Noon, Smallville Salon Restaurant.
The sounds related to eating were endless.
Spoons stirred in cups, hot oil sizzled in frying pans, and forks scraped against plates and dishes.
Peter flipped the tender eggs in front of him and looked up at the school not far away.
Three days had passed since Clark and Mark first entered school.
The two mischievous boys still hadn't recovered from the excitement of starting school.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Footsteps echoed on the floor as a middle-aged man wearing a North Carolina hat walked over and sat down opposite Peter's table.
"Good afternoon, Chandler."
Peter greeted the middle-aged man he had arranged to meet.
Chandler didn't take off his hat; instead, he nervously glanced left and right, "I told you not to say my name loudly."
Peter looked at the nervous Police Officer, feeling a bit speechless.
"We're not doing anything illegal, why are you so nervous?"
Chandler was a Police Officer in Smallville and a colleague of Officer Lyne.
Peter had previously made a secret deal with him—he paid Chandler some U.S. dollars, and Chandler provided him with some inside information from the Police station.
Peter casually picked up a cinnamon toast, "Just pretend I'm a reporter. It's not illegal for a Police Officer to reveal some inside information to a reporter, right?"
Chandler exhaled, adjusted his posture, making his bulky body more comfortable in the chair, "You're always right, Peter."
Peter crumpled a large piece of toast, poked a yolk, letting the overflowing yellow liquid merge with the maple syrup surrounding them.
He asked Chandler, "Are there any clues regarding the Luthor Family Bank robbery case?"
Peter felt that the robber who had continuously plundered banks and jewelry stores in the town had challenged his bottom line.
The Luthor Family Bank and jewelry stores were his exclusive territory. This bastard had stolen his things without permission, and he wouldn't be at peace until he got rid of him.
So he contacted Chandler, asking him to reveal some internal Police information.
Chandler looked left and right, confirmed no one was paying attention to them, then took out a stack of photos and placed them on the table.
"After continuously robbing several banks and jewelry stores, the suspect has recently gone quiet. It seems he's temporarily hiding."
Peter frowned and picked up the photos on the table.
The photos were all crime scene photos of the robbed jewelry stores. Glass display cases were smashed, and metal safes were deformed by impact.
Peter put down the photos and asked Chandler, "You must have people staking out the banks and jewelry stores, right? Why haven't you caught him yet?"
Chandler said helplessly, "He's not an ordinary person. We can't just send one or two Police Officers to stake him out, but we don't have enough Police force. You know, after the auditorium terrorist attack, we have to send Police Officers to patrol the streets at all times."
Peter nodded, "Do you have any guesses about the suspect's identity?"
"He should be a young man, young and strong, agile and incredibly powerful."
"Young man?"
Peter frowned slightly; the scope of "young man" was too broad.
Was he going to have to take matters into his own hands, transform into Batman at night, patrol the town, and catch this potential culprit?
"Buzz! Buzz!"
As Peter was deep in thought, Chandler's walkie-talkie rang.
"Yes, yes, I'm eating out. Near Jenny Street? I'll be right there."
Turning off the walkie-talkie, he stood up and said to Peter, "Sorry, there's a murder nearby. I have to rush over."
"Murder? What kind of murder?"
Chandler put on his hat, "An old man was strangled to death at home with piano wire, but you can't be sure, maybe he hanged himself with piano wire."
With that, he turned to leave.
"Wait."
Peter stopped him, pointing to an envelope on the table, "You forgot to take something."
"Uh huh, sorry, my memory has been a bit poor lately."
Chandler understood, picked up the envelope from the table, felt its thickness, and roughly guessed how much money Peter had put inside.
"See you next time, Mr. Patrick."
Chandler happily bid Peter farewell.
But his good mood was soon ruined by the smell at the murder scene.
The strong smell of blood, like the scent of rust, pierced his nostrils, making him want to vomit.
Looking at the gruesome scene, the corpse almost decapitated by piano wire, he frowned deeply and looked at Officer Lyne beside him.
Lyne, while examining the scene, said to him, "I hope the smell here doesn't make you throw up your lunch."
Chandler walked over to Officer Lyne, "I'm not a rookie. I've been working at the Police station for fifteen years. This situation isn't enough to make me lose my composure. So, any clues?"
Officer Lyne closed his notebook, "There's a camera at the intersection outside this house."
"Uh huh, did you find anything?"
"We found a guy's figure in it."
"Who?"
Lyne was silent for a second, then said, "It's the guy who robbed the Luthor Family Bank."
School.
Clark walked out of the corridor with his backpack.
At dismissal time, liberated first-graders cheered as they fled their classrooms.
"Thump!"
A tall, strong boy with a freckled face deliberately bumped into Clark's shoulder.
Clark, who hadn't noticed, stumbled from the impact.
"Farm boy, don't block my way when you walk next time."
The tall, strong freckled boy threatened Clark as he walked forward.
Clark didn't speak; he just quietly picked up his backpack that had fallen to the ground.
"Are you alright, Clark?"
Martha McConnell saw Clark's books scattered on the ground and came over to help him pick them up.
"Yes, I'm fine."
Clark hurriedly put the books in his backpack and was about to leave.
He felt a bit embarrassed to be seen in this situation.
Even if the other person wasn't Lana.
On the other side, Mark, from the other end of the corridor, saw Clark pushed down, and his little face immediately tightened.
He looked at the departing freckled boy, his little face taut, and followed him.
The freckled boy didn't go home immediately but went to the facilities area behind the school playground.
The sports facilities area contained various small exercise equipment; the only larger piece was the slide placed in the center.
He liked to play here with a group of his little followers after school.
But because he had stayed an extra few minutes at school today, all his followers had already left school, so he had to come alone.
In a good mood, he walked to the slide, ready to slide down.
But for some reason, he kept feeling like something was following him, an uneasy feeling lingering in his heart.
Standing on the two-meter-high slide, he nervously looked back.
Behind him was a calm forest.
"Whoosh!"
Thinking he was overthinking, he took a deep breath.
As he bent down to enter the slide, he didn't notice a Shadow suddenly appear behind him.