As the camera exploded, the TV screen first flickered with intertwined black and white static, and then was left with nothing but a deep blue background.
Only the English words "No signal" remained, stretched across the middle.
At that moment, Ke Youqing and Bai Qiuwu both suddenly announced one had to go buy cigarettes, the other had a date with friends, so they quickly headed towards the entryway.
Bai Zini said she needed to go buy stationery but first rushed upstairs to grab something from the bedroom, making so much noise on the floor that she got yelled at by her mother, who was applying a face mask.
Ke Mingye found it somewhat amusing and shrugged his shoulders.
He had anticipated that upon seeing such a scene on TV, someone in the house would inevitably become restless. He just hadn't expected Ke Youqing, Bai Qiuwu, and Bai Zini to come up with such neatly aligned excuses, so overly perfunctory, truly a family trait.
But it was also normal, the one who made an appearance in Huanjing this time was rated as an A-class super villain by the system.
With the strength he demonstrated by casually shooting down a helicopter, the superheroes commonly seen were no match at all, going against him would merely be a death sentence.
And although Ke Youqing was notorious and had a history of bad deeds, he was still a signature Superpower User in China Huanjing and would not possibly ignore such a situation. He may have already notified other heroes of the Superhero Association's China branch not to act rashly, waiting for his personal arrival.
"Xiao Ni, if you need any stationery just send me a list on your phone, I'll pick it up for you on my way back, it's not safe outside."
Ke Youqing stood at the door, hand on hip, hesitated for half a second, and then called out upstairs.
"No need! I'll be home soon." Bai Zini's voice came down from upstairs.
"I can just go with her if it comes to that, old man, just go buy your cigarettes and don't suffocate yourself,"
Sitting on the living room couch and munching on a sunflower seed, Ke Mingye spoke up to smooth things over for Bai Zini.
"You lack respect."
After dropping that comment, Ke Youqing left the house, taking the elevator up with Bai Qiuwu.
It wasn't until they had left on the elevator that Bai Zini slowly came downstairs to the entryway, put on her shoes and hurried out the door with her backpack. Just as she stepped out, her shoelaces came undone again. She slammed the door forcefully, and then quickly crouched down to tie her laces.
"Does that door have a grudge against you?"
Ke Mingye teased her casually.
"Mind your own business!" Bai Zini retorted, and without even waiting for the elevator, she dashed down the stairs, halfway through she changed her mind and called out, "Bro, can you close the door for me?"
Ke Mingye raised his middle finger behind her back, but Bai Zini was already far gone.
"Look at this child, so impatient, wonder who she takes after," Bai Wenna, who was applying a face mask in the bathroom, sighed.
"Yeah, wonder who she takes after."
Ke Mingye thought to himself, it's obviously your temperament she's got, and sighed softly, stood up from the couch, took a few steps to the entryway, and closed the door.
When he returned to the living room, only Ke Yongzhu and Bai Ziling were left sitting on the couch.
At the moment, Bai Ziling was squatting on the couch, her pale blonde hair draping over her knees. She looked up from her phone screen and turned to Ke Mingye, "Watch a movie."
"No thanks."
"Then watch what?"
"The news."
Bai Ziling looked at the "No signal" on the TV and said, "It's nothing new." In today's era, news of superhuman crimes would appear nearly every few days.
Ke Mingye kept silent, thinking to himself that your two older sisters and dad are going to be on TV in a bit, it may not be newsworthy to you, but it surely is to me.
"If you're not watching the movie then I'm leaving."
"Actually, the remote isn't with me," Ke Mingye reminded her.
The remote control on the couch was already in the hands of Ke Yongzhu, the one-meter-tall youngster imperiously situated in the middle of the couch, muttering,
"What's so interesting about the news, that criminal looks pretty weak."
Ke Mingye sat down on the couch, arm resting on the armrest, "Ha, he could take a hundred of you little brats."
While he said that, he was also aware that Ke Yongzhu's hidden identity was terrifying, known as the "Juvenile Form of the Storm Dragon," with a paper strength rating of A-class, not less than that of the criminal who attacked the Huanjing Tower, and might indeed have the strength for a battle.
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But he also knew that if he wanted to play "Ke Mingye" well in front of his family, he had to relax a bit; that's how he would resemble the Ke Mingye in their memories. If he was too cautious because of their hidden identities and dared not talk back to them, it would actually have the opposite effect, making them more suspicious.
Once these monsters found out that he was not the original "Ke Mingye" but a player who had taken over his body, he would be finished.
At best, he figured his bones would not be found.
"Forget it, you guys watch the movie."
Having said that, Ke Mingye got up from the sofa and headed upstairs with his phone in hand.
He thought that the officials would probably not allow reporters to continue broadcasting the situation on-site, so it was definitely not possible to watch it on TV.
Ordinary people would think to turn on live streaming platforms, but domestic live streaming platforms would also restrict such scenes from appearing. Even if someone was live streaming on-site with their phones, they would be immediately banned once discovered by officials.
If it were those less dangerous superhuman criminals, it wouldn't matter, but in the face of high-risk criminals, it was necessary to strictly prohibit the footage from the scene to prevent the exposure of extremely bloody and violent images that could cause panic among the public.
However, human nature being what it is, although official orders forbade it, there were still many "illegal superhero" websites that escaped the eyes of censors on the internet.
The types of videos uploaded on these websites are either battle videos of superheroes and wild superhumans shot by passersby, or erotic videos of famous female superheroes filmed by motels with hidden cameras, or even more bizarre, unspeakable videos.
Some videos are not worth watching, as one side is much stronger and knocks down the other with a single blow; others are full of blood, with scenes of villains tearing superheroes apart not being uncommon.
The developers of these sites generally fall into two categories: one is die-hard fans of superheroes or supervillains; the other is individuals looking to profit from site traffic.
Anyone who grew up in this era, especially children interested in superheroes, would save at least one or two such websites to understand their favorite superheroes.
A few years ago, Ke Mingye's predecessor secretly logged onto an illegal video website and saw a video of the criminal "Timekeeper" torturing the superhero "Phoenix" to death, which left him with a great psychological shadow.
"Phoenix," a superhero serving the United States, was not a superpower user or mutant, but a Divine Communicator like his older sister, Ghost Tree.
The powers of a Divine Communicator come from the inheritance of deities in mythology. They usually have a crest appear somewhere on their body, granting them a portion of the deity's power.
Just as Bai Qiuwu's path to Divine Communication is "Sun Wukong" and Ghost Tree's is "World Tree";
The superhero with the codename "Phoenix" had the path to Divine Communication with the same name, one of the twenty-seven pathways to Divine Communication—the "Phoenix" pathway.
In Ancient Greek mythology, the phoenix has the power to "rise from the ashes."
Similarly, this superhero had incredibly strong regenerative abilities; even if he suffered catastrophic damage, he could revive in seconds, almost as if he were eternally living.
However, in the video on the website, the villain known as "Timekeeper" exploited this, using different methods of execution to torture Phoenix to death time and time again.
Revive once, get tortured once.
So it went on repeatedly.
During this, Timekeeper's methods of torment included breaking fingers one by one, drilling nails through the skull, chopping off limbs... When he lost interest in the punishment, Timekeeper uploaded the video to these illegal websites for others' amusement.
It was also his way of telling the world that their admired superheroes were nothing but pigs to be slaughtered in his hands.
Incidentally, five years ago, Ke Mingye witnessed this scene. His stomach churned, and he vomited directly into the trash can.
If he hadn't turned off the sound in time, with Timekeeper's maniac laughter and Phoenix's cries of agony accompanying the video, the mental contamination would probably have doubled. Since then, Ke Mingye's predecessor never dared to enter any illegal superhero video website again.
Fortunately, now the body was used by another person.
"Normally, at this time, just about any illegal website should have a live broadcast of the Huanjing city center," he thought.
Thinking this, Ke Mingye decided to try whether that website was still accessible. He typed in the address of the site into the browser on his phone and clicked to enter.
As the page refreshed, a video website with a black and red UI appeared, named "Grey Pigeon Network." Ignoring the dense array of ads, the largest live streaming box was placed at the very top of the site. It was live-streaming the scene of "Ghost Tree" wrecking havoc on vehicles in the city center.
Countless vehicles were flipped over by the thorny arms twisted from brambles; what was a bustling area full of people and flowing traffic instantly turned into a sea of flames.
At the top of the live streaming box, in eye-catching red letters, was marked a line of text: "Live broadcast! Breaking news, 'Divine Communicator·Ghost Tree' has appeared below Huanjing Tower!"
Next to this red text, there was another line of text marked with a "Hot!" tag at the end: "Limited-time betting is in full swing. Register an account, purchase virtual Superhero Coins, and immediately bet on which wild superhuman or superhero might appear to confront the event!"
"Limited-time betting?" Ke Mingye curled his lips, "Okay, okay, so we're betting like this?"
He thought that in the entire world, probably only he could accurately predict at least three superhumans who would appear in the city center in this live broadcast.
Without a doubt, Ke Youqing, Bai Qiuwu, and Bai Zini would soon appear in this live stream under another identity.
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