Chapter 1196: The Cries of the Lambs (25)

When the night rain in Gotham falls again, Bruce, who has circled the city, returns to Wei En Manor. His hair is wet and stuck to his temples, and his face looks a bit pale.

When Alfred comes up to hand him a towel, he asks cautiously: "Sir, are you okay?"

Alfred doesn't often take the initiative to express concern for Bruce. He prefers to act, but now Bruce's condition looks really bad.

He let himself get drenched in the rain, wet his hair and clothes, and his eyes look a bit scattered, very much like a drug addict enjoying the drug effect on the street corner.

Hearing Alfred's question, Bruce focuses his gaze on Alfred's face in an instant, looks at him, and asks seriously: "Alfred, are there really ghosts in this world?"

Alfred reaches out and puts the towel on Bruce's head, pulls his arm to sit on the sofa, and then starts wiping his hair, saying while wiping: "This depends on your definition of ghosts."

"I have always believed that human death is not the end. As long as someone still lives in others' memories, then he is not completely dead. In the eyes of the closest relatives, although someone has left, there are traces of his life everywhere. This kind of longing is like a ghost wandering in the room."

Bruce looks a bit dazed, leaning on the back of the sofa, and mutters to himself: "No, I'm not referring to this kind of philosophical explanation. I... forget it, Alfred, please help me get a thermometer. I might have a fever."

Alfred touches Bruce's forehead with his fingertips, shakes his head, and says: "No, sir, you don't have a fever. Your body temperature is very normal. If you feel uncomfortable, I can pour you a cup of hot milk."

What makes Alfred feel surprised is that Bruce doesn't refuse. He just pinches his hands together, nods, and says: "I feel a bit cold. Can the milk be a bit hotter?"

Not long after, Alfred brings back a cup of steaming milk. Bruce almost impatiently leans his body forward, stretches out his arm, and picks up the milk cup with somewhat trembling fingertips.

The next second, he is scalded and shakes his hand, almost spilling the milk. Alfred stands helplessly by his side and says: "Sir, I know, you and Dick haven't been getting along very well recently, you might feel very angry, but Dick is still a child after all..."

"No, it has nothing to do with Dick." Bruce holds the hot milk cup in his palm, purses his lips, and says: "You might think I'm talking nonsense, but I bumped into someone when I went out just now. He... he looks like Thomas."

Alfred widens his eyes. He folds the towel and walks to the phone, saying: "Sir, I'm afraid I have to help you contact a psychiatrist. Having hallucinations is an extremely bad omen."

"I also suspect whether I have hallucinations, but..." Bruce takes a sip of milk and falls into thought again. He recalls every detail of his meeting with Thomas in his mind, and doesn't find any flaws.

His superior wisdom, calmness, and reason, and his focus on facts and evidence and psychological profiling are all telling him that there is a high probability that the other party is Thomas Wei En.

But the problem is, it is also these things that tell him that Thomas died long ago. He clearly watched the body being buried with his own eyes.

Bruce's pale complexion comes from his poor mental state, but he isn't having a mental breakdown because he saw Thomas; rather, he begins to doubt whether there is something wrong with his memory.

A significant omen of most unconscious mental disorders in this world before the onset is that the patient begins to distrust their own memory. Some inexplicable fragments they haven't experienced are stuffed into their brains, making them unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Bruce clearly remembers every detail when Thomas and Martha fell, as well as every expression of every guest at the funeral afterward.

Little Bruce stood in the crowd, deeply imprinting all the things of that day in his mind, and in the more than ten years that followed, he used this as a nightmare, unable to get peace.

But the scene that has appeared in Bruce's dreams countless times is overturned at this moment. His reasoning ability tells him that the person he saw tonight is indeed Thomas Wei En.

This is by no means something that simple plastic surgery can achieve. A good detective, when judging who a person is, won't just look at their face.

Bruce is exactly like this. Therefore, he remembers all of Thomas's logic of action, and the Batman who appeared tonight perfectly fits this logic.

Alfred's eyeballs turn slightly, then he walks to the opposite side of Bruce, sits down, holds his hand, and says: "Sir, calm down. When something that appears in reality is completely opposite to your memory, it is possible that neither reality is wrong nor your memory is wrong, it's just that there is some hidden truth behind it that we don't know."

"If you judge that he is Thomas, then he might indeed be. And you remember that he died back then, maybe he did die at that time, it's just that it might have been a fake death, or he was resurrected later. This is not impossible, is it?"

Bruce looks up at him, his eyes still look a bit dazed, but in an instant, violent brilliance erupts from his pupils. He stands up somewhat excitedly and says: "That's right, what you said is correct! Thomas and Martha might have faked their deaths back then, they might not have died at all, they might have lived in seclusion, and now they have come back!"

"No, I have to find him now, I have to ask clearly, what exactly is going on." Bruce is about to leave immediately, but at this time, a noisy sound suddenly erupts upstairs.

Bruce just looks up and sees Tim lying on the railing of the patio looking down at him, and shouts to him: "Hey, Bruce, you'd better come up and see, Dick seems to be having a nightmare."

Bruce takes a deep breath, trying to cool down his boiling blood. He takes several steps at once, rushes into Dick's room quickly. The tear stains on Dick's face haven't disappeared yet, and he is leaning on the pillow somewhat blankly. Jason is sitting beside him.

Bruce walks over, gently embraces Dick, wipes the tear stains on his face with his fingers. Dick is like a breakdown, pulling Bruce, and says with a crying voice: "My ears hurt a bit..."

Dick's tears are still falling continuously. He is even trembling in fear and constantly trying to push Bruce away with his arms.

Bruce hesitates, not knowing whether he should continue to use force or let go of Dick. Jason gives Tim a look, Tim walks up and holds Dick's hand, and Jason drags Bruce out.

"He is very scared." Jason says to Bruce: "This is a very obvious reaction of stress disorder. What exactly happened to you two?"

"I..." Bruce recalls the things during the day, lowers his head and sighs, and says: "I don't know why Dick is unwilling to do his homework properly, even if I accompany him, he keeps stalling."

"He doesn't have a good learning habit. I am anxious for him, so I said a few words to him, and he ran out."

Jason scratches his head, but Bruce squats down and looks into Jason's eyes and says: "Your empathy is very strong, and you can even see what I'm thinking. Then do you know what Dick is thinking?"

"Have you read books about the rebellious period?" Jason asks.

Before Bruce can answer, Jason touches his chin and opens his mouth: "Before, when I was reading those psychology textbooks, I occasionally saw some books about adolescence and the rebellious period."

"There is a very interesting theory, that is. Rebellious performance is actually very normal. This is a necessary stage of personality growth."

"The rebellious period is like a watershed." Jason's tone becomes slightly slower. It is clear that he is repeating the content of the book.

"Before the rebellious period, children's understanding of this world and their own behavioral standards come from the authority established by parents. Parents tell children what something is like, what can be done, and what cannot be done. Children accept this information without reservation."

"But after reaching a certain age, children begin to establish self-awareness. They begin to think, who am I? What should this world I think

"These questions cannot be answered by one's parents; parents will only say that you are a child, and they will only tell you what they believe this world is like."

"And so, children begin to explore, no longer accepting the information instilled in them by their parents without reservation, and begin to try to judge things and understand this world through their own eyes."

"But to achieve this, the first step is not to be trapped by the judgments of one's parents. Parental authority occupies the space for their personality growth, and while establishing self-awareness, they must delete some of the concepts instilled in them by their parents in order to have the empty space to place their own concepts."

"But to break through the concepts of one's parents, one must first rebel against authority. Thus, the child begins to test boundaries, using repeated acts of rebellion against their parents to try to break the shackles of others' thinking and establish their own personality."

"This is why children in their rebellious phase always seem fickle, incredibly irritable, inexplicable, and especially fond of going against their parents."

"In their subconscious, they are desperate to prove that they are independent people, not appendages of their parents. They want to prove that they have unique views on everything and prove that their personality is complete and independent."

"But in this age group, the vast majority of children cannot survive apart from their parents, and parents do not consider them independent either, which leads to very sharp family conflicts."

"The child feels that their parents are oppressing them, do not want them to have a complete personality, and feels that their parents' views are old-fashioned and outdated, and that they still want to brainwash them."

"The parents feel that the child is being unreasonable, ungrateful, and is a heartless, ungrateful wretch."

Bruce listened to Jason's analysis in a daze; he seemed to recognize who Jason's analysis came from, and he was very familiar with every pause between the lines.

Consequently, Bruce forgot that the person in front of him was Jason, his own child, and not his teacher, and he asked instinctively:

"Then how do you solve it?"