Chapter 198: Apokolips, A Time Of Turmoil
Ian’s backpack was very, very big.
It could fit anything.
Hundreds of books, swept from the dining table, were gone in an instant.
“I’ll keep these top-secret files for you. I’ll find a friend, a professional, to analyze the traces. Maybe there’s a clue about the yellow-eyed demon hidden within.”
Ian’s tone was righteous and carried a hint of rigorous seriousness. His hand speed was dazzling; Sam just felt a blur before his eyes, and the table was empty. Even his own stationery, which he had accidentally spilled, was gone. Someone who didn’t know would have thought he had spilled lighters.
“Uh…”
Sam watched Ian’s 180-degree change in attitude and the smooth, fluid motion of him taking the magazines. The corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
His mood was complex; for a moment, he didn’t know whether to be happy or speechless.
“Th…thank you…”
Sam said dryly, feeling an inexplicable relief in his heart. But no matter what, Ian had finally agreed. He didn’t really care what would happen to the future of exorcism because of this.
In the Winchester family, he was the one who disliked his family’s business the most.
“You’re welcome! We’re classmates, no need to be formal!” Ian waved his hand grandly, full of heroic spirit, as if he hadn’t been the one to push back so much just moments ago.
Ian, possessed by his inner actor, slung an arm around Sam’s shoulder. Sam stiffened, while Ian gazed into the distance with blazing eyes, as if he could already see an incredibly bright future.
“This is practically the Industrial Revolution of the supernatural world! In the future, people will remember the insignificant contributions of your Winchester family, and the sacrifice of Master Ian, who loved the people as if they were his children.”
“Just imagine, standardized holy water sprays, I can sell them in nine tiers, 45-degree holy water, 20-degree holy water, anything to satisfy everyone’s needs, just like selling wine.”
“Enchanted salt rounds from the assembly line, crosses that support app-controlled consecration, st… This will save so many budget-limited hunters and innocent families! We will change the world, Sam! We will be the saints of the exorcism world! My magic power… uh, I mean, my business empire will skyrocket to unimaginable heights!”
Ian became more and more excited, as if he could already see his magic power reaching a level sufficient to pick up the Entropy Lord’s original profession and implement a great and traditional moment of 【magic loans】.
“Don’t include me in this. I don’t know anything.” Sam’s scalp tingled; he had no desire to continue this topic. He just wanted to find his missing father and older brother.
He had no desire to become the Rockefeller of the exorcism world.
“Don’t worry, I won’t include you.”
“Your idea of ‘everyone can afford exorcism’ has been carefully considered by me. It’s indeed very forward-thinking. From now on, the story will be that this idea is my idea.”
“Don’t look at me like that. Teachers taught us to learn from Edison.” Ian was an honest and sincere person. His bastardly nature lay in his clear-cut bastardy.
Without any concealment.
“…”
Sam found it hard to refute Ian’s logic, as he was still a relatively honest child.
“My dad and brother might be in Seattle.” Sam now just wanted to discuss business, and he quickly revealed the clues he had to Ian.
“Seattle? That’s not too far. No problem.” Ian immediately reeled in his runaway thoughts and, patting his chest again, made a solemn promise.
“Forget Seattle, even the Bar of Light, I’ll help you find your father and brother. Alive, they will be found. If, unfortunately, they… uh, if something bad happens, it’s okay! I’ll go to a parallel universe and bring you back a brother and father! I guarantee they’ll be the same model, with synchronized memories and no discomfort.”
There was truly light in Ian’s eyes.
Sam, startled by the overly “attentive” after-sales service, waved his hands repeatedly, sweat beading on his forehead: “No! No! Ian! Other brothers and fathers are fine! I really just want my own father and brother!”
“I want the original!”
He emphasized in the end.
Ian stroked his chin and nodded thoughtfully: “Hmm… That makes sense. Original parts are definitely better than aftermarket for compatibility. Alright, let’s go find your original daddy and brother!”
Finally, he received a relatively reliable promise.
Sam let out a long sigh of relief.
It felt more exhausting than fighting a room full of vampires.
“Well, I need to go back and prepare for class. I’ll wait for you here tonight.” He didn’t dare to stay any longer, fearing that Ian might come up with even more earth-shattering ideas.
After handing a note to Ian, Sam quickly got up and excused himself, almost fleeing the canteen. Seeing his client leave, Ian sat back down at the dining table and began to savor the food.
【Entropy Annihilation Lord Experience Points +22】
【Entropy Annihilation Lord Experience Points +19】
【Entropy Annihilation Lord Experience Points +23】
Some people bring their own chili sauce, and some bring their own sandwiches. Ian bringing some ore and poison to add to his lunch was, in a way, just going with the flow.
The first class of the afternoon was Safety and Hygiene.
Because their homeroom teacher, Miss Misha, was still handling Hannibal’s funeral, and due to the fact that Hannibal himself had already attended it, the scene was once haunted, causing quite a shock.
This class was taught by an externally hired substitute teacher – Mrs. David. Don’t ask why it’s such a strange combination; America truly has men-mothers and men-women.
Yes, Mrs. David was a tall woman, exquisitely made up, dressed in a proper business suit, though not particularly attractive as a man-woman teacher. She, or rather he, or let’s use “it”, walked into the classroom with confident strides, a gentle but unquestionable smile on her face.
“Good afternoon, students. I am your substitute teacher for this Safety and Hygiene class. You can call me Mrs. David.” Her voice, trained for years, could no longer distinguish between male and female.
Although she was a terrorist, most of the class content was relatively normal, mainly covering campus safety knowledge, personal hygiene habits, and some basic first aid knowledge.
Of course, as an American safety class, it inevitably involved some “special” content.
“So, students, you must remember.” Mrs. David pointed her laser pointer at a comic on the projection screen: a student pointing a gun at another student.
“Under no circumstances should you slaughter your classmates or teachers. Never point a firearm at your classmates, and don’t bring a rocket launcher from home.”
“These are very dangerous and illegal actions. If you see a classmate coming to class with a bulging backpack, you must report it to a teacher or school police immediately.”
The students below were used to this. Some even muttered that the teacher was crazy; they were all about to graduate high school, how could they not understand these basic life common sense? Among everyone, only Ian slightly concealed his bulging backpack, but no classmate noticed.
It was clear that due to survivor bias, these students who hadn’t experienced real combat still lacked some vigilance in life. Fortunately, Ian was indeed not a school killer.
The class proceeded smoothly.
However, when discussing “Adolescent Physiological and Psychological Hygiene,” Mrs. David began to inevitably incorporate some American popular culture that she personally cared about and had personally experienced.
“Students, you are at a crucial stage of self-discovery and identity exploration. You may have confusion about your gender, orientation, and other issues.”
“Whether you like boys, or girls, or some animal, it’s all very normal. The important thing is to accept yourself, bravely express your true self… And, you also need to respect, or rather, to provide help and praise to those who dare to advocate for their own needs.”
This was where she started inserting her personal agenda.
She even spoke with a sermon-like enthusiasm. When Mrs. David said, “If any students still have the desire to share, you can contact me privately for help.”
Ian raised his hand.
“This handsome male student, please speak.” Mrs. David was happy to see someone interact, so she became careless and didn’t dodge, not vigilant enough.
“Hm? Handsome? Male student?” Ian stood up, his face showing an extremely serious, even somewhat offended expression. He spoke in an accusatory tone.
“My heavens! Your teaching is full of prejudice and discrimination! How dare you casually define my age and assume I’m in puberty? And how can you arbitrarily assume my gender isn’t an IKEA shark, a walking pasta spaghetti, an Apache attack helicopter, a cyberpunk Wild West cowboy?”
Ian made his accusation.
The entire classroom fell silent.
All the drowsy students were jolted awake, staring at Ian in astonishment.
The smile on Mrs. David’s face froze instantly, her mouth slightly agape, as if she couldn’t process the sudden question that went beyond all her lesson plans and training.
Ian continued his righteous output.
“Your act of ignoring my self-identity and forcibly categorizing me is a serious disrespect to my helicopter identity! I feel deeply hurt! I will definitely go to the principal to complain! To the education bureau to complain! You are creating discrimination and hatred!” He used a simplified gender approach.
After all, it was tiring to repeat it himself.
The IKEA shark, walking pasta spaghetti, Apache attack helicopter, cyberpunk Wild West cowboy spoke with conviction, his expression wronged and angry, as if he had suffered a terrible injustice.
Mrs. David was completely flustered, her face flushing and paling. She tried to explain: “St… Student, I didn’t mean that, it’s just that your gender…”
She was somewhat speechless.
Mrs. David found that she could not continue this topic at all.
No matter how she responded, it would seem absurd. All the rhetoric about inclusion and respect she had prepared in her teaching career suddenly felt like a joke.
“I… I need to calm down…” Mrs. David finally conceded defeat. She held onto the lectern, her voice trembling slightly, “Students… self… self-study…”
After saying this, she practically stumbled out of the classroom, not even taking her lesson plan.
The classroom was silent for a few seconds.
Then—
“Pfft—Hahaha!”
“Holy shit! Apache helicopter!”
“And the IKEA shark and the spaghetti, hahahaha!”
“Ian, you’re the best!!”
Thundering laughter and applause instantly drowned out the classroom! The students slapped their desks, laughing uncontrollably, as if they had watched an incredibly brilliant stand-up comedy show.
Of course.
In this ocean of joy caused by Ian’s “Apache helicopter” theory, there were always a few discordant notes, forming their own group, completely unaffected by the classroom atmosphere.
“I have a full house! What can you play against me? Pay up, pay up.” In the back corner of the classroom, Madison and three other girls who looked like trouble were squatting on the ground, forming a circle. Between them was a small blanket, on which poker cards and a few crumpled dollar bills were scattered.
“Three to seven!”
Madison shouted excitedly, sweeping all the change on the table towards herself, her face radiating pure, winner’s joy.
The other three girls cursed, reluctantly taking out money, while looking at Madison with suspicious eyes.
As the saying goes, if you’re not a green tea, you can’t get into the green tea nest.
Including Madison herself.
These girls’ card skills were quite “skilled,” with a touch of the Las Vegas casino, but also with a hint of the “Myanmar 1 cut” if caught.
“Such crude use of magic.”
Ian glanced at them from the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but roll his eyes in his mind. He could clearly “see” the almost imperceptible magical fluctuations between Madison’s fingers—she was using extremely rough telekinetic techniques to peek at others’ hole cards, and occasionally nudging the card order with her mind.
Among the girls’ cheating methods, Madison was slightly superior, but not as good as Ian. Ian didn’t like cheating, so if it were him, he would also accept defeat.
If he lost, he would blur the memories of other classmates and then play again, which wasn’t considered cheating, and he could always wait until he won. That was the true way to win off the gambling table.
“Such… lack of technical skill in cheating. I am the Gambler.” Ian muttered to himself, deciding to stop paying attention to this doomed unfair card game.
While the classroom was still in chaos and Teacher David hadn’t returned, Ian quickly packed his backpack and silently slipped out through the back door.
Letting himself out of school early was also the freedom of an American student.
He familiarized himself with the way to a secluded corner on the back street of the school, where his ride was parked: a heavily modified Dodge Challenger Hellcat that looked only slightly exaggerated in appearance.
Having eaten well thanks to Ian, the core of this car had been completely reborn. While it might not compare to Great Scientist Rick’s spaceship, it was undoubtedly top-tier black magic technology on Earth.
That’s what a Hellcat was like.
What roared beneath the hood was not so much mechanical as it was a bound demonic soul. It also had a fully independent AI autonomous driving system.
The navigation destination could even be precise to dimensional coordinates.
“Go near Madison’s house, keep it low-key.”
As Ian opened the car door and got in, he immediately gave the instruction.
【Optical camouflage and sonic filtering system activated.】 In reality, magical means were used, but the Hellcat hadn’t evolved its own mouth yet.
It used a recording playback from a radio game.
The car silently slid into the lane, blending into the street traffic like a ghost. Even surrounding vehicles and pedestrians subconsciously ignored its presence.
Ian leaned back in the comfortable genuine leather seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest. He was going near Madison’s house, of course, not to spy on Madison’s mom’s private life.
Ian was still wondering why Great Scientist Rick had given him that big stone chair.
A conceptual character who could dismantle the universe as a toy at any moment was truly giving Ian a slight tendency to develop paranoia, a condition he had caught from Batman.
“He didn’t beat God, so he resents God and wants to see God make a fool of himself?”
Ian speculated in his mind. When his Hellcat silently glided near the neighborhood where Madison lived, Ian was slightly stunned by the sight before him.
He had only been away for a few days, and this once quiet community had inexplicably sprouted a huge, extremely official-looking training center?
It was a massive building that looked like a converted warehouse, its exterior painted a serious dark blue, with a huge neon sign.
The sign flickered with several large characters.
【Sanchez Excellence Life Shortcut Planning and Skill Training Center】
Below the sign was a line of small text.
【Guaranteed to teach, no refund if you don’t learn （For surviving students only ）】.
Ian’s curiosity was thoroughly ignited.
He controlled the Hellcat to stop silently at the street corner, and then, like a shadow blending into the night, he leaped a few times to the rooftop of an office building opposite.
“What the hell?”
Ian pulled out a peculiar-looking telescope from his mimic tactical belt—its barrel was covered with miniature, constantly rotating gears and flashing runes.
He aimed it at the eerie “academy.”
The vision instantly cleared.
Through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows made of some kind of reinforced crystal, Ian saw a jaw-dropping scene: a hall as spacious as a hangar with various facilities. He could see it was brightly lit, with neatly arranged desks and chairs, and currently, it was filled with adults.
These people were strangely dressed, covered in tattoos, their eyes either fierce or lewd; in any case, they looked like unsavory characters, all sitting there obediently like elementary school students.
Each person was holding a notebook and pen!
There were even a few magic apprentices wearing tattered robes and holding twisted staffs. They formed a semicircle, their gazes fanatically focused on the central podium.
“So, listen up, you underdeveloped carbon-based fools!”
A figure was spewing saliva.
White, messy hair like a bird’s nest, thick stubble covering his chin, a dirty white lab coat stained with unknown chemical spills draped loosely over his body.
It was Rick Sanchez.
He held a laser pointer, the beam randomly pointing at a huge holographic projection screen displaying several city models in distinct styles.
“Metropolis? Ha! With that muscular, simple-minded alien Superman flying around all day, how can you put your passion into practice?”
“While Superman is saving drowning kittens, he can also weld the vault door you just pried open back into place!” Rick’s voice boomed through the speakers scattered throughout the hall.
With a heavy nasal tone and undisguised disappointment.
“Wasted effort! Zero efficiency! Crime also requires technique! You need to use your brain!”
He took a large gulp of liquid from a brown bottle with the label torn off, which he had taken from under the podium. Then, he shakily hit the whiteboard with his pointer.
Various complex route maps, schedules, and… cost-benefit analyses were drawn on it?
“All day you only rob convenience stores, steal cars, and extort protection money! Low-class! No future! Abysmally low profit margins! If Superman catches you, he’ll just throw you in prison.”
“Look at this! A perfect bank vault robbery plan! What you need to consider isn’t how strong you are! It’s the redundancy backup time of the surveillance system, the security guard’s urination schedule, the GPS signal delay of the armored car, and how to short-sell gold futures and cash out before the Federal Reserve reacts!”
“This is called crime! This is financial art!” He suddenly raised his voice, the laser pointer freezing on the model of Gotham City.
The city was overcast, with tall buildings, and shadows seemed to flit like bats.
“You guys have to go to Gotham to find jobs after graduation! Don’t think about staying in Metropolis; Metropolis is a dead-end place, a boring land controlled by Superman!”
“Only Gotham is the blessed land for you ‘ambitious youths’! Batman? That mortal who relies on money and equipment? His psychological problems are more numerous than the stolen goods! The entire city’s corrupt system is your natural umbrella! The police? Half are accomplices, half are decoration!”
“Crime rate? That’s GDP! Understand? High crime rates mean low law enforcement efficiency, meaning huge operational space and… freedom for artistic creation! Here, a successful bank robbery has an aesthetic value comparable to… uh, comparable to the instant noodles I cooked yesterday using the principle of quantum entanglement!”
The Great Scientist Rick’s metaphors were more abstract than Ian’s most of the time.
Thunderous applause and whistles erupted from below. The thugs and spies were flushed with excitement, as if they had found the direction of their lives. A sorcerer’s apprentice in ragged robes raised his hand, his voice trembling, “Master Rick! What about… what about magical crime? In Central City?”
“Central City?” Rick scoffed, as if hearing a low-level joke, “The Flash? That ‘human electric donkey’ who sustains super-speed by eating carbohydrates? His speed perception? His timeline prediction? Before you finish your magic incantation ‘abracadabra’ with the ‘ca’ sound, he can tie you up like a zongzi and send you to Iron Mountain Prison a hundred times!”
“A pure act of suicide! Unless…”
He paused deliberately, whetting everyone’s appetite, then slowly said, “Unless your magic can be precise enough to manipulate the flow of time itself, for example… uh, an Iris Cheese’s naked trap that can create localized time stasis? Unfortunately, the materials needed for that have been extinct in Parallel Universe 33.”
“Otherwise…”
Rick didn’t finish his sentence and started to pour himself a drink.
This elicited a sigh of regret from the audience.
“In short, Gotham! A place with talented people, simple folk, and Arkham offers boarding and lodging for advanced studies! Central City? The Flash is fast but his brain often shorts out!”
“Star City? Green Arrow himself is a former terrorist, easy to communicate with! Central City? The Lantern Corps is okay, but the sector is too large for him to manage! These are all prime crime destinations, you fools! Market choice! Do you understand?!” Rick even listed for the trainees a few cities in the DC Universe where crime was easiest to succeed.
Truly a respected teacher.
The trainees showed expressions of sudden realization, applause thundered, and they praised him. Rick seemed satisfied with this effect. He stood with his hands on his hips triumphantly, then unconsciously raised his hand to look at the… clearly broken for who knows how many years, with its hands pointing randomly, on his wrist.
“Well… that’s about it…” he muttered, then his expression changed, instantly switching from an impassioned lecturer to someone clocking out.
“Alright, alright! Today’s ‘How to Efficiently and Safely Commit Major Crimes and Evade Superhero Attacks’ class ends here! Class dismissed!” He announced almost impatiently, then at light speed threw his pointer and textbook behind him. The textbook arced through the air and landed precisely in a trash can labeled “Hazardous Waste.”
Simultaneously.
Rick ripped off his white coat as a life mentor, revealing an identical white coat underneath.
“Tomorrow, at the same time, we’ll discuss how to use interdimensional methods to exploit tax loopholes for money laundering. Remember to bring a calculator.” With that, he didn’t wait for the trainees to react and rushed down from the podium at a speed completely unbefitting his age and drunken appearance, rushing out the back door of the training center.
Ian quickly adjusted his telescope’s view to track.
He saw Rick rush out the back door, look around, and then head straight for a… vehicle parked in the alley? The “vehicle’s” shape was truly bizarre.
Its chassis looked like several steel pipes welded together haphazardly, and its body was entirely made of countless emerald-green cucumbers glued together with some kind of transparent slime!
The wheels were even four giant zucchinis still dripping with juice! The engine hood area was a glass jar filled with bubbling purple liquid.
Several electrodes were inserted into it.
“Cucumber… car?”
Ian felt his vocabulary was insufficient.
Rick skillfully pulled open a large lettuce leaf, which served as the car door, jumped into the driver’s seat, which was hollowed out like a pumpkin, and then the cucumber car made “poof poof” sounds like flatulence. The exhaust pipe spewed green mist, and then it wobbled and levitated, defying the laws of physics.
Just then.
The cucumber flying car shot into the sky with a “whoosh.”
It flew at an astonishing speed in a certain direction.
“Is this really still technology?” Ian’s telescope continued to watch, its gaze silently following, maintaining a distant enough range to avoid detection.
The cucumber car was extremely fast and its flight path was erratic, occasionally making right-angle turns or suddenly diving into clouds, as if trying to evade Ian’s visual tracking.
It succeeded.
But just as Ian was feeling a bit helpless, the cucumber car descended from the clouds and landed in the yard of a house less than a hundred meters in front of the tall building where Ian was located.
That hovering vehicle, pieced together from glowing cucumbers and other food items, was like a giant, flying pickle jar; it was hard not to notice.
“…”
Even without his Super Vision, Ian could still see this. The house had a beautiful garden and a neat lawn. The only incongruous thing was its absurdly large garage.
It was almost twice the size of the main house, and the garage door was tightly shut, with various warning signs like “Danger!” “High Voltage!” “No Entry!” plastered on it.
Rick jumped down from the cucumber car.
He casually took a bottle of wine from a car window made of a large piece of transparent rind and took a sip.
Then.
He staggered, muttering drunken nonsense that no one could understand, and plunged headfirst into the garage that seemed to hide all the secrets of the universe.
The garage door slammed shut behind him, completely cutting off the sunlight and warmth of the outside world.
The interior of the garage was like another dimension. There were no normal vehicles parked there, but instead, enormous machines flickered with dangerous lights, connected by twisted pipes, emitting unknown smoke and odors. The walls were covered with tools, blueprints, and various disassembled alien specimens.
Since Ian also had a hang.
His magical telescope could also see this scene.
“Hmm, here, here, I know it now, which means I knew it before too.” Rick didn’t even turn on the lights. In the darkness, he accurately fumbled his way to a workbench, grabbed a bottle of liquor labeled “XXX” and took a big swig, then started tinkering with a half-finished object that looked like an interdimensional armor.
Sparks flew.
The Great Scientist, more scientific than Tony Stark, muttered to himself.
Just then, the side door of the garage was pushed open, and a boy wearing glasses, looking somewhat timid, poked his head in. It was Morty, Rick’s favorite grandson, a middle school student.
“Grand… Grandfather?” Morty called out softly, trying to get attention amidst the deafening hammering and roaring of machines, “What… what are you doing?”
Rick didn’t turn his head, nor did he stop working. His drunken voice, however, came through with remarkable clarity.
“Morty? Is that you, Morty? *Hic* Today we’re going on an adventure, remember, Morty? A grand adventure! An adventure for just the two of us!” His voice was hoarse, with a heavy nasal tone, and every syllable sounded as obscure as if squeezed from a rusty pipe.
The reference is like listening to Jay Chou’s songs without subtitles.
“Today is our big day! Adventure! Remember? Morty! A real adventure! Not your boring, error-ridden adolescent handicrafts!”
Rick seemed eager.
“Adventure? What adventure? Damn it! Today is supposed to be an adventure day, Grandfather, I… I still have history homework to write, about… about the Civil War…”
Morty was clearly resistant.
“Civil War? Pfft! What kind of bullshit history is that!” Rick suddenly turned around, still holding an energy core sparking with electricity, his face full of alcohol-induced excitement and a scientist’s characteristic, almost mad, glow. “Morty! I found a great place! A truly stimulating place! Do you know Apokolips? You definitely don’t, Morty, your little head is only big enough to fit Jessica’s underwear color!”
Morty’s face instantly turned red: “Grandfather! I don’t!”
Rick ignored him and continued to gesticulate excitedly, “Apokolips! Darkseid’s lair! But now, Morty, good news! That stone-faced tyrant seems to be missing! The whole place is in chaos! Superweapons left unattended everywhere, rampaging Parademons, and all sorts of amazing alien creatures you’ve never seen!”
“We can go cause some trouble! And by the way… *hic*… pick up some trash!” Rick hiccuped, and a strong smell of cheap alcohol mixed with ozone wafted over.
“Apokolips?! No! Grandfather! That’s too dangerous! And I really have homework to do! It’s due tomorrow!” Morty, who was clearly more knowledgeable than the average middle schooler, turned pale with fright.
“Really, there are so many… so many amazing creatures, Morty! Ten thousand times more ‘amazing’ than the dinosaurs in your textbook! You’ll love them after using them once!”
“We’re going! Now! Immediately! To pick up some good stuff! Maybe we can find Darkseid’s spare remote control, that thing can control the TV listings for the entire universe!”
“Think about it, Morty, you can watch whatever you want from now on!” Rick suddenly lowered his voice, leaned close to Morty’s face, and cast a grandfatherly bewitchment.
“I really can’t finish my homework!”
Morty remained steadfast, wanting only to study diligently, get into the same high school as his crush, then the same university, and then have a child together.
“Homework? Heh!” Rick scoffed, as if hearing the funniest joke in the universe. He casually rummaged through a pile of junk on the workbench, pulled out a device that looked like a TV remote control but with more bizarre buttons, and pressed it in a certain direction without even looking.
“Whoosh—”
The next moment.
Ian also noticed.
Several blocks away, at what should have been Morty’s middle school, with a deafening bang, the entire school teaching building was as if squeezed by a giant, invisible hand, then it abruptly arched upwards, and amidst countless terrified screams and alarms, it collapsed into a pile of rubble with a crash!
Smoke billowed into the sky.
It looked like a small mushroom cloud had risen!
Fortunately, there were no casualties.
Even Ian was stunned by this simple and brutal solution. He knew, as expected, that he was still too young, so sometimes his thinking wasn’t so clear.
“Ugh~”
In the garage.
Rick, having burped from drinking, listened with satisfaction to the faint explosion and commotion in the distance, casually tossed the remote control aside, and shrugged at the stunned, almost petrified Morty.
“See, Morty. Now you don’t have to do homework. Problem solved. Come on, don’t dawdle, our adventure is about to begin!”
“There’s no more Wubba Lubba Dub Dub! This is purely father-son time now!” With that, he didn’t give Morty a chance to react or protest, and grabbed his grandson by the collar.
Rick lifted Morty like a chicken and then ducked into another “spaceship” in the corner of the garage, which looked like it was cobbled together from an old boiler, rusty pipes, and a few microwave ovens. The scrap spaceship let out a piercing roar, spewing thick black smoke and green flames from its tail.
“Bang bang bang~”
The spaceship violently crashed through the garage roof, and at a near-suicidal angle, wobbled and twisted, but sped extremely fast straight up into the sky, disappearing into the atmosphere in the blink of an eye.
On the tall building, Ian silently lowered his telescope and let out a long, deep sigh. An unprecedented feeling of inferiority washed over him.
“Fortunately, blowing up the school shows that he still has some sanity, and isn’t just a madman.” Ian accurately tossed the empty cola can he was holding into the trash can in the corner of the rooftop.
Before he finished speaking.
The space around him began to warp and fold, like reflections on water being disturbed. The next second, his figure completely disappeared from the rooftop as if erased by an eraser.
Only the evening breeze rustling a few fallen leaves remained. Time seemed to freeze for a few minutes. The rooftop returned to silence, with only the faint sound of fire alarm sirens from a gas explosion at the school in the distance.
The firefighters gradually departed.
After a long while.
From the trash can where Ian had thrown the empty cola can, a vintage, crackling telephone ring suddenly sounded—”Ring ring~ Ring ring~.”
Immediately after, the lid of the trash can was pushed open from the inside, and a head emerged—it was Rick Sanchez himself, who was supposed to have left Earth with his grandson for Apokolips!
He looked a bit scruffy, with a large bump on his head, and his hair was even messier.
“Diane! I’m at work! Very important work! Why are you calling me during work hours?” Rick held the cola can Ian had just thrown away. When he questioned his wife, his tone wasn’t angry, just much, much louder.
“Rick, are you really working properly?” A woman’s voice came from the soda can, with concern and a hint of doubt. She knew her husband too well to be a creature who liked to work.
“Of course, Diane.” Rick immediately adopted a righteous tone, “My work is very meaningful! Very… moral! I am contributing to social stability and employment! Because of me… the employment rate of superheroes has significantly increased in the past two years!”
“What I’m doing is called… that’s right! Structural talent output and demand balance! Without me, many superheroes would be unemployed! The employment rate of superheroes has soared by 300% in the past two years! It’s all thanks to me, I created jobs! Stabilized society! I haven’t let any superhero be unemployed at home!”
“Oh, heavens, just like I promised you, I am indeed doing charity!” Rick was pondering if he could burrow into the soda can next time to hide.
He even used his linguistic artistry on his wife, describing his criminal training center business as if he had won a Nobel Peace Prize.
Diane on the other end of the phone seemed convinced, or perhaps she was used to her husband’s nonsensical ramblings.
“Okay… the main thing is you’re alright. By the way, the Broadway show is about to start. You promised to accompany me and Beth to see it. Do you remember your promise when you were drunk?”
“Hurry and come over.”
Rick’s wife urged him.
Perhaps she was the only one who could rush Rick.
“Broadway? Ugh—those guys in tights singing and lip-syncing on stage? It’s mental pollution! I’d rather watch interdimensional cable （ interdimensional cable ） at home…” Although he said that, Rick still crawled out of the trash can.
“A bunch of monkeys in ridiculous clothes singing and dancing, telling incredibly boring fairy tales full of false hope? A waste of time! A waste of life! A living demonstration of entropy increase!”
Just as Rick was rambling and complaining, at this moment, the cola can in his hand suddenly emitted an abnormal ‘boom-boom bomb’ light.
Bang!!
With a dull thud, the can actually exploded! Although the power was not great, it was enough to blow black soot all over Rick’s face, his hair stood on end, and smoke was rising.
“Cough cough cough!”
Rick coughed, choking, and syrup dripped down his eyebrows and beard.
“Rick?!” Diane’s panicked voice came through the phone, “What happened?!”
Rick wiped his face, haphazardly wiping away the syrup and fragments, revealing a face that was pretending to be calm. He spoke into the phone, his voice returning to its nonchalant tone.
“It’s nothing, nothing, a minor accident!” Rick looked around, his gaze sweeping over the edge of the rooftop. “I met the new governor, Diane. He gave me some welcome gifts.”
“What new governor?”
“You know, I told you last time, the old governor was terrible, corrupt, and had no professional ethics. I was trying to get him out of office!”
“This is… this is a necessary sacrifice!” As he spoke, he pulled out a spray, sprayed it on his face, and he was instantly refreshed.
Only a few rotten vegetable leaves still clung to him.
“Wait for me! I’ll be there soon! Give me five minutes… no, three minutes!” With that, Rick didn’t wait for a response and threw the damaged soda can back into the trash can.
He looked around, took out a few unrecognizable parts, a battery, and half a tube of mustard from his pocket, and squatted on the ground to build it with his bare hands. In less than ten seconds, he had created a crude jetpack emitting sparks and smelling of mustard!
“Pfft—boom!”
Rick strapped the backpack onto his back and pressed the button.
The next moment, the backpack sprayed a flame mixed with yellow mustard and black smoke, pushing him wobbly, but extremely fast, towards Broadway.
The Great Scientist left a bizarre trail of yellow smoke in the air. Just as Rick’s mustard-flame figure disappeared into the horizon, on the rooftop of the tall building, the air subtly distorted, and Ian’s figure slowly coalesced again. He frowned, patted himself for non-existent dust, but his eyes were fixed on the quiet trash can.
“How did he get in there?”
Ian genuinely wanted to learn this skill.
He walked forward, intending to study it.
However.
Just as he was one step away from the trash can.
“Pfft!!!”
The trash can lid was violently thrown open!
A giant, inflatable Rick head balloon with contorted, exaggerated features suddenly popped out, baring a huge mouth and emitting a piercing, recorded cackle.
“Hee hee hee hee~”
This sound, one could tell, was pure. Immediately after, the balloon Rick’s mouth opened wide, and a dense, unbearable yellow stench, mixed with the smell of rotten eggs, expired cheese, sulfur, and some kind of alien excrement, sprayed precisely onto Ian’s face like a high-pressure water gun!
In other words, he was blasted in the face with the smell of a crazy fart.
“Damn it! I knew it!” The giant Rick balloon, farting madly at Ian, the smell making Ian furious, fled in a panic and disappeared without a trace.
Only the swirling, extremely foul-smelling yellow gas mass remained, along with the Rick balloon still emitting its strange laughter.
The balloon laughed for a while before slowly deflating and retracting back into the trash can. The rooftop returned to silence, with only the terrifying smell proving what had just happened.
…
Night gradually descended.
Metropolis, downtown square, light pollution was ubiquitous. The square was brightly lit at night, but pedestrians were becoming scarce. A giant Superman statue cast long shadows under the lights.
“Why hasn’t he arrived yet.”
Sam Winchester, carrying a heavy backpack filled with various demon-hunting tools he thought might be useful, paced anxiously, looking up occasionally. He had been waiting here for almost an hour. The agreed-upon time with Ian had long passed, yet he hadn’t seen a single person.
“Damn it… is that guy going to stand me up again…”
Sam thought uneasily, his heart in his mouth. Although Ian had agreed, his reliability was questionable. He might already be fast asleep at home.
“Could it be that I really have to go to that place and pawn my soul?” Just as Sam was about to give up hope, a figure slowly walked over from the other side of the square.
It was a tall, thin boy.
He looked young.
Yet he wore glasses that didn’t match his age at such a young age.
He was wearing an ordinary hoodie and jeans, and his expression was hesitant, even afraid to look directly at Sam’s eyes. He walked hesitantly to Sam and, as if having made up his mind, spoke softly.
“Excuse me… excuse me… are you Sam Winchester?” Her politeness, or perhaps the glasses on her nose, made the tall, thin boy look incredibly refined.
Sam froze, warily sizing up the stranger.
“I am. Who are you?”
His suspicious expression was unmasked.
The tall, thin boy seemed a little embarrassed, but also relieved. He still didn’t dare to look up, his voice a little shaky, “Very… very good. Then… then let’s go.”
He said.
He was about to lead the charge.
Sam was even more confused: “Go? Go where?”
The tall, thin boy seemed a little surprised Sam would ask, and instinctively answered the question, “Of course, to… to save your father and brother.”
His tone seemed increasingly guilty.
“Huh? Save my brother and my father?” Sam was instantly stunned, his pupils contracting sharply. He subconsciously took half a step back, his hand secretly reaching for the dagger hidden at his lower back: “How do you know about this?! I only told Ian Kent about this! Who are you?!”
He was already beginning to suspect this tall, thin boy was a minion of a demon.
“Well…”
The tall, thin boy became even more embarrassed.
He hesitated for a moment.
Finally, he opened his mouth to introduce himself.
“I am Ian Kent! It’s just that my magic has had a small problem! Temporarily… temporarily turned into this!” He tried his best to make his tone more affirmative.
The acting skills he had recently learned were now coming in handy.
Sam narrowed his eyes, carefully observing this “Ian”.
Suddenly.
He seemed to realize something.
“Damn it! Motherfucker! You’re Ian’s second brother, right! Jordan Kent!” Sam remembered what Ian had said before, so his mind was working quickly.
He was just about to complain that Ian wasn’t playing fair.
Jordan, who had failed to impersonate Ian, instantly turned bright red, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and hurriedly denied: “No, I’m Ian Kent!”
“You… can’t you be so stubborn! Come with me!” He was indeed refusing to admit defeat, but his frantic attempts to change the subject were clearly unconvincing.
“If you call me Ian a few more times, won’t I be Ian? A name is just a designation, you can call me Ian, he can too, and of course, I can.”
Jordan pointed to the people on the road, elevating the issue to a philosophical level. There was no other way; he could only be stubborn. The second-generation Superman couldn’t be soft-mouthed at all.
He thought of the adventure Ian had taken ten thousand words to explain, which was how he had risked his life to secretly get color copies of those ten out-of-print magazines from the President’s Library.
“Let’s go! If we don’t go soon, your father and your brother will reincarnate as a pair of affectionate siblings.”
Jordan knew very well that he absolutely could not sell out his third brother, who might still be in the shower. He had to complete this order and business that Ian had painstakingly found for him.
“…” Sam looked at this boy who couldn’t even lie properly, and then thought of his unreliable younger brother, feeling a deep sense of powerlessness.
The future of this trip to Seattle was precarious.
