Chapter 1219: The Farm of Justice (18)

Thomas was utterly baffled. If Bruce had bought a Lamborghini sports car, he could barely understand it—what young man doesn't like luxury cars and yachts? But what was the logic behind buying a Lamborghini tractor? To show off his wealth to the scarecrows in the field?

Thomas couldn't help but look further down, and then he became even more confused.

The transaction record immediately preceding the Lamborghini tractor was for a children's slide. That was normal enough, after all, there were four children at Wei En Manor.

Children in that age group were a handful, simply because they were too energetic and had endless stamina; they needed some entertainment facilities to burn off that energy, which could also promote parent-child relationships.

However, the item listed before the children's slide was a large ox-bone teething stick, and the one before that was another children's slide, and the one before that was still a children's slide. Following the list down, the next five or six items were all children's slides.

Judging from the product descriptions on the transaction statement, these weren't several different models of slides, but seven or eight of the exact same model. No matter how large the garden at Wei En Manor was, there was no need for seven or eight identical children's slides, right?

The consumption records further back weren't any better; they were all repetitive non-consumable items. It was either stair railings or sofa cushions, and the floor had been repaired by workers sixteen times in one month.

Thomas stared at this bill and began to consider the possibility that Bruce was using his account for fake reimbursements.

But in reality, this was completely impossible. What would be the point of forging his own transaction entries? No matter how he forged them, wasn't the money still coming out of his own account?

With a belly full of questions, Thomas temporarily set this issue aside, because Bruce's personal account hadn't had any large expenditures in the last few years other than that Lamborghini tractor. Even luxury goods like sports cars had been bought four years ago.

Thomas turned his gaze back to the Wei En Group's public account, and the entries there were highly significant.

From the expenditures on building materials, it could be seen that Bruce was interested in the real estate business, but the items listed here weren't costs for property development projects, but rather "other investments." Furthermore, looking at the projects associated with the revenue, all investments had yet to yield any returns.

This indicated that Bruce wasn't conducting commercial real estate development, so what was he building with these materials?

Looking further down, there were some obvious road and bridge construction materials, and the specifications of the materials were very high, and the quantities were very large; clearly, they weren't for building residential community roads.

In addition, there were power grid and water pipeline construction, street lamps and solar equipment, flower bed masonry, landscaping plants for roads, and so on.

This indicated that Bruce wasn't building a housing development, but was tearing down and rebuilding the entire infrastructure of an entire region.

Thomas stroked his chin, committing all the material quantities to memory, and then began to estimate how large an area such staggering construction material costs could actually build.

Soon, he reached a startling conclusion: such astronomical costs could, at the very least, rebuild the infrastructure, residential, and commercial construction for about 30 square kilometers in the most densely populated area of such a megacity.

Having reached this conclusion, Thomas immediately sprang up from the bed, but as soon as he sat up in surprise, he felt a wave of darkness before his eyes.

He felt as if a heavy stone were pressing on his chest, he couldn't breathe properly, and blood was surging to his head in waves.

Mo Lei, who was standing to the side, hurriedly helped him lie back down. Thomas lay back on the edge of the bed and gasped for two minutes before he recovered slightly.

For some time now, it wasn't that Thomas hadn't been resting well, but that he hadn't been resting at all, and this "period of time" was calculated from when the Flash went to his universe.

Upon learning that he might be able to resurrect Bruce, Thomas relied on his sheer courage and fervent passion, working tirelessly for several days without sleep.

Just as his excitement reached its peak, he was dealt a heavy blow: Bruce would become Batman even if resurrected, which instantly extinguished his passion.

At this point, he should have rested due to despair, but another stimulus kept him from stopping: Joker Martha had died, which caused his body and mind to suffer a devastating blow.

Later, Thomas came to this world and didn't have a moment of leisure either. First, he was tricked by Schiller into opposing Bruce, then he learned that his son might suffer from a congenital mental illness, and then he discovered that the Wei En family's industries were in imminent danger.

Any one of these blows would be fatal to an ordinary person. Thomas was able to hold on only because he was Batman.

But in truth, these weren't the main reasons. The main reason was that Thomas was no longer young.

He was not that Batman in his prime; he was just an old man ravaged by fate.

Thomas's lifestyle couldn't be considered good; he touched both tobacco and alcohol, had a habit of alcoholism for a long time, and stayed up late every day, with his days and nights reversed. His lifespan bar was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Lying on the hospital bed, Thomas felt a sense of panic of being powerless for the first time.

But for some reason, after experiencing countless pains, having almost given up, and then having traveled to this world, there was a new force supporting him to overcome the physical pain and stand up again.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, it was still a lack of peace of mind.

The consequence of over-control was both the child's inability to be independent and the parent's inability to let go. Thomas didn't have peace of mind regarding Bruce.

There was a type of parent in this world who spent their whole life in fear and anxiety, always worrying that their children weren't living well, and even in death, they would die on the road of rushing for their descendants.

Thomas took a deep breath, held it in his chest, and forced himself to stand up. Looking at Mo Lei, he said, "Send me back to the company, and bring me the newspapers, political magazines, and news records from the last six months, especially the sections related to the international situation and the local trends in Cat Getan."

Mo Lei soon went to do as he was told. In the next two days, Thomas began to cram the common knowledge of this universe, and this universe indeed had many aspects that exceeded Thomas's cognition.

For example, that great power in the distance was still lingering on its last breath; for example, the fire at the doorstep of the United States almost burned its own backside; and for example, Cat Getan's development of tourism and the gambling industry, as well as the Cat Getan renovation project, which was described with the most heavy ink and color.

Thomas frowned as he looked at the building of the Cat Getan renovation project photographed on the front page of the Cat Getan Daily. He opened his mouth and said to Mo Lei, "Prepare the car; I want to go see this place myself."

Not long after, the car arrived downstairs. Thomas got into the car and drove in the direction of the completed Cat Getan East District renovation project.

Soon, the car drove to the place where the East District project was underway. Now, the residential renovation project had slowed down, and the focus was mainly on increasing infrastructure construction. All the residential buildings that had been renovated had a 100% occupancy rate, so although the construction machinery was still running, there were quite a few people around.

When Thomas stepped out of the car, he instinctively looked up at the exterior of the building. If one looked at the buildings of the renovation project from a distance, one would feel that there was nothing special about them, at most, there were many green plants planted on the terraces between the floors, but this was not uncommon in many residential communities in Italy.

But if one looked closely, one could find many clues. First, all the buildings in the fourth phase of the renovation project were connected, and many places that appeared to be terraces were also wrapped within the buildings, like greenhouses made of glass.

The buildings weren't very tall and didn't reach the level of skyscrapers, but because all the buildings were connected into one, there was another kind of shock, as if they had become an independent world.

And the people and plants living in this world all appeared so small, like residue held in the mouth of a steel beast, carrying a decadent but ethereal beauty, full of people's fantasies about the end of the world.

If one walked closer, one could see the cold-colored lights emitted by the high-tech weapons fixed on the walls and the patrolling drones, and the blinding white light emitted by the automatically rotating searchlights. The extreme technological style was like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing all of people's fantasies.

Besides this, those shiny, dreamy neon signs and the Gothic patterns of Cat Getan tradition retained in the stone parts of the buildings made people feel even more strange and confused, as if they had fallen into a dream where the past and the future were intertwined.

Thomas slowly stepped into this dream. Those weapons ignored him, and the bright lights didn't shine over, so he walked step by step into the dimness, but at the moment he stepped into the building, everything suddenly became clear.

What surprised him was that it wasn't crowded at all here. The walls of the building were unimaginably thin and didn't take up much space at all, and because the building structure was reasonable and there were many windows with good lighting, the space appeared even larger.

There was nothing to say about the structure of the residences; they were more like hotels than luxury homes or apartment buildings. The difference was that every floor would have at least one large terrace, most of which were enclosed on two sides, and the remaining few sides were light-transmitting glass walls, which was equivalent to a sunroom.

The rest of the small terraces were all gardens planted with plants, with only a narrow path through which one could pass. After walking through the initial reception hall and taking the elevator to the upper floors, one could see people.

What surprised Thomas the most was that most of the people here didn't have any extreme reaction when they saw a stranger like him appearing in their living area. They just looked at Thomas with somewhat strange eyes and then went about their own business.

Of course, this situation might not be too strange in any other city in this world, but this was Cat Getan.

This was a place where armed gangsters or explosive maniacs could rush out at any time. Thomas had also been to the East District in his early years. Crime wasn't as rampant then, but no citizen would have relaxed their vigilance to this extent.

Then Thomas took the elevator to a higher floor. To his surprise, he saw a school here.

It was a real school, and not a noble school. The students attending school here weren't the young masters and young ladies from wealthy families in the South District, but the children of ordinary families in the East District.

Thomas didn't walk in; he just stood outside the door and peeked inside, with a trace of guilt and a trace of luck.

That aged hand holding the door frame began to tremble slightly. This old man, who had experienced all the tragic hardships in this world, had pursed corners of his mouth and slightly red eyes, all of which were telling of what he saw. That was the best blessing in this world, and also the most vicious curse. Its name was "hope."

Thomas's hand clenched into a fist. He struck the door frame fiercely, but when it touched the surface of the building, he softened his force. Finally, when his palm touched the wood grain, the force was as light as if he were stroking a lover's hair.

Thomas stood still for a moment, then walked quickly toward the elevator, took the elevator downstairs, strode out of the building, got into the car, and returned to Wei En Tower at the fastest speed.

When he sat in the office chair, Thomas gasped for breath with a ferocious expression, then slowly closed his eyes. From the corners of his eyes to his lips, every wrinkle was telling of his struggle.

Losing a son, losing a wife, leaving his home—walking this path of suffering for most of his life was like being half-buried in a whirlpool of quicksand. This kind of despair could only be understood by those who had experienced it.

When the most miserable tragedies in the world were piled on one person, there was no will that couldn't be destroyed, and no hope that couldn't be extinguished.

Many images flashed before Thomas's eyes: the look in Bruce's eyes, the doctor's warning to him, the focused expressions of those children in the East District...

Facing suffering, smart people should learn to give up early, but in this world, there was a group of fools. No matter how many times a heavy blow struck, it couldn't break their proud bones; no matter how many basins of cold water poured down, it couldn't extinguish the fire in their hearts. Through thousands of hardships, their passion remained hard to cool.

When this aged Batman opened his eyes again, he let out a long breath as if he had made an important decision.

In an instant, fragments of the international situation flashed through Thomas's mind, shattering into fine light spots and intertwining into countless complex lines.

Thomas's fingers tapped lightly on the table, and he asked Mo Lei with an expressionless face, "Is Lieutenant General Abels still alive?"

"Are you talking about that Army general you knew in your early years? He is still alive and has been promoted to General," Mo Lei replied.

Thomas took a deep breath, his eyes as cold as a crocodile's before shedding tears. When the low voice of this seasoned capital tycoon sounded, it was like sharp teeth grinding flesh and blood.

"Contact Mexico. The Wei En Group is willing to provide internationalist aid to the New Democratic Fighters of Guadalajara."

"Tell General Abels that the military budget will increase by 50% next year, and Wei En wants 70%."