Marvel: Raising — Chapter 173 - DC Really Does Have a Lot of Lunatics

Farm. Kitchen.

Guan Fuyun worked the wok, Wanda fed the fire, and Godzilla wagged his tail and snored, teeth grinding in his sleep.

By all logic, the Eternal Flame in the stove didn't need anyone constantly tending it.

But Wanda always felt the heat came out better when she added the wood herself.

She sat on the little stool in front of the stove and sniffled.

The first thing she caught was Guan Fuyun's scent.

Then the clean fragrance of suckling pig simmering in the pot. Then the sharp, explosive aroma of crispy pork.

Farm-raised little black pig.

The meat was fresh and springy, fatty cuts not greasy, lean cuts not stringy. Didn't even need blanching. After slaughtering and prep, it went straight into the pot.

The whole kitchen was saturated with it. That deep, pulling, impossible-to-ignore smell.

Toss in some melons, vegetables, and fruit. Let them bubble and roll a few rounds. The aroma hit another level entirely, the kind that made you wish your nose could grow a mouth.

They'd also taken some pork, coated it in starch and egg wash, and dropped it into the oil.

Hey.

That taste. Absolutely killer.

Wanda looked up. Steam rose from the pot and blurred the kitchen light into something soft and hazy, but that busy man moving through it only became more real.

This sense of realness was concrete in a way she couldn't quite explain. It lived in every meal, every bite, every grain of rice. In washing vegetables and scrubbing the pot. In every single night.

This was something the Scarlet Witch could never have imagined.

It put Wanda at ease.

"Whoosh!"

Azu was back.

He stopped by the vegetable garden first and stripped a whole chili plant bare, then dry-roasted the peppers with his heat vision. The seasoning went into the dipping sauce.

Then, without waiting a second longer, he snatched up the long chopsticks, clipped a piece of suckling pig, and devoured it with a long, hissing slurp.

!

"Azu, you're stealing food again!"

Wanda was furious.

"Roar!"

Godzilla raised a paw in protest.

"Steal? How is this stealing! I'm openly and brazenly snatching food!"

Azu said this with complete shamelessness.

Before he finished the sentence, Guan Fuyun's spatula swung over.

BANG!

A lump rose on Azu's head.

"(#^.^#)." Wanda settled.

Godzilla let out a snorting, snuffling laugh like a little piglet.

"Dinner! Come eat!"

Guan Fuyun waved everyone over.

He waved his hand.

The farm's climate shifted to high summer. Outside the kitchen, a brilliant sunset blazed. Cicadas screamed. Frogs called.

Cheers rang out. Chopsticks clattered. Laughter broke back and forth across the table.

The stars crawled out too.

All of humanity lost its mind.

"There's light again!"

"The sun, the stars — they're back to normal!"

"...Everything — it all seems to have started from that farm!"

"That lord!"

Online, people celebrated wildly. They had survived. Again.

Lucky thing this was Marvel, where something absurd happened every single day.

Otherwise this alone would have spawned a Sun Festival and a Star Festival for sure.

Anything else worth noting?

Nothing.

Wanda had come back and quietly started helping in the kitchen. She hadn't mentioned the Scarlet Witch once.

Same with Azu.

Because with Guan Fuyun here, there was nothing to be lost about, nothing to compare, nothing to feel uneasy over. They just needed to put their heads down and eat their meals.

...

After dinner.

Guan Fuyun sat on the ridge between the fields and watched.

Azu worked. Wanda worked. Godzilla worked. One farmed, one fed the cattle and horses, one was probably doing both and showing off about it.

Guan Fuyun propped his chin in his hand, scrolled through short videos, liked one of Peter Parkour's posts, and said: "Good work, everyone."

Azu was roasting corn stalks with his heat vision. He heard this and his whole body lit up. "No trouble at all! Dad, what else needs doing!"

"Just say the word! Leave it to me!"

Work to do?

The list was endless.

"I brought DC's Blue Planet back. Parked it right next to ours."

"But there's no Homelander anymore."

"The Anti-Life Equation is probably defunct too."

Guan Fuyun gave his orders: "Tomorrow, go round up the ones who can understand human speech. The ones who won't listen, dragon fruit, CPR, blueberry combo."

"On it!" Azu thumped his chest. "I guarantee entertainment value! What else?"

"This trip, Ashley, A-Train... they performed well. Give them a raise. Also, I found a spatial portal on DC's Blue Planet. Leads to The Boys' world. Starlight, Hughie, all of them are still in there."

The corner of Guan Fuyun's mouth lifted. "Go scare them."

"One more thing."

"Invite Naruto to the farm as a guest. That poor kid's mobile game is way too abstract. I want to pat his little head."

Azu listened with complete focus.

He had a super-brain. He used it to take careful notes.

The sense of ceremony was off the charts.

"This is awesome!"

He wrote and listened and was already racing ahead in his mind, already imagining it all.

He was young. He already had universe-tier combat power, ran a company where every single employee was exceptional, and owned a universe-tier pet named Godzilla.

Every day brought new entertainment. Every day he found a new way to make Dad laugh.

If this wasn't living like a god, then what was?

...

The next day.

The sun rose as usual.

"Whoosh!"

Azu flew out pigeon-toed and touched down on the DC planet.

Sure enough.

Once that other version of himself was gone, the Anti-Life Equation had no host. It went dark. Defunct.

DC snapped back to its everyday normal: wall-to-wall lunatics.

And it turned out the Monitor, the Anti-Monitor, the DC God, and all the rest of them, though they hadn't been able to stop their planet from getting moved, had packed up and followed along. They'd even quietly patched a few bugs on the way over.

Gotham City had Batman again.

Metropolis had Superman again.

The Flash was back parkour-ing through Central City.

"Everyone — we're back! The superheroes are back!"

Someone in a bizarre costume shouted this into the crowd.

Martian Manhunter.

The crowd pelted him with rotten eggs.

"You superheroes are all lunatics!"

"Who told you to come back?"

"Tragic news! Our beloved Homelander, defeated by the evil superheroes!"

"I'm just an ordinary person. I finally moved out of Gotham, barely got my footing in Metropolis, took out loans for a car and an apartment, and Superman just picked them up and walked off. Now I'm in Central City, and because the Flash messed with the timeline, I went from bro to sis. I'm freaking out."

"Don't panic. Drop your address. I'll come take a look."

"Yes, yes, at this point let the boys come see, guaranteed good time."

"You people are absolute beasts. Worse than beasts. Count me in."

Bad news: the superheroes were back.

Good news: the ordinary people here had finally woken up.

A mob chased the superheroes down the street, hurling questions like "Do you have a corporate superhero license?" and "What's your tier ranking?" and "Wild, unlicensed superheroes, stop causing trouble!", phrases that left every caped crusader completely baffled.

And Batman, freshly rebooted and resurrected, was already in the thick of the drama.

He suited up, took out the Batmobile, and was just about to scoop up a few lunatics for sport when a crowd of enthusiastic citizens grabbed him by the collar and frog-marched him straight into Arkham.

"I'm not crazy! I'm Bruce Wayne! I'm a billionaire!"

Batman argued this with full conviction.

The crowd exchanged glances.

A billionaire. Dressing up in a bat costume. To fight crime.

Isn't that a worse case? He might hurt someone.

Take him away. Take him away.

➤ Next: Lively (The End — Toss the Flowers)