American comic book: My Father is Superman, am I just an NPC?

Chapter 22 Homecoming! The Transformation of a Superman!
The pendant is shimmering.

Like a faintly beating heart, it gleamed with an ominous, deep black light.

It was exactly the same color as that evil spirit.

"Could it be that an evil spirit has crawled inside?" Ian held the pendant in his hands and examined it repeatedly, but he couldn't find any gaps to pry open. If it really was an evil spirit hiding inside, it probably couldn't be pried out by hand.

Just as Ian was wondering what was going on...

"Ian?"

Clark Kent's voice suddenly came from behind.

Ian was startled and turned around. Sure enough, it was his elderly father wearing thick glasses, carrying a briefcase as if he had just returned from working overtime.

What are you doing standing at the door?

Clark shrugged the shoulder carrying his bag, sounding confused. Facing his parents, Ian instinctively loosened his open jacket to cover the pendant beneath his shirt.

He knows it too.

If Clark wanted to, he could even see his own bone cells. However, seeing that Clark's expression was normal, he also felt that his father probably didn't maintain abnormal vision all the time.

"I'm thinking about something."

Ian chuckled twice, finding an excuse just in time.

“Stop spacing out, let’s go home.” Clark seemed unsuspecting and accepted the explanation, patting Ian’s shoulder with his warm, large hand.

He walked towards the main gate first.

Ian followed closely behind.

As they opened the door, warm lights and the sound of a television immediately flooded in. The two walked in one after the other, and there they saw Jonathan, the older brother, sprawled on the sofa scrolling through his phone, Jordan, the younger brother, furiously pressing the controller buttons on his game console, and their mother, Louise, standing in the kitchen doorway, biting her fingers.

Her expression seemed to show relief after Ian and Clark entered the room.

“I ran into Ian when I came back from working overtime,” Clark said, speaking as if he had no idea Ian was coming home late, though his two older brothers knew perfectly well that.

"So, where have you been? Why are you so late?" Jordan glanced at Ian, then stared back at the fighting game on the TV screen.

Hear the words.

Ian hasn't answered yet.

Jonathan interrupted, his tone exaggerated, "He must have gone to meet a girl, right? Our little Ian has finally figured things out; he knows to hang out with female classmates after school."

He winked at Ian, clearly helping to cover for him. It was obvious that Louise had been in a bad mood before Ian returned, and might have even thrown a few tantrums.

Ian felt a warmth in his heart.

but.

He was prepared for this.

“No! It’s much scarier than playing with female classmates!” Ian patted his chest, leaving his two older brothers dumbfounded, and the whole family’s eyes immediately focused on him.

“I was actually abducted by a taxi driver, a terrifyingly strong man, and an accomplice. He dragged me to an abandoned house and almost killed me.”

"Luckily, I was quick-witted and managed to steal...steal a bicycle, and pedaled like crazy to get back." Ian almost let slip that he was driving a Grand Theft Auto.

That would definitely ignite Louise's temper. Of course, he only slightly modified the truth in this last detail; what he said earlier was indeed true.

However, Clark's eyelids twitched noticeably several times.

"Human traffickers?"

Jordan put down the controller, his tone surprised. He had been playing a fighting game, beating up a Superman—whose identity he didn't even know if he had any official authorization—with a character named "Flash."

"Ok?"

Louise looked at her husband with some suspicion. Clark returned a rather helpless expression and gave his wife a barely perceptible nod.

"This really isn't some rebellious little story from your teenage years?" Jordan looked at Ian with great suspicion. Seeing Ian frown, he realized that his little brother wasn't lying.

"Damn it! You didn't even call the police? What did the driver look like? Do you remember the license plate number?" Jordan, who was easily angered, slammed his fist on the table and reached for his phone. "Criminals these days are so brazen! What is Superman doing? The crime rate is still so high after all these years!" Jordan grumbled angrily as he tried to dial 911.

“We are a white family.”

Before the operator could even speak, Jordan had already started introducing himself. You could clearly hear a stuttering sound from the other end of the line, indicating a line switching issue.

Hello, how can I help you?

The operator spoke.

And at this time.

Clark, his lips twitching slightly, walked over and pressed the hang-up button.

"Dad? Don't tell me that we still need to back down in this situation?" Jordan and Clark didn't get along, so his tone was very inflammatory when he spoke to his father.

“We’ll handle this. You all go back to your rooms first.” Clark didn’t respond, but spoke in an unquestionable tone, with the commanding manner typical of a parent.

Jordan is about to explode.

Jonathan stopped him.

"Is it because the people who kidnapped Ian are targeting the two of you?" Jonathan's imagination ran wild, and he had always been quite concerned about the fact that his parents were journalists, a high-risk profession.

"children."

Louise walked over at this moment, "Listen to your father, trust us, we will handle this matter well, and Ian will definitely not encounter any more danger."

"Is that right, Clark?"

Done.

She glanced at her husband.

"..."

Clark opened his mouth, wanting to tell the truth, but after looking at the two older children, he finally nodded and made a promise to all three children.

"No one can hurt my child."

He gave Ian a special look, who was trying to blend in. Perhaps it was the reassurance that worked, or perhaps a mother's words were more comforting to a child than a father's.

"It better be this way!"

Jordan glanced at Clark, then pulled Ian upstairs. "Looks like we'll have to take you to school starting tomorrow. You can wait for us to come back together after school."

The high schools they attended were indeed not far apart.

"Forehead."

Ian wanted to refuse.

Jonathan then joined them, saying, "You have to tell us how you escaped the kidnappers' attempt to kill you. That's amazing. If it were me, I would be dead by now."

Both older brothers expressed their concern for Ian in their own ways.

Ian felt a warmth in his heart.

They quietly went upstairs together, surrounded by their brothers. Clark and Louise didn't stop them; they simply watched the three brothers leave the first floor.

Wait until the children's footsteps have completely disappeared.

"So, what's the truth?" Louise immediately turned to Clark, arms crossed, her expression serious. She knew that both Ian and her husband were definitely hiding something.

“This could be a very scary story.” Clark took a deep breath, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. However, he didn’t immediately recount what he had witnessed.

“To be honest, I still don’t understand whether Ian’s sudden change is related to what happened to me this morning.” Clark rolled up his sleeves.

I saw.

A gruesome wound ran across his muscle, its edges glowing with an eerie, dark green light, as if some kind of energy was surging within it, preventing his flesh from healing.

(End of this chapter)