Chapter 1643

Batman knew a lot about Martha Wei En, but not enough. He only knew that his mother had once been the eldest daughter of the Kane family, had received the most traditional elite education, and after marriage, had balanced both career and family; she was a good wife and a good mother.

But after truly researching the history of the Kane family, Batman discovered that Martha Kane had actually married down.

Perhaps many DC fans have only heard of the Wei En family and only heard that Batman was wealthier than a nation, but that was actually after Batman was born. In the settings of many comics, for a long time, Cat Getan had four great families.

And the Kane family was actually the family that had been wealthy in Cat Getan for the longest time, and for a long period, they were the most powerful family, the head of the four great families, while the Wei En family was a relatively young upstart.

The marriage between the Kane family and the Wei En family could be called a union of the strong, or a joining of the new and the old; from then on, no one in Cat Getan could stop them.

One of the reasons for the decline of the Kane family was that the leader of the previous generation of the Kane family had only one daughter, Martha. After Martha married into the Wei En family, the other descendants of the Kane family were relatively average and unable to support the family, which allowed the Kane family to gradually fall behind the Wei En family.

Coupled with the fact that the Wei En family produced a peerless genius like Bruce in this generation, the Wei En family developed into the behemoth it is today, with industries spread across the globe.

In the Cat Getan of the gangster era, no family could be called clean, especially the generation of Bruce's grandfather. In such a city, who could avoid having some dealings with the darkness?

Old Kane put a lot of effort into the education of his only daughter. From the fact that Martha became the Joker after Thomas became Batman in the Flash universe, one could see that the two of them were evenly matched and very similar.

And in most comic descriptions, it was Thomas and Martha who managed the Wei En family's industries together, rather than Thomas shouldering the burden alone while Martha stayed at home to raise the children. They were not a traditional family structure where the man works outside and the woman manages the household, but a union of the strong.

When Martha was still alive, although the Kane family had declined slightly, they were still a behemoth in Cat Getan City, and the Wei En family had not surpassed them by much. But now, Martha, returning to the Kane family, saw that the Kane family was almost to the point of being non-existent.

Twenty hours was enough for a huge business empire to fall apart, and twenty years was enough for the winds to change and classes to shift. Although Kane was still a great family in Cat Getan, compared to the huge figure of that glorious era, it had already declined too much.

Now, they were entrenched on a small piece of land on the edge of the Midtown district. The leader of this generation of the Kane family was Martha's cousin. When the war started, he reacted a bit slowly, and when moving, he was even slower, which led to their family residence not even being able to be established in the most prosperous area of the Kane family's business, but being squeezed into the adjacent block.

Martha, who had just finished arguing with her husband, was already in a bad mood, and seeing this scene upon returning made her even more furious. When she argued with Thomas, she was relatively tactful because they had been husband and wife for many years and had shared hardships. Now that they were reunited after a long separation, naturally, she couldn't say things too harshly.

But how good could the temper of the only daughter of a top great family of that time, a young lady who had been raised as a successor since childhood, be? Martha's background destined that no matter what, she could not be the kind of woman who married into a wealthy family and swallowed her pride, let alone look at the face of her junior, not to mention that this junior was stupid as hell.

Martha stabbed that stupid cousin with a few words until his face turned blue, and then she didn't bother with him anymore. She quickly took inventory of the personnel, checked the reserve supplies, inspected the arms inventory, and then consolidated the defense line of the residence, leaving no opportunity for the hyenas who wanted to take advantage of the fire.

The more Martha checked, the more anxious and angry she became. She had only been dead for twenty-something years; how could the Kane family be this pathetic?

Martha immediately decided that this couldn't go on. This was no longer a question of whether she could revitalize the Kane family, but whether she could preserve the family name and keep it from being eliminated by the times.

Unlike the chaotic situation of this generation's family leader, the education Martha received was in the background of the gangster era. She had learned about territory, gang warfare, and street fighting.

Simply put: Sir, the times have changed back.

Martha and Thomas were people of the gangster era. When the Cat Getan era changed, they happened to be dying.

During the years when Falcone was conquering Cat Getan, they had seen plenty of fireworks landing. Seeing this scene of artillery fire, the beautiful scenery they were familiar with in their childhood had returned, hadn't it?

So Martha organized personnel, distributed equipment, and made tactical arrangements with ease, preparing to strike at the heart of the enemy.

Martha's cousin still intended to snatch back the streets where the Kane family's industries were concentrated, but Martha was full of disdain for this approach. Her decision-making was full of the gangster style.

What is a gangster? A gangster is: as long as I can snatch it, it's my industry. Who cares what the industry is named?

What is a gangster? A gangster is: spend the least money to do the biggest things. If I can snatch a hundred, I will never snatch fifty. If I can snatch the best, I will never snatch the worst.

So, whose were the best and highest-quality industries in the entire Midtown district?

Martha decisively declared war on the Wei En family. Ten minutes after the declaration of war was sent out, the Wei En family's motorcade was suddenly intercepted by the Kane family while eating hot pot and singing songs.

Actually, with the assets of the Wei En family, there should have been no opponents in Cat Getan City long ago. But Bruce Wei En couldn't appear too advanced. In order to disguise himself, he deliberately slowed down by half a beat when the war started, and afterwards, he didn't spend much effort maintaining his territory.

This led to the fact that when Thomas took over, the base's defense was quite good, but the logistics and transportation system was a semi-finished product, and because of raw material sanctions, the economic lifeline, the chemical plant, was also in a semi-paralyzed state.

Thomas was furious. Actually, he could understand Bruce's need to hide his strength. He didn't even have to think to know that the Bruce of this world must have gone to be Batman. In order not to expose his identity, it was understandable to develop slowly.

But the fact that he was beaten by his own wife concerned a man's self-esteem. In a fit of anger, Thomas directly appeared to take over the business of the Wei En Group and also became the direct leader of the Wei En family.

He was not to be outdone, sending people to directly surround the Kane family's small residence, betting that the Kane family didn't have enough supplies to consume with him. But Martha contacted her former close friend, the current aunt of Silence Thomas Elliot, Fannisa Elliot, and stabbed the Wei En family's residence from behind.

Immediately afterwards, Thomas repeated his old tricks and contacted the Sullivan family, who operated casinos in Cat Getan, blocking the traffic junctions between the Kane family's two residences, weakening the connection between the two places, and preventing their internal circulation system from being successfully built.

The two of them fought back and forth, having a great time. More importantly, born in the gangster era, they were truly familiar with this kind of thing, which left the young leaders of other families in Cat Getan dazzled and dumbfounded. In the final analysis, your father is always your father.

But Batman was in a relatively awkward position. His current thoughts could be summarized as: can anyone pay attention to me?

Middle-aged, parents not only want to divorce but also started fighting—what to do? Waiting online, quite urgent.

And soon, Batman had another urgent matter. Thomas and Martha finally remembered him, but it would have been better if they hadn't.

A dilemma that every child experiences is parents arguing and asking you who you are going to follow. Batman never dreamed that he would have to face this problem in middle age.

"Bruce, listen to me. Your mother is very irrational right now. I explained it to her before; I just hope the Wei En Group can have an excellent successor, so I focused too much attention on Damian, but I didn't neglect the other children. Dick and Jason both like me very much."

"As for the smoking and drinking, quitting also requires a process. I was very busy in that universe before, and the pressure was very high. I really didn't have the time to pay attention to these, but she just wouldn't listen to my explanation."

"You must help me make her calm down. What can't a family sit down and talk about properly? You're right, Bruce?"

Batman had just put down the phone when it rang again, and Martha's urgent voice came from the other side.

"Little Bruce, you must come over quickly. Your father has already ignored everything for the sake of business. If this continues, those children will definitely be sad because of his actions."

"And his smoking and drinking problem, not to mention anything else, Aisha has just started kindergarten. Is it appropriate for him to go home with the smell of smoke? What if he smokes out the child?"

"The girlfriend of the Bruce from that universe also often comes to Wei En Manor. If he gets drunk, what kind of appearance is that for others to see? If it spreads, do the Wei En family and the Kane family still want their reputation?"

"We must firmly stop his behavior of ignoring the family. More importantly, make him withdraw from his precious business to listen to us talk. What can't a family sit down and talk about? You're right, Bruce?"

Batman felt something was wrong.

Because while they were saying "What can't a family sit down and talk about?", they were almost throwing missiles at each other's heads. What on earth are they doing???

Actually, this was also caused by the cognitive gap. In the era of Batman's parents, this level of gangster warfare was very normal. This city had never been reasonable; any crime was an amplified version. So, gangster families occupying a few streets and starting small wars against each other was also very reasonable, right?

Therefore, in the eyes of Thomas and Martha, although they might be venting the anger of their argument, this level was at most mutual probing and warning.

But when Batman was born, the gangsters were already at the end of their rope, the class was completely solidified, and there was nothing to fight for. Cat Getan was full of dead silence everywhere. Where had he ever seen this kind of battle?

To take a step back, he would have to accept the fact that his parents had been dead for many years for a period of time, right?

But in the time it took him to be stunned, Thomas and Martha used their wisdom and knowledge to show Batman what the alliance and maneuvering of the golden age of gangsters was.

Upon discovering that warnings and probing were fruitless, and his son would not express his position, both of them were surprisingly angry, and the result was that they both brought out their real skills.

Although the old Cat Getan aristocratic Kane family had declined, they still had some connections. After Martha contacted them privately, she gathered almost all the old wealthy people in Cat Getan, used the advantages of having many bases and many people, broke through the Wei En family's logistics blockade in one fell swoop, and instead built a complete logistics system on this basis, and also directly occupied the largest wharf in Cat Getan so far.

As old money, they knew the methods of collusion between officials and businessmen best. Martha threw down a large amount of funds as a political contribution to Mayor Oswald Cobblepot, while strongly supporting his construction of the deep-water port. Cobblepot was in the limelight for a while, and the old aristocrats also occupied the moral high ground.

Thomas, on the other hand, vigorously exerted his advantage of having ample liquid funds, fully participating in the arms industry, gambling industry, and smuggling industry, and then used economic warfare to force the other side to reduce the overall shareholding ratio of urban industrial construction, constantly eroding the other side's industrial scale.

So what was Batman doing?

He was stirring things up on both sides.

No way, if he didn't stir things up, these two people would really start fighting. If they fought until they turned against each other, there would only be one benefit: the Joker, who was currently locked in the Batcave, could laugh himself to death.

Therefore, Batman had to run around everywhere. If Wei En picked up vegetables, he would turn the table; if Kane drank water, he would drive; if his father played cards, he would draw; if his mother raised a glass, he would drink first. Anyway, as long as neither of them could succeed, the crisis would naturally be solved.

But actually, this was a bit like parents arguing at home and the child blowing up the stove. The argument would indeed stop, but next would be a beating with a belt.

After Thomas and Martha finished their operations, they simultaneously realized: why is something wrong with this matter? Why have they been busy for a long time, but this fight just won't start?

Thus, on a dark and windy night, just as Batman returned home, he saw Thomas and Martha sitting on the sofa on the left and right, while Alfred was desperately winking at him from the side.

If Batman's understanding of Alfred was correct, his eyes at this moment should be saying "Run!".