Li Nian: You're the Baboon-Man

Peter had just gotten off work and was walking down a somewhat deserted street. There were few people around, especially after night fell. Those still lingering were either exhausted office workers, homeless vagrants, or...

Li Nian casually dealt with a punk trying to rob him. Seeing Li Nian dressed in an expensive suit, not particularly muscular, and with the appearance of a white man, the punk had assumed he would be an easy target.

Unfortunately, he had run into a robot—a robot from another world, at that.

Li Nian helplessly walked out of the alley. He had only been here for three days. Three days! There had been robberies every night! On the very first day, he had even run into two muggers.

Li Nian did not even know how to mock the public security here. When he and Wanda had wandered the streets of San Francisco, no one had been foolish enough to target them. In his previous life, it had been a society governed by law, and he had never encountered a single one in his entire life.

America was always promoting on television how wonderful its public safety was. Most police officers were a bunch of useless drunks, each one with a waist thicker than a barrel...

Li Nian truly did not want to complain anymore. He looked from afar at Peter's back. The young man's figure was always so lonely, so slight... Li Nian had never seen anyone by Peter's side.

What terrible popularity...

"Fire! There's a fire!"

Li Nian watched the crowd flee in the opposite direction as firefighters hurried to the scene and began dealing with a burning apartment building on the street.

Li Nian remembered this part of the story. In fact, if he had not interfered, this was where Peter would begin to doubt his own abilities.

"Just as expected!" Li Nian watched Peter charge into the fire without looking back, decisively rushing into danger. For some reason, he was moved by Peter's courage and selflessness. "No matter which Peter he was... he was just too kind..."

Li Nian watched with a smile as his body gradually disappeared into the shadows...

A Black man watching the excitement at the foot of the building looked at Peter, who had rushed inside, as if he were an idiot. Why were young people so impulsive? Throwing away their lives for people who had nothing to do with them... it simply was not worth it!

"Tsk!" The man turned around, about to move farther away to watch, when the corner of his eye caught a red-and-green figure darting into the building. It was so fast that his eyes had nearly failed to register it.

The man rubbed his eyes, only to find nothing but the roar of blazing flames, the crackling of burning wooden structures, and the screams of passersby...

"Haunted?" Though flames stood right before him, the young Black man shuddered as though he were freezing.

Peter raced up the stairs. Chunks of falling ceiling left streaks of fire across the floor. With his spider-sense, Peter easily dodged them, but he still could not avoid getting scorch marks all over his body and ash on his face.

"Help... help..." Peter heard a cry for help. It was very faint, very soft...

Peter kicked open the door and quickly found a little girl hiding in a wardrobe.

"Come on, come on, it's okay now, kid!" Peter kept soothing the girl's emotions and pulled her into his arms. But the raging flames pouring out before them made him hesitate. He would be fine, but the child...

Just then, a suspended beam fell and crashed straight down in front of Peter...

Just as Peter was hesitating over whether to expose his abilities and jump straight out the window...

"Hey!" Li Nian's somewhat comical-looking face appeared before them. "Doesn't look so great, does it?"

Teasing aside, Li Nian opened a passage for them, and the three of them escaped the sea of flames just like that.

Peter returned the girl to her parents. Looking at the couple's anxious yet loving expressions, Peter could not help feeling a little envious.

"That's Baboon-Man!"

"Look! Baboon-Man saved those people!"

"..."

"Baboon-Man? Who's Baboon-Man?" Li Nian tilted his head in confusion and looked around. What kind of superhero was that? Could there be some incomplete setting here? Was Spider-Man not the only hero in this world?

But as he looked at the adoring gazes directed at him, Li Nian suddenly thought of a terrifying possibility...

"Baboon-Man... they aren't talking about me, are they?!"

"Baboon-Man is looking at me! Woohoo!"

All right, Li Nian was now certain that Baboon-Man referred to him!

He no longer knew what words could describe his mood. It was as though a flock of crows was cawing over his head, racing to drop bird droppings all over him, only for him to be trampled back and forth beneath a flock of sheep, with sheep dung pellets stuck all over him for good measure!

"My name is Vision!" Li Nian flew into the air and shouted furiously at the crowd. "My name is Vision! Not Baboon-Man!"

But whether the crowd had listened... he had no idea...

Li Nian's mood immediately plunged to rock bottom. Even the joy of saving people just now had been washed away without a trace.

Peter stood mixed in with the crowd. Looking at Li Nian's frustrated expression, he found it inexplicably hilarious. The corners of Peter's lips curled up, and he burst out laughing.

Li Nian shot Peter a vicious glare. He had to protect these civilians, so he could not touch them. But Peter, as Spider-Man, had first-rate physical abilities. It would not be a big deal to beat him up... right?

Li Nian flew away amid cries of "Baboon-Man" surrounding him. He left without the slightest attachment, not taking a single cloud with him...

The next day,

The Daily Bugle published news of Li Nian saving people from the fire. However, Jonathan, the owner of the Daily Bugle, did not excessively smear him in the article. He merely questioned Li Nian's origins and mental state... Mental state, my ass! His mental state was perfectly normal! Jonathan's whole family's mental state was abnormal!

Looking at the newspaper's comments about "Baboon-Man," Li Nian felt countless black lines crawl across his forehead.

His face simply looked like that. What could he do about it? It was not like the newspaper claimed, that some artist had gained superpowers and painted graffiti on his own face...

"I wasn't late, was I?" Not far away, Peter looked at Mary Jane, who had asked him to meet her, and blankly did not know what to say. He simply sat across from her, smiling at her.

"Has everything been all right?"

"Funny, I don't know where to begin." Mary Jane looked at the face she had once loved most and felt deeply conflicted, though her words came out harsh. "You know, people sometimes deceive themselves. I'm the best example of that!"

"That night, I heard your confession. You said you had changed for me, but I just couldn't accept it."

"I didn't dare believe you."

Hearing this, Peter could not help lowering his head in inferiority. He was Spider-Man, that was true, but he was also Peter Parker—the poor kid who had achieved nothing and earned a meager salary. If he did not work hard, he could only beg on the streets.

Peter knew very well that his financial situation could not give the girl before him happiness. So he said nothing, because there was nothing he could say.

"But I've been thinking a lot lately..." Mary Jane wanted to say more, but Peter interrupted her.

"Actually... there are some things I want to tell you too..."

"What I said that night didn't go through my brain. Actually... what I meant to say was..."

"I thought I could change for you... but I can't." Peter spoke incomparably heartless words, but his heart hurt as though it were bleeding. He loved the girl before him too much! But he could not give her happiness... neither as Peter Parker nor as Spider-Man...

"I'm sorry, I..."

"Hey! Parker!" Li Nian stepped forward in time and interrupted the words Peter was about to blurt out.

"You should follow your heart, not submit to reality!" Li Nian said with some frustration at Peter's failure to live up to expectations, though he did not think very highly of Mary Jane either.

As a man, he truly felt that Mary Jane was somewhat manipulative, but she was the official pairing after all, so it was not his place to interfere...

"Be careful, Peter! The enemy is here!" Li Nian checked the time and, seeing that it was about right, lowered his head and warned Peter.

In truth, Peter did not need his reminder. His spider-sense had already detected the enemy's arrival.