CHAPTER 45

In his rented apartment, Clark Kent, home from work, was carefully examining the contents of the "Dark Secrets Net."

Under the stimulation of that information, his nearly rusted super brain finally started working!

Super Brain: The best way to solve a problem is to eliminate the person who raised the problem. Quick, use your super strength, crush them!

Clark Kent: ......

This... is no different from not having it at all!

Just as he was thinking of a solution, "The Boys" on the webpage suddenly updated!

Its popularity instantly exploded, and it was pushed to the top. It was hard for Clark not to notice. Within a few minutes, people started commenting below.

[Hahahaha, Homelander is just a super big baby who loves drinking milk!]

[Aha bro, is it possible that Superman is also a big baby, hahaha, maybe he also likes drinking milk in his mom's arms hahahaha......]

[...]

Curious, Clark clicked on "The Boys" and looked at the content inside.

When he saw Homelander, he instantly felt his worldview take a hit. That Homelander, he truly deserved to die!

Let alone ordinary people, even Superman felt a murderous intent towards this Homelander. This person was truly too evil; he could kill without hesitation for the sake of fame.

However, his super brain, at some unknown point, activated again. Clark suddenly realized that the character the author had written seemed to be an insinuation about him. If he really behaved in the future as described in the novel, then wouldn't he also become a Homelander?

Hardened! Superman's fists hardened!

"...Don't let me find out who wrote this! Otherwise, I don't mind being Homelander for once!"

………………

A certain author.

Max, who had booked a room in a five-star Metropolis hotel to play on his computer, was currently typing furiously. He needed to vent his frustration about being tricked by himself.

The crackling electric arcs at his fingertips showed that he had already activated Electric Current Propulsion, relying on his enhanced fingers to type desperately.

As he was writing, his website's backend suddenly received an unknown message.

At first, he thought it was fans of "The Boys" adding him, but after seeing the LexCorp logo, he roughly guessed who it was.

"? No way, I was found so quickly?"

Max opened it to check. It was a letter of challenge, from the CEO of LexCorp—Lex Luthor—sent to him.

The content of the file was simple: [You think you can manipulate Superman? No! Only I can, you rat hiding in the gutter! Stop your肮脏 (filthy/dirty) methods, or you will become my enemy! An enemy of Metropolis's wealthiest tycoon! —Lex Luthor.]

"Tch, Lex Baldy is being protective of his 'food' again! It's not like I actually want to bring down Superman. Needless worry. This is all to temper him!"

Max's purpose in doing all this was singular!

To make Superman mature quickly. This young Superman was about to experience being rejected by all of humanity, so Max was giving him a drill beforehand.

This wasn't Max being alarmist. When he had transformed into Super Poopman, he had taken a glance towards the outer reaches of the solar system.

He had accidentally discovered a spaceship heading towards Earth.

...He then spent another minute carefully scanning it with his X-ray vision and found that there were roughly over a hundred Kryptonians on that spaceship.

Because they were too far from Earth, and because his transformation time was limited back then, Max hadn't dealt with them directly.

Therefore, in the not-too-distant future, Superman's Kryptonian identity would be exposed, leading to a crisis of trust with Earthlings. That's when he would be abandoned by everyone.

Max was just advancing this scenario, allowing Superman to see through human nature earlier. Even if a trust crisis occurred again in the future, he would have the experience to cope with it.

Clickety-clack... Max's fingers flew as he typed a reply to Lex:

[Listen up, you stupid baldy Lex, you have no idea how great I am! This world is ten thousand times more dangerous than your baldy head can imagine! Letting Superman face humanity's dark side earlier will better protect the world! —A handsome guy passing through Metropolis.]

When Lex Luthor saw this reply, he almost had a brain hemorrhage from anger. He unleashed a flurry of punches on his lab table, completely shattering the solid wooden table.

He swore he would make this guy who was "dancing in a minefield" (recklessly provoking him) understand LexCorp's methods!

Lex utilized all his connections to shut down this "Dark Secrets Net," and put the website's author on an underground bounty list. The goal: find him, dead or alive.

Lena Luthor was also investigating this person. Compared to the enraged Lex Luthor, she was actually more concerned about that sentence, "This world is ten thousand times more dangerous than your baldy head can imagine!"

What exactly did that person know? Why would he say that? And he seemed to know Lex very well, otherwise he wouldn't have used words that could provoke Lex.

"Such an interesting fellow!"

——————

Early the next morning, Superman was baffled.

He had suffered from insomnia yesterday and hadn't slept. He had spent the previous night checking various "Dark Secrets Net" sites.

However, just as he was toasting bread with his heat vision this morning, all of Superman's "dark secrets" had vanished!

When he wanted to eat and browse those websites, the "dark secrets" websites were gone!

Not just one or two, but all of them were gone. No matter how he searched, the websites that previously had pop-ups were all gone.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Clark frowned; he sensed something was amiss.

He immediately opened other web forums, but unexpectedly, the forums were uniformly filled with praise for Superman.

And strangely, he still saw comments cursing Superman appearing online, but they would disappear in the next second.

Someone was controlling the comments!

"Something definitely happened!"

He expanded his super-hearing, filtering out miscellaneous information. He felt that today's calls for help had far fewer familiar voices and many more unfamiliar ones.

[Don't come over!!! ...Superman, save me! Ah!]

[I'll never dare again! No, spare me, Superman, save me!!!]

[Don't shoot, I agreed to help you! Ah...! Fuck, you actually shot!]

There were gunshots, and people calling for help!

Clark Kent ripped off his pajamas, put on his battlesuit. Superman appeared once again, flying towards the distress calls at lightning speed.

...……………………

In an office building several kilometers away, a group of gang members was forcing a group of "water army" (paid online commenters) to work.

Lex Luthor had issued a bounty yesterday, inviting all gangs to participate, and there was no limit on the number of participants.

Therefore, relying on the sheer number of people, he was able to delete all of Superman's "dark secrets" within a short hour and reverse his public image.

However, Metropolis's low-level gangs, well, not many of them had brains.

They only knew that praising Superman online could earn them money. But their general level of education was not high. If they were to do the praising, it would most likely be: "Superman is so motherfucking cool!" or "Yeah~ Superman is damn fucking awesome!"

So, an "idea king" in one of the gangs came up with a plan: kidnap a newspaper office building and make those reporters, who were accustomed to flattering people all day long, write for them, to help them earn money!

When the gang boss heard it, "Holy crap, what a great idea!" So, it was implemented.

The effect was also very potent. Reporters were indeed different from these poorly educated types; their praises flowed endlessly!

See, that's what you call professional!

But there would always be exceptions. The situation in the newspaper office building that Superman had heard just now was an exception.

Strangely enough, perhaps because they were used to being arrogant as reporters, coupled with Superman's consistently timely rescues, it led them to misjudge their own strength when facing those low-level gang members.

They actually wanted to resist! Holy crap, wanting to take on these armed gang thugs barehanded.

Then, times changed. The gang thugs let a few of the loudest reporters "eat" a few "iron peanuts" (bullets).

After taking a few shots to the thigh, the reporters' eyes instantly cleared. Damn, so ruthless! Where's Superman? Save us!

That's where the earlier calls for help came from.

…………

Bang!

The glass of the floor-to-ceiling window shattered, sending fragments scattering everywhere.

Superman burst in through the window. Seeing more than a dozen gang members holding guns and forcing those reporters to type, he spoke:

"Surrender, or I'll wrap you up and send you to the police station."

Something strange happened.

Those gang members weren't afraid of Superman at all; instead, their faces were wreathed in smiles.

One of them even enthusiastically pulled Superman to an office desk, pointed at the praises on the forum, and said proudly:

"Superman, how are these praises? Hehehe, don't worry, with us helping you control public opinion, we definitely won't let you down!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the faces of all the reporters present changed!

What? The mastermind behind this incident, could it be Superman!

Inexplicably having the blame pinned on him, Superman waved his hands frantically, hastily clarifying, "No no no, I don't know anything about this!"

"What exactly is going on here? Why are you holding reporters hostage to help you spam forums? And, why are you spamming comments praising me? What is all this for?"

"You don't know?" The gang member who had led Superman over said with a puzzled expression, "Some crazy rich guy issued a bounty. As long as we help you revise comments, it's ten comments for one dollar! And there's no upper limit on the exchange. Hahaha, we can earn money off him until he goes bankrupt!"

Hearing this, Superman was baffled. A confused sound escaped his lips: "Why?"

..."What why? Oh, you mean why we're doing this. Hey, what idiot would pass up money? Right?"

"Hahahaha, bro is so right!"

"Hahaha..."

Clark was silent for a moment, then asked:

"Then... can you tell me who issued the bounty mission? I need him to stop this."

"No way, we're very loyal!" a gang member said stubbornly, though he actually just didn't want to stop earning money so soon.

Superman suddenly put on a smile like Homelander's. His eyes began to glow red. The expression of a red-eyed fake smile made the stubborn guy's hair stand on end!

He raised his hands, trembling all over as he said:

"OKOK, stop quickly! I don't want to be headshot by heat vision."

"This is a hunter website. We're only responsible for doing the work. Other than that, we don't know anything!"

Superman blinked his reddened eyes, and the heat vision deactivated. He inwardly praised how useful this trick was; no wonder Homelander liked using it to scare people!

He couldn't let these gang members go either. With a flash of his figure, thirty-six gang members were tied up by him with ropes.

He looked around and found a few who had been shot. Just as he was about to go over and help, he noticed their expressions were filled with fear when they looked at him.

Superman smiled helplessly: "This really has nothing to do with me! Although the bullets didn't hit your internal organs, you should still go to the hospital to get them removed as soon as possible."

After speaking, he flew out through the window.

………………

While Superman was busy saving people everywhere...

Lex Luthor was desperately searching for that fellow who had mocked his baldness.

The supercomputer at the corporate headquarters had all its processing power utilized, yet it still couldn't find the other party, as if the other party also had a supercomputer!

Lena Luthor was watching from the side. Stupid Lex had diverted the supercomputer's processing power, causing the entire company to behave as if it had crashed. The system was running slowly, making it completely impossible to work normally.

"Lex, haven't you found him yet?"

"Almost. The other party is like an eel, slipping and sliding around."

The bald head was already reflecting light; it was the reflection of being covered in sweat!

"Why don't you just give up, Lex? If you keep this up, the company is going to grind to a halt!"

"No, I absolutely must find that guy who mocked my baldness, and then I'll pull out all his hair! Don't worry, I created this problem myself; I won't blame it on you!"

Lex Luthor thought Lena was worried about the company facing problems and being forced to take the blame, so he consoled her.

"Hmm, I'm not stupid enough to take the blame for this myself. What I want to remind you is, is it possible that this guy you're looking for is part of the group that uses that hourglass symbol?"

"Look, even with the company's supercomputer, you haven't found his location. Maybe his team has supercomputer assistance!"

"That's right! This makes perfect sense! I didn't expect there to be someone as genius as me!"

LexCorp's supercomputer was independently completed by Lex Luthor. He knew very well how powerful the supercomputer he had built was.

The person on the other side, no, it should be a team. That team on the other side could compete with him on the network neck and neck, which meant their technological strength was definitely very high!

He then thought of that super-fast bird and Super Poopman. It suddenly felt reasonable; the other side had supercomputer assistance, which was why they could quickly analyze and research genes.

The opponent's danger level rose once again.

Moreover, Lex Luthor couldn't find the opponent's location in reality, nor could he catch the opponent's shadow online.

"Tsk, it seems I can only help General Lane first. And research Superman's genes."

………………

In the far reaches of space, a colossal interstellar warship was advancing.

This was originally a space prison ship. Later, with the help of General Zod and a group of surviving Kryptonian scientists, it was converted into a space warship.

Their current target was to head to a planet called Earth. There, lay the most precious treasure of their Kryptonian race, a treasure that could allow their entire race to continue to propagate—the Kryptonian Growth Codex.

That item had been hidden by Jor-El in his son, the naturally born child. No matter what the cost, General Zod would retrieve that item.