Homecoming! Superman's Transformation!

The pendant flashed.

Like a faintly beating heart, it gave off an ominous, pitch-black glow.

It was exactly the same color as that Evil Spirit.

"Could the Evil Spirit have gone inside?" Ian held the pendant in his hands and examined it repeatedly, but found no seam he could pry open. Even if the Evil Spirit was hiding inside, he probably could not dig it out with his hands.

Just as Ian was feeling puzzled.

"Ian?"

Clark Kent's voice suddenly came from behind him.

Ian jolted in fright and turned around. Sure enough, it was his bespectacled father, carrying a briefcase as though he had just returned from working overtime.

"What are you doing standing at the door?"

Clark shrugged the shoulder carrying his bag, his tone puzzled. Faced with a parent, Ian instinctively let his lifted jacket fall back down, covering the pendant beneath his shirt.

He knew it too.

If Clark wanted to, he could see even his bone cells. Still, seeing that Clark's expression was normal, Ian figured his father probably did not keep that freakish vision active every second of the day.

"I was thinking about something."

Ian gave a dry laugh and promptly came up with an excuse.

"Stop spacing out. Come on, we're going home." Clark did not seem suspicious and appeared to accept the explanation. He reached out with a warm hand and patted Ian on the shoulder.

He headed toward the front door first.

Ian followed close behind.

When they opened the door, warm light and the sound of the Game Console immediately washed over them. The two entered one after the other. In the living room, eldest brother Jonathan was sprawled on the sofa scrolling through his phone, second brother Jordan was furiously mashing buttons on a Game Console, and their mother Lois stood at the kitchen entrance biting her finger.

When Ian and Clark entered, she seemed to let out a breath of relief.

"I ran into Ian at the door when I got back from working overtime," Clark said proactively, sounding as though he had no idea Ian had come home late. His two brothers, however, were well aware of it.

"So where the hell did you go, coming back this late?" Jordan glanced at Ian, then immediately fixed his eyes back on the fighting game on the television screen.

At that.

Before Ian could answer.

Jonathan cut in, his tone exaggerated. "He definitely went on a date, right? Our little Ian has finally wised up and knows to hang out with girls after school."

He winked at Ian, clearly helping him cover for himself. Before Ian had come back, Lois must have been in a terrible mood. She might even have lost her temper a few times.

Ian's heart warmed.

However.

He had already prepared for this.

"No! It was far scarier than hanging out with girls!" Ian patted his chest. Both brothers looked utterly confused, and the entire family's attention instantly focused on him.

"I was actually kidnapped by a taxi driver. He was a huge, terrifying guy, and he had an accomplice. They dragged me to an abandoned house and nearly got me killed."

"Luckily, I was smart enough to grab... grab a bicycle and pedal like crazy all the way back." Ian nearly let it slip that he had driven a car in Grand Theft Auto.

That would definitely have set Lois off. Of course, he had only slightly altered the truth in that final detail. Everything before that had indeed happened.

But Clark's eyelid visibly twitched several times.

"Human traffickers?"

Jordan put down his controller, his voice full of disbelief. In the fighting game, he had just been using a character named "Lightning" to beat up a Superman who may or may not have been officially licensed.

"Hm?"

Lois also looked uncertainly at her husband. Clark gave her a rather helpless expression and nodded almost imperceptibly.

"This isn't one of your rebellious ghost stories, is it?" Jordan eyed Ian suspiciously. When he saw Ian frown, he concluded that his little brother was not lying.

"Damn it! And you didn't call the police? What did that driver look like? Do you remember the license plate?" Jordan had always had a short temper. He slapped the table and reached for his phone.

"Criminals these days are getting way too bold! What the hell has Superman been doing? After all these years, the crime rate is still this high!" Jordan complained furiously as he tried to dial 911.

"We're a white family."

Before the operator could even speak, Jordan had already announced it himself. From the other end of the line, it was obvious that the connected call had been transferred with a noticeable lag.

"Hello, how can I help you?"

The operator spoke.

At that moment.

Clark, whose mouth had twitched, walked over and pressed the hang-up button.

"Dad? Don't tell me that even in a situation like this, we still have to back down?" Jordan did not have a good relationship with Clark, so his words were loaded with Gunpowder.

"We'll handle this. You two go back to your rooms first." Clark did not respond directly. His voice simply brooked no argument, carrying the commanding tone unique to a parent.

Jordan was about to explode.

But Jonathan held him back.

"Is it because the people who kidnapped Ian were targeting you two?" Jonathan had quite an active imagination. He had always been concerned that his parents' work as reporters was a high-risk profession.

"Kids."

Lois walked over at that moment. "Listen to your father. Trust us. We'll take care of this, and Ian definitely won't face any more danger."

"Right, Clark?"

After saying that.

She glanced at her husband.

Clark opened his mouth, wanting very much to tell them the truth. But after looking at his two older children, he ultimately nodded and made a promise to all three boys.

"No one can hurt my children."

He looked pointedly at Ian, who was trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Perhaps his promise had worked, or perhaps their mother's words were simply more comforting than their father's.

"It better be!"

Jordan glanced at Clark, then grabbed Ian and headed upstairs. "Starting tomorrow, we have to take you to school. After classes, you can wait and come back with us."

Their high school really was not far away.

"Uh."

Ian wanted to refuse.

Jonathan came over as well. "You have to tell us how you escaped those kidnappers. That was incredible. If it were me, I'd probably already be dead."

Both older brothers were showing their concern for Ian in their own ways.

Ian felt warm inside.

He quietly went upstairs with his brothers surrounding him. Clark and Lois did not stop them. They merely watched the three brothers leave the first floor.

Once the children's footsteps had completely faded away.

"So, what's the truth?" Lois immediately turned to Clark, arms crossed and expression stern. She knew that both Ian and her husband had been hiding something.

"This might be a very frightening story." Clark took a deep breath, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. However, he did not immediately describe what he had witnessed.

"To be honest, I still haven't figured out whether Ian's sudden changes have anything to do with what I encountered this morning." Clark rolled up his sleeve.

A savage wound ran across his muscles, its edges glowing with an eerie green light. Some kind of energy seemed to be surging within it, preventing his flesh from healing.