OBS Chapter 4341 Body of Steel (46)
Chapter 4341 Body of Steel (46)
Chapter 4341 Body of Steel (Forty-Six)
"Ding-a-ling, jingle-a-ling."
The alarm clock on the bedside table rang. Clark sat up in bed, yawned, threw the covers aside, and reached out to turn off the alarm.
He instinctively reached for his phone. But when he turned it on, the screen was filled with emails and message notifications. Clark slapped his forehead: "Damn it!"
He unlocked his phone and opened the news app. Sure enough, the headline read: "Earth's hero Superman isn't actually from Earth?!"
Clark felt his breath catch in his throat. His chest began to ache. Although he had expected it, he still couldn't help feeling disheartened and frustrated when the news was actually released.
Why? He grew up on Earth, received his education on Earth, and has never been to another planet. Why can't he be an Earthling?
Why is it that even though he fought bravely and saved so many people, people only care about which planet he was born on?
Clark scrolled down the news page. He didn't even dare to look at the content, and went straight to the comments section. There were probably over 700 comments there. He only glanced at them briefly, but he already saw many unfriendly words.
And unsurprisingly, many people attributed the previous battles between monsters and Superman to an alien civil war, believing that humans and the military were the complete victims, and kept hurling insults and complaints in the comments.
In fact, they hate Superman more than the monster, because they feel that Superman deceived them. He is clearly an alien monster who tries to portray himself as a hero, and is just a clown trying to attract attention.
Many people might find this statement unbelievable, after all, Superman has saved so many people. But in reality, in the American media environment, the barriers between people are very thick. Through countless vertical divisions, everyone is conditioned by society into being indifferent and selfish.
In their eyes, Superman wasn't saving their own kind. People in small towns felt that big city dwellers were irrelevant to them, Black people felt that white people were irrelevant to them, and men and women felt they weren't the same kind of people. Blue-collar workers thought office workers deserved it, and financial elites thought the lower classes deserved to die.
Therefore, even if Superman saves a lot of people, many will still feel that he hasn't done anything good. Some might even say that he should have just destroyed Metropolis instead of saving people.
Clark sighed as he scrolled down the comments. Even though he knew the military would do something like this, and he had mentally prepared himself, he found himself still not strong enough when the day actually came. The more he read the news, the more distressed he became; it felt like a huge stone was lodged in his chest, and he began to detach himself from reality.
Clark stopped trying to get out of bed and lay back down. He put down his phone, closed his eyes, but couldn't fall asleep, tossing and turning. Finally, he turned on his phone again, intending to look at something to distract himself.
Clark hadn't planned to check his email, fearing he'd see messages from acquaintances and colleagues criticizing him. The suspicions of strangers were one thing, but a falling out with these colleagues he saw every day would make his future miserable. So he decided to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich.
Thankfully, it's a day off, so he doesn't have to go to the newspaper office. Otherwise, he wouldn't know how to face his colleagues' stares.
But when Clark saw the email software, he hesitated a bit because he was worried that Louise might email him. Louise was still in the hospital, and it would be troublesome if she couldn't find him if something happened.
With that thought in mind, Clark reluctantly opened his email. To his astonishment, while many colleagues had indeed sent him emails, none seemed to be criticizing him, or even asking if he was from outer space. After filtering out all the polite greetings and euphemisms, the emails boiled down to one question—"You're dating Louise Lane???"
Clark's hand froze as he tapped the screen. He looked like Tom the cat who had eaten a chili pepper, turning into a ripe tomato, his skull almost popping off.
The impact of those few words was far greater than that of the previous 700+ comments.
Although he had already foreseen part of Louise's plan and had prepared himself mentally for it, when it came to actually carrying it out, he found that he hadn't done enough mental preparation.
No, how did we start dating?! I haven't even confessed my feelings yet!
Clark hurriedly opened the entertainment app. The first thing that popped up was a huge picture: a tall, strong man holding a long-haired woman in his arms. His deep blue eyes revealed boundless tenderness as he gently stroked the woman's hair. Behind them were the ruins of a building, yet sunlight shone on them, like the final scene of a Hollywood disaster movie.
Clark couldn't help but cover his eyes. He really wanted to say: "This photographer, with your skills, why don't you compete for a Pulitzer Prize? Why are you just stuck here as a lowly paparazzi?!"
This photo is quite well-taken; neither of them shows their full face, yet the atmosphere is incredibly evocative. And it's precisely because neither of them fully reveals their faces—one showing only their eyes, the other only their jawline—that it sparks so much speculation.
But the first person people recognized wasn't Superman, but Lois Lane, because Lois Lane has been making headlines recently.
There are many astute journalists like the editor-in-chief of Planet Daily. They made a big deal out of Louise's poisoning, constantly playing the victim in front of the media.
That's not surprising. Because in most cases, journalists are the perpetrators, the entire news media industry has a very bad reputation, and people look at them like they're a pile of dog shit.
This situation is indeed their own fault. However, precisely because of this, they've finally found an opportunity to play the victim, so they have to make a big deal out of it and exploit the situation to gain sympathy. This is called accumulating moral capital.
Many people encounter this type of person in life: whenever something happens, they start playing the victim, constantly dwelling on that one small incident. If it were something truly terrible, that would be one thing, but most of the time it's inexplicable, and you might even think they deliberately messed things up to play the victim, and they do this with every single incident.
In reality, such people are subconsciously accumulating moral capital. It's like a parent telling their child, "I've worked so hard to raise you." It's not entirely without hardship; raising children is indeed difficult, and occasionally nagging is understandable—everyone complains sometimes. But to do it every day, every year, from birth to adulthood, is essentially moral blackmail.
As long as you portray yourself as pitiful enough, becoming a victim in the public eye, you can gain many benefits. For example, "I'm already this miserable, so you can't ask anything more of me"; or, "I'm so miserable in one aspect, so I can make up for it in another, and no one can say anything about it, making it very convenient to take advantage."
That's how these media people are these days. They never had this opportunity before, but now that they've finally caught one, and a rare, perfect victim at that, they have to unleash the power of communication to let the whole world know how miserable they are. That way, if they cause any trouble later, it'll be because society forced them into it.
Putting everything else aside, if law enforcement officers dare to argue with me in the future, I'll just lie down on the ground and accuse them of poisoning me and trying to cover up the truth by silencing me. After all, there are precedents for this, and there will definitely be people on my side.
With so many journalists working together, the results were astonishing. The news of Louise being poisoned and silenced even overshadowed the monster invasion of Metropolis at one point.
Although Metropolis was invaded by monsters, it didn't cause much damage. Everyone saw in the video that Superman saved the buildings. The roads were only damaged with a few dents, some leaks, and traffic jams, nothing truly an epic disaster.
However, the sudden poisoning of a female journalist working on an investigative report in Los Angeles by the military raises many questions. What report was she working on in Los Angeles? What triggered the military's sensitive nerves? Why did the military poison her? And who saved her?
These questions have sparked a heated online debate. Some are presenting facts and evidence, others are speculating based solely on images, and still others have made direct phone calls to various military agencies, drawing astonishment from many friendly nations. The matter has certainly escalated considerably.
Just then, a picture appeared on the homepage of a gossip website. At first glance, it looked like a movie scene, but upon closer inspection, something seemed off. Immediately, someone recognized the woman in the picture as Louise Lane, the recently popular independent journalist.
Hot topics can often overlap. Everyone was digging into Louise's past, so naturally they wouldn't overlook this suddenly appearing picture. Most people assumed the person she was hugging was her boyfriend, so initially the picture didn't cause much of a stir. After all, they're both adults, having a boyfriend is normal, and besides, they were just hugging in the street; no more private photos were taken, so it was hard for it to cause a ripple.
But as the pictures circulated more and more widely, some clever kids noticed something was off: Why does this guy look a bit like Superman?
To reiterate, Clark's biofield interference was limited, and his own television appearances and speeches made his face unforgettable for many. Now, he's recognized simply by his eyes.
The internet exploded: Lois Lane and Superman, the couple who have been making headlines recently, are actually a couple!
With just this one picture, netizens began digging deep into the relationship between the two. Where there's investigation, there's also leaking information; the leaked information is a mix of truth and falsehood, but it only fuels people's curiosity even more.
An independent journalist persecuted by the military, and a superhero who saves Metropolis. What is the connection between them? Will their romantic relationship have a deeper impact? And is it related to their recent experiences?
Some people think that Lois was poisoned by the military to silence her because she was Superman's girlfriend.
However, someone quickly jumped out to refute this, because Superman had already reconciled with the military and the federal government, and even specifically praised them in his public address. They should now be in a period of cooperation. The military might still have some precautions, but there was no need for such a drastic measure; they might even need Superman to promote them.
At that very moment, major mainstream news websites suddenly released a message: Superman is not an Earthling, but an alien.
Everyone suddenly realized, not because they learned Superman's identity, but because they finally understood: the military didn't poison Lois Lane to deal with Superman; rather, the military exposed Superman's identity to deal with Lois Lane. Lois Lane was the one the military wanted to eliminate!
(End of this chapter)