Superman Termination Manual

After dinner on Hong Ge Food Street, it had already grown dark; a few people took the subway back to Old Jingmai District and were walking home.

As Ke Mingye walked, he suddenly noticed his older brother standing still ahead of him, so he raised his eyes to Ke Xiaomo's profile, then followed his gaze to the corner of the street.

The next second, Ke Mingye was frozen in place.

"Fuck... what the hell is going on here, Bai Zini just finished messing with me, now it's your turn to mess with me..." he thought, utterly shocked.

In view, a figure wearing Lustig's Hat, draped in a coat, and a mask covering the face stood in front of the vending machine.

The light inside the vending machine faintly illuminated his face, but sadly, it was tightly covered, making it difficult to see his features.

At this moment, he was observing this side with a subtle gaze, holding a bottle of orange juice, the lenses under the brim of his hat reflecting light.

"This stupid outfit has to be Fan Quan, but what's he doing here?"

"Damn, he doesn't think he won't get caught by my brother just because he's observing from afar, does he? If my brother has caught his scent, how could he possibly escape... they say my brother's tracking skill is the second best in the world, and honestly, few would dare claim the first."

Ke Mingye's mind felt like a ball of yarn dropped on the floor, his thoughts scattering like the threads, messy and endlessly stretching forward.

All possibilities began to play out in his mind, but without exception...

In the endings he imagined, Fan Quan's fate was definitely not going to be pleasant.

Either die at the hands of the oldest brother or at the hands of the second brother, or perhaps even faster, be captured and tortured by the Anomaly Control Bureau, dissected, and who knows, maybe even spill my own information... If the oldest and second brother combine this information, wouldn't they directly expose my true identity?

Ke Xiaomo shifted his gaze from the vending machine, turned back to his younger siblings, and said calmly, "There is a vending machine there, do any of you want a drink? I'll buy."

Are you sure you're going to buy drinks, not catch someone? Ke Mingye's eye twitched slightly; he was clear that Ke Xiaomo had already noticed Fan Quan secretly watching them.

Ke Mingye lowered his head, eyes on his phone, and was the first to speak, "Cola."

"Add a cola."

"Add two."

"Sprite."

"Mai Dong."

"I don't need any." Ke Yinzhi, fiddling with his phone, said, "Then I'll take them home first; you can catch up after buying the drinks."

"By the way, isn't there a supermarket right by our house? Why buy from the vending machine?"

Ke Mingye stared at his phone, speaking nonchalantly to Ke Xiaomo, trying hard to cover for Fan Quan.

At the same time, he summoned the communication panel and opened the discussion group page.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Ke Mingye's fingers hesitated, contemplating whether to type in the discussion group to warn Fan Quan to run away.

He thought, Fan Quan had already been spotted by my brother, and if he doesn't run now, it'll be too late... But if I type on the player panel, wouldn't that be the same as telling him straight that I'm the player "Failed Man"?

Luckily, he didn't need to warn him, as Fan Quan seemed to have realized something was off. He turned around, clutching that orange juice, and slowly walked into the street corner, leaving Ke Xiaomo's line of sight.

"The supermarket by our house hasn't been open these past few days, the owner had some matters, I'll just buy here."

Having said that, Ke Xiaomo had already started walking toward the vending machine.

"Uh, do you need help carrying the drinks, you sure you can manage all those bottles on your own?"

Ke Mingye shrugged his shoulders, continuing to ask.

"No need, I grabbed a bag on my way out of the restaurant, I'll just put them in there. You guys go ahead home," Ke Xiaomo said without turning his head.

Fuck, this is it, it's all fucked. What can I do now? I can't exactly make a scene and keep my brother from going there, right? Fan Quan, what the hell are you doing? Isn't this just seeking death?

Did he figure out my identity, or was it just bad luck that we bumped into each other on the road? How unlucky can you get...

Ke Mingye glanced at Ke Xiaomo's back, a cold sweat running down his forehead, inwardly thinking, "It's come to this, you might as well get your neck ready for the west, buddy; this is as far as I can help."

"Let's go; the game starts soon tonight. It would be a shame to miss it."

Ke Yinzhi said with a smile, leading the younger siblings away from the street.

Ke Mingye put his hands in his coat pockets and walked forward while looking up at the dark night sky.

His eyes flickered as he felt certain… by tomorrow morning, he would receive the death notification of the player "Fan Quan."

Fan Quan was already a dead man.

........

.......

An hour earlier, in a dimly lit rental room in an urban village.

The curtains in the room were drawn tightly, and only a cold-toned desk lamp was turned on.

Under the lamp's light, Fan Quan sat at the table flipping through a booklet that contained information about superhumans recorded while watching live streams on the dark web.

"The first time Spider Man posted in the discussion group, he said, 'How many superhumans does each of your families have'… At the time, I was puzzled, but looking back now, this question implies that there is at least one superhuman in his family; otherwise, he wouldn't have subconsciously asked in that manner."

"In this afternoon's conversation, he said his situation was very dangerous, anyone around him could kill him, which further implies that there are at least two superhumans in his family to start with, and… the strength of these superhumans is not weak, definitely not the harmless level of superhumans, otherwise he wouldn't need to worry."

Fan Quan flipped through the booklet, muttering to himself.

"Superhumans who are active in this area, whether villains or heroes, are not that many when you actually filter them down."

"For villains, there are Boundary Serpent, Fly Immortal, etc. But because of Qing Ya, the criminal organizations in Huanjing are mostly disorganized. Moreover, if Spider Man was born into a criminal family, he could have just run away completely. Those villainous characters can't overtly seek him out, after all, they are still under Spider Man's control..."

"Thinking this way, if I turn my focus onto the heroes, the commonly active ones include Ink Writer, Liquor Sword Feng, Tai Chi Customer, Magical Girl Rainbow, Magical Girl Feng, Qing Ya, Black Wukong, and other characters..."

"Ink Writer, real name, Ma Yingchuan, combat power B-..."

"Liquor Sword Feng, real name, Ma Linye, combat power B..."

"Tai Chi Customer, real name, Gu Linchun, combat power A-..."

"Qing Ya, real name, Ke Youqing, combat power A+..."

Fan Quan's gaze lingered on Qing Ya for a moment.

"Apart from Qing Ya, in Huanjing's resident heroes and magical girls, there basically aren't any with the surname 'Ke,' which is not very common." Fan Quan thought. "Speaking of the surname 'Ke'... Previously, the system had reported that the Anomaly Control Bureau agent who had killed those two players in the United States was called 'Ke Yinzhi.'"

He pondered for a moment.

"It's overly coincidental, aren't they family... But it's also not good to directly search for the information under the names 'Ke Youqing' and 'Ke Yinzhi.' Given their status, the resident records are either locked or publicly displayed as bait. Once someone looks up the records, it will send an alert to the person concerned."

"Ink Writer and Tai Chi Customer both have the last name Ma, but they are following the idol route, with their real identities disclosed to the public. They can temporarily be ruled out."

"Next, Black Wukong, real name, Bai Qiuwu, combat power A."

"Magical Girl Ash, real name, Bai Zini, combat power B++."

"These two have the same last name, and they are not backed by the officials, meaning with just a casual check, one can find out their family identities."

Fan Quan thought this and opened a secret chat interface, sending a message to a user named "Cai Bing."

[Fan Quan: Do you have time to help me check on Bai Qiuwu and Bai Zini, see if they are family and also send me their family names and address.]

"Cai Bing," the world's top hacker from his previous life.

He was also Fan Quan's friend. Three days after travelling to this world, on a whim, he tried entering a website only the two of them knew about in his former life.

He hadn't expected that he would actually log into that website. The page was empty, nothing in it.

But soon, a line of neon-green text slowly appeared at the center of the webpage:

——"Hello, old friend."

Fan Quan communicated with Cai Bing through this webpage, learning that she too had crossed over to this world as a player.

Cai Bing had set up a similar website on her first day in this world, acting as a cipher, to confirm whether a few old friends from her past life were among these hundred players, but she had not expected to actually find one.

Fan Quan was recalling this when Cai Bing had already sent a message.

[Cai Bing: They are family. They live at Old Jingmai Street, Unit 1, Period 1, Building 5, Apartment 1201. You don't say, this family is quite peculiar. It consists of nine members; aside from the parents, they have seven children, two of whom are adopted. In addition, according to official records, this family are all ordinary people, no superhumans. Wait a sec...]

[Fan Quan: What's up?]

[Cai Bing: Are you messing with me?]

[Cai Bing: Why is their dad named 'Ke Youqing'? What the hell did you have me look up?]

Seeing the name "Ke Youqing," Fan Quan paused for a second, then quickly started typing.

If there were players who may not have paid attention to "Black Wukong" and "Magical Girl Ash," then "Qing Ya," a widely renowned character, would definitely be known to them, and they would have searched his real name using the information panel.

Put differently, there might be only those ninety or so players in the world who could potentially know Qing Ya's real identity.

[Fan Quan: Bai Zini is Magical Girl Ash's real name, Bai Qiuwu is Divine Communicator Black Wukong's real name, I noted this down during a livestream from the system provided information panel.]

[Cai Bing: You mean, their dad is Qing Ya?]

[Fan Quan: Cut the crap, did you directly hack into the official records database to get this info?]

[Cai Bing: Yes.]

[Fan Quan: Then you're screwed.]

[Cai Bing: Yeah, you know that? It's all your fault.]

[Fan Quan: I didn't expect it to be such a coincidence. They are Qing Ya's family, and surely Qing Ya had tampered with their records.]

[Cai Bing: I really can't handle this anymore; you always get me into trouble.]

[Fan Quan: Get ready to run. Qing Ya must have set a visitation alert in his family's records. He probably knows your location by now. With his counter-surveillance skills, he will soon find you.]

[Cai Bing: What the hell do you mean, are you messing with me?]

[Fan Quan: I'm not messing with you, I just didn't expect that Black Wukong and Magical Girl Ash were Qing Ya's family. I thought these two being not under the officials, using their real names to query the corresponding records, wouldn't be noticed by anyone.]

[Cai Bing: Explain better next time. I need to get moving now, logging off.]

After sending the last message, Cai Bing's avatar went dark.

"Old Jingmai Street, Unit 1, Period 1, Building 5, Apartment 1201."

Fan Quan glanced at it, memorized the address, then picked up the hat from the table, placing it on his head, and slowly walked out of the cramped rental.