amaotonovel Chapter 4309 Body of Steel (4)
Chapter 4309 Body of Steel (4)
Chapter 4309 Body of Steel (XIV)
Martha patted him on the back, and Clark reluctantly let go of her. Martha quickly ran over and helped Bruce up. Bruce touched his scraped lip, turned to Clark, and said, "Looks like you're badly hurt, otherwise I should be in Kuiper Belt by now..."
“You damn bastard!” Clark gritted his teeth and glared at him. “You tricked me!”
“Oh my god! Clark! Don’t talk to him like that!” Martha quickly stepped between the two of them and said to Clark, “Your friend saved me. I was almost kidnapped by those bad guys.”
Clark stared wide-eyed at Bruce. Bruce wiped his mouth and sat back down at the table. Clark had no choice but to follow suit and sit down opposite him.
“When I got to the Kent family farm, those guys had already broken in. They tied your mother up and were about to put her in the car. I knocked them all down.”
Clark then felt a wave of fear wash over him. So Lex Luthor really did it, only Batman arrived first and saved his mother.
but why……
“Oh, darling, you didn’t know that, did you?” At this moment, Martha also brought him a bowl of oatmeal porridge and said, “I have an accidental injury insurance policy. I took out it when the Kent family’s farm was doing well. The coverage amount is very high.”
“The harvests haven’t been good in recent years, especially this autumn. The wheat we planted was all classified as livestock feed because it didn’t meet the standards. This has cost us a lot of money. As a result, we won’t have the money to buy seeds for next spring.”
“The Kent family’s farm is too old. The house needs repairs, and the farm tools need to be replaced. We simply don’t have that much money. I’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul, but we’re about to break down. We need that insurance payout.”
"Believe me, this isn't insurance fraud. Those kidnappers were already preparing to set the farm on fire. If your friend hadn't arrived in time, the entire farm would have been burned down. So I thought I'd make a scene and pretend I really was kidnapped. That way, at least we can get some insurance money, and the farm can continue to operate."
Clark's face showed a pained expression. He had always known that the Kent family's farm was struggling financially, but he had been powerless to do anything about it from beginning to end.
He could help with the plowing, but he didn't understand how the wheat data was evaluated; he could work tirelessly, but the farm's fixed expenses were still too high. He couldn't exactly rob someone, could he?
So he went to work in a big city, sending almost all the money he earned back home. But even that wasn't enough. Even though he didn't go to university and the jobs he found paid well, he still couldn't support the farm.
Moreover, being exposed in front of Batman left Clark with a strange sense of embarrassment. He was already so powerful, and believed he had done his utmost, yet he was still so poor. This made his previous statements about being "capable of taking responsibility for everyone" sound utterly ridiculous.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Bruce said. “I know exactly how those insurance investigators assess the extent of damage. The damage I caused to your house is enough to cover your full compensation. If not, I can offer you legal assistance. After all, I did crash into the house with my car, and besides helping you, I also had my own purposes, so I naturally have to bear some responsibility.”
“Thank you so much.” Martha took Bruce’s hand and said, “I’ll get you another bowl of porridge, Clark, would you like some?”
“I…” Clark was about to say no, but when he turned his head, he revealed the bandage on his neck. Martha screamed again.
"Oh no," Clark thought. "How am I going to explain my injury to Martha?"
But to his surprise, he wasn't met with a reprimand. Martha simply stared at him blankly for a moment, then, supporting herself on the table, turned and stood up, heading towards the kitchen. A short while later, she returned with a steaming bowl of porridge.
"Have something to eat, darling. You'll be better soon."
Clark picked up the spoon and put the porridge in his mouth. For some reason, the oatmeal porridge, which used to be fragrant and sweet, now tasted bland and tasteless. A bittersweet emotion welled up in his chest, first rushing to his eyes, and then flowing down to his throat and jaw, where it ached and swelled, making it difficult for him to swallow.
Clark couldn't believe he had cried in front of Batman. Even more unbelievable was that Batman didn't even glance at him, finished his food, and went upstairs.
Martha came over and hugged him, wiping away his tears, and said, "Go get some sleep and get some rest."
Clark had no idea how he got up the stairs or how he fell asleep. But he had a remarkably vivid dream. In it, he remembered the second half of the story.
One morning, he was awakened again by the familiar sound of a tractor. As he walked downstairs, he smelled the familiar aroma of oatmeal. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, his father, Jonathan, rushed in excitedly.
"Come quick, Clark! Come here!"
Clark ran towards his father. They went outside together, Jonathan picked him up, and then he saw a brand new lamb in the back of the tractor.
It was a pure white lamb, only a few days old, with curly wool that looked as soft as clouds in the morning sunlight.
He looked at his father with surprise, but the middle-aged man with a sun-tanned face was smiling even more happily than him.
This time, Clark wasn't startled awake. He had repeated a beautiful dream many times before slowly waking up, but still somewhat restlessly turned over. The bed at Wayne Manor was a bit too soft; if his own bed were like that, he wouldn't be able to get up for work even once during the entire winter.
After lingering in bed for a while, Clark finally sat up. He felt a little dizzy from sleeping so soundly. He pulled up his clothes to check his chest; the external wounds were almost healed, but the feeling of weakness lingered. The green crystals had seeped into his bloodstream, and it might take a long time for them to be metabolized.
After standing up, Clark straightened his clothes and pushed open the door, but the entire manor was eerily quiet, without a sound. Standing beside the second-floor courtyard, Clark felt a strange emotion, as if he were in a giant tomb.
Clark's mind drifted back to the tombstone bearing the name "Damian Wayne." He sighed and went downstairs.
Batman wasn't downstairs; he didn't know where he'd gone. Clark didn't know what to do either. He wanted to wait for Batman to return and then talk to him. But he couldn't just sit around doing nothing in the meantime, so he started wandering around the manor.
Soon, he spotted a suit of armor in the display case at the back of the living room. It was clearly custom-made for a child; the trousers and sleeves were too small. Clark instinctively reached out and touched the glass of the cabinet, feeling a tightness in his chest.
"What are you doing?" a deep voice came from the other end.
Clark turned to look, and Bruce was standing at the end of the corridor. Clark quickly withdrew his hand and said, "Sorry, I shouldn't have touched you."
Bruce turned and walked back, Clark following behind him. Clark heard him say, "Your mother went home this morning. I've installed cameras around here to make sure she's not in danger again. What are you planning to do next?"
"I..." Clark actually had a whole bunch of plans, but when he faced Batman, he couldn't say them.
They sat down again in front of the fireplace. The warm fire gave Clark some strength, and he said, "Before that, I have a few questions for you."
"what is the problem?"
Clark had many questions to ask, such as who the black officer was and what the green crystal that had weakened him was. However, he first asked what he felt was the most important question.
Why am I always so angry?
"What do you think?"
"I do not know."
"Then you should think carefully about when you have felt angry?"
Clark began to recall carefully, more carefully than ever before. Of course, he couldn't recall from the time he was born, so he selected some recent fragments, fragments related to Batman.
Then he realized that the first time he was angry, and in an uncontrollable way, was when Batman died in his arms during the dungeon.
At that time, their relationship hadn't improved much; they were just ordinary teammates. So this anger didn't seem to stem from someone close being hurt; he was simply very angry.
Then, the next time was a little better. When he was being chased and beaten by that evil spirit, he was also very angry, and even ignored the physical pain because of it.
Then, at the end of the story, the bad guys were punished, but he was still very angry. This anger had been building up inside him until the night the alien spaceship appeared.
But even after destroying the alien spaceship, this anger was not vented; it remained lingering, seemingly there yet not quite.
In other words, he was actually angry the whole time, and there was no situation where he wasn't angry.
But Clark was not convinced; he didn't think of himself as such an easily angered person. So he started thinking back, from his childhood, trying to find times when he wasn't angry.
He recalled an incident from his childhood: a classmate mocked him on the school bus. Logically, he should have been angry, but he wasn't. Then the school bus plunged into a river. He should have been angry about such bad luck, but he still wasn't. Not only that, he even rescued the classmate who had mocked him, disregarding past grievances.
When he first left the small town, he changed jobs several times and was ostracized by his colleagues. But he didn't get angry; instead, he would even save his colleagues when they were in danger.
Another time, he encountered something that made him angry, but he was only angry for a short while. After impaling the other party's car on a tree, he immediately calmed down and even felt a little guilty and regretful afterward.
So what exactly is the source of his inexplicable anger during this period of time?
Clark recounted his experiences haltingly, then looked at Bruce. Bruce gave him an "I knew it" look, but then his mind began to wander, as if he were recalling something.
On a cold, rainy night, a small figure falls like a raindrop from a lonely high-rise building...
Helplessness breeds anger. And anger... destroys everything.
(End of this chapter)