Chapter 1529

In the pitch-black night, a bright moon hung high in the sky. The wooden window lattice reflected cold light under the moonlight. A middle-aged man wearing glasses sat by the window looking at a news draft, holding a phone in one hand and saying to the other side.

"Don't worry, the New York Times is not those obscure small newspapers. Our online media has enough influence. Since going online, the number of subscribers has exceeded two million, which is the highest among official accounts of traditional media, radiating to more than twenty states."

"In the next electronic newspaper, we have arranged for two political commentators to debate. The topic is 'How ordinary people can protect themselves in an environment full of superheroes'."

"One of the commentators will fiercely attack the gun-ban faction, and at the same time propose that guns are for dealing with ordinary people. People must master stronger firepower to have a chance to escape from superheroes, while criticizing that candidate as a one-sided gun-restriction faction that is not responsible for the safety of the public's life..."

"But I think we can further intensify the conflict between ordinary people and superheroes. After all, if everyone shoots when they see a superhero, bullets will sell better."

"By the way, there are also those food preservative sellers who preach the doomsday theory. If we can contact them, we can also launch a topic about how ordinary people can build strongholds if superheroes occupy the world with hegemony..."

Just at this moment, the middle-aged man suddenly found a red light flashing on the draft paper on his table,

He was startled, his hand shook, the phone fell to the ground, and when he turned his head, he saw a portal flashing with red light.

A black shadow walked out of the portal, raised his gun, fired, shot his head with one shot, turned and walked back into the portal, the whole process was done in one go, leaving no traces.

And on the other side of the portal was the spacious and bright Spider-Army hall, as well as a Spider-Man standing stupidly on the side, dumbfounded.

"You just killed him like that?! Shadow Spider-Man, this is too... too..." Spider-Man's hand waved in the air for a long time, seemingly not knowing how to describe it.

"Go find your Stark, don't follow me." Shadow Spider-Man waved his hand impatiently and said: "Or you can go to the airport to watch planes take off. You should like that quite a bit."

"How do you know... My meaning is, Mr. Stark left with Eddie, saying he was going to make some documentary. I saw you summoning portals here all the time, so I came over to take a look, you... you..."

"Don't hinder me from performing the mission." Shadow Spider-Man walked past him, looked at the list in his hand, opened a portal again, walked toward it, and returned with a bloody smell after not too long.

And when George rushed to the police station that night, he found eight murder cases with almost identical methods placed in front of him, and the people who died were more important than the others.

The victims of the first three cases were media workers. Although they had a certain social reputation, they were not important figures. The subsequent three cases were military personnel, and the last two were even more heavyweight. One was a congressman, and the other was the New York State regional president of the energy giant Roxxon Corporation.

This completely exploded the pot. The New York Police Department received at least a thousand calls within six hours, and everyone was asking who did it, but George couldn't answer them that it was Spider-Man's vengeful soul.

In all fairness, George didn't hate Spider-Man, but this attitude was also because, except for the immature little Spider who caused some chaos in the early days of his debut, the Spider-Man of this universe had been a street hero for a very short time and was caught to work in the laboratory before he could fight crime on the streets.

So his conflict with George didn't intensify to the point of being irreconcilable. The reason why George's attitude toward him was worse than toward other superheroes was that Spider-Man looked younger. George thought he set a bad example for other young people, including his daughter.

Touching his conscience, George was also a bit regretful about the passing of the first generation of Spider-Man. Thinking that it might be a young man of about the same age as his daughter, thinking that his family might be waiting for him to go home, but he could never go back, George also sighed for this tragedy like others.

But the Spider-Man after death didn't get hero-like treatment. His reputation was sometimes good and sometimes bad, and his successor's reputation was even worse. Even for a long time, Spider-Man became synonymous with hypocrisy, ostentation, and affectation, almost catching up with a rat crossing the street.

George sometimes suspected that Spider-Man never stood up to clarify and argue because he was guilty, but it was also possible that he was accumulating strength to execute the final verdict.

According to George's experience in handling cases, it is possible for one or two murder cases with the same method not to leave any traces, but now there are a total of ten murder cases, the crime scenes are exactly the same, and the traces are gone. How could this not make him associate it with occult reasons?

As the police chief of New York, George has a certain understanding of the occult world, because some mages have caused some chaos because they didn't understand the rules of ordinary people's society. When he went to handle it, he also witnessed the magic of magic.

So after this incident, George also considered Jameson's statement, so he contacted the New York Sanctum for the first time. But strangely, the New York Sanctum, which used to be sensitive, didn't give a reply for a long time this time, which made George even stranger.

He didn't know that the Sanctums around the world were busy looking for their Supreme Sorcerer who had disappeared for a long time without saying goodbye, only thinking that the Sanctum's attitude was ambiguous, and there might really be some hidden reasons.

With such thoughts, George still conducted the investigation step by step. Having been a police chief for so many years, he also knew that in the face of huge pressure, the police must be fully dispatched and make a look that everyone has something to do, so as not to be criticized.

But George himself didn't follow most of the police officers to investigate various crime scenes or face the questioning of energy giants, but came to the Daily Bugle alone.

A few months ago, the Daily Bugle suspended publication, so the newspaper office is now empty, and no employees are working here. George entered the building of the Daily Bugle very easily and successfully found Jameson's office.

He knew how cautious Jameson was about Spider-Man's problem, so he didn't look at the file cabinets exposed outside at all, but came directly to the file room next to the editor-in-chief's office to look for locked file cabinets, and used a gun to pick the lock with skilled technique.

Not long after, George found those clues about Spider-Man that Huji provided to Jameson in a locked file cabinet.

The evidence included backup recordings of waiters in underground boxing matches, clues in the sewer, and also Spider-Man's trace information that Jameson didn't mention.

After flipping through these materials, George found that the vast majority of the information recorded in them was located in Hell's Kitchen, where the first generation of Spider-Man debuted early. Based on this, George speculated that Huji and the organization behind him should have a stronghold in Hell's Kitchen.

George put the obtained materials on the table for rapid comparison. Through the range revealed by the trace information, George determined the approximate range of the stronghold, and then he drove to the target street.

When the cold wind of late autumn blew across the street, George lowered his head and looked at the materials in his hand. The fragile paper made a "rustling" sound under the blowing of the strong wind. Schiller's notebook flipped a page, and he pointed to a piece of information on it and said.

"After Huji dies, investigators will definitely find that there is an organization behind him specifically smearing Spider-Man. This organization is quite professional, and every clue about Spider-Man is quite detailed and reliable."

"The people I sent to act won't leave any clues, so investigators can only focus on the organization behind Huji. I deliberately disclosed some trace information, and professionals can completely determine the approximate location of the stronghold by collecting the range of trace information—Hell's Kitchen, Harind Street a32c, which is a small house two streets away from my clinic."

"I arranged some clues there in advance. Investigators will soon find that this is another Hydra's handwriting, and it also involves the energy giant Roxxon Corporation. Roxxon Corporation has been funding S. H. I. E. L. D. and also has contact with Hydra within S. H. I. E. L. D."

"Roxxon Corporation cannot compete with the Stark Group in the field of heavy weaponry, so their business focus shifted to the field of civilian weaponry a few years ago."

"About a year ago, they contacted Hydra in S. H. I. E. L. D., asking them to investigate the traces of superheroes in New York, mainly to dig out their black materials, and then buy off media and writers, and publish them after distorting or fabricating this evidence."

"This is to create an atmosphere that superheroes may go crazy and hurt ordinary people at any time, making ordinary people have to buy weapons to protect themselves, so as to strike the gun-ban faction and increase the sales of civilian weaponry."

"But considering that Hydra agents are already very busy, and I happen to know Spider-Man very well, especially the Spider-Man in the early days of his debut, so I simply provided them with some evidence, such as Spider-Man often appearing in various illegal places, and even fighting black boxing matches."

"Investigators will happen to find evidence of Roxxon Corporation contacting Hydra to dig up black materials on superheroes in that room. Regardless of the attitude of the investigators, the evidence will eventually be published after several transfers, and the public will find out who is fooling them, and the Superhero Threat Theory will be self-defeating."

"More importantly, Roxxon Corporation's business focus is civilian. Once it falls into a public opinion storm, it must find a way to restore its brand image. Hydra cannot be relied upon, so they can only rely on S. H. I. E. L. D., and S. H. I. E. L. D. happens to lack funds to establish a new superhero team system..."

Schiller smiled and said: "Once the truth about Spider-Man being severely maliciously smeared spreads, people will inevitably re-examine this young superhero."

"And if George had prejudice against Spider-Man because of public opinion, then with his character, when Spider-Man reveals his identity to him, his first reaction will not be anger, but guilt. In this way, Peter's problem will also be solved."

And in the small house in Hell's Kitchen, George threw those shocking secrets about Hydra and Roxxon Corporation aside, and was stunned holding a report on Spider-Man's appearance and disappearance time found in the corner.

The trace information is very detailed, complete, and smooth, which can completely refute the outrageous arguments in some news that Spider-Man went gambling or slaughtered stray dogs during certain periods.

But what made George stunned was that the time period when Spider-Man disappeared in Hell's Kitchen, excluding the time for possible rest or school, was exactly the same as the time Gwen said she was going out to see an exhibition?

As a single father and an experienced criminal police officer who climbed to a high position by his own ability, George knows very well that a single daughter of a police chief will become the target of how many people, so he requires Gwen to report to him no matter who she goes out to play with, and explain the time of going out and returning home clearly.

Gwen is a quite obedient child, and she does it every time. Moreover, she doesn't like going out to parties very much. In the past two years, the number of times she went out can be counted on one's fingers. George clearly remembers the time she went out and returned home every time.

George doesn't believe there is such a coincidence in this world. Even if his thinking is conservative, he wouldn't think that the timeline of a man and a woman disappearing from the public's eyes just happens to coincide, and it would be purely because both are interested in an exhibition.

He looked at the materials in his hand again and confirmed that this was the trace information when the first generation of Spider-Man first debuted. So Gwen and the first generation of Spider-Man were in love?!

And when reaching this conclusion, George's first thought was, fortunately, the first generation of Spider-Man died, otherwise, how much danger would he bring to Gwen?

Wait, did he die? Or rather, is he dead now?

Instantly, George broke out in a cold sweat. Jameson's words kept echoing in his ears. He had no time to think, and instinctively rushed out of the house, got into the car, and returned home at the fastest speed.

With a 'Bang!', George opened the door, rushed in, looked at Gwen who was making a cake in front of the island counter, and asked.

"You were in love with Spider-Man?!"

Gwen was stunned. She knew her father very well. If George asked like this, he must have evidence. After the initial shock, Gwen turned her head away and didn't speak.

She was already waiting for George to be furious, but unexpectedly, George rushed up very flustered, grabbed her arm, and said: "Quick, Gwen, you have to leave New York!"

George couldn't be sure whether that mysterious killer was Spider-Man's vengeful soul, but even if there was a one-in-ten-thousand chance, he couldn't let Gwen take the risk. Gwen is his entire spiritual pillar. Nothing in this world is more important than Gwen's safety.

Gwen was confused by his action. She was very puzzled, and finally pushed George away, looked at him, and said: "Dad, what's wrong with you? Why do I have to leave New York? Tomorrow is your birthday, I still have to celebrate your birthday with you."

Seeing the sincere expression on his daughter's face, George sighed helplessly and said.

"Do you understand, Gwen? The first generation of Spider-Man is already dead, but now he might have returned!"

George actually meant that the first generation of Spider-Man might have been resurrected from the dead and turned into a vengeful soul, but Gwen misunderstood. She thought that George could find out that she and Spider-Man were in love, which meant he already knew Spider-Man was Peter, just not sure that the first and third generation Spider-Man were the same person.

Anyway, the matter of love had already been exposed, and there was no point in hiding it anymore, so Gwen nodded and said: "Yeah, of course he returned. Didn't you see Peter a few days ago?"

George was stunned. His thoughts were like electricity. He looked at Gwen and said: "Peter? You mean, Peter Parker is Spider-Man?!"

Gwen nodded, lowered her head with some guilt, and said: "We didn't deliberately hide it from you, but Peter has some social barriers, and you know he doesn't speak very well, so we really didn't know how to explain it to you..."

"So your current boyfriend is also Spider-Man? You hooked up with two generations of Spider-Man?! My god, what's so good about him?!" George supported his forehead as if he was about to faint.

Gwen stood in place with her head down like a child who made a mistake, but what she waited for was not the scolding she imagined. George just said with some anxiety: "What are you still standing there for? Go call Peter and let him come back!"

"Uh... do you want to scold him to his face?"

"I thank him! If he weren't Spider-Man, how could he protect you from another Spider-Man?! Hurry up and let him come back, and then it's best for you two to stay together 24 hours a day for the next two months, don't give that vengeful soul killer any chance!"

George looked left and right and said: "No, no, premarital cohabitation is still too outrageous... How about you two get married first?"

"Ah?"