Chapter 12: Good Friends in New York

Thompson didn’t even blink; clutching the basketball, he retreated back to his own half of the court. From then on, his movements were exceedingly cautious—he would rather not attempt a block than risk sending the ball in this direction again. He even pulled off a risky, comic-book-style dive to save the ball, just to prevent it from flying over here.

Watching Thompson move with such care, Su Ye couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. Has he really mended his ways? At least let me complete my highlight reel before you turn over a new leaf. I just won over thirty grand—can’t I afford to pay for a ruined hoop? You can’t even play the villain properly. What a letdown!

Thompson’s reaction, while surprising to some, made sense when you glanced at Su Ye sitting in the stands behind the court. Thompson might be stubborn, but he wasn’t stupid. After getting knocked aside by Su Ye twice in a row, if he still charged in recklessly, he shouldn’t be at Midtown High—he should be at a school for the mentally challenged.

For Su Ye, it was just a minor interlude.

Tonight, he would swing through the city, becoming a hero for fun. This city was rife with crime—enough to satisfy every facet of Su Ye’s craving to play the hero from every possible angle.

Under the cover of night, Su Ye, clad in his red-and-black Spider-Man suit, stood at the edge of a Manhattan skyscraper’s rooftop. This place was called the center of the world, with its dense forest of towering buildings—perfect terrain for Spider-Man’s abilities.

He leaned forward, glancing out over the edge, then quickly pulled back, breathing a little faster. As thrilling as it looked in the movies, and as much as he’d envied Spider-Man’s swinging, now that he was about to leap off a skyscraper himself, he couldn’t help but feel anxious.

Leaping from hundreds of meters above the ground—what if the web-shooter failed? What if the web wasn’t sticky or strong enough? What if he failed to grab hold, and the web slipped from his grasp?

If anything went wrong, this wouldn’t be a story—it would be an accident.

An Asian man, leaping off a building in strange clothes late at night—was this the collapse of humanity, or the collapse of humanity, or the collapse of humanity!

After a solid five minutes of mental preparation, Su Ye finally took that step forward.

At this point, he could only trust himself.

“Damn!”

The moment the word left his lips, Su Ye felt a surge of energy. Wasn’t this just a jump? Why so much hesitation? He’d wanted to jump for a long time.

He leaped out with all his might. The wind rushed past him, the ground below zoomed closer, and Su Ye’s hair stood on end as every alarm in his mind blared: Danger! Danger! Danger!

Midair, drawing on the experience of multiple Spider-Man iterations, Su Ye steadied his nerves, raised his hand, and fired a web at a distant building.

He didn’t miss. He didn’t lose his grip. The web stuck, went taut, and yanked him forward, sending him swinging through the air.

“Holy—!”

He couldn’t help but shout in delight. As he reached the apex of his swing, he fired off another web.

Thanks to the spider genes granting him superhuman vision and reflexes, Su Ye—though this was his first time swinging through the city—quickly got the hang of it, mastering the technique and becoming a fully-fledged Spider-Man.

To say he started at the top would not be an exaggeration.

As he grew more proficient with the webs, Su Ye began to scan the roads and alleys below.

One look, and he gained newfound respect for Peter Parker.

Peter Parker’s Spider-Man was New York’s friendly neighborhood hero; he intervened whenever he saw injustice, no matter how big or small.

Su Ye had barely been swinging for ten minutes when he realized the city’s nighttime crime was beyond outrageous. Within his line of sight alone, there were several robberies and assaults happening simultaneously across different blocks.

If he were to follow Peter Parker’s code, he’d never sleep—he’d be run ragged.

Yet seeing so much crime and doing nothing didn’t sit right with his conscience. Never mind that the suit itself called for heroism; his two decades of upbringing in red-blooded virtue wouldn’t allow him to turn a blind eye, even if these were technically someone else’s affairs.

“Forget it. I’m here already. I’ll pick a few and help out—if I want to be a hero for fun, I still have to be a hero!”

“If I don’t want to be New York’s friendly neighbor, maybe I could be New York’s best friend to women. That doesn’t sound too bad, either.”

“What I can’t stand the most are you brutes who use your strength to bully women—forcing them, threatening them, you scum!”

In a dark alley, a woman with heavy makeup, a nose ring, and leopard print clothing was violently pinned to the ground. After snatching her purse, the armed mugger paused.

With the night so enchanting and the mood just right, why not take things further?

Acting on impulse, the mugger shoved his gun into the woman’s mouth to stifle her screams, so no one would interrupt his fun, then began tearing at her clothes.

Just then, a lump of white gunk dropped from above, splattering onto the mugger’s pistol.

What the hell was this disgusting stuff?

Before the mugger could curse, the sticky substance suddenly yanked his gun away. The next moment, a figure dropped from the sky.

Before the mugger knew what happened, he found himself hanging from a nearby streetlamp.

Not long after, in another neighborhood, a woman walking alone at night was shoved against a wall, her dress ripped open.

Just when she thought all hope was lost, the assailant suddenly fell silent.

Looking back, she saw a man plastered to the wall in a “big” character pose, his mouth sealed with white webbing, struggling in vain.

No, not the “big” character—it was more like the “extreme” character, arms and legs splayed wide.

But this woman was tough herself. She strode over and kicked the man hard, turning his “extreme” pose back into a “big” one, and his struggles ceased, leaving only unconscious spasms.

That night, nearly a dozen women were rescued while walking alone through the city.

As Su Ye crawled into bed, he couldn’t help but reflect: Why do the city’s women insist on going out alone at night, knowing it’s dangerous? Are they gambling with their luck, or…

Just before falling asleep, Su Ye thought of another possibility.

Could it be that among the people he’d saved tonight, some were actually out working, and he’d accidentally disrupted their business?

If so, well, that was just bad luck for them.