Superman Termination Manual

In the night sky, the Deception Puppet was hanging upside-down by a spider thread beneath an overpass, while Black Wukong stood on Somersault Cloud, level with it in the air.

The puppet pouted, "Aren't you even going to say hello to me? That's pretty cold."

Black Wukong remained silent for a long time, then took out a cellphone from the pocket of his metallic coat and began typing on the notepad before turning the screen towards the Deception Puppet.

"What are you up to now?"

"Nothing much," the puppet said, "just got a gambling itch, wanted to casually throw a die, but it seems I threw the wrong one."

Black Wukong continued to type, "That Dice Monster on the official site, was that you?"

"It was me."

"Why did you blow up the traffic lights, and also... summon ten naked men?" Black Wukong typed and asked.

"Uh, gambling itch?" the puppet scratched its cheek.

Black Wukong fell silent for a while, his fingers slowly typing under the metal wrist guard.

"I really don't understand what you're thinking."

"I'm just very lonely, believe me, a lonely person can do anything," the puppet blurted out, "Aren't you lonely? Or maybe... there's always a monkey talking in your head, so you don't feel lonely."

"How did you know that?"

"Saw it online while surfing. They say that a Divine Communicator's emblem harbors a part of divinity, and the higher your realm, the more you're influenced by that divinity, and then you lose control." The puppet turned to look at her. "Is that so?"

Black Wukong hugged her shoulders, silent and wordless, her eyes downcast beneath the hood.

After a while, she lifted her eyes, hidden behind the monkey mask, and looked toward the brightly lit city in the distance.

Seeing her unwilling to respond, the puppet nonchalantly shrugged and turned to look at the thriving city hanging upside down.

The chilling evening breeze brushed their faces, one hanging upside down, the other standing on a cloud, as the long train cap and the silver-black hood swung slowly in the still wind.

After a long time, Black Wukong reached out and typed on the notepad, turning to him, "You said you almost know everything in this world."

"Uh, that was just an exaggerated way of putting it, but I do know a lot," the puppet lowered his cap brim.

"Then do you know what I should do?"

"You mean, the problem with losing control?" the puppet raised a non-existent eyebrow.

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"Yes."

"You're seeking a way to save yourself from a criminal?"

Black Wukong typed, "No one can answer me, no one will come to save me, the people around me don't even know who I am, so I can only ask you."

She paused for a moment, continued typing, and then turned the phone screen towards the puppet, "Besides, you've never harmed anyone, otherwise just now why did you tell the citizens to move away before you threw that die, strictly speaking... you're not that bad."

The puppet stared at the text on the screen and hesitated, "You're really nice, everyone else thinks I'm a bad guy, they chase after me to hack at me."

"So can you answer me?" Black Wukong typed. "The question from earlier."

The puppet hesitated for a moment and shook his head, "I'm sorry, I don't know how to save you... perhaps Divine Communicators are doomed to lose control, which is why every Divine Communicator in history eventually fades into obscurity."

Black Wukong's eyes drooped, reflecting the bright lights of Huanjing Tower.

"Is that so... I understand now."

She put away her phone, her voice cold and clear from behind the mask.

The puppet, hanging in the moonlight, turned to look at her, "It seems you are also very lonely, with no one around to listen to your feelings, always pretending to be strong, holding all your pain and anxiety inside. It's really not easy."

She said, "Since trying to protect others with my own strength, loneliness has just been the price... if I can't endure loneliness, I would only bring danger to those around me."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

The puppet slowly said, "But before all this, you were just a girl, as vulnerable as anyone else, also bewildered and questioning herself, a person afraid of dying."

"You might be neurotic, but you always see right through my thoughts."

"I'm good at perceiving people's hearts."

"Then who exactly are you, do you understand yourself?"

The puppet lowered his hollow eyes and said, "I don't understand, every day in my head there are two people talking. One says, 'You killed me; you must compensate, protect them for me.' The other says, 'I had no choice, I just want to live, that's all.' Listening to their arguments, sometimes I feel like I'm going mad, but I can only pretend to live peacefully... It's complicated, isn't it?"

"It sounds like you're really a complete neurotic," Black Wukong murmured.

The puppet self-mockingly laughed, "Right, I think so too."

The evening wind swept down from the night sky, the spider thread in his hands swaying precariously.

"I should leave now, I'll let you off this time."

As he spoke, Somersault Cloud beneath Black Wukong began to surge anxiously, like a shimmering black lake.

"Uh, so should I be thanking you for your mercy?" the puppet asked.

"What else?"

The puppet shrugged its shoulders and was about to respond when an icy female voice came from behind the two of them, interrupting his thoughts.

"What a coincidence... both of my enemies are here."

The puppet cocked his non-existent eyebrows, his right hand clutching at the spider silk as he turned his head towards the source of the voice, looking upside down at the uninvited guest.

"Isn't this Miss Ash?" he said. "You've really outshone yourself tonight."

Magical Girl Ash stared at him with cold eyes and said each word slowly. "I've finally caught you, monster."

Hearing this familiar voice, Black Wukong was stunned for a couple of seconds, then slowly turned his head, his crimson pupils fixed on the gothic-styled magic girl.

Magical Girl Ash shifted her gaze from the puppet and glanced at Black Wukong, sneering, "As I thought, you are together, telling me 'Black Wukong is right beside you,' what a bluff..."

Upon hearing this, Black Wukong's fingers quickly typed on a memo pad, then he aligned his screen towards the Deception Puppet, "Did you tell her my identity?"

The puppet first said to Magical Girl Ash, "You've got it all wrong, Miss Ash, we really aren't together." After that, he turned to Black Wukong, waved his hand and carefully chose his words, "Uh, I just hinted at it a bit, but I didn't tell her, you can ask her yourself."

Black Wukong typed on his phone, then coldly lifted the screen: "You're such an asshole."

Magical Girl Ash lifted her small face, scanning the two, her gaze as sharp as knives, "Still putting on an act, you really think I don't know you're together?"

The upside-down puppet sighed, reached out to pat Black Wukong's shoulder, and said to Ash, "Yes, we are together. If you have any grievances, take it up with the one next to me."

Black Wukong shifted his face, glaring coldly through the mask at him and swung his Jingu Bang, which hung behind his shoulder; the spider silk the puppet was holding onto instantly snapped.

"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?!"

Instantly losing his support, the puppet hung upside down, falling towards the bustling city, swallowed by the colorful neon lights coming from below.

Below the overpass, Black Wukong and Magical Girl Ash exchanged glances across the night sky, silent.

The light from the night moon was mostly blocked by the surface of the overpass, leaving half of Ash's face shrouded in shadows, the other half bathed in the cold moonlight.

After a moment, Ash sighed, shifted her gaze away from herself, and looked down at the puppet falling towards the city.

"Forget it, I'll settle the score with it first; I'll deal with you, dirty monkey, next time."

With that said, she clenched Cinderella in her hand, causing a ripple of magic power to burst forth, propelling her body like a slate-gray comet toward the city.

Meanwhile, as the puppet was about to strike a high-altitude work platform, he lowered his right hand and shot a spider silk towards a glass curtain wall of a tall building, grabbing the silk and shouting as he swung out.

"Monster, stop right there!"

Ash's voice came from above; she was holding an umbrella, plummeting swiftly, her skirt billowing and her black locks flying up.

The puppet, while holding onto the spider silk and maneuvering among the high buildings, shouted back, "I know what you're upset about, Miss Ash, and I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Shut up!"

The girl interrupted him, anger written clear in her icy eyes.

As she fell, she gripped the handle of the umbrella tightly, adjusting Cinderella's position, aiming the tip of the umbrella at the puppet's back and pulling the trigger.

Bang!

The gunshot rang out and a cold arc traced through the air, a finely guided magic bullet precisely aiming for the puppet's back.

The puppet couldn't react in time, and a magic bullet hit him squarely in the back, puncturing a hole in his chest. He clutched at his heart, released the spider silk, spun around, and slowly plummeted toward the street below.

A deafening sound of horns came from below, and once he hit the traffic-filled road, he would immediately be crushed into a pulp.

In mid-air, he raised his hollow eyes, his hands clutching his chest, looking sincerely towards Ash hovering in the air: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to reveal your identity to Xiaohongmao, seeing her so pitiful, she admired you so much, wanting to know who you really are, how could I bear it?"

"I told you, go die."

Magical Girl Ash said coldly, her gaze shielded by her hanging hair.

In the next instant, the puppet's body crashed onto the roadway, hitting a massive truck head-on and being thrown about ten meters further, crashing against the facade of a building.

"We are still friends, aren't we?"

He lay like Jesus nailed to the cross, slowly raising his head from the crater in the building, grinning at Ash.

"Friends?"

Magical Girl Ash sneered twice, lowered her gaze, and looked down at him from above, "We were never friends... not now, not ever."

With that, she aimed the tip of her umbrella at the puppet's head and forcefully pulled the trigger. A lead-gray magic bullet burst out of the tip of the umbrella, precisely targeting the puppet's head."

"No... you'll need me."

After leaving behind those final words, the puppet's head burst open with a 'pop.'

His head slowly drooped, his body gradually cracked and heated up, and finally, erupted into a fierce fire that rose in the crater, illuminating the whole street and the pitch-black building.

"Someday, you'll need me..."

Subtle words fell quietly, a sinister laugh echoing through every corner as if coming from thin air.