Chen Tao is watching TV.
A debate is a replay of last night. They often use these replays to fill the gap in the early morning when no one is watching.
The bright moon is high in the sky and the stars are bright at night, which is the time when Batman often appears. Chen Tao got up very early, it was still a long time before dawn, and the night still enveloped Gotham.
Last night, the long-silent criminal ban will be lifted, and the Gotham underworld, which has been holding back for almost three months, will set off a new carnival tonight.
But Chen Tao knew that they must be in for a...surprise.
A different Batman than before.
The sound on the TV was still going on.
"As a member of the earth, we have been looking for a savior. 90% of people believe in the power of God. Every religion believes in a savior. When such a savior truly comes to the earth, should we force him to abide by the law? Our rules? We have to understand this is a paradigm shift..."
"The existence of Superman makes the police and all human social organizations lose the meaning of existence. Let a powerful individual use his own will to reshape society and the country. Humanity has many unsavory histories in this regard..."
"Blindly following people with powerful abilities will eventually lead to serious disasters... Hiller? Napoleon? We always shape heroes in our own way and project ourselves onto him..."
"Seriously, what's the big deal about Superman solving everything? I don't know if you've ever lived in Gotham. In my opinion, Superman is a sunny version of Batman - have you ever heard of Batman?"
"But it's clear that Batman can't bring down Gotham's entire criminal enterprise in one night."
"But now I can."
Chen Tao whispered to himself.
He chuckled and continued watching. People on TV were arguing.
"Maybe Batman is a vampire, a night spirit, but he's still a human being, right? I've been reading Gotham newspapers from recent years, and Batman has shown more than once that he can get hurt."
"But Superman? Haha, I mean-"
"He is a god walking on earth!"
"But people aren't supposed to be saved by gods. Heck, you can't always expect a superman to come down from the sky and save you in times of danger! You know about suicide slums?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I should say the official name of the place: Hobe Sound. Recently, there was a crazy woman who became famous there. She deliberately rushed to the place where gangs were fighting, and she also established a [Superhuman Angel Society] ], in my opinion, there is no difference from the previous cult [Superman Almighty Cult]! Don’t you know what the fanatical Superman fans of [Superman Almighty Cult] did?
"They attack everyone who openly criticizes Superman, just like the Hiller Youth League!"
"But Superman personally arrested every member of that cult. Fan behavior should not rise to the level of an idol!"
"Yes, that's right. Superman arrested those crazy fans just because Superman wanted to take care of them. But what will happen if one day he doesn't want to take care of his fanatical bastards anymore?"
"Oh, by the way, you should know that those arrested members now hate Superman. As much as they believed in Superman before, they hate Superman now."
"Did you watch the news? Do you remember how hysterical that blonde woman named Kelly screamed when she was arrested?"
"She had organized anti-government demonstrations before and asked why Superman didn't come to rule us. She was probably the first and most ardent Superman fan, and almost developed into a cultist, but in the end this was the result - this is completely The consequences of relying on Superman!”
"I bet that the old woman Sefna famous in the Suicide Slums and her superhuman Angels will end up like this -"
The opposing debater gave the affirmative no chance to speak at all:
"I'm going to quote a very famous entrepreneur here, Mr. Lex Luthor:"
"Superman seems to be very friendly now, but this kind of friendliness is nothing more than 'a little boy saw the ant and thought it was cute, so he took good care of it.' And even if Superman can be friendly for a lifetime, he will always die one day."
"If the police and firefighter systems are ruined, who will save us when Superman dies?"
"That's enough. You've said so much. Do you mean that Superman should stop here? You can preach to me loudly here at any time, but I want to ask you, do you have the guts to say it in front of your parents who are immersed in grief? 'Superman could have saved your child, but as a matter of principle we don't want to let him go.'?"
The debate was directly destroyed by the irrational and unreasonable moral dilemma of dimensionality reduction.
Chen Tao shook his head.
There is nothing interesting to see in the back.
But before he was about to get up and turn off the TV, he still heard the opposition debater's struggle:
"Superman cannot save everyone, nor can he save forever. One day, this big blue boy scout will find that everything he has done is in vain. After he leaves, evil will still exist, and there will be no His changes, and even his sweeping measures, have caused the power of justice to fade away, causing greater damage and imbalance!"
"In the face of the chaos of reality, everything Superman does is in vain and will be in vain!"
"In vain!"
The debater's final conclusion echoed in his mind.
Chen Tao suddenly had no interest in turning off the TV. He didn't want to do anything now, he just sat on the sofa in a daze.
But soon his cell phone rang, and a monitoring program sent a reminder.
Chen Tao walked to the window and saw Clark wearing a Batman uniform flying from a distance.
"No need for the hook gun?" Chen Tao asked him.
Clark turned his head guiltily.
Although he learned how to use the hook gun, it was too slow and he didn't use it in the end.
Superman confused the topic, and then said: "Tonight, I have prevented more than 6,000 illegal incidents, including but not limited to smuggling, drug trafficking, forced selling, human trafficking, and violent debt collection. I can solve it in one night. ”
He took out a crowbar from his back that had obviously been bent with force and then straightened by force.
"You're right. There are too many criminals and we can't send them all to prison. So I finally listened to you and used bat-style treatment."
Clark said dullly: "But it would be too cruel to break all the limbs, so I only broke their legs."
Chen Tao knew that the bone-setter might be busy breaking legs tomorrow, and the stretchers and crutches at Wayne Group's medical supplies store would be sold out.
Fortunately, he asked the medical supply store to prepare the goods in advance, and he also bought all the goods for the other party a day in advance.
"There are too many criminals." Clark repeated dully, and then said:
"The things you did were also very cruel, much more cruel than those in Metropolis. It's hard for me to imagine that you have been fighting against these bad guys. Batman, you are an amazing person."
But there are still so many criminals committing crimes.
Chen Tao's mind inexplicably recalled what the opposing debater said.
"Everything you do is in vain!"
He shook his head, forcing the other person's voice out of his mind.
Who cares, the real Batman’s superhero rescue plan for so many years has failed, what does it have to do with me as a time traveler?
And I'm retiring.
Without the constraints of the Court of Owls, Gotham's transformation plan should be able to proceed smoothly.
Clark saw the image on television.
"Ah, it's that show."
Clark stared blankly at the screen. Chen Tao knew that the recent incidents involving some fanatical admirers had somewhat affected the mind of this farm boy from Kansas.
"Mr. Wayne?"
"uh-huh?"
"Sometimes... I always feel that Superman does not exist. I always feel that Superman is just a dream of a farmer in Kansas, and I don't know when he will wake up."
His voice was a little deep.
Chen Tao patted him on the shoulder:
"But your dream still inspires countless people. That farmer's dream means the whole world to some people and is their only source of hope. After all-"
"You are superman!"
As the first rays of morning light fell on Clark Kent, our Kansas boy took off his black Batman suit and donned a red and blue tights again.
The S on his chest shimmered dazzlingly under the sunlight, reflecting on his melancholic face that was as chiselled as an ancient Greek demigod.
"There are meteorites falling towards the Earth."
He levitated, raised his head, and his eyes glowed with white light.
"The landing points are Sydney and Seoul."
Chen Tao knew that he must have seen through countless fogs in the world and reached the world that needed him most.
"Go save the Earth again, Clark."
Chen Tao said: "Fly, Clark! Fly!"
…
…
…
"For God's sake! It's sheer blasphemy that you're trading drugs and people here!"
The gang gunman felt numb all over when he looked at the old woman who broke into the transaction scene.
In order to prevent being caught by this old woman and attracting Superman again, they have changed the trading time from night to early morning when normal people should go to bed!
But why can this old woman still find them? !
The gangster gunman scratched his head frantically:
"How the hell did you find this place?"
"Justice never sleeps, evildoer!"
The old woman rushed to him righteously: "I will monitor you 24 hours a day!"
The gunmen from the International Gang felt they couldn't stand it anymore.
He raised his gun: "That's enough, you bastard!"
He said with grief and anger: "You have already sent more than a dozen people from our gang in!"
Sefna was not afraid at all.
She deliberately walked in front of the other party, surrounded by more than a dozen gangsters, and stood swaggering in front of big bags of white powder and living products locked in cages.
Many of the kidnapped "commodities" are children. They looked at the old woman standing in front of them in horror.
The gangster gunman raised his pistol and pointed it at her thin, shaky body.
Sefna looked a little tired, but she still prayed in a loud voice: "In the name of God, the angels will punish you evildoers!"
Superman heard her.
Even though he is falling at several times the speed of sound.
He knew now he had to save Sevna, as he had done countless times before.
But now...he can't run away.
Two meteorites falling in different directions fell at the same time. He had just caught the one in Seoul and was now fighting the one in Sydney.
This meteorite was extremely large, much larger than he imagined. If it falls in a dense city, it may cause millions of casualties in an instant.
He had to go all out to change the trajectory of the meteorite's fall, and he couldn't even spare his hands to call Batman and ask Batman to rescue Sevna.
The timing was very unfortunate.
Very, very unfortunate.
Clark could hear the sound of bullets being chambered.
Even from that distance, his super hearing could hear the sound of the gun's firing pin hitting the gunpowder.
Click.
Sefna opened her hands and stood in front of the children and the prize.
Clang.
boom!
…
…
…
"I'm very sorry."
Clark said to Chen Tao.
They stood at the door of the hospital ward.
Superman, who had a body of steel, stopped. Chen Tao accompanied him.
"Maybe she will hate me like Kelly, the one taught by Superman before."
Clark said to Chen Tao: "She might resent me for not being able to save her in time."
"No." Chen Tao said.
But this is obviously not convincing.
Clark was a bit nagging.
He held flowers for visiting patients and wandered in the corridor of the hospital:
"Maybe the debater was right. Yeah, I finished watching that debate a long time ago."
"My efforts were ultimately in vain," Clark said.
"Maybe in the end I just failed the police and firefighters, and ultimately nothing changed."
"Maybe the world doesn't need super-"
"What nonsense are you talking about!"
Chen Tao interrupted him: "You are a superman."
He said: "Let's go, you will have to face this."
They pushed open the door to Sefna's ward.
The old woman was lying on the hospital bed, her skinny body covered with tubes and wearing a ventilator.
"I...I'm sorry, a meteorite was falling at that time, and I had to..."
Superman was a little helpless and placed the flowers on the table next to the old woman.
"No, it's not your fault, angel." Then he heard the old woman's faint voice: "God heard my prayer, so he sent you to me -"
"But angels don't always come. I mistakenly regarded the angel's power as my own, which is why I suffered such a bad luck. This is not your fault, angel. You don't need to blame yourself for this at all. "
The most heartbreaking situation did not happen, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief. He paused and continued:
"I'm really sorry. I swear to you, Sefna, those who hurt you, I will arrest them immediately."
But his words were met with only a smile from the old woman.
"No, no need."
"What?"
Clark was startled.
"Our angel, didn't you watch the news?"
Chen Tao controlled the TV to turn on and found the latest announcement on it:
"The cruel, cold-blooded, heartless and heinous shooting of Ms. Sefna has completely ignited public outrage among the people of the Suicide Slum. In the past few weeks, this woman who bravely said no to evil has won the respect of all citizens .”
"Although she was powerless, her heroic actions inspired every citizen who was troubled by gangs."
"The orphanage and the Superman Angel Society she founded have helped hundreds of people in need..."
"The anger of hundreds of thousands of people instantly tore the International Gang apart. Before the police arrived at the scene, the gang members were overwhelmed by the angry citizens..."
Sevna's eyes were full of infinite tenderness, and she looked at Superman with reverence.
"Angel, this is your strength. Gentle, kind, and inspiring. Even though you can't be by my side all the time, you still saved me because--"
"You are Superman!"
(End of chapter)
