Chapter 1416: Is This the Life of Batman? (Part 2)

The next morning, Bruce was thrown out of Wei En Manor along with his luggage. Thomas had thrown him out personally, so much so that even Alfred couldn't stop him. Fortunately, Thomas wasn't entirely heartless; after Bruce got into the car, Thomas rolled down the window, looked at Bruce standing on the side of the road, and said.

"Your mother still has an old house on Bliss Avenue, the place she prepared for her marriage before she wed. Don't come back until Aisha starts elementary school! Spend 1.5 billion dollars within a month... My heart aches just looking at you!"

After saying this, the window was rolled up, and the car vanished in a flash at the end of the street. Bruce remained immersed in Thomas's last sentence, muttering to himself as if he had gone foolish: "Spend 1.5 billion dollars in a month..."

Bruce glanced at the bag of luggage beside him, revealing an expression of disgust. He walked away directly, arrived at the opposite side of the road, hailed a taxi, and headed toward the Batcave once again.

The taxi reached the destination. Bruce looked at the desolate scene around him, his expression gradually turning cold. He stared intently at the rearview mirror, but after a long while, as if he had remembered something, he still took out the remaining cash he had on him to pay the fare.

Arriving before the true entrance of the Batcave, Bruce stated the password again. This time, the gate finally opened. The Batcave was filled with equipment and weapons, and Bruce walked in impatiently.

The Bat-suit, Batarangs, Bat-communication equipment, and in the deepest part, a Batwing. Bruce touched them one by one, then walked to the very front, picked up the components of a Bat-suit, and prepared to put them on.

When he took off his heavy outer coat and began to put the Bat-suit on, he discovered that the size of the suit was wrong.

The size of this Bat-suit was too large, and not just in terms of being fat or thin; it was clear that this Bat-suit should have been custom-made for someone taller than him. The leg armor couldn't be buckled into the correct position at all, and if it were pulled up too high, it would chafe his knees, preventing them from moving freely.

Fortunately, there was more than one type of Bat-suit here. Bruce picked one that looked more compactly designed. However, when he tried to put it on, he found that this suit was too thin; he would have to lose at least twenty kilograms to even have a chance of wearing it.

Bruce looked at the row of Bat-suits in front of him, speechless. Then he looked at the Batarangs in the cabinet. The Batarangs had no problems; they were of a moderate size. The only problem was that this thing itself wasn't very suitable for use as a weapon.

There were no precision guidance devices on the Batarangs, which meant that Batman relied purely on technique to throw this thing, which didn't conform to aerodynamics at all, with almost one hundred percent accuracy.

Bruce picked up a Batarang and pinched it in his hand, using his wrist strength to try to throw it. But before it could even leave his hand, with a 'Swish—', a cut was sliced into the area below the web of his thumb.

He cursed under his breath, threw the blood-stained Batarang aside, and turned to look at the firearms hanging on the wall.

The weapon cabinet contained many strangely styled guns that looked as if they had just been dug out of an alien's grave. Bruce opened the weapon cabinet, took out one of them, and then discovered that they were just like the Batarangs; the guns were fine, but they were completely non-ergonomic.

A normal human with only two hands could never, under any circumstances, keep the gun steady, keep one finger on the trigger, and simultaneously press the more than sixty buttons on the gun body.

Throwing the gun aside, Bruce went to look at those strange large machines. The machines were also fine, the buttons were brand new, and the parts were neat, but the problem was that not a single one of them could be turned on.

Every machine in the Batcave had an average of over two hundred buttons, and not a single button had its function written on it. One machine had dozens of different ports, there were countless wires on the ground, and there were innumerable energy hubs on the walls. Beside every interface and hub, there were a wide variety of switches.

This was not the jewel in the crown of human industrial civilization, but a corner abandoned by the development of modern mechanical equipment.

In an era where all modern industrial equipment was being simplified and intelligentized as much as possible, Batman had resolutely chosen a completely opposite path of development, which could be called a primitive, natural-style, Bat-punk industrial aesthetic where humans and the environment coexisted harmoniously.

There were many other rooms in the Batcave. Bruce pushed open the doors one by one to look, but there was nothing inside. Refusing to believe it, he continued deeper and finally saw that huge Batwing.

Just at this moment, Bruce suddenly heard movement at the entrance of the Batcave. He turned his head vigilantly, only to see Diana walking in. After seeing Bruce, Diana sighed and said: "Sorry, when your father got angry, Clark and I left first. I was worried he would scold us along with you. That's very possible; he looks like he's in a bad mood."

"I've already agreed with Clark that you'll go to work with me during the day today, and help him retouch photos at night. However, the news release was delayed by a day, so he's definitely going to get scolded by his boss."

"It's good that you're here." Diana said, then flew up. In Bruce's shocked gaze, she flew into the Batwing, tilted her head toward Bruce, and said: "Get on the plane, I'll take you to the base. There's still a lot of work waiting for us."

Bruce just wanted to refuse, but a burst of light covered the Batwing. His eyes widened slightly. After pausing for a moment, he walked onto the Batwing and sat in the pilot's seat.

"Fasten your seatbelt. You don't need to operate it; I'll take you flying."

About half an hour later, Diana supported a Bruce who was vomiting messily as they walked into the base. In a daze, Bruce's peripheral vision caught sight of the azure Earth floating outside the base's window.

"Where is this?" Bruce asked, out of breath. He felt as if his brain had been scrambled by Diana's violent driving technique.

"The base, of course." Diana spread her hands and said: "Our outpost for setting up the Earth's protective shield, and also your scientific research station. Hal has already helped you move the equipment for those experimental projects you said were inconvenient to carry out on Earth here, but you have to help us finish the work we agreed on first."

Bruce leaned against the wall and coughed hard twice. He took two deep breaths and followed Diana into the laboratory. Diana brought over a large stack of documents and placed them in front of him.

When Bruce's gaze fixed on the documents, one second later, he still couldn't help but shout out: "What is this?!!!"

"The design drawings for the Earth's protective shield." Diana propped up her head and fiddled with the computer on the side, saying without looking back: "Hal has already finished most of the first part. You hurry up and finish the second part, and we can start construction."

"Why..." Bruce felt as if his tongue had been scalded; his speech was a bit unclear, but he still tried hard to suppress the excitement in his tone and said: "I mean, I still don't quite understand this project..."

"Of course you don't understand; your filter for Schiller is too heavy." Diana still didn't look back, typing while saying: "We must get a protective shield for the Earth to protect our universe."

"Getting a protective shield for the Earth is to protect the universe?"

"Otherwise, could it be to protect the Earth?" Diana continued typing clatteringly, saying: "Of course, in a sense, protecting the Earth well is also protecting the universe well, and a protective shield can solve both these problems. Don't ask anymore, hurry up and work."

"I..."

Bruce stared blankly at the design drawings in front of him. They were design drawings, but there were absolutely no drawings; they were data, but there was absolutely no data, only a group of ghost-drawn symbols that were hard to describe, dancing hand in hand.

Suddenly, a figure covered in green light appeared. Hal, travel-worn, sat down at the table. After gulping down a glass of water, he looked at Bruce and said: "You're here? How's the second part going?"

"I don't know, but can you tell me what this is?" Bruce asked, pointing to a word on the design drawing. It wasn't hard to see that its style was different from all the other symbols. Bruce didn't remember humans having such a mathematical symbol.

"Oh, isn't this the symbol for the Emotional Spectrum you designed? You wanted to explain it to me at the time, but I didn't pay attention at all, but you didn't care either, saying that as long as you could understand it yourself, it was fine. Hurry up and finish, let's go have a cup of coffee."

After Hal finished speaking, he slumped on the table and started to doze off. Bruce began to bury his head in flipping through those documents. After a while, he finally couldn't take it anymore. He tossed all the papers up and then slammed the table hard, saying: "Why do I have to do these?! Why would Batman do these?!"

"Shouldn't I be using equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars to beat up those thugs, and then enjoy life with the money from the Wei En Group that can never be spent? Shouldn't I be making Gotham better?!"

"Bruce!" Diana called out.

"I'm not Bruce!" Bruce roared.

"I know, but listen to me..."

Bruce froze. His face twisted for a moment. Just as he was about to say "You are all playing me," Diana shrugged, looking indifferent, and said: "Bruce is just a codename. It's also possible that you aren't Bruce, but anyway, you are all Batman."

"As long as you're Batman, you can do this job. Stop dawdling, finish it quickly and get out of here. You still have to go help Clark retouch photos tonight."

Hal also waved his hand and said: "Buddy, I don't care which world's Batman you are, anyway you are all super geniuses. Isn't that stack of drawings in your hand something Batman spent about an hour making? Believe me, as long as this thing is built, it's good for all of us."

Bruce instinctively lowered his head to look at that thick stack of documents, an angry and embarrassed expression appearing on his face. But Diana revealed a hint of curiosity and said: "Could it be that you actually don't have the talent of other Batmen?"

Hal stood up and said: "Well, actually, we've only met two Batmen in total, one younger, one older. They finished the first part of the project in a relay."

"But we really can't infer from this that every Batman has such a high IQ." Hal shook his head and said: "You know, the sample size is insufficient. It's possible you don't understand these."

Diana sighed helplessly and said: "Alright, alright, it seems our work is going to be delayed again."

She jumped down from the high bar stool, walked in front of Bruce, and patted his face, saying.

"Fortunately, you still have a pretty face. Let's go, I'll send you back. Those young ladies who booked the viewing platform long ago are still waiting for you to appear on time."