Superman Termination Manual - Chapter 57

Chapter 57 – 047 Lonely Person
The ceiling cast a cold, desolate light, illuminating the entire subway car, permeated with the scent of disinfectant in every corner.

Those going home at this hour mostly had weary expressions, some placed their briefcases on the ground, their glasses still on as they leaned back and closed their eyes, their heads vibrating gently with the windows.

Ke Xiaomo sat on the left side of the car, flipping through a yellow-paged ancient book without looking up, addressing Bai Ziling who was sitting beside him.

“In the cinema, did you see that dragon’s image online?”

“Just imagined it.” Bai Ziling answered.

Ke Xiaomo fell silent for a moment, “Really?”

“What’s wrong?” she looked up and asked.

“Nothing.” Ke Xiaomo paused, then changed the subject, “Do you think Mingye has changed recently?”

At this, Bai Ziling shifted her face, her red eyes looking towards Ke Mingye sitting diagonally opposite.

Ke Mingye leaned against the back of the seat, looking down at his phone, the light and shadow flickering on the window behind him. Bai Zini was leaning on his shoulder, deeply asleep, her nose reddened, her breath softly tapping on his neck.

“Big brother seems very lonely.” Bai Ziling lowered her head.

“Is it different from before?” Ke Xiaomo pressed.

Bai Ziling lowered her eyes, shaking her head, “A little, seems lonelier.”

“But he’s been quite talkative recently.”

“Lonely people understand how lonely people feel.” she said.

“So, were you very lonely before?”

Speaking, Ke Xiaomo stopped flipping through the pages, turned to look at her, and met her red eyes.

“Sometimes, I feel different from others.”

“Is it because of albinism?”

Ke Xiaomo still remembered, because of her red eyes and white hair, Bai Ziling was often bullied by her classmates during childhood—for throwing away her homework, secretly throwing her backpack into a pond, calling her a foreigner, a mixed-race.

Once she locked herself in the bathroom, cutting off half of her pale white hair with scissors, then huddled in a corner, unable to persuade her to open the door.

Ke Xiaomo wanted to sneak into the shadows to check if Bai Ziling was alright in the bathroom, but at that time, someone at home successfully convinced her to open the door.

That person was Ke Mingye.

That night, he sat leaning against the bathroom door, whispering something. After a long while, the door opened. He took Bai Ziling by the hand and led her out of the bathroom, his eyes obscured by his drooping bangs. Everyone watched Bai Ziling, whose hair was cut finely, in silence, just allowing them to walk through the middle.

Ke Mingye quietly walked her out of the house, took her on his bicycle to a nearby barbershop, then handed over the pocket money he had saved up from the new year to the hairstylist, and got a weird, half-haired haircut like Bai Ziling’s.

Ke Youqing smoked at home for a long time, asking Ke Xiaomo and Ke Yinzhi to follow them to see how things were.

So they followed all the way to the barbershop, and when they opened the door, Bai Ziling and Ke Mingye were clutching their stomachs, laughing into the mirror like two fools.

But as she laughed, Bai Ziling suddenly started crying. She rubbed her red eyes, sobbing, and said, “Brother, why am I the only one like this? Everyone hates me.”

Ke Mingye didn’t say anything, just gently rubbed her hair and looked down at her.

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The next morning, big brother Ke Yinzhi said he had something to do and incidentally dropped Bai Ziling off at school. After that day, the children who had bullied her mysteriously transferred schools.

The subway, like a creeping white giant snake, roared through the pitch-dark tunnel. Every now and then, an orange-yellow wall lamp cast light into the carriage, enveloping each lonely figure.

Ke Xiaomo thought, do lonely people understand how other lonely people think?

Bai Ziling said, “Dad always tells us that the third brother is adopted and that we must be kind to him. He’s afraid that our kindness is because Dad asked us to, so he always keeps to himself. He hasn’t changed; it’s just that you don’t understand him. The younger brother is the same; he always seems fierce, but he’s actually very sensible.”

Ke Xiaomo was silent for a long time then closed the ancient book in his hands, “I’m sorry, I’ve been busy with my own things. I haven’t been there for you, and I don’t understand you all at all.”

He glanced at Ke Mingye a couple of times, then averted his gaze, thinking it should stop here. Because of one look, he had doubted his own brother for so long, which was somewhat ridiculous…

Bai Ziling shook her head, her pale blond hair swaying gently.

She didn’t speak again and quietly moved her gaze away from Ke Mingye, her head bowed as she fiddled with the Pikachu doll Ke Mingye had won from the cinema’s claw machine.

Ke Mingye looked up from his phone screen to the digital display in the subway, then gently brushed Bai Zini’s hair with his fingers.

“Wake up, you sleepyhead, we’ll be home in a few minutes.”

“Let me sleep a little longer,” she said.

Ke Mingye withdrew his finger and toggled between playing on his phone and checking the shop panel, looking at the nine skills refreshed on today’s special sale page.

[Player currently holds: 3860 coins]

[Player’s current level: Lv.4, probability of skill page refresh: E grade skills 75%; D grade skills 12%; C grade skills 10%; B grade skills 3%; A grade skills 0%; S grade skills 0%]

He could see that with the increase in level, the probability of B grade skills being refreshed had risen from two percent to three percent, and similarly, the probabilities for D and C grade skills had also increased;

Correspondingly, the probability of E grade skills had decreased significantly, which actually wasn’t a good thing at the beginning of the game, because the higher-level skills were too expensive and unaffordable.

Ten skills gradually appeared on the panel.

[①: Personality Split (E grade skill) (Your main personality splits into two secondary personalities for a short time, reaction speed and thought processing are doubled, thinking is expanded)]

[②: Mental Link (E grade skill) (Link to any person’s mental world, share thoughts with the individual during the skill’s duration)]

[③: Lion’s Roar (D grade skill) (Make a roar powerful enough to burst eardrums in front of you, easily stunning enemies)]

[④: Growth of All Things (C grade skill) (Enter a state lasting three minutes, during which any plant you touch grows abnormally and serves your purpose)]

[⑤: Timekeeper’s Craft (D grade skill) (Create a clock, press its button and after ten seconds it will either explode or stop time for 1.5 seconds, during which you can act slowly) (The probability of explosion or time stop is one half each)]

Seeing this, Ke Mingye slightly raised an eyebrow, thinking this was the superpower of the infamous villain “Timekeeper,” the one who repeatedly tortured the Divine Communicator Phoenix to death and uploaded the videos on the dark web.