Stars flickered occasionally in the darkness.
A lucid dream?
“Haaah…
haaah…”
An air current rolled out from the depths of the darkness as a silver-white lion stepped out from the void.
Light specs scattered beneath its paw pads, and the mane around its neck shone like gilded gold.
Did his movie set cross over into The Chronicles of Narnia again?
Just as Ariel’s eye twitched, the lion opened its blood-red maw and roared as it lunged forward.
The moonlight was cold.
“Clark?!”
Drenched in sweat, Ariel sat straight up, shouting out suddenly.
“What…
are you trying to steal my taco, Ariel…?”
Gibberish-like sleep talking answered him.
“Stop sleeping, you idiot,” Ariel said, annoyed.
“Your corn cob was hit by cosmic rays and mutated into Red King.
Ultraman is fighting monsters on the Smallville farm right now.”
“Then remember to put extra cumin on the corn cob…”
Grumble!
His stomach let out an unyielding growl.
Ariel turned his head to look at the thick night outside the window.
No sun meant no photosynthesis, and without photosynthesis, he naturally couldn’t live on air alone.
So he decided to go downstairs to seek the comfort of a late-night snack.
It was just a nightmare.
Even if a talking lion really jumped out of the wardrobe right now to tell him to save the world, or even if Darkseid were to descend upon Earth in three hours, it would still have to wait until he went downstairs to find some blueberry pie in the fridge to fill his stomach first.
In Smallville’s night, the wind blew through the wheat waves, carrying the sweet scent of crops.
The small village was quiet and peaceful, with the only danger being the occasional rustling sound coming from inside the kitchen.
Did mice get into the farm?
Frowning, Ariel went downstairs in the dark.
Yet, in the shadow where moonlight and cold light intertwined in front of the refrigerator door, a blonde figure squatted.
The girl was grabbing blueberry pie with her hands and stuffing it recklessly into her mouth.
Purplish-red jam residue smeared all over her hands, paired with the pale cold light, making the scene look somewhat eerie.
Clack.
Ariel accidentally bumped into the dining table.
Two piercing sparks ignited in the girl’s eyes.
Is the inherently evil Homelander about to kill me right now?!
Ariel was thoroughly shocked in his heart and immediately wanted to shout “Clark save me!”, but after seeing the girl’s left hand, which was holding the blueberry pie, still stuffing it into her mouth without stopping for a single second, he couldn’t help but shut his mouth.
Speaking of which…
At the dinner table in the evening, this girl had been eating blueberry pie the entire time, seeming to have an unusual obsession with sweets.
Ariel couldn’t help but laugh out loud, the tension in his heart dissipating quite a bit.
Treading lightly to avoid her heat vision, he opened the refrigerator door, took out a carton of milk, poured it into a glass, bent down, and slid the milk in front of the girl’s curled toes.
“The food is cold.
Do you need me to heat it up for you, my dear cousin?” he asked like a gentleman.
“Food is often cold.”
These were the first words the girl said to Ariel, but they left Ariel not knowing how to respond.
Staring at the milk for a moment, perhaps because the cold blueberry pie was too dry, Joanna couldn’t help but reach out her small, jam-covered hand, tentatively picking up the glass and bringing it to her lips.
Gulp, gulp.
Her eyes lit up, as if confirming that the milk posed no threat, so she picked up the scraps on the plate and resumed gnawing on them.
Ariel scratched his head, looking at the girl’s slightly messy blonde hair under the moonlight, an inner battle waging in his heart.
Go ask out a little monster?
That doesn’t fit his survival philosophy of staying alive in a chaotic world until he becomes as famous as Superman…
But when he thought of King Hyperion…
Eternals physiology, absorbing cosmic radiation, having zero Kryptonite weakness.
Ariel steeled his heart.
“Joanna…” He tried hard to squeeze out a bright, cheerful smile.
“Can I be your friend?”
Silence fell over the kitchen.
The blueberry pie was slowly placed back onto the plate.
The girl, with jam still stuck to the corner of her mouth, raised her head and stared blankly at Ariel.
She stared at him for a long while before walking out of the kitchen silently like a ghost with her two small, bare feet covered in dust.
Leaving Ariel sitting alone on the floor.
There was still no system notification sound in his ears.
Did he just get rejected?
Rubbing his slightly chilly arms, Ariel resignedly picked up a piece of blueberry pie stained with the girl’s drool, stuffed it into his mouth, and chugged down the remaining half-glass of milk in one go.
This craft of asking someone out…
Sure enough, not just anyone can pull it off.
Early morning.
Martha dried her hands on her apron.
Taking advantage of a moment of free time, the housewife devoutly opened a small booklet.
“The Lord will roar like a lion, and they will follow him.
When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west…
until the young lion and the calf and the fattened beast lie down together…
and a little child shall lead them.”
“Amen.”
“Uh…
Mom?” Passing by with a glass of milk, the sunlight fell on Clark’s black curly hair, glowing with a bright, carefree light.
“What do those words mean?
Why would a lion hang out with little kids?
Won’t it eat people?”
“The lion in the Bible has many faces,” Martha said with a gentle laugh.
“Sometimes it represents God’s strength and protection; sometimes it represents judgment.
But look at the most beautiful part of this passage: one day, the lion’s strength will no longer be used to harm anyone, and even a little child can lead them.”
Clark nodded, half-understanding.
At the other end of the long dining table, Ariel was chugging milk down his throat when the word lion made the mammoth creature composed of shadow and gold from last night’s dream flash through his mind.
The roaring echoed in his ears.
Pfft…
Ariel forcibly suppressed the milk back behind his teeth.
He raised his eyelids.
Sitting neatly across the long table was Joanna.
The girl wasn’t eating anything; she was just staring at him without blinking.
Swallowing the milk back down, tears welled up at the corners of Ariel’s eyes from holding it in.
What a joke.
If a mouthful of milk were sprayed onto this young lady’s face, there would be no need to wait for the lion in his dream to judge him—her heat vision would definitely make his head explode on the spot.
Afternoon in Kansas.
Corn leaves swayed with the wind.
Uncle Ben had left silently, just as he had stepped off the car last night.
Only a note was left on the table.
“Don’t apply your damn rules to her, you fucking redneck.”
It successfully made Jonathan, a strong man who usually ate five eggs for breakfast, put his fork down heavily after his third egg today.
One could imagine how much anger the old farmer was suppressing.
Even to avoid harming the innocent, the old farmer waved his hand with restraint, driving both Clark and Ariel—who were rotting with boredom during summer break—out to the cornfield to clean up the mess left behind from yesterday’s battle.
“Ariel…
Clark!”
Martha came over, leading Joanna by the hand.
Ariel was dragging a fallen cornstalk when he caught sight of the two figures, one tall and one short, out of the corner of his eye.
The girl was wearing a white cotton dress that Martha had apparently just bought from town this morning, with the hem falling just past her knees.
Heaven knew how Mom Martha had managed to tame this little kitten.
“Take good care of your cousin.”
“Don’t pick on her.”
The farmwoman’s voice was gentle.
Ariel lay sprawled in the shade of a tree, enjoying the sunlight filtering through the gaps between the leaves, while Clark darted around under the sun, throwing dead cornstalks that couldn’t be saved into a wheelbarrow to feed to the pigs.
And then…
“Ariel…
I…”
Clark leaned over.
“Get lost and pull weeds,” Ariel said without even opening his eyes.
“Oh.”
Clark obediently went back and pulled a weed.
A moment later…
“Ariel…”
“How is it going?” Ariel suddenly interrupted him.
“How is what going?”
“Hmm?”
Clark froze for a second, and then his eyes lit up as a cunning arc curled at the corner of his mouth.
“The pumpkin is growing great, of course!
Yesterday, Pete, Chloe, and I went over to…”
“Mmmph—!”
Ariel sat up abruptly, clapping a hand over Clark’s mouth.
“You big mouth, why are you bringing people to see it indiscriminately?!” he warned through gritted teeth.
“Don’t let Dad find out under any circumstances.”
Clark pressed his lips into a straight line and nodded solemnly.
Ariel released his grip and let out a long breath.
This was a pumpkin tied to the life and death of the Kent family.
The Smallville Harvest Festival Pumpkin Contest could be considered the Olympics for these Kansas farmers.
Jonathan Kent had lost this event for four consecutive years.
Every autumn, the old man looked at the list of past Pumpkin Kings on the stone monument, his sighs more despairing than a tractor leaking oil…
To save his adoptive father’s shattered dignity, and to allow this family to continue laying low peacefully, Ariel had used all the agricultural videos and fertilizer ratios he had watched in his past life, combined with pure blind luck, applying them all to an abandoned plot of land at the edge of the farm…
It had taken a full year until this summer, when he and Clark finally nurtured a green monster in the mud whose size defied biology, serving as the ultimate weapon for the Kent family to reclaim its glory.
“Since you’ve got nothing better to do, go carry the pumpkin out to sunbathe right now.”
“Yes!
Officer Ariel!”
Clark snapped his heels together and put on a mock military salute.
Then he turned around, raising a trail of golden dust, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Ariel leaned back against the tree trunk, tugging at his collar to fan himself.
With this hyperactive child sent away, the world was finally quiet.
Though come to think of it…
Taking care of kids was actually pretty easy, as long as you knew how to redirect their restless energy—
A cold gaze landed on the side of his face.
Ariel’s movements froze, and he turned his head mechanically.
At the boundary between the shade and the scorching sun.
The girl in the white dress stood there, staring at him sullenly.
She looked ready to snitch at any second.
“Caw—!”
A cicada that didn’t know any better let out a chirp.
A moment later.
Ariel was bending over alone, dragging the fallen cornstalks out one by one and stacking them along the field ridge.
Even though his Kryptonian template unlock percentage was only a tiny bit, as long as he was under the sunlight, as long as photons penetrated his skin, fusion would be triggered inside every cell, making him immune to fatigue.
As long as he was under the sun, even if he were made to plow this land all the way to the core of the Earth, he wouldn’t shed a single drop of sweat.
Yet this didn’t stop Ariel from feeling extremely bothered right now.
The first thing Uncle Ben did upon returning after thirty years away was dump a hot potato right onto their peaceful family…
The main problem was that his adoptive parents were complete pushovers, calmly accepting the fact that an unstable bomb had been added to their home…
And most importantly, early this morning, he had gone to the public library in town to look up information, using a dial-up computer to search for Vought.
The webpage loaded very slowly, but the pop-up results…
Vought International.
This universe wasn’t just one where the Justice Society used to exist; in this universe, capital stood behind the heroes to serve them.
Vought had originally been a company set up under government leadership to provide logistical support for the Justice Society.
And after the first generation of superheroes retired, it transformed into a pharmaceutical giant.
However, Ariel knew very well what this company was actually doing right now.
National defense, chemical engineering, Compound V, artificially creating metahumans.
What damn crossover universe was this supposed to be?!
Earth-616?!
Was that foul-mouthed Uncle Ben even reliable?!
He himself was an old Vought product.
Although he used the fake name Nied to bring Joanna here to hide, how long could that really fool anyone?
If Vought followed the scent and found them, the lighter scenario would be like how they raised Homelander’s son—they would realize that binding a god among men with love and family was ten thousand times more effective than a titanium alloy cage.
They would impatiently turn the Kent farm into a warm home, rendering all laughter and joy a hollow sham.
As for the heavier scenario…
CRACK.
A cornstalk snapped in Ariel’s palm, crushed into powder that sifted rapidly through his fingers.
If only he were a bit older, if only his unlock percentage were a bit higher.
Once he reached a critical threshold, let alone Vought International—even on this damn planet, those politicians and capital lords—whomever he wanted to shut up would have to shut their damn mouth…
Whatever he wanted to do, he would do…
BOOM—!
A dull rumble of thunder exploded overhead, like war drums beating above the cloud layer.
Ariel froze and raised his head.
Dark clouds were rolling in rapidly from the edge of the horizon.
Kansas weather was just like that…
Looking at the sky, Ariel then looked back at the full wheelbarrow behind him.
If he let rain hit this corn, Jonathan would definitely beat his ass black and blue, right?
Although, with his current body density, if a real fight broke out, the old farmer would probably break a bone first.
He sighed, patted the dust off his hands, and walked toward Joanna, who was sitting in the shade by the field embankment.
“Let’s go, my cute cousin.
It’s raining now; we should go home.” He extended a hand toward her, trying his best to sound like a normal eight-year-old brother.
Joanna didn’t move.
She sat there motionless.
“Hey…”
Feeling that something was off, Ariel went up and pulled her arm.
An electric reaction ensued.
The girl snapped her head up, two faint red sparks lighting up in her sky-blue eyes.
Ariel was startled and instinctively took half a step back.
No way, right?!
I just asked you to go home, and you’re going to cremate me on the spot?!
“Are you waiting for Mom?” Slowing his tone down cautiously, he reached out and pressed a hand against her shoulder.
“Mom is in the house.
We’ll see her once we go back…”
His words came to an abrupt halt…
Only now did Ariel realize the texture in his hand was wrong.
The girl was trembling, shivering violently.
“Hey!
Joanna!
What’s wrong with you?!”
Joanna remained deaf to his words, merely staring unblinkingly into the depths of the cornfield, hugging her knees and curling her body into a ball.
The sparks deep within her pupils flickered erratically between light and dark.
[Subject No.
001, today is for combat data collection.]
[Now let’s test your reaction speed.]
[My god!
This thing really is a monster—she killed a lion!]
“Li…
lion…” She quavered, speaking in a tremble.
“It’s a lion…”
“A lion?
What kind of li—”
“Rustle…
rustle…”
Ariel’s pupils shrank.
His ears caught an anomalous sound—right inside that cornfield rustling in the violent wind, there seemed to be something heavy crushing through the human-height cornstalks.
It was a massive silver silhouette, stepping its paw pads silently into reality.
A lion walked out from the shadows.
They were so identical.
Just like in his dream…
Muscles bulged beneath its silver-white fur, and golden light flowed through its mane.
Rain fell onto its body, evaporating into thin trails of white steam.
The lion raised its head.
RUMBLE—!
The vault of heaven shattered.
The first angry thunderbolt of the rainstorm rolled from east to west, overlapping with the lion’s roar!
The howling wind whipped up the muddy water on the ground, and Ariel felt his vision blur, leaving nothing in the world but a vast sheet of blinding white.