This was America’s greatest enemy.
However.
Even Superman was powerless against this.
He looked at Sam Lane, whose face was filled with frustration and anger.
“I did my best,” Sam said in a low voice, his tone filled with deep fatigue, “but some people… have long forgotten what their bottom line is.”
Clark remained silent for a moment, then took a deep breath.
“This is not the end.” His gaze swept over the nuclear missiles being transported. His super hearing had captured the five-star general’s conversation; the other party was truly arrogant.
“Yes, the goods are ready for delivery within twenty-four hours… Don’t worry, no one can stop this transaction, not even that silly guy in the cape that we don’t particularly like.”
“Of course, that’s right, there’s always someone to take the blame.”
The five-star general continued to act with impunity.
A flicker of annoyance flashed in Clark’s eyes.
He took one last deep look at the creature that was neither human nor not human, then vanished from the deep underground base. The five-star general remained completely unconcerned.
“What a bunch of scoundrels!” Superman, with a dark expression, returned to the surface from the underground base. His red boots crushed a piece of concrete with a radiation marker on the scorched earth. Lois ran up to meet him but was startled by her husband’s rare look of anger—those usually gentle blue eyes were now churning with a storm akin to a Kansas tornado.
“Did something happen? Were the nuclear missiles really stolen?”
Lois met him, and at a glance, recognized that her husband was not himself.
“They sold the nuclear missiles,” Clark’s voice sounded as if chiseled from a glacier, cold and filled with helplessness, “openly, right before my eyes.”
The voice recorder in Lois’s hand dropped to the ground.
The night wind blew Lois’s blonde hair, revealing her pale face.
“Oh my god… If this gets reported.”
Her words trailed off, just as she thought she could have broken a story, but in reality, she knew deep down that such a story could never be published.
“We can’t let the public know about this. All the media are under the control of that American deep state, including the newspaper agency where you and I work.” Lois stumbled back, leaning against the broken wall, her fingers rubbing her temples forcefully as if trying to crush this absurd reality.
“Yes.”
Clark unbuttoned his collar.
He took a deep breath.
As if the iconic S-shield was burning his skin. Hearing this, Lois also felt a sense of powerlessness. She rubbed her temples and then, after a moment of thought, spoke.
“Perhaps we should inform our friend in Gotham.” Lois thought Superman should tell Bruce about this; he had some influence within the deep state. Or rather, whether Bruce Wayne wanted to or not, with his company and influence, he was inherently part of the deep state.
“Until that God issue is resolved, Bruce will probably be unreachable.” Clark gave a wry smile and pulled out his phone, pressing the speed dial.
Bruce Wayne’s meticulously recorded voice immediately came from the speaker.
“Hello, this is Wayne Manor. Please leave a message if you have something to say, but the impudent Kent family is forbidden from leaving messages; Alfred will regularly delete any filthy language.”
Clark stared at his phone. He dialed again, hung up, and dialed again. No matter how many times, it was always the same cold recording. This was something Clark had discovered earlier.
“To avoid me finding him, he’s living like a ghost right now, and I can’t find him at all.” Clark, utterly speechless, put his phone back in his pocket.
He had previously asked Wonder Woman to help him contact Bruce Wayne. However, while Wonder Woman did manage to contact Bruce, she got into trouble after explaining the situation.
Wonder Woman had also been blocked by Bruce Wayne.
In the wind of the ruins.
Clark felt somewhat exhausted.
“Clark, I want something to eat…” Lois sighed, rubbing her sore eyes. She was actually more worried about the military’s actions than Ian’s situation.
They said they sold it to qualified buyers.
But they dared to sell strategic deterrent weapons; who knew how many truths were in those people’s words? It was possible that in a few days, those more than a hundred nuclear missiles would become powerful weapons in the hands of terrorists.
“Yeah, let’s go, we’ll find another place.” Clark looked at his wife’s worried and tired face and nodded with heartache. He knew his wife wanted to have some malt beverage.
“Although I can’t get drunk, right now, I truly wish I could get drunk.” Clark had never envied people who could get drunk so much. He hugged his wife and soared away from the desolate ruins.
Even if it hadn’t been destroyed, it might have been a place of filth.
As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Five minutes later, the couple changed out of their battle suits and formal wear, put on ordinary casual clothes, and entered a 24-hour fast-food restaurant.
The fluorescent tubes above Clark’s head buzzed.
The light was dim, and the air was filled with the aroma of fried french fries and coffee. Lois bought sixty cans of beer at once, plus ten bottles of strong malt liquor. The server behind the counter yawned as they loaded french fries onto their tray, completely failing to recognize the man in the plaid shirt as the person on the poster plastered on the wall.
The two sat in a corner booth, looking at each other in silence, merely burying their heads in their drinks. Lois drank glass after glass, while Clark sipped slowly, his eyes constantly scanning their surroundings with vigilance.
This was not, of course, to observe the restaurant’s situation but to monitor other areas of Earth. He had not given up on searching the planet for the woman who had caused his unconsciousness earlier.
“All media.”
Lois downed her third shot of tequila, her glass hitting the plastic tabletop heavily.
“Including us, are all lying.”
She had clearly entered a drunken state again. Soon, she leaned back in her chair, her eyes glazed over, and murmured, “Did… did we do something wrong?”
“Why has the world become like this…”
This was entering a mode of philosophical contemplation.
Clark chewed his hamburger silently. Perhaps not just the hamburger—a Kryptonian’s invincible digestive system meant he wouldn’t get sick even if he swallowed the wrapper.
It was clear Superman was also somewhat distracted now, his mind working at full speed, analyzing.
“Your reporter brings you live coverage from the scene.”
At this moment, CNN was broadcasting news of an explosion at the Egyptian pyramids, but what truly caught his attention was the peculiar small shrine beneath the screen.
In front of a palm-sized statue of Superman were french fries and ketchup.
Like some kind of postmodern offering.
“What’s going on here?”
Clark pointed to the area below the television and asked a work-study student cleaning the area, who had a common Asian face for this country.
“Oh, you don’t know? That’s the Guardian God of Metropolis. It’s always good to believe in it a little.” The server was a young man wearing glasses, busy wiping tables and sweeping the floor.
“Guardian God?”
Clark was somewhat surprised.
He hadn’t noticed Metropolis developing such a cult of worship, and Superman wasn’t particularly happy about being worshipped by others.
“Yeah! I bought it from Black Lightning’s live stream, nine point nine yuan with free shipping, and Walmart Plastic Bag Superman himself delivered it. Do you know Black Lightning and Walmart Plastic Bag Superman?”
“Many less famous superheroes are selling these, along with cushions and keychains—all with copyrights, and they are personally consecrated by Walmart Plastic Bag Superman.”
The server enthusiastically introduced them.
His words left Clark silent. When he asked the server, Clark had already realized something was seriously wrong, but he hadn’t realized it was this bad.
“Live stream? Selling goods?”
Clark’s eyelids, the corners of his mouth, and every inch of skin on his body twitched slightly. He heard about activities from the server that superheroes had never engaged in.
“You don’t watch live streams?”
The server enthusiastically opened an app.
“Welcome to the newly revamped 【Superhero Popularity Exchange Center】! For ten US Dollars, you can watch superheroes fight villains in real-time, and even tip them.”
“While only some B-list superheroes are reluctantly live-streaming now, I believe this is definitely the future trend. Superheroes need to eat too.”
“To think that I, an ordinary person, could spend money on superheroes and have them call me family, that would be amazing.” The waiter noticed that Ian’s platform had clearly received a lot of Franklin’s contributions.
“……”
Clark took the wine bottle from Lois.
They began to toast.
Although he didn’t speak, his silence spoke volumes, his mood conveyed through the wine. The waiter, meanwhile, continued to chatter enthusiastically, trying to sell his idea to the middle-aged man who was clearly out of touch.
“Oh, and there’s Walmart Plastic Bag Superman and his slightly aloof superhero younger brother. They don’t live-stream, but for one hundred US Dollars, you can let Walmart Plastic Bag Superman let you touch his pectoral muscles!”
“For a thousand US Dollars, it’s said that Walmart Plastic Bag Superman can take you for a joyride in the sky. Every Saturday and Sunday, Walmart Plastic Bag Superman can be found by the bridge, looking for customers.”
He scrolled to the top of the photo album.
“Look, a photo from yesterday!”
In the photo, the “Superman” in a cheap cosplay costume was grinning and posing with the waiter, his S-shield crooked as if gnawed by a dog. Even more horrifying was that he had written “Walmart Plastic Bag Superman” on his own face.
Only Clark, whose emotions were in turmoil, knew that it was Jordan’s “uniform” made from supermarket shopping bags, with pre-sale advertisements for Ian’s greatest tech product printed on the headpiece.
Jordan’s clothes also had space for rent advertised on them.
That calligraphy skill.
It was undeniably Ian’s handwriting too. They hadn’t even bothered with printed text, just using ink they found at home. This was a powerful alliance of business geniuses.
“Creak, creak, creak~”
Clark’s fists clenched under the table, creaking louder than in the Underground Base. Nowadays, the biggest enemy for a middle-aged superhero might not be Doomsday.
It might be the Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chick in one’s own home.
Clark stared at the photo on the waiter’s phone, his pupils dilating violently. In the photo, Jordan’s smug face was covered by a cheap plastic bag headpiece, and the “S” symbol scrawled crookedly on his chest looked like a twitching earthworm.
“You don’t need to envy me.”
The waiter misinterpreted Clark’s expression and whispered conspiratorially, “What we should truly envy is the lucky winner who drew the grand prize after taking a photo with Walmart Plastic Bag Superman yesterday—the grand prize was the original manuscript of 《My Superman Father》, found in the basement he rented during his difficult life as Stocking Superman!”
The waiter exclaimed.
His words contained a name Clark hadn’t heard for days, and his ears had finally found some peace. Hearing it again, Clark crushed the can of cola in his hand into an aluminum disc.
“They say that child became an angel after he died, and even the Vatican venerates him.” The waiter wiped a condiment bottle, his eyes as devout as if he were talking about a Great One. Hearing this, Clark, controlling his facial expression, could only picture the scene of Jordan and Ian colluding, a scene that wouldn’t leave his mind.
“You still believe this?” Clark desperately tried to appear unconcerned, as if he were merely a bystander observing the drama, but his voice was still a strained growl.
“Why wouldn’t we believe? Anyone with eyes can see that Stocking Superman and Walmart Plastic Bag Superman are Superman’s children. They are the Supermen of the new era, the correct ones.” The waiter, while wiping the table, lowered his voice and stated a fact that not only Metropolis but likely people everywhere could guess.
“……”
Superman looked at Lois, who was fast asleep on the table. He felt a pang of sadness, a sadness that he didn’t have a single normal family member to face this life with. At this moment, Clark truly wished he could develop Alzheimer’s in his old age, so he could forget the traumas he had to face in his youth.
“Is that suicide note… very valuable?”
Clark asked mechanically.
He was truly trying his best to pretend he was an uninvolved passerby.
Hearing this, the waiter’s cup-wiping motion paused. He thought for a moment and shook his head. “Speaking of value, what’s truly valuable is definitely what Walmart Plastic Bag Superman sold in the early days.”
“Perhaps out of desperation, no one expected that kind of thing to circulate on the black market.” The waiter’s gaze drifted towards the “Superman Altar” behind the counter.
Clark’s super-intuition suddenly blared an alarm, his temples throbbing. He could already envision the headline in the 《Daily Planet》: 《Shocking! Son of Superman Exposed for Selling Semen on the Black Market!》
This was Clark’s worry.
Superman had already begun to regret that he had focused too much of his attention on Ian, and therefore failed to notice some of Jordan’s more serious symptoms than his younger son.
“What did he sell?”
Clark mentally worked through his thoughts and finally asked, choosing not to pry into others’ minds. His voice was as dry as wind-eroded desert rock. Fortunately, the waiter’s answer gave him half a breath of relief; the other half was still needed to cling to life.
The waiter looked around cautiously, then lowered his voice.
“Rumor has it, Walmart Plastic Bag Superman once sold three pairs of Superman’s underwear. Who knows if they still have any of Superman’s DNA on them.” The male waiter’s expression was filled with emotion.
He didn’t know why, but the feeling of yearning grew stronger, his face flushing slightly, to the point that even Superman’s super-vision wouldn’t dare to look directly at his expression.
Clark’s super-brain immediately crashed.
His head buzzing, Clark was completely silenced. He stiffly helped Lois up and walked towards the door, his steps uncoordinated, with the waiter’s puzzled gaze following him.
As the automatic doors slid open with a “ding,” Clark had already regulated his breathing. He didn’t take his drunken wife to a hotel, but instead went to the outside of a convenience store.
The night wind was biting.
It blew over the city’s neon lights.
Carrying the tipsy Lois, Superman finally landed on the rooftop of an abandoned office building.
The night wind howled past the edges of the skyscrapers. He gently placed his wife on a worn-out bench, and the ten bottles of “Life’s Water” he bought from the convenience store were neatly arranged at his feet.
“Ian… Ian can definitely handle the nuclear bomb situation…” Lois mumbled, her eyes hazy, “He’s smart, but he’s also very righteous and bold in his actions.”
“Clark, hurry and find Ian. Tell him if he solves the nuclear bomb crisis, I’ll put him on the front page.” Lois, wrapped in Clark’s jacket, kept shouting from the bench.
Her fingers unconsciously gestured in the air, outlining an interview plan—alcohol convinced the Pulitzer Prize winner that she should go to the Moldy Base tomorrow for a special report on “Black Market Nuclear Bomb Transactions.”
And she had to bring her orange cat, who always typed gibberish on the keyboard.
“Oh, right, where’s my cat? I think I forgot to bring my cat back. A reporter and a cat, it’s not right without my cat. Together, we can brave any danger!”
Lois was indeed extremely drunk.
“Then you are very brave.” Clark forced a smile, patted Lois’s head, and then pulled out a sealed metal box from her bag.
He turned and walked to the side of the building, sitting on the edge of the suspended rooftop. Superman’s legs dangled hundreds of meters in the air. The wind whipped his cape, making it flutter noisily.
It felt as if he could fall into the abyss at any moment.
“Sigh~”
Clark looked up at the distance, where lights stretched out like a sea, but they couldn’t penetrate the gloom in his heart. Of course, the matter of his two sons was secondary; what truly weighed on his mind was the US military’s transactions.
“Violence can’t stop them, what else can I do?” Clark’s heart was filled with confusion, a helplessness superheroes feel when facing humanity.
He looked at the box in his hands.
He hesitated for a moment.
Finally, he opened the lid.
Inside was a piece of green Kryptonite.
The Kryptonite glowed with an eerie green light under the moonlight, like a trapped aurora borealis. It lay quietly on black velvet, looking sinister, like a cursed eye from his home planet. Staring at the ore that could kill him, Clark suddenly remembered Bruce’s words about a “safety latch” when he first saw it.
Now, that safety latch was clutched in his left hand.
In his right hand, he held 96-proof Life’s Water—the Kryptonian had voluntarily used Kryptonite, and his body grew somewhat weak and shaky, but he didn’t fall off the building.
“Gulp, gulp, gulp~”
Clark stared at it for a long time.
He picked up a bottle of “Life’s Water,” unscrewed the cap, and took a swig. The burning sensation went down his throat, stirring a faint dizziness within him.
He took another swig, then held the Kryptonite in his hand.
Pain.
A sharp, familiar pain, originating from his bloodline, instantly swept through his entire body. His muscles trembled, his breathing quickened, and his super-cells cried out under the corrosive effects of the poison.
But under the dual effects of pain and alcohol—he got his wish, he was drunk.
Clark’s pupils became blurry vortexes.
His super-metabolic system prevented the alcohol from truly paralyzing his nerves, but the chemical reaction with the Kryptonite radiation sent his mind into a bizarre state of overclocking. The coordinates of the global nuclear arsenal unfolded in his mind like a three-dimensional projection, each red dot stinging his moral nerves.
“Perhaps…” he murmured, “I shouldn’t wait any longer.”
“Perhaps, I should take all the nuclear bombs in the world to space and destroy them.” His gaze pierced through the clouds, overlooking Earth. Under his super-vision scan, every nuclear weapons storage base was clearly visible—beneath the Siberian ice fields, within the rock layers of the Rocky Mountains, in submarines in the Indian Ocean…
He could see the location of every warhead, he could even calculate that with a single flight, in less than sixty seconds, he could clear them all out.
“Procedural justice?”
“When the system itself is rotten, what’s the point of talking about procedures?” Superman, drunk, seemed to have unleashed a hidden personality; the evil version of him wanted to be a real thief.
To steal those dangerous nuclear weapons from Earth.
This was perhaps Superman’s most evil moment. His sharp gaze swept across the globe, his super-brain calculating how to secretly infiltrate every nuclear bomb storage facility.
Just then—Superman’s vision suddenly caught an anomaly, which jolted him to a degree of sobriety. On the outskirts of London, in a place that should have been an abandoned factory, a box-shaped building appeared.
The building itself was not just strange.
Its roof, at this very moment, was silently lowered by a blue telephone booth-like box. After the door opened, the woman in the white dress walked out.
She was still wearing a veil, holding that ball of light, standing quietly on the rooftop as if waiting for something. Almost instinctively, Clark’s expression tensed.
“What is this woman trying to do again?”
He hoisted Lois onto his shoulder and rushed out. The wind roared in his ears, his speed surpassed his previous limit, and in less than a blink of an eye, he was heading directly for the target location.
However.
When he arrived, what stood there was a modern art museum. Not a factory, not ruins, but a brightly lit cultural landmark bustling with people.
“Damn it.”
Clark suspected he was drunk and rubbed his eyes, but it was the same. The building he had seen earlier didn’t seem to be in this area.
He also no longer detected the presence of the mysterious woman. Infrared, quantum, temporal residue… Clark activated his full-frequency vision, but everything under his gaze remained normal.
The blue box.
The building that existed here.
And the woman in the white dress.
They were all gone.
“I saw something that shouldn’t exist here?” he muttered softly. The alcohol and the toxicity of the Kryptonite brought his mind into a strange clarity.
Perhaps the other party wasn’t walking in reality!
“Paradox…”
Clark felt that this name held deep meaning. His super-brain, after drinking, had reached an unprecedented level—he knew that to solve the mystery, he couldn’t rely on strength or speed, only on thought.
To think with all his might.
With this thought.
The next moment.
Superman vanished from his spot. His speed was no longer just flying; it was a teleological-level teleportation utilizing the quantum entanglement effect of the material world.
……
Gotham City.
Superman landed precisely on the roof of a slum, his footsteps as light as a falling leaf.
Ahead was a seemingly abandoned three-story building, its walls mottled, its windows all fake but more realistic than real ones, with a few vents emitting a faint blue light.
This was the anomaly Superman had precisely detected.
Batcave Secret Safe House.
Inside.
Bruce Wayne took off his suit that could shield Superman’s vision, took a shower, took some sleeping pills, and prepared to sleep for ten minutes. He was halfway through putting on his sleep mask embedded with Kryptonite gems.
It was at this moment that the alarm system suddenly emitted a deathly groan. He reflexively reached for the Kryptonite spray in his utility belt but heard the concrete wall groan under the strain.
BOOM!!!
The wall was torn apart like paper.
“Bruce!!!”
The blast-proof wall also shattered like a biscuit.
In the dust, Clark appeared, carrying a drunk Lois. Yes, Superman needed to think with all his might, so he used his best thinking device to its full capacity.
“?????????”
Bruce Wayne threw his eye mask to the ground, nearly crushing the spray in his hand. The Gotham Freak’s pupils widened in disbelief as he stared at Clark, who, carrying Lois, swaggered into the safe house.
His gaze shifted from the drunken Lois on Superman’s shoulder to the violently dismantled blast-proof wall, and finally to the hand Clark was using to tuck his wife in.
Perhaps the Kent family had ingrained “carrying people” into their family instinct.
At this moment, Batman finally understood the “quantum genetic” source of Ian’s outrageous behavior. Of course, this wasn’t the most surprising thing to Bruce Wayne.
“How is this possible!”
Bruce’s voice was rarely tinged with a hint of tremor.
“What’s impossible?”
Clark proudly patted the dust off his hands.
“You think you can hide in a place like this, and I wouldn’t find you?” He looked directly at his old friend and said in a deep voice, “Bruce, I’m also very smart, no less than you.”
Superman finally had a chance to show off.
He felt good.
Clark was happy to have successfully found Bruce Wayne’s hiding place. He walked into the room, gently placed Lois on Bruce’s specially made bulletproof bed, and casually pulled the quilt embedded with Kryptonite gems over her, covering her with a gentleness that belied his ability to shatter planets with a single punch.
Bruce Wayne watched this scene unfold.
His eyes flickered, and he silently walked to the wall, bending down to pick up a piece of superalloy several meters thick—the outer wall of his safe house, constructed from superalloy.
It was several meters thick.
Theoretically capable of withstanding the impact of a nuclear explosion.
Yet now, it was torn apart like paper, with traces of violent destruction on its edges. To Superman, tearing this apart was as easy as tearing a small piece of butter.
“I’m not talking about how you found me,” Bruce’s voice was so soft it was like sleepwalking, “I’m talking about how you could make a new door in my safe house.”
He slowly turned, pointing to the Kryptonite embedded all over the wall.
This place was practically a Kryptonian “wonderland.” The emerald crystals cast an eerie glow under the emergency lights, which should have caused any Kryptonian immense pain. Yet, at this moment, Clark stood in the center of the strongest radiation zone, even holding a piece of Kryptonite in his hand, but he acted as if he were unharmed, tucking his drunken wife in.
“!!!!”
Superman suddenly opened his palm.
The Kryptonite he had used earlier to weaken himself lay intact in his palm, emitting unquestionable, fatal radiation. And he, who should have collapsed in weakness by now.
Aside from a slight flush from being tipsy, he showed no discomfort.
He had been holding it the entire time.
From the rooftop, through flight, to tearing down the wall—he held the Kryptonite throughout. Logically, he should have collapsed long ago, groaning in pain, all his strength gone.
But he hadn’t.
Not only had he not collapsed, but he had carried Lois, flown for hundreds of miles, and torn apart Gotham’s most fortified stronghold.
“This… impossible…” Clark woke up, looking even more terrified than Bruce Wayne. His Super Brain was running at high speed under the dual stimulation of alcohol and Kryptonite, trying to find an explanation.
Except.
Besides an overwhelming urge to get drunk and punch Bruce Wayne twice.
He found nothing.
“So, was Kryptonite the monumental lie you fabricated?” Bruce Wayne silently operated the nanite repair device, tiny swarms of mechanical insects busy at the breach in the wall. The blast-resistant alloy flowed and reformed like liquid, and in a few minutes, the “new door” violently broken by Clark had vanished without a trace.
As if it had never existed.
“If you told me you tricked everyone, I think I would be happy that you lived up to your own brain.” Bruce Wayne turned around, his grayish-blue eyes looking directly at Clark.
Clark opened his mouth, momentarily speechless. He looked down at the Kryptonite in his palm; the green crystal still emitted a faint glow, but the radiation that should have caused him unbearable pain was barely perceptible.
“No. I don’t know why, it suddenly isn’t as effective anymore—actually, it’s still effective, see, the veins in the palm holding the Kryptonite are much clearer.” Clark explained somewhat flustered, flipping his hand to show the clearer veins beneath his skin due to radiation.
“…”
Bruce Wayne silently put a label of 【Contagious Disease】 in Ian’s file, then thought about it and added a question mark for another condition that might be a suspected 【Hereditary Disease】. Yes, all three of the Kent children were quite abnormal, which made it difficult for Bruce Wayne to believe the Kent couple were normal people.
Now, the 【cryptic ramblings】 Clark was uttering made Bruce Wayne suspect that Clark was no longer pretending, had dropped his facade, or had finally revealed his true self after drinking.
The scent of alcohol in the air could ignite directly, and Bruce Wayne’s Bat-nose, while not as good as Superman’s, was far more sensitive than a dog’s.
“Alright, then your body has evolved again.” Bruce looked Superman up and down, his expression changing subtly, and there was even a hint of disappointment in his voice.
He had always wanted to witness a true Super Brain.
It was a pity.
Superman had never fulfilled his wish over the years.
“Judging by your reaction, you didn’t come to me because your body evolved. So, has your youngest son finally been taken by God to the dark room?” Bruce walked to the medicine cabinet in the corner, put back the sleeping pill bottle he had taken out, and then took out and swallowed a red pill.
Clark’s gaze drifted unconsciously towards Metropolis.
“No.” His voice and expression were clearly contradictory, but Bruce didn’t press further, only raising an eyebrow.
“Let’s get to the point.”
Under Bruce’s scrutinizing gaze, Clark finally revealed the matter of the mysterious woman and the disappearing building. As he spoke, Batman’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
“Perhaps you weren’t mistaken.”
Bruce said suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
Clark’s Super Brain had entered power-saving mode the moment he found the “External Brain.” Bruce didn’t answer directly but gestured for Clark to follow. They passed through a hidden passage in the safe house and arrived at an underground laboratory. The central device looked like some kind of modified cosmic massage machine.
Its surface was covered with patterns of various alien technologies.
“Sit on it.”
Bruce activated the console, and countless holographic screens unfolded in the air.
As Clark sat in the device, a strange wave immediately enveloped him. His vision began to shift—Gotham’s concrete walls gradually became transparent, replaced by countless overlapping dimensional light and shadow. And at the intersection of these lights and shadows, the disappearing, peculiar building reappeared in his sight.
A blue telephone booth also stood quietly on the rooftop.
“This…”
Clark turned to Bruce in shock.
“I’ve been building this machine since I learned about the Multiverse War.” Bruce’s eyes flashed with the confidence and wisdom characteristic of a mad scientist.
“Yes, Clark, don’t look at me with that disgusting shocked face. Being drunk has given you a perspective you can’t usually achieve, the sight to pierce through the Multiverse and dimensional rifts.” Batman’s fingers tapped on the console, suppressing the urge to dig out Clark’s eyeballs for research.
Of course, just as Superman had held back from hitting him, he also suppressed his own impulse.
Perhaps.
This is how friends know each other.
“Now, what is that woman doing?” Bruce Wayne asked the dumbfounded Clark, already more accustomed than the Kryptonian to the Kryptonian’s shameless evolutionary advancements.
“She’s knocking on a door, and inside the door…”
Clark’s gaze penetrated through layers of dimensions, focusing on the white figure. The woman holding an umbrella elegantly knocked on a large door carved with countless life symbols.
A light humming came from within the door.
Then a cheerful female voice.
“Oh! Another interesting soul who wants to customize a mysterious past, give themselves a past that makes family and friends ponder, and have at least eight hundred mysterious people attend their funeral?” The doorknob rotated automatically, and as the door opened a crack, Clark saw that inside was a studio filled with Victorian-style decor.
“Huh, a Time Lord, an interesting soul.”
The Goddess of Death—or rather, Miss Death—floated in mid-air, with eight small, glowing mirrors suspended before her. She spoke softly to the newcomer without turning her head.
The woman stepped gracefully into the room.
Her white long dress rippled with a faint glow in the dimensional rift. She saw Miss Death leaning over a suspended mirror, reflecting Ian’s furtive figure.
“Time Lord, I haven’t seen your kind in a long time. Normally, I would have a good chat with you, listen to the grand adventures and journeys of your life.”
“However, I’ve found something more interesting now.”
“My enlightenment for the second spring of my career, and my dear follower, is undertaking a grand endeavor, preparing to deliver a surprise gift package of ‘eighty-eight thousand babies in one go’ to God!”
“This is what a true warrior is like, isn’t it? Lucifer has finally found the new Lord of Hell he has longed for.” Miss Death’s tone carried more than just admiration and amazement.
There was also a degree of admiration.
