The end game [Zhongyingmei]

When Clark woke up, it was just in time for dinner to be distributed on the plane.

He got apple juice and macaroni and cheese, and apple pie for dessert. Brian, who was in the same row, also struggled to wake up from sleep, and asked for a brownie and three vomiting bags with a pale face.

Clark: "..."

In order not to affect his appetite, he quickly turned his eyes back to his food, frowned and wiped out the dry pre-dinner bread, the bland macaroni and cheese, and finally forked the hope of dinner——apple pie.

Sweet and slightly sour, the soft taste of the apple complements the crispy pie crust in the lips and teeth, which did not disappoint him at all.

After taking the first bite, Clark couldn't help but pause, wondering if he could stop the flight attendant pushing the trolley in front of him and order a second apple pie.

The god of the world slowly finished the unexpected joy, drank the apple juice, and pushed the table up again; he clicked on the small screen in front of him, and slid his fingers across it, as if carefully selecting a Good movie.

"...Pick the one on your right..."

Brian quietly leaned beside him, swallowed a pill for airsickness with water, and whispered in a low voice.

"City of Love?"

Clark paused his fingers slightly, and followed the other party's suggestion.

"...The one below is a classic."

As soon as the warm-hearted colleague had finished his last sentence, he fell back into his own seat, as if the next moment would become a fountain of vomit.

Clark patted the other person's shoulder sympathetically, clicked on Brian's recommendation, plugged in the earphones, fell into his seat, and began to watch the live-action Disney movie.

Behind the black-rimmed glasses, his eyes were filled with blue light spots, as if plankton gradually floated to the shore from the deep sea, showing a kind of fantastic beauty in the darkness of night.

With super hearing, Clark could hear his polite colleague Claude burst out with a stronger heartbeat in an instant.

The latter's eyes lingered on Clark from time to time, with a vague sense of evaluation. Gradually, that cold evaluation turned into begging and hope, just like every time the relevant family members rushed to the accident site. , looking at his red cloak for a long time.

————Like a sudden wind in spring, it blows people's hair and makes their cheeks itchy.

If Clark was half-curious about Claude's anomaly before, now, during the journey of several hours, he has been very sure that the other party really needs some kind of help from him, and it is likely that it is not Clark who needs it. Kent, a small-town boy from a Kansas farm, helped.

Thinking of this, Clark took off the earphones, put them on the rack next to him, walked to the bathroom at the other end of the plane, pushed the door in, and locked the door.

There was a pleasant scent of oriental flowers in the bathroom. Clark searched it with super vision first, and found that there was nothing abnormal in the small and bright space. He sent a message.

The message from the other party came back after 1 minute.

【material. ——BW]

In the working state, Bruce always refused to type an extra word.

Clark sighed habitually, opened the frame of the pocket communicator, and stretched it out until a light screen projection floated in front of him.

Claude's ID photo immediately appeared on the screen, and the other party looked at the screen, smiling slightly, with the same expression as an ordinary person—especially his life history.

He grew up in a foster family in an unnamed town, and his high school was mediocre. With his own efforts, he was admitted to an excellent but not top-notch university. After graduation, he directly entered the Star Newspaper and became a metropolitan.

There is no abnormality, and the psychological evaluation is quite healthy. He has no spouse and has five cats.

—————— This is a life resume that looks perfect at first glance.

Clark read the information sent by Batman two or three times, and his eyes finally stopped on the words "foster family".

【Foster family? ] he typed.

About 3 minutes later, Bruce sent another profile.

Clark opened it and found that it was a high school application in electronic format. In the guardian's place, Claude checked the relationship of "foster care".

He continued to pull down and found that Batman had sent him two death certificates: the name on it could match that of Claude, and the time of death was 20 years ago.

Clark:? ? ?

That said, the year Claude entered high school and became an adult, both of his foster guardians died.

At the very bottom of this document, Batman attached a picture of a newspaper that said, "The couple was traveling by car and encountered a landslide, only the son survived." The picture was a black and white photo of the scene, and Clark frowned After watching for a while, I recognized that it was a car that had turned into a discus.

[That's all I can find. ——BW]

The records of information decades ago are completely different from the present era, and even Batman can't provide him with more information.

[Thanks, B, I can take care of the next thing by myself. 】Clark typed, 【I'll let you know if there's any news. 】

The colleague and friend did not reply to him, but left a "read" reminder to Clark.

The Kryptonian smiled softly, recompressed the light screen to the normal size of the communicator, and put it back in his pocket.

He walked to the sink, washed his hands like a normal human being, dried them carelessly, and threw the paper ball into the trash can, then opened the door and walked back to his seat.

————— Claude's gaze was attached to Clark almost instantly, and he moved away quietly.

"We'll be landing in half an hour."

Seeing him come back, Brian, whose face had improved a lot, smiled at Clark, "Fort Elm is waving to us. Have you been here?"

"No." Clark sat down and fastened his seat belt again, "but you look excited."

"Jessica graduated from New Haven."

Sure enough, Brian's next sentence was this.There was a puzzled smile on his face, "She said that the elm trees here are very beautiful, but it's a pity we came at the wrong time, it's winter now."

————Your expression does not say so.The god on earth thought silently.

Facing the sweet and sour dog food from the young couple, Clark still chose to give a gentle blessing.

He nodded and echoed a few words sincerely, which made Brian smile wider and changed his address from "Kent" to "Clark".

When Brian finally changed the topic back to work and the Rugby World Cup, a slight turbulence came suddenly, the air pressure began to change, and the plane continued to pitch down.

The flight attendants kept reminding the passengers to put away the table boards and adjust their positions. Brian also shut up obediently, his face was pale, and he tightly grasped the armrest on his side. It seemed that he even wanted to hold hands with Clark.

And Clark's super vision has penetrated the cabin of the plane, extending away towards the distance.

The light of the city also slowly approached from the darkness, until a piece of orange-red light was spread out of the round window.

The plane finally oscillated a few times and slowly stopped.

"Welcome to New Haven, please don't leave your bags behind."

A soft radio sound followed. Jessica jumped up first and took off her and Brian's luggage one by one. Clark and Claude on the other side of the aisle avoided the surrounding passengers. He stood up and unpacked his luggage.

As Clark hesitated to reach out and help the collapsed Brian, Cloud gave him a distinct wink from behind the silver-rimmed glasses.

Clark: "...?"

After receiving this hint, he hesitated and shut his mouth, watching the brown-haired female colleague come to Brian's side, pull up the fluffy pancake-shaped boyfriend, hang it on the suitcase, and drag the two pieces of luggage together. .

She did it with ease, and it was obvious that she was already completely familiar with the process.

"This is the power of love."

Leaving from the cabin, Clark, who walked into the tunnel, heard the polite male colleague next to him hold back a smile, and sighed with sourness in a voice that the couple in front couldn't hear.

-----really.

Clark thought.

After a series of inspection procedures, Jessica led the "boys" out of the airport gate and walked towards the taxi she had already ordered.

Clark stood in front of the opened trunk and stuffed his luggage into it.

In the night, something quietly floated over his head. Clark looked up, reached out his hand in mid-air, and gently grasped it into the palm of his hand.

——It was a whole dry elm leaf.

"If you get a whole elm leaf that hasn't fallen to the ground, it will bring you good luck."

Claude stood by and suddenly whispered.

The night was too thick and dark for Clark to be unable to distinguish the expression in the other person's eyes, and he could not be sure whether the dull melancholy was his hallucination. Only the pair of silver-rimmed glasses reflected the dim light slightly under the street lamp.

The night wind mixed with the smell of dust blew, and for half a second, neither he nor Claude spoke.

In the thin shadow, the gentle and polite male colleague seemed to be the first to come back to his senses, pursed the corners of his lips slightly, then turned and left, and opened the passenger seat of the taxi.

In the taxi, Brian was already familiar with the taxi driver, chatting with him about the weather in New Haven, and whispering to Jessica occasionally.

In the dim light of the taxi, Clark noticed that the hands of the two of them were slightly overlapping each other, and they never separated.

The god on earth smiled slightly, and took the initiative to lean back in the corner, making room for the two people.

The hotel is near the airport, and because Brian was a little motion sick, Claude undertook the obligation to go to the front desk of the hotel to confirm the room, while Clark dragged their luggage and sat in the waiting area, his eyes slightly empty, looking at the four-star hotel. The decoration of the hotel lobby.

————Christmas is coming soon.

Those red and green decorations made Clark realize this.

"Where are you going for Christmas?" Brian suddenly leaned over and asked him.

"go home."

Almost without thinking, Clark spoke his answer.

"That's great." Brian envied, "Jessica and I can only stay in Metropolis."

"...?"

Clark expressed his doubts with his eyes.

The brown-haired female colleague answered lazily, "My hometown is on the other side of the world. If I want to go there, I have to have a boxing match with kangaroos first."

"You should see those kangaroos, Clark."

She sat down, stroked her pen twice, and said solemnly, "God, they have become so arrogant now, I doubt that I will be able to beat the Johnson family near my house."

Both she and Brian had a pretty funny way of talking, and Clark couldn't help laughing.

"What about you, Claude?" Just as Claude came back, Brian raised his voice and asked him, "What are your plans for Christmas?"

Claude handed them the room cards one by one, and replied with a normal expression, "Go back to my parents' little house, and use junk food and raging jelly to spend this damn holiday."

"Dude, you really hate every holiday." Brian raised an eyebrow and sighed, "Not even Christmas?"

"No."

The polite male colleague pushed down his glasses and said with a smile, "In my eyes, all festivals are divided into two categories, those with holidays and those without, and they have no other purpose."

"Whoa, pragmatists."

Jessica stood up and patted him on the shoulder, "At least you have fifteen days off, and a holiday is a good holiday."

"........."

Claude smiled noncommittally.

As the elevator goes up, they go in different directions at the fork in the hallway: Jessica and Cloud are on the left, and Brian and Clark's room is the first on the right.

Clark put the room card on the doorknob, and with a beep, the door opened inward. He stuffed the room card into the card slot on the back of the door, turned on the light switch, and let the bright light illuminate the room.

Brian dragged the luggage into the room and looked around. Clark walked into the bedroom with him and looked at the structures on both sides.

One bed is by the window and the other is by the wall.

"I can be by the window or the door." Brian said, "You choose."

Clark thanked him and chose the bed closer to the door of the room.

"Okay," Brian walked to the door of the room and waved to him, "I want to go to the bar in the lobby. If you go to bed early, just don't lock the door."

Clark nodded, watching the back of his colleague walking out of the bedroom, and heard the door of the living room being closed with a "click".

The sound of footsteps gradually faded away, he withdrew his mind, turned to take out his laptop, and continued to revise the inspiration he thought of on the plane.

After 10 minutes, the footsteps came and went, and there was a knock on the door suddenly.

———It can't be Brian, because he has a room card.

Clark walked lightly to the door and turned on his super vision.

A polite male colleague was standing at the door, with nothing in his hands, a calm face, and silver-rimmed glasses covering his eyes——Clark noticed that Claude's irises seemed to be different colors of blue and blue. green.

The god on earth hesitated for a second, and opened the door.

"Come in," he said.

Claude nodded to him, and entered the room in silence.

When Clark closed the door, he turned his head and found that Claude was staring at him intently.

They stood opposite each other, and the calm that humans tried to pretend to be was being burned by some kind of burning inside; he didn't say a word, but Clark could feel the burning burning in his soul, it was a kind of hot, dizzy feeling. , torrents of desperation and desperation, like platinum flames.

He watched the human in front of him slowly bend his knees, kneel down in front of him, lower his head, and touch his forehead to the ground.

For a moment, the god on earth held his breath.

"I know who you are," a hoarse voice tore from Claude's throat, "I know what you came to New Haven for, please allow me to help you, I will tell you everything, I absolutely I won't betray you."

"……stand up."

Even though he had a hunch, Clark couldn't help but dry his voice.

After a pause, he couldn't help asking in a cold tone.

"What do you want?"

In a long silence, the Kryptonian heard the human answer.

"Bring me when you destroy that demon lair. If you have to give a reason..."

Claude closed his eyes and smiled miserably.

At this moment, the scene in front of the airport was almost repeated in front of Clark's eyes. The difference was that under the bright light, he could clearly see the expression on Claude's face this time.

"...that used to be where I grew up."