10:00 AM10:00 AM.
"Hello, we're from the Daily Bugle. We want to interview your boss. Let us in!"
"To hell with that, we're from the Daily Planet. Superman's hometown is our newsroom. Let me in!"
"Fuck, this is America, freedom every day. You can't block our freedom to interview!"
"Stop wasting words with them. These guys are all gang enforcers!"
"Rush in. They won't actually dare to shoot!"
"Let us in, Billy. I'm your friend. I know the manager of the Academy of Sciences Nightclub!"
Reporters who wanted to get close to the nightclub so they could interview Heisenberg, this suddenly appeared "Superman," had basically clogged the entrance completely.
Fortunately, the building had originally been one of Kingpin's businesses. With Bullseye paying a few bullets as the price, ownership of the building ultimately transferred into Heisenberg's hands.
So these reporters were driven from the nightclub all the way down to the base of the building.
Heisenberg lay on the rooftop sunbathing. He should have been enjoying the quiet.
After all, he had zero interest in turning on his super hearing.
He wasn't Superman. He didn't spend every second paying attention to who in the city was hurt, who ran into disaster, who got robbed, and so on.
He didn't have the heart to save the world.
So aside from a few voices he'd marked for special attention, he normally kept his hearing at an ordinary human level.
Only then could he enjoy peace.
But today…
Forget ordinary hearing.
Even a deaf man could probably hear the chaos downstairs.
"What the hell?!"
Heisenberg lay on the lounge chair feeling irritated out of his mind, to the point he didn't even feel like drinking.
He climbed up, wearing slippers, and walked to the edge of the rooftop to take a look.
The moment he showed his face, the crowd of reporters exploded with shocking cheers.
"Over here, look over here!"
"He's out, let us in!"
"We're journalists, we have the right to interview Mr. Heisenberg!"
"Heisenberg, are you Superman?"
"Your strength is stronger than Iron Man's armor, you can fly with your body, you're Superman, right!"
"Are you a couple with Captain America, like the comics draw it?"
Hm?
Where did this colleague come from, and what kind of savage comic are they reading?
Even in a scene this noisy, countless reporters still froze for a split second at that line.
But only for a split second.
"Last night an Indian plane crashed, why didn't you save them? Is it because you're Superman for us Americans?"
"You didn't care about the earthquake in Japan. You must have grown up in America, right?"
"Superman, how long have you been Superman!"
"Heisenberg, say hi to your fans, ahhhhh!"
Facing that kind of screaming, Heisenberg's eyebrows nearly squeezed together.
"I'm warning you one time only, disperse!"
"Anything you want to ask, come to the nightclub tonight and drink. Talk at the table!"
Heisenberg shouted down from the rooftop. Unfortunately, who would care about that promise right now?
"We won't take too long, five minutes, just five minutes, okay?"
"We understand you, but can you give us one question?"
"Superman, think of your fans. Countless kids are waiting for the latest news!"
Not only did the shouting not stop, it got even worse.
"Motherfucker."
Heisenberg smacked his lips in annoyance, then turned and walked toward the pool.
He exhaled hard. His freeze breath instantly froze the entire pool solid.
Then he hooked his fingers into the ice and, with the bio-field, effortlessly lifted a slab of ice the size of the swimming pool.
He casually threw that massive block of ice down at those damned reporters.
But he still didn't go all the way. A red glow flashed in his eyes, and the high heat from his heat vision made the ice explode and shatter the moment it touched.
Even so, with countless chunks of ice falling from hundreds of meters up, those reporters were still going to suffer.
Sure enough, in the next instant, the cheering beneath Heisenberg's building turned into wailing.
"Ahhh, what is that?!"
"It's hail!"
"Hail my ass, it's ice blocks!"
"Run, ahhhhh!!!"
Over a hundred reporters instantly scattered in panic. Real life wasn't a movie. Who would stand there like an idiot watching things fall from the sky and not run?
But even if they ran, so what?
Heisenberg's pool held at least twenty tons of water. With that much ice smashing down, even shattered, it was more than enough to hurt people.
Aside from a handful who forced their way into the building with muscle, and a handful who slipped under nearby cars with quick moves, almost everyone else ended up with blood running down their heads.
And their pain was only just beginning.
On the rooftop, after throwing the ice, Heisenberg casually picked up the phone on the drinks table.
"Hello, Bullseye? Bring your people down and deal with those paparazzi."
"Anyone seriously hurt, send them all to the hospital. I'll cover the medical fees."
"As for anyone unhurt, or lightly hurt, beat them until they're hurt enough to be hospitalized. Got it?"
"Got it, Boss. But what about female reporters?" Bullseye asked carefully.
A moment later, Heisenberg frowned.
Female reporters.
Like Lois Lane, the kind that could evolve into a Kryptonian weakness?
Too terrifying!!!
Thinking that, Heisenberg took a breath.
"Hit them even harder, but don't hit the face. Use your judgment."
"Yes, Boss!!!"
Bullseye accepted the task with instant excitement.
After hanging up, his admiration for Heisenberg was beyond words.
Even under his former boss Kingpin, something like publicly beating reporters would never happen.
Of course, Kingpin had sent him to deal with a few reporters before.
But that was only when Kingpin had been forced into a corner, furious to the limit, and even then it was done in secret.
As for openly challenging the so-called representatives of American free speech in public?
Kingpin didn't have the guts.
But now, Heisenberg did.
Boss hates reporters, and I, Bullseye, hate them even more.
Not only that, I've hated those damned paparazzi down to my bones for a long time.
So while the reporters downstairs still hadn't even recovered from the shock, Heisenberg Tower had already dispatched more than eighty cars and two hundred men.
They quickly loaded the seriously injured into cars and sent them to hospitals.
As for those who weren't sent away immediately…
They were dragged into larger vehicles and then beaten hard, and after that, they were still sent to the hospital.
Just like that, ten minutes later, Heisenberg's ears finally got some peace.
But he wasn't done.
He pressed the service bell, and Billy walked up respectfully.
Heisenberg gave Billy an order.
"Contact two PR firms, the most expensive kind. Spin what happened today and throw it online. You know how to spin it, right?"
"Of course," Billy said confidently. "Your image won't take any damage at all. You were clearly fighting an enemy just now, and the battle was extremely intense."
"You saved New York. What do those reporters' injuries even count for?"
After speaking, Billy gave a mysterious smile, then turned and left.
Heisenberg nodded in satisfaction.
Look at that.
Having money, having subordinates, having a team, that feeling was this good.
If Superman in the DC world had had piles of money from the start to run PR, how could he have been forced into court by all those anti-Superman groups?
It was fine if he didn't think about it. The moment he did, Heisenberg, already fully immersed in his Kryptonian role, got angry on behalf of his dumb deer of a descendant.
Letting a bunch of weaklings, weaklings you've saved again and again, put handcuffs on you.
This was the kind of humiliation an Eastern-country Kryptonian could not tolerate.
If it were Heisenberg, then sorry.
I don't care who's right or wrong. Let's see whose fists are harder.
If you're strong, I back off. If you're weak, I push you down. That's the jungle law.
Even if I back off for now, even a grudge across ten lifetimes can still be repaid.
I, Gongyang Ru Heisenberg, am not living on empty fame.
But to be honest, from a bystander's angle, Heisenberg wouldn't be dissatisfied with Lex Luthor, or with Batman who wanted to kill Superman.
Heisenberg actually approved of their thinking.
It was just one idea: those not of our kind have different hearts, anyone can kill them.
If Heisenberg weren't a Kryptonian, he'd definitely find a way to kill Kryptonians too.
Back on topic, let's keep talking about Superman.
What annoyed Heisenberg most was, why was Superman summoned to court in the first place?
Because when Superman fought General Zod with everything he had to save Earth…
He was saving the damn planet, and in the process, some people got hurt.
So those people sued him.
Is getting sued a big deal? Of course not.
You either keep saving people, or you stop saving people. Either way, there's no need to cater to the troublemakers.
What, did you hide your identity for nothing?
Do they even know who you are?
If Heisenberg got sued, within three days, the main plaintiffs would all disappear.
If Heisenberg were an ordinary person, and got hurt in the middle of Superman fighting an enemy, he'd sue Superman too, as long as he was sure Superman could really be dragged into the defendant's seat.
After all, whether you win or not, you get famous. Once you leave the courthouse, Heisenberg could eat off that "I sued Superman" bowl for the rest of his life.
Go on shows, talk about feelings, become an influencer, publish a book.
Isn't that great?
But from Superman's perspective, watching people he saved shout that he should be punished…
Would he start thinking Zod killed the wrong people?
Should he have just let Zod rule Earth, as long as Zod didn't terraform Earth into Krypton and make him lose his power, then Zod can breed however he wants?
If Zod could really do that, then after Zod became Earth's ruler, Kal-El could live far better as a Kryptonian resistance symbol than he ever did as a superhero.
If you swapped Kal-El with Heisenberg, then he…
He…
Alright, he'd still have to look at General Zod's attitude first before deciding whether to kill them.
Heisenberg wasn't Kal-El. He had ambition.
Earth only needed one god. Did it also need an entire species?
But if Zod knelt down and surrendered, Heisenberg would reluctantly accept it.
After all, they'd be kin (tools).
Forgive Heisenberg, he'd always been a shameless double-standard.
In any case, Heisenberg would never walk Kal-El's old road.
He would never lose on the battlefield of public opinion.
Spend as much money as needed, hire as many people as needed.
Whether it was manipulating presidential elections, or forcing capitalists to "improve" the hero laws, Heisenberg would absolutely raise a banner for himself, one that couldn't be attacked.
As for how much hypocrisy was buried under that banner…
Heisenberg thought about it. No matter what, he couldn't be more hypocritical than American capitalists, right?
Capitalists were hypocritical beyond all limits.
After that gloomy phase a few days ago, Heisenberg had already seen himself clearly.
He now possessed Kryptonian limitless potential, the miraculous ability to travel the multiverse, and a system with the power to realize any dream.
With so many heaven-given advantages, if he still let himself suffer even a little grievance, wouldn't that make him cheap?
As for whether he was violent, bloody, evil, cruel.
Was that even a problem?
Just like a single sentence from him, and the reporters got "properly arranged."
He had ways to solve the trouble he caused, and he had the ability to bear the consequences he brought.
As an adult, if you can do those two things, isn't that enough?
As for that line some hero's adoptive father once said.
The greater the power, the greater the responsibility.
Isn't that just being shameless?
It should clearly be: the better the待遇, the greater the responsibility.
As for power…
Whether I have power, isn't that my business?
Morality might count as some kind of yardstick, but everyone has their own moral view.
In Heisenberg's eyes, he wouldn't lay hands on children who caused no harm, wouldn't lay hands on elderly people with no malice, and even less would he lay hands on pregnant women with no aggressiveness.
But note this: even those types of people were still marked with special notes.
The world was huge. Who knew if there were kids and old people rotten to the core.
Even for those traditional "privileged" categories, Heisenberg wouldn't give 100%100% pity.
Let alone adult humans with mature wills.
When Heisenberg barged into the office of the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, he'd already prepared to be attacked.
Bullets hitting him, he bore it himself, no complaints.
But when agents fired at him, shouldn't those agents also be prepared for him to fight back?
When Kingpin, the moment he saw Heisenberg, ordered Bullseye to come test him, hadn't Kingpin already prepared for Heisenberg to resist?
Even Heisenberg himself, when he blew someone's head apart, hadn't he also prepared for someone to blow his head apart?
It was just that nobody could beat him.
/-\
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