Chapter 36: You're Really Eating a Mess

However, what did the scandals of hell have to do with the living?

As their cosmic journey drew to a close, Sinestro emphasized to Eria one last time that the greatest virtue in this universe was moderation.

Translated, this meant that when they used the yellow power rings, even if they weren't going to split all the fear energy equally, they should at least go Dutch. A wise man does not drain the pond to catch all the fish.

Eria replied with a series of "sure, sure, okay, okay," adding that the problem was he wasn't sure why the takeout rewards were all ending up with him, but he would certainly split the bill once he figured it out.

Sinestro, at least on the surface, appeared to believe him.

The leader of the Sinestro Corps sent Eria back to Earth the way they came, leaving behind that bundle of yellow rings—according to him, these rings were actually replicas of the Sector 2814 rings. Theoretically, each cosmic sector had only one ring; they were like pre-programmed artificial intelligences that would automatically head to their designated stations upon production to seek out eligible hosts within that region.

But there were occasional exceptions. Take the Green Lanterns of Earth as an example: initially, Earth had only one, Hal Jordan. One day, Hal was manipulated by his best friend, Sinestro, into a state of temporary madness and threw his ring away. The ring drifted through various hands before landing on Kyle Rayner, making him a Green Lantern.

Then, another day, an earlier version of Hal Jordan—who still had his ring—traveled to the future and copied his ring, leaving the duplicate for Kyle Rayner. At that point, Earth had two Green Lantern rings belonging to Sector 2814 that were essentially the same "program." Kyle Rayner then gave this ring to a man named John Stewart, and thus, Earth had three Green Lanterns.

Furthermore, it was said that long ago, Hal Jordan copied his ring and gave it to his good friend, Green Arrow—perhaps gifting rings among best friends was some sort of superhero tradition. But since Green Arrow wasn't a member of the Corps, he rarely used it. Once, he copied his replica ring and gave it to Guy Gardner, who eventually joined the Green Lantern Corps.

Therefore, Earth currently had four Green Lanterns using identical rings, all responsible for managing Sector 2814. Their internal Corps designations were 2814-1, 2814-2, 2814-3, and so on.

For Eria, the situation was much the same.

After the first Sector 2814 yellow ring reached him, it burned out at light speed and was deemed a natural failure by the manufacturer. Consequently, the Weaponers performed a copy-paste operation, and the second ring, 2814-2, began its sprint toward its destination. As a copy of the first, it naturally targeted the same candidate, and predictably, it failed just as rapidly as the first. Then came the third, the fourth...

By now, the ring in Eria’s possession was numbered up to 2814-17. With seventeen rings in total, he couldn't even fit them all on his ten fingers. If he were like Hal Jordan, making friends all over the world and issuing a ring to each of them, the Yellow Lantern Corps on Earth could immediately rename itself from the "Sinestro Corps" to the "Esposito Corps."

It was a good thing he was socially anxious.

Otherwise, the Corps headquarters in the antimatter universe would receive a telegram tomorrow stating, "The Orthodox Yellow Lanterns are on Earth."

This also reflected, in a roundabout way, just how generous Sinestro was being toward Eria. He was a man with the true temperament of an overlord—unfettered by trifles, never soft-hearted, and rarely one to hesitate. Since he had already confirmed with the life of one of his subordinates that it was unwise to make an enemy of Eria in the short term, he immediately began finding ways to soften and improve their relationship. While these powerful weapons were considered priceless to others, to him, giving them away was nothing—could Eria not build his own "Fear" corps without the rings anyway?

Since the answer was "yes," why waste the effort on futile schemes?

After parting ways with Eria, Sinestro returned to his headquarters on Qward, completely unaware of the developments in the underworld. It wasn't until he finished his business and finally had the leisure to pay attention to Earth again that he discovered a pile of rumors about himself and Eria had sprouted from nowhere in this cosmic sector.

At first, Sinestro followed the trail of rumors to a familiar superhero fan forum and saw, on Earth’s primitive "Internet," people genuinely "shipping" the "Double Yellow" pairing and even producing fan works. He was as baffled as any outsider seeing the two paired together for the first time: Had they not considered the differences in species and aesthetics?

How could they find that alien visage appealing? The fans' dedication was truly hardcore!

Sinestro didn't take it to heart, dismissing it with a laugh. However, during one of his idle inspections of the headquarters, he overheard his loyal lieutenant, Lyssa Drak, chatting with several Corps members, and they were actually discussing the scandal between him and Eria.

Of course, the Corps members neither cared about the "ship" nor who their leader was dating, but the fact that they were discussing Earth’s gossip from billions of light-years away spoke volumes.

Sinestro thought about it, but ultimately let it be.

Later on, Lyssa Drak approached Sinestro, asking in a roundabout way: "Should we suppress these rampant rumors?"

Sinestro had other things to attend to at the time. There was never a shortage of opportunities for war in the universe, and as he pondered how to expand his conquests, he countered, "Do you think there’s any truth to it?"

Lyssa denied it without hesitation.

Sinestro asked again, "Does it affect the fear our enemies hold for us?"

Lyssa denied that as well.

"Then leave it be," Sinestro said dismissively, lowering his head. "There are too many rumors about me in this universe; why worry about one or two more?"

Lyssa wanted to say more—she could see that Sinestro truly didn't care. Even if tabloid reporters—if such things existed in the universe—were to chase him around taking photos and videos, Sinestro would still hand a ring to Eria without changing his expression, as straight as a towering redwood tree.

'You have a misunderstanding about the friendship between Eria and me; what does that have to do with me?'

'I am deeply devoted to my late wife; why should I explain that to you?'

Lyssa Drak was convinced by this, never bringing it up again, and occasionally, when the atmosphere was relaxed, she would even tease her superior about the gossip.

**

The situation on Eria's side was a bit different.

He heard about this bizarre, almost legendary pairing from Galla.

It all started on the night Eria returned to Metropolis from space, when Galla flipped over a card in a dream once more.

As he grew more experienced with dreaming, he became more skilled at choosing cards—this time, he first discarded the spades, which represented [Plot], and then the clubs, which represented [Adaptations].

Perhaps some would enjoy carefully admiring themselves as they appeared in comics, but Galla had discovered through his first three attempts that in terms of sheer information density, [Reviews] far exceeded the others.

Because high-dimensional readers would watch different works simultaneously and weave them into their narratives!

For example, Galla had only watched half an episode of the animation and read one volume of the comic, yet when he flipped open the review card, he saw readers mentioning things he had never seen before.

So, this time, he decided to skip the original work to save time and look at [Reviews] or [Fan Fiction] instead. He had never flipped the [Fan Fiction] card before, mainly because his intuition told him that something terrifying would happen if he did...

To be safe, he would stick to [Reviews] tonight.

He flipped over the heart, which represented [Reviews].

In his dream, a laptop appeared once again, and a ferocious forum post title on the screen crashed into his vision like a truck:

[Title: Am I not awake yet... I opened my eyes and the whole front page is saying Sinestro proposed to 'Fate'?!]

Huh? Huh??

Galla slammed the laptop screen shut, his heart pounding from the intense shock. He suspected he had misread it, so he carefully pried the laptop open a crack and, in the dim, ghostly blue light, squinted at the keywords:

[...Sinestro proposed to 'Fate'...]

He hadn't misread it at all!!

Galla set the laptop down and jumped up, spinning in circles a few times. After calming down, he reasoned that things might not be as he imagined. Netizens were best at talking nonsense; the facts might not be that way at all. He wiped his face, sat back down, took several deep breaths, and opened the laptop to keep reading.

[0L: As the title says, I was so scared I went back to sleep and only just woke up. Have the superficial lookists on the Internet all died out? Sinestro can actually rank up?? No, I know in the comics Sinestro traveled thousands of miles to deliver a ring, a gesture of great weight and affection, but I really can't swallow his looks [crying][crying]. Can we consume something more human? Isn't Superman better?]

[1L: OP, who doesn't understand the appeal of Sinestro, is in trouble.]

[2L: OP, who doesn't understand the appeal of Sinestro, is in trouble.]

[3L: Same!! Damn it, I can't swallow it either! Everyone used to say they were lookists, but now I find out I'm the only one!]

[4L: Red skin, pointed ears, skillfully maneuvering between major powers, spending a fortune to win over Eria—if I didn't say it was Sinestro, couldn't you imagine a beautiful, middle-aged succubus?]

[Reply to 4L: Dammit, no!!]

[6L: There are so many random pairings these days; I feel like most netizens are just memeing. The last best friend who gave a ring to someone was SuperBat, and the one before that was Green Lantern/Green Arrow; this is just traditional craft, I feel like the writers are trying to chase the heat.]

[7L: Chase what heat? Does the Lord of Fate have heat? Does Sinestro have heat? If you add the works of these two together, you couldn't squeeze out a significant supporting character for a theatrical movie. To passersby, these two don't exist. Eria is a new character, so I won't even mention him, but the last time I remember Sinestro appearing in something outside of comics was the 'Injustice' game. How could these two polar-opposite characters generate friction and heat on their own? Relying on that is like hoping for a 'Green Lantern' reboot.]

[8L: Hoping for a 'Green Lantern' reboot is less likely than hoping for a Sinestro solo movie.]

[9L: Hoping for a Sinestro solo movie is less likely than hoping for an Eria animated movie. The orthodoxy of your circle is in the animation!]

[10L: Hoping for an Eria animated movie is less likely than hoping for the Lord of Fate to join a Lego set.]

[Reply to 10L: Huh? I've always had the illusion that his family was already in a Lego set... the style is too similar...]

[12L: Back to the topic. Isn't the OP discussing ships? As of now, the hottest same-sex ship for 'Fate' is still Superman; the plot is already set in Metropolis, Sinestro can only be considered a condiment.]