Chapter 4442

No wonder old Kent didn't resurrect, Clark thought to himself. It turns out this Death also practices bloodline tracing; it has to be the biological parents. Of course, it's also possible that he was rejected by his own father in Hell and had to settle for the next best thing. But it must be said, he settled a bit too far back.

Although Clark is very sentimental, the prerequisite is that he must have cultivated a relationship with that person. He really has no feelings for his biological parents; after all, he has never even met them.

Although he saw their projections while on the spaceship, he only met them once. The level of closeness and familiarity doesn't even compare to his colleagues at the Daily Planet. If that Death were to kill the editor-in-chief, resurrect him, and then call to scold him and tell him to go back to work, Clark might even fall for it. Right now, he has absolutely no intention of going back.

Clark was checking his text messages while Diana was still talking over there. Because she was worried that she hadn't explained it in enough detail and that Clark might still be affected by the mutant's plan, Diana recounted the conspiracy that Luthor wanted to implement from beginning to end.

The more Clark listened, the more familiar it sounded. He interrupted Diana and said, "You all need to come here and see this."

A few minutes later, Diana and J'onn were the first to fly over. Barry actually brought the bound Lex along too. Diana walked to Clark's side first.

"What's wrong? Why did you suddenly come to this spaceship?"

Clark didn't speak, he just pointed to the communication screen. Diana saw that it was Kryptonian text, which she couldn't read, but Clark had already read it aloud to her.

Upon hearing the specific content of the text message, Diana looked at Clark with some shock, then suddenly turned her head to look at Lex.

She walked straight over and hoisted Lex up. Lex had also seen the line of text on the communication screen; he could read Kryptonian. Although there were still a few words he didn't recognize, he could roughly guess the meaning.

"He plagiarized me!!!!" Lex let out a sharp, explosive cry. "He is stealing my plan!! This shameless thief!!!"

Clark and Diana exchanged a look. If Lex had adamantly denied it, it might still have been his doing, but his reaction now made it look like he was genuinely unaware.

Moreover, he was currently bound by the Lasso of Truth, and with J'onn standing by to keep watch, the possibility of him lying was very small. Diana sighed and said, "That's why they say, birds of a feather flock together. Bad people can even think of the same bad ideas."

Clark fell into deep thought. He said, "They tricked me into going back, surely because they didn't want to deal with me on Earth, or they felt they couldn't deal with me on Earth, which is why they thought of tricking me back to Krypton to make me lose my powers. But the problem is, why would they think they couldn't deal with me on Earth?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Barry said, surprised. "Who could deal with you on Earth? Seriously, it's just that you came back late; if Steppenwolf had run into you, he wouldn't have had a good time either."

Clark shook his head and said, "Don't forget, I just encountered an assassination attempt, and I even faked being severely injured. They would think the assassination had already taken effect and would believe they had grasped my weakness. Then killing me on Earth would be the best choice."

When he said this, everyone was stunned. They all realized something was wrong; Clark made sense. Luthor would want to use this kind of plan to deal with Superman because he understood Superman very well, and even grasped that the essence of Superman's power is idealistic.

He knew that on Earth, Superman's power is infinite. Regardless of this stone or that stone, as long as he wants to, he can overcome it. In this situation, only by getting him to a place far away from Earth is there a possibility of defeating him.

But the problem is, the mastermind went to great lengths to investigate Superman's weakness and "successfully" executed the assassination. That would mean he had grasped Superman's weakness; if once didn't work, he could just do it a few more times; there was no need to look for other methods.

Clearly, the assassination operation and the suddenly arrived text message were in conflict. Although it couldn't be ruled out that the mastermind had made two preparations, the styles of these two plans were completely different. One was purely a scheme, while the other was straightforward; it really didn't look like it was done by the same group of people.

This situation left everyone confused. Diana scratched her head, not knowing what was going on. Clark pondered for a long time without figuring it out. The others were even less able to make heads or tails of it.

Only Lex, who was described as "rotten to the core with evil," seemed to have caught onto something. He said, "I don't think this was done by the same group of people."

Everyone looked at him. Lex seemed to enjoy the feeling of being watched; his genius brain began to spin rapidly again, and then he said, "This proves that more than one group wants to kill Superman; they just happened to run into each other, which is why this situation has presented itself."

"That actually makes some sense," Diana said. "Clark is the President now, and he has made many enemies; it wouldn't be strange for someone to hire a killer. But if his biological parents really have resurrected..."

Diana turned her head to look at Clark. Clark understood what she meant. Clearly, if this text message was really sent by his resurrected biological parents, then this was the mastermind's plan.

This actually carried out the mastermind's style of planning: he doesn't use benefits to coerce, but uses emotions to induce. Resurrecting dead relatives is meant to emotionally kidnap them. He has always done this; his style is consistent from beginning to end and has never changed.

Then who carried out the assassination on Earth?

Clark began to think again. He did have some enemies on Earth. It could be said that if Luthor hadn't been bound and thrown here, he would definitely have suspected him first, even if this straightforward style didn't match Luthor's way of doing things; taking him down first would never be wrong.

However, Diana had already used the Lasso of Truth to force out that the assassination really wasn't done by Luthor. Then who else could it be? Who hated him so much and would use such violent means to make him die?

The atmosphere on the spaceship became stagnant again, and everyone began to think silently. But this was indeed a bit beyond the scope of their deduction.

The opposition party is possible, but that bunch doesn't have the capacity. Clark hasn't been President for so many days in vain; he has kept a very close eye on those people, and it's hard for them to pull off something this big. Darkseid, who attacked Earth before, is also not impossible. Maybe he left some subordinates on Earth just to cause trouble for himself. But it seems there's no need to hire human killers to use sniper rifles; that guy's subordinates are all elite soldiers, just attacking directly would be the end of it. Isn't that exactly what Steppenwolf did?

While thinking, Clark grasped the key. The key actually doesn't lie in who has a grudge against him, but in who could know that Kryptonite is his weakness. Not many people know this.

Before the data was stolen from the Metropolis Museum, only friends and Luthor knew about this. So the problem must have originated from the stolen data, and thus the deduction returned to the starting point: who stole the data?

This was a bit of a dead end. So Clark decided to change his way of thinking: it's not important who had the ability to steal the data, the key is who could analyze the data and find the Kryptonite. If the professional level is too low, they probably couldn't do it.

Don't look at those as just historical data; the language barrier of English is relatively severe. Without being a professional, it's very hard to understand humanities-related data. For example, some terms in ancient Egypt are all borrowed from foreign languages; who knows what they mean. Without professional level in this area, they probably wouldn't be able to understand the stolen goods at all.

In other words, he had the confidence to understand it, which is why he went to steal it. Then this person definitely wouldn't be a layman; at the very least, they would have to be an intellectual, the kind with research capabilities.

As for why he didn't hire someone else, it's actually very simple. Right now, all the experts with any level of skill across the Federation have gone to study the captured Martians; they are all staying in the same place, working on research without sleep or rest. Because they are worried about accidents, Victor is watching over them there. It's very hard for them to do anything under Victor's surveillance; information can't even be sent out, let alone looking at any data.

In other words, this person must be a researcher with some ability and level, but who is outside of the monitoring, and also has a grudge against Clark. Thinking about it this way, Clark almost instantly locked onto the target.

He turned his head to look at J'onn and said, "Has Dr. Erdel contacted you?"

J'onn was startled, and then his expression became serious. He understood what Clark meant, and then shook his head and said, "No. I have been looking for him, but I haven't found him."

Diana also reacted. It was said before that Dr. Erdel had resurrected, but no one had seen this person. He perfectly fits the characteristics of the data thief: he is an expert, and although he researches space-related aspects, J'onn said he has four doctoral degrees. It's too easy for this kind of person to research professional data. Moreover, he is a dead man, so naturally, he wouldn't be on the scholars' statistical list, but since he was resurrected, it's very likely that he was manipulated by Death and has a grudge against Clark.

But if it were Dr. Erdel, a new problem would arise: this scientist shouldn't have such good marksmanship, right?

Clark described the situation when he was attacked to J'onn. The others hadn't heard the details either, and after hearing them, they couldn't help but break into a cold sweat for Clark. If he hadn't built up antibodies, his coffin would have already been carried to the graveyard by now.

Oh, no, the mastermind wouldn't give him that chance; he would make him immediately fake a corpse, and then kill the entire Justice League. Now it was the others' turn to break into a cold sweat for themselves.

After listening, J'onn slowly shook his head and said, "This absolutely couldn't have been Dr. Erdel who pulled the trigger. He doesn't have this ability. Although his achievements in academia are very high, he is the kind of scholar who is powerless to truss a chicken. Let alone firing a gun, he probably doesn't even know how to assemble a sniper rifle."

"He could hire a killer, right?" Barry spoke up.

"But the problem is that the level of this killer is also a bit too strong," Diana said. "If it were really like what Clark said, this kind of killer wouldn't be something you could find just anywhere, right? Since Dr. Erdel has never done this kind of thing, he couldn't possibly have such connections; how could he have hired one in such a short time?"

Barry was also choked up. He also understood that top-tier killers are hard to come by. They don't easily take action, and they basically don't take jobs from strangers. Just trying to contact them is very difficult. If Dr. Erdel had never dealt with this circle, then it would probably be very hard to hire them.

"I think you all have misunderstood one thing." Just at this moment, Lex spoke up again. "Is there a possibility that the person who took action didn't want you to die at all?"

Clark couldn't help but turn his head to look at him and said, "Absurd. If you don't want to kill me, why assassinate me? Don't you think this is self-contradictory?"

"Only fools like you would believe that every contradiction is a real contradiction, rather than hiding a deeper, logical rationality. If you were all willing to use your brains a bit more, you wouldn't be standing here staring blankly."