"You're late, Daniel Wu and Yifei! Fresh off the press!"
High in the sky, two streaks of light tore through the clouds, leaving a series of deafening sonic booms in their wake.
The red and blue shadow in the lead was Clark, who had completely lost his head.
His current speed was unreasonably fast.
He had only one thought in his mind.
Lois!
Behind him, Tel-Rol, dragging Kara, was also going full throttle.
"Tel-Rol! Let go of me!"
Kara felt like she was going crazy.
Her wrist was clutched by a warm, large hand, a hand still greasy from Martha's cookies and sticky with apple pie sauce that Tel-Rol had licked.
It was gooey and greasy.
"I won't! I'll never let go in this lifetime!"
Tel-Rol spoke cheesy romantic lines, but his grip tightened even more.
"I beg you, let go! It's so disgusting!"
Kara struggled frantically, but in the face of absolute speed, her struggles were meaningless.
"Big sister, snap out of it."
Tel-Rol glanced back at her impatiently.
"If I let go, with your speed, you'd lose sight of Clark's perky butt in minutes."
"Then where would you go to watch your cousin's heroic rescue scene?"
"Besides, these are Aunt Martha's loving cookies, they smell like home, want a sniff?"
He even brought his greasy hand closer to Kara's nose.
Kara disgustedly turned her head away, almost throwing up.
She had only one wish now: to get as far away from this lunatic as possible!
Gotham City.
Today, it was a paradise for criminals.
Piercing police sirens, women's screams, frantic gunshots, and that iconic, spine-chilling maniacal laughter combined to compose a symphony of chaos.
"Bang!"
A jewelry store's display window was shattered, and several clowns-faced lunatics rushed in, scattering jewelry onto the street like candy.
"Hahahaha! Revelry! This is the revelry granted to us by His Majesty Joker!"
Inside the police station in the city center, Commissioner Gordon felt his hair thinning even more.
He clutched the phone, shouting into it.
"What? Not enough manpower? I damn well know we don't have enough manpower!"
"Tell me which district has enough manpower? The streets are full of lunatics right now!"
"Tell them to send as many people as they have! We must control the situation!"
Gordon hung up the phone, slumping wearily into his chair.
He knew that ordinary police officers had limited effect against this level of chaos.
He looked out the window, at the dark night sky, where the familiar bat signal had yet to appear today.
"Bruce... where are you?"
Outskirts of Gotham City, the abandoned ACE Chemical Plant.
The air was filled with a pungent chemical smell.
Deep inside the factory, a blonde woman in an OL uniform was tightly bound to a chair, her mouth taped shut.
Lois Lane's eyes were filled with tears, she struggled desperately, but the ropes binding her were tight.
She hoped Clark would come save her.
She was also afraid that Clark would actually come.
Because she knew that the person who kidnapped her was a complete madman.
"Sizzle..."
An old, snowy television screen in front of her suddenly lit up.
A face painted with exaggerated makeup appeared on the screen, grinning with a blood-red mouth, smiling terrifyingly.
"Lois, my sweetie, your big hero is coming!"
Joker's voice was sharp and twisted, full of dramatic flair.
"I've prepared a little game for him, a classic multiple-choice question."
"Guess which one he'll cut, the red wire under your chair? Or the blue wire?"
"Hehehe, I'll tell you a little secret..."
Joker leaned his face closer to the camera, whispering.
"...Cutting either one is useless!"
"Because no matter what he chooses, you'll go 'boom' and become the brightest firework in the sky! Hahahaha!"
Mad laughter echoed through the empty factory, then the screen went black.
The last glimmer of hope in Lois's eyes extinguished.
Just then.
"Boom—!"
With a loud bang, the chemical plant's roof was completely ripped off by a brute force!
A red and blue figure descended like a divine punishment.
Clark hovered in mid-air, his eyes burning with terrifying crimson light.
His x-ray vision instantly penetrated layers of obstacles, locking onto the figure bound to a chair deep within the factory.
He heard her heartbeat.
Panicked, yet incredibly familiar.
"Lois!"
Clark roared, transforming into a lightning bolt and diving down.
Almost at the same time he rushed into the factory, Tel-Rol and Kara also arrived above the chemical plant.
"Arrival, passengers please exit."
Tel-Rol finally released Kara's wrist.
He looked down at his greasy hand, then at the red mark he had squeezed onto Kara's fair wrist, and grinned.
"Don't even say it, it felt really good."
"Slippery and soft."
"How about... I hold your hand every day from now on?"
Kara jumped, her body suddenly floating back several meters, creating a safe distance from him.
Her face flushed, she frantically wiped her hands on her jeans, glaring at him.
"Stay away from me! Pervert!"
Tel-Rol looked at her ruffled appearance, his smile growing even brighter.
And at this moment, Clark had already arrived in front of Lois.
"Lois! Are you alright?"
Clark scanned Lois up and down, letting out a sigh of relief; she was unharmed.
"Superman, you're finally here, I've already had a nap, ah~"
Joker yawned on the TV, tears welling in the corners of his eyes.
"Superman, which one do you think you shouldn't cut?"
"Clark, neither can be cut, cutting either will make it explode!"
Lois immediately spoke up to stop him, telling him what Joker had said earlier.
Clark's mind was in a mess, he didn't use his x-ray vision to look inside the bomb at all, if he had, things would have been simple.
He grabbed the bomb with one hand, ready to tear it off as quickly as possible and throw it out the window, or use his body as a shield.
When his other hand touched the bomb, the one-minute countdown on the bomb on Lois's body immediately went to zero.
"Boom!!!!"
An explosion suddenly erupted from inside the chemical plant below!
But the explosion's fire was neither red nor yellow.
Instead, it was a strange, unsettling green!
"What! It's kryptonite!" Kara exclaimed in shock, preparing to rush down to save Clark without thinking.
A large hand stopped her.