SUP Chapter 99: Change of Situation! Despicable Superman!
Added 2025-08-18 10:44:02 +0000 UTCThe kitchen filled with the aroma of baked bread and stewed beef.
Night was deepening but the Kent family's dinner was not going pleasantly.
It wasn't that Ian's second brother Jordan Kent was already implementing some plan more shocking than shocking itself, but Lois's anger tonight was definitely not just because of the suspicious Clark and the suspicious second son.
The main outbreak point of family conflicts came from Lois's father, also Ian's grandfather, General Sam Lane, who held certain power in this country.
Warm yellow light spilled onto the wooden dining table.
Clark, Lois, Jonathan, Jordan, and Ian sat around together, while at the head of the table, gray-haired Sam Lane was facing accusations from his own daughter.
"So, you've been studying him all along?" Lois's voice was kept very low, yet sharp as an ice pick, "Studying my husband? As if he were some kind of... test subject?"
Such questioning made General Sam's expression helpless. Clark sat beside him with a calm face, but his fingertips unconsciously rubbed the edge of his water glass, causing several tiny cracks to faintly appear on the glass wall.
But obviously very bothered. After all, according to Superman's control ability, he could easily catch a living mosquito in his hand and play with it repeatedly without damaging a single hair on the living mosquito.
Seeing this, old Sam quickly moved his chair closer to his daughter.
"Lucy, don't speculate about me like that. I'm not studying Clark." Sam Lane sighed, put down his dinner knife, and placed his hands folded on the table.
His gaze was steady yet carried a certain coldness unique to military men, "I'm doing this entirely to protect you and your husband, to protect this most special family on Earth."
The heartfelt words carried some seriousness.
"Protection? What kind of protection is this?" Lois sneered, "Secretly collecting his DNA, analyzing his weaknesses? Do you know what this sounds like?"
"This sounds like you're ready to kill my husband at any time! Maybe even my sons!" The hostess of this home sounded very annoyed, so the atmosphere at the dining table suddenly became tense.
Seeing this, big brother Jonathan tried to lighten the mood.
"So, am I the only one still shocked that my dad is actually Superman?" He looked toward Ian and Jordan, "It seems I'm the only one who was kept in the dark until tonight!"
His words immediately drew Jordan's response, both wanting to ease the family atmosphere.
"Actually, I only found out today that dad is Superman too. If I hadn't awakened abilities myself, I think they would have continued hiding it from me." Jordan showed a rather sentimental expression.
"Believe me, Jonathan, knowing is scarier than not knowing. I'm already starting to regret it." Jordan recalled the problem he suddenly realized during his routine business earlier.
If his old dad was Superman.
Then all along, wouldn't Clark know everything that happened in this house like the back of his hand?
Halfway through his routine business, using special methods to activate his incompletely developed super brain, Jordan was practically breaking out in cold sweat, very rarely becoming someone who gave up halfway.
"Sigh, indeed, after all I'm probably the only guy in this family who's just an ordinary person despite being Superman's son. I feel like I'm definitely going to be too upset to sleep tonight."
Jonathan kept picking at his food with his fork without eating, somewhat heavy-hearted as he sighed. Seeing this, Clark wanted to comfort his eldest son but didn't know how to speak.
His gaze showed some worry.
After all, he had seen many classmates in his childhood who developed psychological problems due to mental imbalance. Even classmates were like this, so Jonathan as the only ordinary person in the family would obviously be more prone to mental imbalance.
"Maybe I should see a psychologist too?" Jonathan noticed his father's gaze and gave his father a reassuring look, looking toward Ian with a slightly humorous expression.
"How about introducing me to your psychologist?"
He seemed quite optimistic, and also teased Ian a bit.
"I don't think that's a good idea. Dr. Hannibal is indeed very professionally capable, but if you trigger some of his mechanisms, the medicine he prescribes for you might only be rosemary, lemongrass, cinnamon powder, and chopped parsley." Ian secretly glanced at Clark, but Clark was just occasionally staring at grandfather.
He had no reaction to his words whatsoever.
"..."
Ian was somewhat confused. Logically, Hannibal's matter should be impossible to hide from his father. He sensed something was wrong, but couldn't activate his super brain for the moment.
"Your sense of humor is pretty strong too."
Jonathan thought Ian was also trying to lighten the mood like himself, "I still have to thank you for letting it slip, otherwise I wouldn't know when I'd become privy to this matter."
He looked at his mother with a somewhat resentful gaze.
"Don't blame your mom either, she was also considering that you're in a critical period of competition preparation." Clark quickly came out to smooth things over for Lois for family harmony.
Even temporarily putting aside the matter of Sam studying him.
"Don't worry, dad, my mentality isn't that fragile." Jonathan didn't really blame anyone, instead he spoke quite open-mindedly with a light laugh, "I'm an ordinary person, which at least lets me know that I really do have talent in football, rather than relying on super genes inherited from you?"
It must be said, Jonathan's self-adjustment ability might really be quite good.
"It's really great that you can think this way, dear." Lois quickly praised Jonathan, but because she was still in the midst of anger, she quickly changed expression to look at Ian.
"He better really have just let it slip!" Lois knew her youngest son too well, so she glared fiercely at Ian, but Ian pretended not to see and kept his head down eating.
How to put it, actually, his outstanding family wisdom wasn't without people who could understand it.
"Ian is what you call a truly smart person. Lucy, concealment isn't protection, that's harm." Old Sam, this convenient grandfather, gave Ian a thumbs-up in praise.
Old people become shrewd.
He indeed understood how to avoid real family conflicts.
"Shut up! I haven't settled accounts with you yet! Do you know what protection means? Don't study my husband and children! That's real protection for family!"
Because Sam spoke up, Lois became somewhat heated in her words again. The topic returned to the original issue, and Jonathan felt a sense of powerlessness at sacrificing himself for nothing.
"Grandfather indeed did wrong."
Jordan didn't know if he was fanning flames or mediating.
Ian continued eating in silence.
"My dear grandson, you can't learn your mother's immaturity. She should really think about it, even if I don't participate, won't national institutions want to study Superman?"
"Any country, any organization, any institution, as long as they have the opportunity, they would want to control the power your father possesses. No one can refuse such temptation of power."
"That's godlike great power. Whoever controls this power has the qualification to unify this world, even without me, the military and the nation would spare no effort in conducting research in this area."
General Sam seemed to be talking to Jordan, but actually these words were for Clark and Lois to hear, "Precisely because of this, I must position myself within it."
"Only this way can I protect you. I can know what progress similar research is making, what direction it's heading toward, and I can even interfere to a certain extent."
"This is much more beneficial for your special family than your mother's thinking of pretending everything is always fine and nothing will ever happen."
Old Sam spoke earnestly.
Jordan seemed to understand but not quite.
But these words weren't mainly for the three little ones in the family to hear. Whether he understood or not didn't matter, Clark's furrowed brow relaxing somewhat was the most important thing.
"Who knows if what you're saying is true? What if you also have ulterior motives." Lois's tone had softened considerably, but she still didn't quite trust her politician father.
"I don't deny that I'm a profit-seeking person, and I've always disliked alien species, but this doesn't mean I would harm my daughter and her family."
Old Sam seemed quite frank. He looked around at everyone at the dining table, even including Ian, because in the story he understood, Ian was born after Lois and Clark traveled for a year. The information Bruce Wayne had created was flawless, even the general couldn't find any loopholes.
"Really? I don't believe it."
Lois was extremely wary of her old father. After all, she had grown up by his side since childhood, which was also why she and Clark had to create perfect information for Ian back then.
"Lucy, when you reach my age you'll understand that the greatest benefit in this world is family inheritance and bloodline continuation, from all angles this is so."
"I dislike aliens, but that doesn't mean I dislike aliens who can make my descendants stand in the sky." Old Sam explained the contradictory psychology of vested interests from another angle.
"Grandfather, you really won't take us away for research?"
Jordan also had concerns in this regard.
"As long as I'm still here, that won't happen."
Old Sam responded seriously.
"I hope you remember your promise, Sam."
Clark also spoke up after a mental struggle. After all, he was the research subject being targeted, so naturally only he could make the final determination on this matter.
"Don't disappoint the children's trust."
This statement could be considered announcing that he wouldn't pursue the matter further. Clark also knew that secretly studying Kryptonian genes was definitely not something only the US government was doing.
Back then, quite a few Kryptonian corpses had mysteriously disappeared.
"Don't worry, in fact, if this little guy hadn't discovered this matter, I really didn't plan to let you know about the government's research. We did want to artificially create warriors comparable to you."
"However..." Seeing the atmosphere ease, Sam could finally start changing the subject. He took out a metal box, one that Ian found extremely familiar.
"Our experiments made no progress at all, and no finished products would leak outside." Saying this, Sam opened the metal box, revealing the empty interior space.
"Huh?"
Ian was somewhat surprised.
Clark's expression was also slightly surprised.
"What do you mean?"
He touched this box that Ian had abandoned at the scene where the dealers were tied up, asking, "Ian said he personally heard those people say they were military personnel."
As soon as these words came out.
Before others could react, Ian was already staring wide-eyed at Clark. He had caught Clark lying again, he had never said such things to Clark!
So, who exactly personally heard it!
"This is where the problem lies, someone is impersonating the military, trying to sell this kind of drug worldwide. However, it's not our military's research achievement."
Sam hesitated for a moment but still leaked the information, "In fact, even those people you caught didn't even know they weren't actually serving the military."
As soon as these words came out.
Ian was also somewhat confused.
Clark frowned even more.
"Lex Luthor."
He suddenly spoke, his gaze profound.
Perhaps it was special intuition, but the old father really guessed correctly. Sure enough, Sam slowly nodded, "When I investigated deeply, I did find that this batch of goods was related to Lex Luthor."
"From several batches of reagents we subsequently raided, those drugs contained quite a lot of blood products from Kryptonians. We currently have no way to determine whether that came from you."
Sam spoke in a deep voice, making Ian even more shocked.
He still remembered that those [Simulated Superman Drugs] were labeled as 100% free of Kryptonian genes.
Damn!
At this moment, Ian's thoughts were also spinning rapidly. He finally realized why the second place the Hellcat took him to was one of Luthor's suburban factories because the first raid site was too!
"Luthor did once collect some of my blood, but... you said every bottle contains quite a lot?" Clark looked at Ian then frowned at Sam again.
"Yes."
Sam nodded.
"The users didn't die?"
Clark's gaze flickered.
"The reason I can still sit here leisurely having dinner with you is naturally because those drugs were unsuccessful, the drugs we confiscated, without exception, could only be called failures."
"All users would die instantly. Obviously, it's not a successful product, so I think Lex Luthor hopes to cast a wide net to find a suitable user for the drug."
Sam didn't hide anything.
He revealed the official investigation results.
"Perhaps only a half-grown Kryptonian could still be lively after drinking those twelve bottles of drugs?" Saying this, Sam turned to look at Ian, Clark and Lois also looked over with strange expressions.
Jonathan and Jordan didn't know why this was, but to fit in, they immediately chose to follow the crowd. For a moment, everyone's gaze focused on Ian.
"It was clearly only ten bottles!"
Ian was stunned at first.
Then immediately gasped. He suspected that grandfather had spent too many years in the military, old habits die hard, and even used embezzlement tactics on his own descendant.
"Twelve bottles, those people have already confessed. Don't worry, I won't demand you spit them out. Keep this matter to yourself." Sam was very certain of his information source.
"But I really only drank ten bottles."
Ian felt quite wronged.
He and the people around him didn't notice.
A small cat that was trying to sneak into the dining room for food had now secretly retreated back to the living room.
It even found a dark corner to hide.
"Ian drank those terrible drugs that could kill people instantly?" Jordan and Jonathan only now realized what had happened. Not being great students, they just thought Ian was incredibly bold.
They all gathered around to check if Ian had mutated.
"Ian won't have problems, right?"
Lois was also very worried that Ian's pica would cause irreversible consequences.
"Well..."
Clark was just about to say something.
And at this moment, the truly super brain on Earth suddenly came into play. The inspiration from the Big Bang to Earth developing civilization all flashed in his mind at this moment.
Super intelligence! Activated!
"Hard to say."
Clark with a low voice silently came behind Ian.
"However, I think the reason he awakened Kryptonian abilities so quickly lies in this." The old father spoke seriously, gazing at his wife who had developed certain suspicions about him tonight.
His hands were now pressing on Ian's shoulders, and he emphasized the phrase "Kryptonian abilities," as if hinting at some information to Lois.
Lois was stunned at first, then she suddenly understood.
"..."
Ian didn't dare speak.
His old father's hands were large and warm.
He could feel it, the meaning of warning him to shut up was also very strong.