51. Smallville/Gotham: Missing

59.

Although Clark Kent was a little worried about the farmer's moral standards, "Cinderella" was running out of time and it was obviously too late to conduct a public relations clarification.

Clark and Aria landed safely. As he expected, the farmer's black pony was waiting not far away. Seeing it was him, Li Bao blew a light breath through his nostrils as a greeting.

Even though he knew the pony was quite reliable, Clark couldn't help but give it a few words of advice: "The roads are hard to walk on at night. Don't run as fast as you did last time."

The farmer nodded, and her horse also shook its head. Clark didn't know whether the man and the horse had heard it. Remembering that he hadn't asked for the contact information before, he asked, "Do you have a phone number?"

It's a bit strange to ask this question, but the farmer's lifestyle is really too simple. Not only does he not have social media, but Clark even doubts whether there is any furniture on the farm that has anything to do with modern technology.

Seeing Aria nod, Kent's heart finally settled down a little. He took out a note with his phone number written on it and handed it to her: "This is my number. If you encounter any trouble in the future, you can call me."

As long as Clark or Superman can do it, he will do his best.

The farmer thought she had received the first secret note. She put it in her pocket and recommended another more efficient way to contact Clark: "If the signal is bad in the war zone, you can actually send me a letter, Clark."

Martha probably didn't tell him that as long as he finished writing the letter, it would appear in the farmer's mailbox soon. Of course, if he wanted to give a gift, he could just put the object and the letter together, no matter how big it was, it would fit.

Aria immediately scratched her head: "If you find any antiques over there, you can send some to me." So far, she seems to have only dug out one kind of antique, and her collection progress is far less than the previous level.

Seeing the timeline getting increasingly dangerous, Aria quickened her pace and finished the rest of her words with a whoosh of a shot: "I'll find a way to send you some when the wine is ready. If there are any particularly good crops later, I'll save some for you and Martha..."

"But your own safety is the most important thing! Take care, Clark!"

Clark nodded to indicate that he understood. Aria was relieved and lightly squeezed the horse's belly to signal Libao to speed up.

The man and the horse were rushing home in a hurry. Clark was not sure about the road conditions so he followed them for a while. He only stopped when he saw the farmer rush into the cabin.

He had now mastered the use of his clairvoyant powers, and for fear of invading other people's privacy, he never used them on a daily basis. Naturally, he had no way of noticing that the farmer had rushed back to the cabin and gone straight to her cot, where he lay down and immediately became motionless, as if dead.

"Good night, Aria." Clark only silently blessed in his heart: "I wish you a good dream tonight."

…

Aria never dreamed in the game, so naturally she lacked the normal understanding of dreams. To a farmer, sleep was a matter of closing and opening her eyes. Only when the fairies arrived to ripen the crops did she have a vision of being one with the entire farm.

But she seemed to be lacking a bit of luck at this stage, and no fairy had come to visit her until now. The farmer was a little distressed about this matter when he first woke up, but he regained his energy when he opened the barn and touched the calf.

Don't bring the stress from work outside home! Aria thought as she touched the head of the cow that was in the shed right after she came back. A mature farmer should support the animals with half the responsibility.

Aria let the calves out to graze as usual and planned to make a row of recycling machines today.

With Zuzu City, a new map with a garbage stash beyond the farmers' wildest dreams, Aria felt she was on the verge of a career by rummaging through trash—and now, in the Zuzu City celebrity directory, her name would no longer be "AAA Agricultural Products Distributor," but "AAA Waste Recycler (not accepting corpses). While this wasn't quite what she'd envisioned, if she could truly make money, it was a different path to the same end.

After taking inventory of the supplies, she found that there was very little wood left in her inventory after the livestock shed and a series of construction projects. So Aria took out her axe and prepared to spend the whole day fighting the trees.

She was currently holding the axe given at the start of the game, and chopping trees took a bit more effort than with other axes. Having earned some money from selling some of their crops, the farmer planned to take the axe to the town blacksmith for an upgrade once he had enough wood. Uncle Jack said it was just a hobby, but Aria preferred that to be a humble remark.

Because he hadn't yet upgraded his axe, the farm's many wood piles remained uncleared. The farmer made his way through the layers of trees, starting with the one that was almost at his grandfather's grave. With the first blow of the axe, something in his bag trembled slightly.

Yesterday, the farmer was in a hurry and didn't have time to pack his backpack. Now that this unusual movement occurred, the farmer immediately took out the troublesome thing.

——It’s a donut, no, it’s a rare disc.

The black disc that the introduction said would induce fear when held in the hand did not have any effect on Aria. The farmer weighed it in his hand, and it stopped shaking and vibrating, which honestly made her suspect that it was all an illusion.

To verify her guess, she took the disc and moved a few steps closer to the tomb, trying to feel even the slightest change in it.

Buzz——

A slight noise touched the farmer's most sensitive nerves, and Aria blinked quickly.

"Grandfather?" That seemed to be the only possible explanation. The original game didn't elaborate on the actual purpose of the artifacts, leaving players with only fragmentary explanations of their existence. Players can only speculate from fragments that these artifacts were sacrifices from a distant era—as to what they were used for, or what beliefs existed there, they're completely clueless. Even if players created a new storyline, it's entirely possible.

After Aria shouted this, the air was strangely silent for a moment, and a kind of silent embarrassment climbed up the farmer's toes like vines, making her want to dig in the basement again.

Maybe it was the wrong name, she thought, so she decisively and obediently changed her words and continued to call, "Grandma?"

If someone happened to pass by here at this time and saw Aria shouting at a plate in front of the grave, they would definitely suggest that she see a doctor.

But now there was no one around, and the farmer who was not stopped by anyone had obviously become the craziest one here. Even the rare disc that made strange noises seemed unable to bear this kind of spirit. It rolled down from the farmer's hand with a snap, and after making a small hole in Grandpa's grave, it became quiet.

“…”

Given the precedent of spinning cursed mannequins releasing red-eyed souls, the farmer tended to believe that this was just an ordinary ghost incident. She calmly put the motionless disc into her backpack and continued her tree-cutting business.

The sound of Aria felling trees was very rhythmic, and from a distance it sounded like a small electric saw at work. One person forced the manual team's work level to catch up with the mechanical team.

After a long day, the farmer wiped his sweat and ate a snack to replenish his energy. He had also added a few more recycling machines to the newly planned area.

The neatly arranged recycling machines were a delight to see just there. Aria placed a small wooden box next to them so that she could put most of the garbage in it and just pick it up when she went to recycle.

After putting in a broken CD and a wet newspaper with Bruce Wayne's gossip printed on it, Aria was surprised to find that the recycling machine showed that the obsidian ear clip given by Wayne could also be put in it - you know, only a few kinds of fixed garbage can be put in here, and now the obsidian ear clip appeared, the farmer was a little suspicious that the machine had made a mistake.

After several intense ideological struggles, the farmer succumbed to curiosity and reached out her evil hand to the obsidian earrings - she broke Wayne's ear clips, and as an apology, she would give him some the next time she dug up gems.

The noise of the recycling machine collecting the obsidian ear clips was much louder than the one collecting ordinary garbage nearby. Aria went back to the room to sort out the various boxes containing supplies. When she came out, she saw them spitting out the recycled products one after another.

Refined quartz, cloth, these are all quite normal products, but why did you put in an obsidian ear clip and a battery pack came out?

Normally, during the early stages of development, Aria could only collect a few batteries in the summer. Now, when she was told that recycling the obsidian ear clips would yield a battery pack, the farmer had only two reactions:

1. Stardew Valley no longer exists. 2. I really want to catch Wayne and shake her to see if I can get some more Obsidian Ear Clips out of her. She's really short on them in the early stages!

Trying hard to resist the thought of breaking the law and possibly being punished by Batman, Aria decided to send the axe for an upgrade and then take the crystal ball to find Catwoman.

Isn't it just an obsidian ear clip? She can make it herself!

…

"You want a copper axe?" Uncle Jack looked at the axe and materials handed over by Aria and smiled with wrinkles in his eyes: "No problem! Leave it to me." Although the last time he made an axe was during the labor class at school, Jack was inexplicably quite confident in doing this.

"Just come pick it up in two days." Even though most of the details of making the axe had been lost in the sea of ​​time long ago, being entrusted with such an important task by Aria still made him feel several years younger.

The farmer thanked him happily: "After I finish this, I will bring you the hoe and the draft, and upgrade them to copper." When resources are sufficient in the future, she also wants to get a full set of iridium tools for farming - the thought of being able to farm efficiently makes her full of energy!

Listening to Aria's overflowing admiration, Jack, still unaware that blacksmithing might become his profession, took it all in one fell swoop: "No problem! Leave it to me." He might not remember much about the process, but learning is what makes us human! At worst, he could just buy a few books and study while doing it. He wouldn't disappoint the young woman's expectations.

The farmer came out of Jack's house satisfied and passed by Susan's shop. She decided to buy a chair.

Smallville didn't really make these things anymore. The self-sufficient lifestyle of the past had been replaced by more convenient logistics, and axes and chairs could be bought cheaply and easily anywhere. But this young man, newly returned to his hometown, insisted on buying his own handmade items from them.

Everyone in the town liked this young man very much and paid him well. After this period of encouragement, everyone in Smallville started a side job.

It is difficult for people who are in the situation to feel too much about what is happening around them. The farmer pushed open the door of Susan's shop and greeted her.

"Hi, Susan!" Almost every time I saw Aria, she seemed to have endless energy. Susan wiped her hands, put aside the work she was doing, and poured a glass of lemonade for Aria, who came from the farm in the sun.

"You're such a fuss." Susan sounded like she was complaining, but Aria knew she was concerned about her. At Susan's signal, the farmer sat down on the chair and pulled out a wad of cash from his wallet.

"I'm here to pay you back for the barn, Susan," the farmer said, patting the chair he was sitting on. "And I'm buying it back."

Susan confirmed that Aria still had the money before accepting the payment. However, she had her own opinion about the chair: "How can I sell you an old one?" Aunt Susan got up and searched the warehouse for a long time before handing the farmer a new chair. "Here, this one is brand new."

"But I remember you already have a chair?" The last time she went to help repair the barn, Susan helped check it because she was worried that the chair, which was probably bigger than Aria, would break due to disrepair.

Susan hadn't heard gossip in a long time, and a girlish look appeared on her face. "Are there going to be guests at the farm?"

To Susan's regret, the farmer shook his head and said, "No, Susan."

"One for inside use and one for outside use. This way, even if you leave one outside, you don't have to worry about not having a chair at home."

Aria's words successfully left Susan bewildered. She knew every word, but why did they all add up so strangely? Was she simply too out of touch with the times, or were young people's language just too advanced?

Just like that, Aria walked out of the carpenter's hut with a smile as light as a chrysanthemum, under Susan's puzzled but inconvenient gaze, and her whole body seemed to be shining.

Now she had some understanding of the villain named Riddler in Arkham Asylum. When faced with problems that were difficult to explain, she might as well be a Riddler.

…

The decision to look for Selina came too suddenly. When Aria arrived at Zuzu City with the crystal ball, she planned to go to the sewer and collect all the crab traps if Selina was not there.

With a rational understanding of her own luck, she knew that the first round would likely yield no crayfish, at most, some garbage. However, even that garbage had value for recycling; the refined quartz was a crucial material for lightning rods.

So no matter which option the trip ultimately leads to, the farmer will have a very fulfilling day.

Aria called Selina first using the contact information she left last time.

"This is Selina Kyle," Catwoman's magnetic voice sounded on the other end of the phone: "If you hear this message, then congratulations, I didn't receive your call. Please leave a message after the 'beep' sound..."

"So you can use your phone like this," Aria sighed, hanging up the unanswered call. Based on her rather casual schedule from their last meeting, the farmer suspected Selena was still asleep, so he decided to go look for her at her previous residence.

Following the route in her memory, she found Selina's residence and unexpectedly discovered that their door was ajar. Aria frowned and pushed open the old door, only to be surprised to find that the inside was in complete chaos.

The mannequin fell to the ground, and the colorful beads used as decoration were scattered everywhere like dense foam, and most importantly, the unique tuberose scent of Selena was almost dissipated.

An animal-like alertness crept up Aria's spine, and her hand involuntarily took out her weapon and surveyed the entire floor as if patrolling her own territory.

Apart from the mess of things, there was no sign of a third person breaking in... She didn't know whether this conclusion should make her feel relieved or continue to worry. Just as the farmer stepped onto the wooden stairs and was about to go upstairs to continue investigating, Holly hurried down the stairs.

When she saw that there was someone else in the room, she screamed and almost fell down the stairs, but when she saw that it was Aria, her fear turned into hope, like a drowning person grabbing at the last straw.

“Aria!” Holly rushed over and grabbed her arm, making the farmer realize for the first time how much strength she possessed. “Selena… Selena is missing!”

There were still traces of tears on her face, but these didn't stop Holly from thinking calmly: "She used to tell me where she was going as long as she had the conditions, but this time, there was no movement at all."

"I've searched everywhere in the house, but Selina hasn't left any clues." Everything pointed to the outcome Holly least wanted to see—Selina must be in some trouble. "Go to the Gotham Police Department and report it. Let me wait 24 hours before contacting them." This is Gotham City. 24 hours is enough time for someone to vanish without a trace.

"Don't panic." The farmer held Holly's arms with both hands. Her hands were steady and strong, and she almost immediately comforted the woman. "Did that guy named Stan cause you any more trouble later?"

Holly nodded and then shook her head. "I did look for him, but Selina gave him a good beating. And a few days ago, Stan was in police custody for being involved in the drug trade... He's just a small-time thug, he probably doesn't have the ability to kidnap Selina."

"I understand." Aria wrote down all the information she said: "Don't worry, leave it to me."

Silently lighting cigarettes for some villains