Chapter 60 Who Was Superman Again?

The next day.

Clark Kent opened his eyes in his apartment bed. A delayed wave of aftereffects suddenly began to assault his super brain. During the three minutes of stillness beneath the covers, he could feel goosebumps rising and falling across his arms. He uncontrollably recalled every single detail of his conversation with Elia, while his hyperactive brain cells clamored beneath his cerebral cortex:

How foolish!

How foolish!

What on earth were you doing yesterday, Clark Kent! You could clearly have spent those five hours, twenty-seven minutes, and sixteen seconds at Elia's house in a more ordinary, rational manner, but now even Ophelia has sensed something is wrong!

To look on the bright side, the girl merely suspected that Superman bore a grudge against Elia because of Gale—perhaps due to a lack of life experience, Ophelia mistook the undercurrents forcefully concealed by adults for hostility, thus feeling that they actually disliked each other, yet were forced to maintain a surface peace due to the presence of a minor.

All of this was asked by Ophelia to Elia before going to bed, and then relayed by Elia to Superman. She worried that Elia had to compromise with Superman in order to protect Intergang leader Gale... This line of thinking not only shocked Elia to the point that he couldn't help but communicate with Superman overnight, but it also deeply shocked Superman.

He stared at the private chat window for a long time, unable to figure out how to reply, other than to say that Ophelia's mental maturity truly far exceeded her peers and she was quite perceptive. But had she ever considered that sometimes a compromise might not take place on a bloody battlefield, but elsewhere, such as in unpredictable emotional tug-of-wars and—

Discovering that his thoughts were uncontrollably drifting into inappropriate territory, Clark gasped in the bathroom and plunged his head straight into the flowing tap water ahead.

Very well, the temperature had dropped, and reason had returned.

Clark, oh Clark, how could you make such a joke about your friend? Even if thoughts are innocent, a Kryptonian cannot, and at least should not, harbor such ideas.

He straightened his face in the mirror, looked at himself reproachfully, and incidentally splashed his burning ears with cold water. This was all his Soviet counterpart's fault—why would he harbor ulterior motives toward an upright companion... And he would certainly never follow in Red Son's footsteps.

Having built up his psychological defenses, Clark arrived at his company, the Daily Planet, as usual. The weather was clear, the sunlight was pleasant, and Clark walked over to his desk while silently reciting the periodic table of elements. Those complexly named elements whirled in his mind, successfully netting all those unruly thoughts like weeds. His old friend Lois Lane poked her head over from the side and waved at him: "Good morning, Clark!"

Clark instinctively revealed a smile much brighter than usual: "Good morning, Lois."

"Oh god, how can anyone be this happy at work?" Lois was dazzled by his smiling face, pulled her head back, and muttered, "Did he win the lottery?"

Clark hurriedly reined in his smile and defensively pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Even so, he was surprised to find that his mood was indeed better than usual. For some reason, he had an urge to hum a tune at this moment. Fortunately, the periodic table of elements was still taking effect... Humming an unknown melody as he recited up to the 68th element, his attention was caught by a letter starting with E, so he naturally took out his phone, opened the private chat window, and stared blankly at the chat history with Elia for a moment.

Lois turned her head back over, ghost-like, once again.

Clark quickly switched his phone screen to the browser's Wikipedia page. This was merely an instinctive action; in reality, he felt he had pretty much figured out the reason for his good mood. Therefore, when Lois asked, "What's wrong with you today?" he calmly replied:

"I made friends with someone I've always wanted to know."

Lois stared at him dumbfounded, wearing a哭笑不得 expression after a long moment: "Just because of... Sigh, you're right, it is indeed worth celebrating. I haven't had that feeling myself for many years."

To be precise, not since elementary school graduation.

Yet she could still recall how, many years ago, after 'going through untold hardships' to finally make a friend and exchange contact information, that heartfelt leap of joy—as if in the vast universe, a thread tightly connected her to another person. They breathed the same air under the same sky, held hands to feel the same heartbeat, shared each other's lives, hobbies, secrets, and joys and sorrows. The future before her eyes suddenly seemed to brighten; neither fear nor confusion existed anymore, because you knew you were not alone...

Beneath this vast starry sky, on this road of life full of unknown thorns, you are not lonely.

Perhaps gregarious intelligent creatures will always be touched by similar emotions.

However, that was elementary school.

Lois rested her chin in her hands and fell into deep thought: Was it really reasonable for an adult to invest enormous enthusiasm into making a new friend and feel happy as a result?

An all-employee email from her boss Perry interrupted her train of thought. As she read the content of the email, her eyes grew wider and wider. Upon finishing the last line, she could not help but excitedly pat Clark's shoulder: "Pal! Big news!"

Meanwhile, Clark was still looking at Wikipedia: "Element 68, Erbium, starting with the letter E, a rather chilly silver-gray metal, relatively stable in dry air, but its oxide is pink or red, which is quite cute—wait, why do I think a chemical element is cute... Uh, Lois? What did you just say?"

"Read the email!" Lois ignored whatever mumbling he was doing, shook his body hard, and said, "It's the trailer for the web series The Boys, co-produced by Amazon Studios and Galaxy Communications!"

**

Gale's exploratory venture unexpectedly secured massive funding and officially released its first trailer today. As an 'original' work that was neither adapted from a comic book nor considered a superhero fanfiction (he hardly dared call it fanfiction), the production team went to every length to grab eyeballs, trend on hot searches, and attract traffic.

What did they do?

They retold what was already in the script.

That explosive setup truly bore no close scrutiny. Even though he had already previewed the script ahead of time at Elia's house, Clark still found it breathtaking upon watching it for a second time, let alone other innocent viewers without the slightest bit of preparation. As screenshots and plot summaries went viral on the internet, a section of the people also noticed that the film was almost pointedly aiming at Lex Luthor, who was currently preparing to run for president, and thus quietly discussed in private:

Is Galaxy Communications about to launch a business war against LexCorp?

Real business war:
Complex maneuvering and psychological tactics, large-scale capital flows, frequent personnel changes (x)
The CEOs of two companies agreeing to a duel at the Colosseum (x)
Shooting a TV series portraying the rival company's boss as a villain and shaking everyone's souls with character designs (√)

An even smaller number of people knew more. They knew that Intergang stood behind Galaxy Communications; even though Morgan Edge had now retreated to the second line, this enterprise still had intricate ties with the mafia. As for Lex Luthor... He was the darkest shadow bred by the dazzling city of Metropolis.

In the TV series, 'Homelander' Joseph Trump both thrived in the political arena and possessed billions of wealth, enough to create and control an entire superhero team.

In reality, every election cycle, Lex Luthor was only a step away from entering the White House, while simultaneously controlling LexCorp and secretly funding a certain super-villain team.

Putting the spoof parts aside, didn't this just match up?

However, the 'Homelander' in the TV series gave birth to a child for the Joker... ah bah, 'Poker Face'. In reality, hadn't heard of Luthor engaging in human experimentation and gene synthesis. Was Intergang trying to splash dirty water on a peer, or did the mafia possess their own intelligence channels?

For a time, even the FBI couldn't sit still anymore. The trailer, lasting only a few minutes, appeared on the desks of various high-ranking officials overnight. With subtle expressions and throbbing temples, they watched the video over and over again, wishing they could take a magnifying glass to analyze every detail and 'metaphor' within it. As for the mental pollution suffered during the process... it could probably be counted as a work-related injury.

Gale hadn't expected things to turn out this way. He had indeed prepared many contingency plans for a war with LexCorp in advance, but he underestimated the masses' associative capacity. It seemed that in just a single morning, everyone's focus was no longer on the love-hate relationships of the characters in the show, but rather—did Luthor actually create a person? Who was it created for? It couldn't really be the Joker, could it?

How could gossip in the virtual world compare in excitement to the gossip of real-life rich people.

The Joker, trapped in Arkham and unable to get out, farmed by hell demons as a fixed-location boss:?

The well-informed demons of that day looked at him with strange expressions, their gazes occasionally drifting toward his lower half, clearly brewing some dirty thoughts that would incur God's sanction.

The demons had not given up on completing the contract and achieving ultimate freedom. The unkillable sacrificial lamb, the Joker, had become the biggest obstacle on their path to freedom, which was why Arkham had seen no peace inside these past few days, virtually transforming into an insurmountable human-world dungeon instance:

"Party up, party up! Still fighting the Joker, need a sniper and a healer!"
"Boss has appeared in the cafeteria! Demons who can use poison, hurry over!"
"Latest dungeon raid guide: Lex Luthor may become the breakthrough point. Brothers, is anyone willing to cos Luthor and test the waters? The sacrifice isn't big, you just need to shave your head."
"Luthor's cosplay outfit is ready... Recruiting a succubus with the courage to shave her head!"

The guards didn't even dare to walk into the prisoner area, feeling that every day's experience of going to work was becoming increasingly surreal. If not for Old Man Wayne's high salary, they genuinely couldn't go on living like this.

LexCorp presented a completely different scene.

The more familiar one was with Luthor's temperament, the more tight-lipped and terrified they were, not daring to mention the promotional video in the slightest. Lex Luthor himself seemed unaffected, merely sitting as usual before the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, gazing into the distance with an inscrutable expression.

A little later, he suddenly spoke, murmuring to himself: "Superman didn't appear today."

That powerful, narcissistic, disgraceful alien had finally found something more worth doing than flying around in the sky, filling the inner void with human admiration and reverence?

How could that be.

Heaven was being far too generous to Superman.

Luthor clenched his teeth and remained silent for a moment before calling his secretary and saying, "Let's go, let's go see our 'Experiment Subject Thirteen'."

The secretary was startled and instinctively asked, "At a time like this?"

Luthor glanced at her and coldly asked, "At a time like this'—what kind of time is this?"