blogombal Chapter 237 Hostage Exchange
Chapter 237 Hostage Exchange
Chapter 237 Hostage Exchange
Before I explain the whole story, I must first make a statement—that is, I am absolutely not a racist.
Rick's eyes lit up at Mark Grayson, the Invincible Young Man: "The Invincible Young Man's voice sounds a lot like Glenn Lee, that handsome Asian guy on our team."
This is one of the reasons why his attitude towards Mark was even better than his attitude towards Superman.
As expected of a sheriff with years of experience working in North America, Rick, who is well-versed in public opinion and respectful of others, doesn't forget to use his highly skilled and professional speech to layer several layers of armor for himself, even in this post-apocalyptic world where order has collapsed:
"To reiterate, I'm not a racial knight, and I'm not the kind of bastard birdman who would say things like 'You Asians all look the same,' but Glenn's voice really does sound exactly like Invincible Young Hero's."
Upon hearing this, the invincible young hero removed his hood, sighed, and accepted the fact that, with his Dao heart shattered, he was merely a lukewarm, obscure protagonist of a comic book.
"Sigh, say whatever you want—who is Glenn?"
Glenn Lee was a pizza delivery driver living in downtown Atlanta before the zombie outbreak.
With his familiarity with the city's terrain and his meticulous planning skills, he quickly became the strategist of the survivor group.
Even with his high school dropout education, Invincible Young Hero vaguely felt that Rick's use of that word seemed a bit off:
"Although I don't quite understand it either, I don't think 'strategist' is used like that."
"Anyway, that's roughly what happened."
Rick continued—
The group returned to the city, following the route planned by Glenn, hoping to rescue their former companion, Daryl's brother, and also retrieve the bag of guns they had lost in the city.
But this last operation didn't go well. Not only did they fail to rescue their companions who had been left in the city, they also unexpectedly ran into some gangsters in an alley.
As a result, the city's gang kidnapped Glenn, but they quickly recovered the bag of weapons and took one of the gang members hostage.
The situation on both sides is now at a stalemate.
Rick and Daryl wanted to use the hostage as leverage to ransom Glenn from the mob, but the mobsters kept raising the stakes.
Want your partners? Sure, trade them for that bag of guns.
This is a request that neither side can agree to.
After all, in a post-apocalyptic world where order has collapsed, even if you lack clothes, food, and water, you still need to have decent weapons.
So Rick and his friends had just agreed that they would take the bag of weapons they had retrieved, armed to the teeth, and go to the hostages' house to deliver their final ultimatum: either exchange hostages for hostages, a win-win situation, or let the bullets do the talking.
This is Rick's story.
"Isn't this a bit—"
After listening to Rick's story, the invincible young hero was at a loss for words.
This is the end of the world; the speed at which morality and order are collapsing is beyond imagination.
Not long has passed, and the devastated living environment is enough to force Rick, a policeman who was still upholding the law and order in the pre-apocalyptic world, to easily say something like, "Kill them all."
"Welcome to the end of the world. Oh, I'm sorry, I still can't remember your name."
Daryl didn't feel uncomfortable about their decision. "Anyway, the leader, 'Aji,' and the others looked like the kind of respectable Mexicans who would pull out a pistol or heroin the next second."
They're just a bunch of Mexican gangsters, which would be a menace even under normal circumstances, let alone in this apocalyptic world.
"No, no, no, that's not how it is!"
The hostages on the other side naturally defended themselves: "Aji isn't the kind of person you're describing!"
The hot-tempered Daryl transferred his anger from failing to find his brother to the hostages: "You have no right to speak here!"
"Okay, stop arguing!"
Joey stopped the pointless argument between the two, especially the hot-tempered Daryl:
"Put your weapons back in their bags! Stop talking about the end of the world all the time; there's no such thing as the end of the world anymore!"
Rick took the lead, unloading the bullet and putting the weapon back in his satchel:
"Aside from the possibility that all four of us are overdosed, I think you're right."
The torment of those few short days of apocalypse had left everyone present exhausted, and even now it would take them a long time to realize that with Superman around, this level of apocalypse was indeed nothing to worry about.
Even though he used his heat vision to kill every person he could see, Joey knew that this apocalypse was far from over.
Give him some time, maybe a week will be enough, and he can sort out the situation and help everyone on this planet rebuild the order that belongs to them.
But we don’t know when the portal will reopen, so for now we can only do as much as we can and leave the rest for later.
"Friday, can you record the coordinates of this world?"
"If you take the time to read the instruction manual, you'll know that this is one of only two functions available for this machine."
After receiving an affirmative answer, Joey breathed a sigh of relief.
In that case, let's start by resolving the unnecessary conflict between these two survivors.
"Go and get your people back. I'll be there shortly."
When Rick and his gang arrived at the Mexican gang's territory with the hostages, the leader, known as Aji, and his burly Latino companion were glaring at them menacingly.
Especially when they saw that the three of them had come empty-handed.
"This isn't what we agreed on!"
Gang leader Aji frowned, put on airs, and threatened the three men:
"Do you believe I'll throw your Asian kid to the dogs? That dog could easily devour him alive!"
The hostage emerged from behind the three, beaming with excitement:
"Boss, we don't need to pretend anymore, it's all over!"
Aji, who was called the boss, frowned: "Xiaomi Gale, what the hell are you doing?"
Miguel—the hostage—was caught in the middle of the transaction again, but this time she no longer felt the fear she had felt when the negotiations broke down the first time.
"It's Superman! Superman has come to save us!"
With a snap, Aji, enraged, released the safety and pointed his gun at Rick: "What did you do to Miguel? Did you inject him with ice? Or powder?"
Xiaomi Gale has clearly gone mad.
Anyone with the mental capacity of an eight-year-old would not say such a thing.
"Superman" is nothing more than an empty spiritual symbol imagined by people living in hard times, a beautiful fantasy used to numb themselves.
This world, whether now, in the future, or even in the past, is a jungle world.
Having already reached such a desperate hell on earth, to still believe in superheroes is nothing short of insanity.
"That's right."
Rick, whose head was being pointed at, simply raised his hands and slowly backed away.
There's no point in saying more. No matter how much I waste my breath, it won't be as convincing as Superman descending from the sky later.
He wasn't under much pressure, figuring Superman wouldn't let anything happen to him.
"Alright, everyone put down your weapons."
When Joey, draped in a red cape, descended from the sky, everyone present rubbed their eyes in disbelief.
Holding one of the few pistols he owned, Aji kept his fingers taut and remained vigilant.
But his tension doesn't represent the attitude of everyone on the team.
"Mamma mia~"
Some of the younger members behind him had already approached without any suspicion, reaching out to touch the El family crest on Joey's chest, a symbol of 'hope':
"Did your mother sew this for you? Or is it the one from the lonely fortress in the Arctic?"
Although such a question might be slightly offensive to Joey, the fact that he even asked it shows that there are indeed quite a few comic book fans present who believe that Superman's original suit came from different sources in different origin stories and periods.
"This suit comes from Krypton."
Politely pushing away the increasing number of men who came forward to apply nail polish, Joey looked at the man named "Aji":
"I recommend you explain this to Officer Rick and his team."