A pale green aurora hung in the sky like a vast veil, its edges glowing with violet light as it slowly swept over the military base's radar antennas and dyed the cold metal domes in flowing emerald.
After climbing over the low fence around the military base, Lois held her camera and reached the glacier.
She slowly adjusted the camera settings, and the instant the watchtower light swept across the glacier, she pressed the shutter.
Lois lifted the camera, intending to check how the photo had turned out.
But after staring at it for a moment, she suddenly froze. She enlarged one area of the photo and saw a scene that shocked her.
On the ancient, unchanging glacier, two figures were walking.
They were two strangers. That alone would have been one thing, but the clothes they were wearing were light summer T-shirts.
By all rights, walking in such thin clothing in weather dozens of degrees below freezing would cause hypothermia in less than fifteen minutes.
But judging from how those two figures were walking, they had clearly been moving for a long time, and yet their expressions were unchanged, as if the freezing environment had not affected them at all.
Lois thought of the object beneath the glacier, something suspected to be an alien spacecraft, and her eyes lit up. It seemed she had found a major story.
So Lois immediately moved forward, following the path the two figures had taken deeper into the glacier. She wanted to see why they had secretly come here.
Following the narrow path, Lois reached the side of a glacier. She looked at the uneven wall of ice in front of her, then at the cliff beside it. Gritting her teeth, she still followed.
Fortunately, there were raised footholds along the uneven glacier, and Lois easily made her way across while staying close to the ice.
At first, Lois thought she would need to cross this glacier and reach the other side before she could find traces of the two men.
But to her surprise, after walking only about thirty feet along the glacier, she discovered a huge cave in the ice.
The cave was roughly ten feet across, extremely spacious, and its edges formed a regular circle. It did not look naturally formed. Instead, it looked more like an artificially made ice tunnel.
But Lois clearly remembered that when she had arrived that afternoon, she had carefully glanced over the glacier a few times and had not seen any trace of a huge ice tunnel.
Could this enormous ice tunnel have been carved out in just a few hours?
Then what method had been used to dig it?
Lois touched the ice at the edge of the tunnel. There were obvious signs of melting on it.
This discovery left Lois in disbelief. Had this ice tunnel actually been melted open with heat?
What kind of equipment could release such astonishing heat that it could carve such a deep tunnel through ten-thousand-year-old solid ice in just a few hours?
Could current human technology really do something like this?
Lois swallowed, and her whole body immediately became tense. Whether it was the two strangers in thin clothing or this bizarre ice tunnel sunk into the glacier, everything was full of unanswered questions.
If she had been an ordinary person, she might have turned around and left, then told the stationed troops what had happened here.
But as a reporter, Lois was far too curious. In the end, she gritted her teeth and stepped into the ice tunnel.
She wanted to see what was inside.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side, Harry was curiously watching Clark use the scorching beams from his eyes to melt the ice layer in front of them.
Clark felt uncomfortable under Harry's gaze and helplessly asked, "What is it, Harry? Is there something strange about me?"
Harry shook his head. "I just find it odd. You said you can grow stronger by basking in sunlight, but how could sunlight alone supply enough energy for you to fire high-energy heat vision?"
"I don't know either. I've been like this since I was little. It might be because of some kind of alien technology. Wait, the way you're looking at me is creepy. You're not thinking of dissecting me for research, are you?" Clark asked warily.
Harry shook his head. "Of course not. You're my friend. How could I possibly do something like that?"
Clark had just breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Harry continue, "But if possible, please give me a vial of blood and a small bit of flesh tissue later. I'd like to study them."
"And you still say you don't want to dissect me!"
Clark melted through the several-yard-thick ice layer in front of him, and what appeared beyond it was no longer ice, but a rather open space.
A spacecraft was sitting in that space. The ship was almost completely covered by ice, but a small section was still exposed.
Perhaps because it had sensed the two of them approaching, the surface of this spacecraft, which had been buried in the glacier for who knew how long, actually lit up with a faint glow.
Even after ten thousand years of consumption, this ship still retained the ability to operate perfectly.
Clark took a deep breath and clenched the small rectangular device his parents had given him.
His adoptive parents had told him that this rectangular device had come to Earth with him, and that it had been inserted into the core of the small ship. It had to be an extremely important component.
Perhaps this component could open the ship.
As Clark stretched out his hand and brought the rectangular device close to the spacecraft, the spacecraft trembled, then actually opened a hatch.
The ice on it did not affect the operation of the hatch at all. After completely shaking off the ice, the interior of the ship appeared before Harry and Clark.
The two walked inside. After observing for a while, Harry judged, "A very standard spacefaring civilization. Its level of civilization should place it among the dominant powers of the universe. It seems your origins are quite extraordinary."
Clark did not answer Harry. Instead, he stared fixedly at a device ahead.
On that device, there was also a rectangular slot. When he placed the rectangular device into the recess, the two joined together with ease.
After he pressed the rectangular device into the slot, the entire ship lit up. The spacecraft had officially activated.
Clark was extremely excited. "Harry, did you see that? It activated the ship. It really is connected to my origins."
Harry nodded and said to Clark, "That's right. The device in your hand is the key to this ship. Perhaps we can go to the bridge. There should be more information there."
But before the two of them could search for the bridge, a cry of pain suddenly sounded behind them.
"Ahhh!"
...
Lois carefully walked through the pitch-black ice tunnel for more than ten minutes before finally reaching the end.
When she saw the spacecraft, several hundred yards long, she was both shocked and excited.
Without a doubt, she had truly found news that could shake the world.
Seeing that the hatch of the spacecraft had already been opened, Lois guessed that the two mysterious men from earlier must have entered the spacecraft.
Who were those two mysterious men? Their bodies seemed different from ordinary humans, and they also knew there was a spacecraft here and could even activate it. Could those two mysterious men be aliens?
Lois carefully climbed up to the hatch and walked inside, intending to see what kind of structure the interior had and take a few photos while she was at it.
The moment she stepped inside, she saw a robot floating near the hatch.
The robot hovered quietly in the air, clearly using some kind of anti-gravity technology.
Lois immediately raised her camera and prepared to take a photo.
But the instant Lois pressed the shutter, the motionless mechanical body in the viewfinder suddenly lit up with red light.
She did not even have time to retreat before a scorching laser pierced through her down jacket and tore a charred wound into her abdomen.
The intense pain made her curl up. The camera clattered to the floor, its screen still displaying the final frozen image, the robot slowly floating toward her.
Lois lowered her head and looked at her abdomen. Beads of blood rushed from the wound, soaking through her gray sweater.
She gritted her teeth and tried to crawl away, but her vision was beginning to blur. All she could hear was the clicking of the robot's joints growing closer and closer.
At that moment, her heart was filled with fear. Only when disaster was truly upon her did she finally feel afraid.
Was she going to die miserably here?
Just then, a roar came from the distance and reached Lois's side in an instant.
"No!"
An unmatched impact tore through the air. Clark's figure almost became an afterimage.
He did not even use heat vision. He only clenched his fist and swung hard at the robot's head.
The robot's alloy shell dented and cracked instantly like a tin can struck by a sledgehammer. Its internal circuits and chips spilled across the floor mixed with machine oil.
The robot's laser cannon was still charging, but Clark grabbed the barrel and viciously bent it out of shape. The shriek of twisting metal stabbed painfully at the eardrums.
With red-rimmed eyes, he lifted the entire mechanical body over his head. Under Lois's stunned gaze, he tore the several-ton robot in half with brute force. Then he casually hurled the wreckage dozens of yards away, where it smashed into the ice wall and burst into a storm of fragments.
When Clark knelt down, his knees sank into the metal floor. He carefully supported Lois.
"Don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. You'll be okay."
Seeing Lois calm down from her panic, Clark continued, "I need to look at your wound."
Lois sensed Clark's goodwill and gently nodded.
Clark lifted Lois's clothes, revealing the hideous wound underneath.
After observing the specific injury, Clark frowned slightly. "Your wound is serious. We need to stop the bleeding as soon as possible. I can use high heat to help you."
"But there's no machine here that can release high heat. How are you going to stop the bleeding?" Lois asked in confusion.
"I can do things ordinary people can't," Clark replied.
Immediately afterward, Clark's eyes glowed red. Just as he was preparing to control the power of his heat vision and help Lois stop the bleeding, he suddenly heard Harry speak from the side.
"Well, I don't mean to interrupt you two, but I may be able to help this lady heal. Using high heat to stop bleeding can burn flesh tissue and may also leave a scar."
Harry drew his wand. Green particles of light dangled from the tip, like little stars strung together as they fell onto Lois's wound.
The instant the particles of light touched Lois's skin, they transformed into a flowing film of light and covered the blackened flesh.
Lois's body, which had instinctively tensed, suddenly relaxed. The sharp pain quickly faded, and she lowered her head to see the wound beneath the film of light changing at a visible speed.
In only a few seconds, the outer layer of charred skin began to peel away, revealing tender new flesh. The bleeding edges seemed to be pulled together by invisible hands, slowly closing into pale pink skin.
The red light in Clark's eyes quietly faded. He could clearly sense the flow of the energy Harry had released.
It was not a suture-and-repair process from Earth's medicine, but a more fundamental reshaping, as if time itself had reversed at the wound and restored the damaged tissue to its intact state.
Soon, Harry stopped casting. At that point, only a faint white mark remained on Lois's abdomen. Not even a scar had been left behind.
She tentatively moved her body and widened her eyes in surprise.
"What... what is this?"
Harry put away his wand, and the particles of light scattered from the tip. "Magic."
Lois stared at him. "???"
"So magic really exists?"
Harry smiled without answering, using the same expression the Ancient One had first used when dealing with him to deal with any Muggle who asked that question.
After Lois recovered, Harry and Clark led her along to search for the ship's bridge.
Along the way, Lois kept asking Harry and Clark all kinds of questions.
When Lois discovered that although Clark looked older, he was easier to handle, she temporarily gave up asking Harry about magic and instead questioned Clark about his various superpowers.
Although Clark had no intention of revealing his origins, Lois was a veteran of the journalism world. She had far too many conversational tricks for prying information out of other people.
When she learned that Clark was actually an alien, Lois was beyond shocked.
However, after Clark asked Lois to help conceal the information about his origins, Lois hesitated for a moment, then still agreed.
After all, Clark was her lifesaver. With her morals, it was impossible for her to ignore the request of the person who had saved her life and privately expose his information.
Afterward, the three successfully found the bridge. Through verbal commands, Clark had the ship leave the glacier and cloak itself in a hidden location.
Of course, during the process of leaving the glacier, he also chose a spot neither too close to the research base nor too far from it and dropped Lois off there, allowing her to return to the research base on her own.
...
A few days later, Clark looked helplessly at Harry, who was eating while praising how delicious the food was, and finally could not help asking, "Harry, just how long are you planning to stay at my house? As a wizard, don't you have your own things to do?"
Before Harry could answer, Clark's mother, Martha Kent, complained, "What's wrong with Harry staying at our house for a while? It's not like he's caused us any trouble. Harry, eat more if you like it. If there isn't enough, I'll make more."
Harry gave her a thumbs-up and said sincerely, "Your cooking is wonderful, Mrs. Kent. The only other time I've tasted food this good was from Aunt May."
After Martha Kent left, Harry finally looked at Clark and said meaningfully, "Don't look at me like that. I stayed out of goodwill. I keep feeling that before long, a huge problem is going to be waiting for you."
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