Chapter 4397: Far Star Project (22)

"Clark Kent!!!!!!"

The roar of the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet echoed over the center of Metropolis: "The leave you've taken in one month is more than I've taken in two years; is the Daily Planet opened by your family??!!!"

Clark in the editor-in-chief's office looked away guiltily and said: "This time it was really an accident; I went back to my hometown to visit relatives."

"Where did you go to visit relatives that could take so long?!!"

"A little far," Clark used his fingers to make a tiny gesture, "probably several million light-years away."

The editor-in-chief covered his forehead, took a deep breath, then said: "Listen, I don't care how long you've been on leave; the deadline for the report won't change. The person in charge of the municipal management department I asked you to watch, have you watched them yet?!"

"Uh... I'll go now." Clark said.

The editor-in-chief pointed at the door forcefully. Clark picked up his equipment and ran nimbly. After going out, he sighed, showing a slightly tired expression, and rubbed his face with his hands.

This trip to Krypton made him understand a truth more deeply than ever before—he was an Earthling. He could only return to Earth.

Clark flew for a long time at the fastest speed before finding the former Krypton. To his surprise, it didn't look dilapidated at all. The planet and the city maintained their original appearance, only the people were gone.

This also allowed Clark to find more information on Krypton, letting him understand the history of this planet and the truth of its destruction.

As mentioned before, Kryptonians had long since abandoned natural reproduction, turning to use gene screening and artificial embryo technology. This led to a child's future being decided by their genes as soon as they were born.

Such strict genetic control indeed made their development speed very fast at the very beginning. Because no matter what kind of talent was lacking, they could directly use genetic technology to customize it. But this also buried the disaster for their future destruction.

When Kryptonians used gene editing technology to manufacture a large number of talents and develop at high speed, they failed to realize: if the route is wrong, the more knowledge, the more reactionary. They ignored the guiding role of ideology and political lines, just blindly studying technology. This led to excessive mining and utilization.

Humans were a relatively young race. But precisely because they hadn't mastered any gene editing technology, the birth and death of people were very accidental, so much so that their exploration of sociology and political science was far earlier than the exploration of technology.

Humans struggled for millions of years before exploding with the Industrial Revolution in the past few hundred years. And in almost all the time before that, the theme of social operation was society itself. Nothing more than solving the problem of accidental birth and death.

But Krypton was equivalent to having gene screening and editing technology in the tribal period. This led to their exploration of their own society being seriously insufficient. If one were to use an analogy, it was probably like a baby who hadn't learned to walk yet, but everyone had a car.

They relied on gene editing technology to force this car to drive, piling up a "modern society". But in reality, it was still a high-tech version of a primitive tribe. How people get along with people, how people get along with nature, how people get along with society, they had never explored.

This led to babies holding various high-tech equipment, frantically destroying between surrounding planets and galaxies, just to mine more resources and develop higher technology.

To use a slightly biased analogy: humans are more like liberal arts students, spending a long time studying politics and sociology. This led to them developing for so many years, yet still unable to leave the surface. Certain thoughts developed during the exploration process and people's overall way of thinking led to many difficulties on the road of technological development.

And Kryptonians are like science students. Their brains only have precise calculations. They believe that every problem must have a final answer, including the universe itself. Through development and precise calculation, one must be able to get this answer. And in order to get this answer, every step must be as concise and accurate as possible. The faster the calculation, the better; the more accurate the calculation, the better. This led to everything except the mathematical process directly leading to the answer being ignored.

Neither of these ways of thinking is good enough. The former is very likely to be invaded by other civilizations because development is too slow, dying of its own weakness; the latter dies of social problems and resource depletion because of reckless behavior and lack of restraint.

However, Earth is much luckier than Krypton. There are countless ancient survivors here, and there is no lack of powerful people among humans. Every invasion has been successfully resisted. The entire society has undergone several subversions, but it has also lived to this day by patching things up.

Krypton was relatively unlucky. During the period of high-speed development, although society had various hidden dangers, it was barely maintained. But when the resource depletion problem caused by previous unbridled mining began to appear, external pressure caused social problems to become increasingly serious, and because of lack of experience, they couldn't solve these problems. Unfortunately, the technological level was high enough to kill compatriots efficiently enough. The entire destruction process was too fast to be saved.

It's like fighting in the primitive tribal period; fighting for a year wouldn't kill many people because of the lack of effective killing means. But with the development of technology and the appearance of nuclear weapons, humans only need a few hours to kill most of their compatriots.

The technological development level of Kryptonians was too strong, so much so that when the entire planet was irradiated by weapons, it was completely exterminated without any power to resist. So easy, yet so heavy.

Upon learning this truth, Clark realized that Lois's words before were right. The most important significance of exploring history is not to unearth the real truth, but to interpret what is discovered. Because this is an important part of developing ideology, politics, and society.

A race cannot just look forward, taking efficiency as the yardstick, and spending all its strength on rushing to the ultimate answer of the universe. It will eventually meet destruction. Standing from the perspective of civilization, mistakes are unavoidable, but trial and error are meaningful.

This also untied Clark Kent's knot—today's United States is a huge mistake in the history of human civilization development. But even if it is a mistake, it has its significance.

The energy, gears, and blades of this huge meat grinder, those stupid-to-the-point-of-outrageous congressmen, the indifferent and unrepentant intermediate links, the evil and cruel executioners, will all be a heavy stroke in the error book written by the essence of human civilization that continues history.

If criticism is not free, then praise is meaningless. If the mistake is not deep enough, the process of the right people discovering, confronting, and defeating this mistake cannot catalyze human civilization to make such a major choice and change. The more evil the enemy, the more legitimate and just the process of defeating and winning against the enemy. The route after the final victory will be firmer.

Clark had long determined that he was not the Superman of any country or any group. He was the Superman of Earth, the Superman of the world. The role he played was the guardian of human civilization.

Before, he was just heartbroken that the most powerful country in the world was cast with too many innocent people's blood. He didn't want such power, deeply doubting whether such a civilization still had a future, and also doubting whether he could save it.

However, after seeing the tragedy of Kryptonian civilization, he realized that he didn't stand high enough and didn't see far enough. If standing above the entire civilization, the gangrene appearing on the body is the touchstone for testing physical quality and the immune system. Even if the strongest limb parts have been infected, humans have not yet embarked on the same path of destruction as Kryptonians, which proves that the fire of hope still exists. The struggle hasn't ended, and there are still countless cells working hard in the dark. He is also their guardian; now is not the time to give up.

At the same time, Clark, who was in the center of the Kryptonian city, also realized that he had no sense of belonging to this strange civilization. He would rather help weak humans recover their health than pay any effort to resurrect the giants on the far star, and didn't even want to pay any effort for it.

His interpretation of the Kryptonian history and the truth of Kryptonian destruction he discovered was all from the perspective of an outsider, making objective but indifferent evaluations. There was no sadness of "the country is broken, but the mountains and rivers remain." It was like an alien passing by here by chance, having a sigh for the brilliance of this civilization, but not much regret.

If his parents could have sent him away a little later, perhaps he would have been a bit sad because of family affection. If he hadn't crashed on Earth in the way of fleeing, but visited in a more normal way, perhaps he would have felt indignation.

In the final analysis, no one had asked for his opinion. Others had thousands of helplessness and ten thousand bitterness, but it couldn't change one fact, that is, if the spaceship hadn't crashed on the Kent farm back then, and he hadn't been adopted by such a simple and kind couple, but landed in a tent area, landed in a military base, landed in a human experiment center, he would definitely have ended up in a lose-lose situation with human civilization, and definitely wouldn't have had a good result.

Clark couldn't say that he fled Earth in a hurry without feeling terrified by such speculation. When he truly witnessed the lower limit of this country, he realized that his parents might have made a wrong choice back then. It was just that he was lucky enough to meet one-in-ten-thousand good people and good times. What he saw gave him a feeling of "if it weren't for this, perhaps it would be better to live and die with other Kryptonians." And in order to prevent this self-destructive thought from becoming stronger and stronger, he didn't want to see more.

But no matter what, he still had to go back. Because compared to fear and anger, Krypton only made him feel indifferent. This proved that his belonging was Earth. He could only return to Earth.

Clark didn't stay on Krypton for long and returned to Earth soon, with most of the time spent on the road. And after returning to Earth, he originally wanted to see Lois the first time, but inevitably felt a bit of homesickness.

He realized that the sadness and confusion he showed when seeing Lois might be his most fragile side. This might appear childish and ridiculous in Lois's eyes.

Out of some selfishness, he wanted Lois to see his good, perfect side more. He thought maybe wait a bit, at least wait until he made some achievements before going to see her, at least there would be some topics that weren't so awkward to talk about.

And what was more urgent than this was that he had to go back to work immediately. The days he went back to visit relatives weren't leave, but absenteeism. He wasn't sure whether the fact that he saved the entire building from monsters last time could offset his crime of absenteeism without cause, and also prayed that the editor-in-chief was just short of people and wouldn't fire him immediately.

Fortunately, he bet right. Although the editor-in-chief scolded him and canceled his annual leave for the next five years, at least his job was still there. He could still work to earn money and find ways to compensate for Diana's losses.

Taking a deep breath, Clark cheered up again. He had to write a political news report that satisfied the editor-in-chief, so that his future work could be smoother, and also so that he could free up more time to help those who hadn't given up yet.

Clark took his camera and drove to the Municipal Administration Bureau, but was told that the Director Rafanas he wanted to interview had temporarily gone to attend a banquet held at the Luthor Manor.

"Okay, have to deal with Luthor again." Clark thought while driving, "Hope I don't run into him, otherwise it will really be very awkward." ===== CHAPTER 4398 =====