Chapter 1742

The streets of Cat Getan are flooded with orphans, which does not mean that every child in the entire city is an orphan, but it also does not mean that having parents is a good thing. Families living at the very bottom of society have too little to give their children, and some parents, driven mad by life, demand too much; thus, it is hard to say whether these children with parents are truly lucky or unfortunate.

But there is one type of child who is the luckiest in Cat Getan: those who were never born. Misfortune does not begin with the child's generation; at the bottom, too many mothers are forced to give up their children for various reasons.

This cannot even be called a moral choice. If they choose to give birth, it means they may be without full labor capacity for several months, which is terrifying for people at the bottom who have almost zero margin for error. This is merely the most basic human desire for survival.

But this does not mean they will not be heartbroken. Even if the arrival of this child was not desired, people's longing for a beautiful family life does not change. As long as there has been even a glimmer of longing for such a life, the pain of losing a child is inevitable.

Having lived in the slums for a period of time, Bruce knows where to find the most tears from mothers. Just like the "hospitals" he once saw in the East End, there are places in the slums specifically for resolving such troubles.

The girls who frequent this place are relatively young, some so young that Bruce wants to kill someone.

But it is indeed only young girls who come here. They are often new to the trade and lack sufficient experience, while those women who have worked for a long time have their own methods to avoid such things from happening. After all, an abortion also requires recovery; not being able to work means no income, and they will do everything in their power to avoid similar things from happening.

The vast majority of uneducated people need to suffer before they gain experience, and most who come here are like this. It is precisely their youthful innocence that leaves them with the energy to cry a few times. Although Bruce came precisely for these tears, he still felt his mood sink to the bottom.

Until he saw a boy in the waiting room—men usually do not set foot in such places, and this is not some gynecological hospital in the uptown area where gentlemen accompany their wives to show their care. This is just a shady underground clinic.

The other girls were also surprised by the boy's appearance, but no one dared to ask. After observing for a while, Bruce discovered that this boy was not here to accompany a girlfriend; he was here to accompany a friend of a female friend who was even younger.

They arrived earlier, got the medicine, and left. Bruce vaguely heard the boy call the accompanying girl "Lan." Their complexions were very poor, looking as if they had been hungry for a long time, but the boy made Bruce feel strange.

He was not at all like a Gothamite. If there was one obvious difference, it was that he was even attempting to take responsibility for matters that had absolutely nothing to do with him—Bruce was not even considering such things anymore.

After only a slight moment of thought, Bruce turned his head to attend to his own business. He was collecting the tears of these girls, especially those who came back for follow-ups after taking the medicine. Although some of them had gradually begun to show the numbness of adults, it was clear they were still grieving for the loss of their children.

The atmosphere here made Bruce feel he could not stay long. Fortunately, there were not many underground clinics, but accidents always happen. Customers coming here needed to queue, and Bruce spent an afternoon getting the tears he wanted.

He found a cat on the streets of Cat Getan and opened the bottle containing the tears to let it smell them.

This was not a ritual based on evidence; it was just that Bruce knew there was a special creature in the Dream World: the cat. They were all part of the Dream of a Thousand Cats.

Bruce had once heard the story of the Dream of a Thousand Cats from the mouth of the Bat-Cat and knew how powerful she was. Her status was likely second only to Dream himself, and at least far higher than Jack.

Then the cats in Cat Getan fabricated by Jack in the Dream Realm could not bypass the Dream of a Thousand Cats, and the story of the Dream of a Thousand Cats let Bruce know that she would resonate with the grief of losing a child.

Bruce, who had studied occultism in depth, knew that many magical rituals were created this way. Ancient mages used things that demons and angels cared about to summon them, and only then could they reach a deal with them.

Bruce imitated this behavior, and in the end, the Dream of a Thousand Cats responded to him.

At first, the Dream of a Thousand Cats felt very angry about this. He believed Bruce had deceived her because Bruce was not the one who had lost a child at all; he had merely gathered the grief of others.

But upon sensing Bruce's aura, the Dream of a Thousand Cats chose to help him. This even exceeded Bruce's expectations, and the Dream of a Thousand Cats told him that everything he did in Cat Getan in the real world had given countless mothers and children a home.

Bruce did not know whether she was referring to cats or humans, perhaps both. Because in the Cat Getan building renovation project, houses used for living allowed pets, and the vast majority of people who needed to live in such houses could not afford to buy purebred cats. Most were "if you can't outrun me, you're my pet." Perhaps quite a few pregnant mother cats were indeed picked up?

The Dream of a Thousand Cats is not human and does not have much interest in helping humans, so she merely sent a message to the object Bruce described vaguely. The Bat-Cat only understood Bruce's intention to find her. Although the Bat-Cat is a cat, he is also Batman; he likely overestimated the severity of the matter by ten thousand times.

Consequently, when it reached Clark and Diana, they both unanimously believed that Bruce might be fighting a decisive battle with Dream.

Although the two were anxious, because they knew nothing about the Dream Realm, they adopted the most secure method: calling for backup.

During this period, Clark had not been out of college for long; if it weren't for the Cat Getan City reports becoming a minor hit, he would still be an intern reporter. Although Diana had lived for a long time, most of the time she was just drifting as an art consultant in Metropolis.

The superheroes the two knew could be counted on one hand, and those with combat capability were even fewer. Thus, Green Lantern Hal, Green Arrow Oliver, and Aquaman Arthur were all called over by them.

They first found a safe location to enter a dream, and the Bat-Cat went into their dreams one by one to gather them in one place, then first headed to the Cat City of Cat Getan in the Dream Realm, and then looked for the path to the dream where Bruce was located.

The Dream Realm is not a continent that truly exists; it is a unique space composed of countless dream bubbles. That is to say, they could not walk to the dream where Bruce was located and had to think of some other way.

They encountered God in the Dream Realm.

Why God would appear here must be discussed from the origin of the Sandman comics. Although the Sandman series is a comic publication under DC, its worldview is relatively independent, and its focus is not on the battles of superheroes, but on a series of bizarre and dreamy stories, absurd and strange, with a dark flavor, which can be called Gothic style, and also has some Dionysian spirit.

The author of this series of comics once mentioned that some power settings in the Sandman series are incompatible with the DC Universe, which also leads to the power possessed by Dream among the Endless being unique.

There is a common misconception regarding the understanding of Dream's power. Some say Dream once reshaped God, and thus believe that Dream can stand on equal footing with God, or at least is one of the very few who can influence God.

But in fact, the source of this statement is that Lucifer once mentioned that the external force that shaped God was similar to Dream, but the "similar" here should refer to Dream being a collection of dreams, while the external force is a collection of the faith of cosmic beings.

In all main comics, the details of Dream influencing God have never been mentioned, and the intersection between the main worldview and the Sandman comic worldview is merely Lucifer.

But precisely because the two worldviews differ, if there is a place where God's power still cannot reach, the Dream Realm indeed counts as one.

In summary, God came here to look for his son.

But he has not found him yet. Logically speaking, he would know just by asking Dream, but the problem is that the current masters of the Dream Realm are Constantine and Schiller. God is not afraid of Schiller; it is mainly that finding a son still requires good hearing.

Although he cannot ask Dream, God can still go and ask the Dream of a Thousand Cats. Just like that, the Bat-Cat and his party, who wanted to go to the core of the Dream of a Thousand Cats to find answers, ran into God.

God sent them directly into the dream where Bruce was located. Nothing else, Bruce did a great job in Heaven; the best thing he did was to publish the diary God wrote about Lucifer in the past. How angry Lucifer is, is how happy God is. Helping out is no big deal.

Precisely because it was God who sent them in personally, Schiller and Jack, who currently hold the authority of the Dream Realm, did not sense that a few more people had been added to Cat Getan.

The Bat-Cat and his party were also stunned for a moment after arriving in this city. Isn't this Cat Getan? What is this one-to-one pixel-level recreation about? Is one Cat Getan not enough for that teacher and student to wreak havoc?

But they are not affected by the rules of the game, so naturally, they did not turn into children. To be conservative, the image of these few people gathered together can be called a landmark of a city. It is naturally very simple for Bruce to find them.

Bruce went to great lengths to make this party believe he was Bruce and spent some time explaining to them what was going on, but did not mention the cause of this dream world.

It was mainly because he was worried that if this party heard it was another thing Schiller had done, they would turn around and leave. This group of people could definitely do that, and Bruce did not want the reinforcements he had finally brought over to have problems.

Standing at the end of a quiet alley on the streets of Cat Getan, Clark looked at Bruce and said: "Why did you only call us over now? As a child, living alone on the streets of any city is very dangerous. Dying in the dream world means truly dying!"

"This world doesn't, but you should also feel that your superpowers can't be used. That is the special rule of this world; there are no superpowered individuals here."

"That's not a problem; at least we are adults." Diana touched Bruce's head and said: "Even without special powers, without academic credentials, without family background, at least the knowledge we once learned is still in our brains. Finding a job is not difficult."

"Shouldn't we take him away from here?" Hal raised an objection and said: "Is there any point in staying in this city? Isn't this just Cat Getan? You might as well let him go back to the rooftops of Cat Getan in the real world to stand guard; that could at least create some tourism revenue."

"Of course there is no point in staying in Cat Getan in the dream world." Bruce nodded and said: "After all, the situation in the real world is already much better than here, but there is more than just Cat Getan here."

"What do you mean?" Diana heard that Bruce had something more to say.

"This is a dream; no matter what you do, it won't affect the real world. You will also be resurrected if you die here, so is there nowhere you want to go?"

Several people were stunned.

And at this moment, Bruce took out several plane tickets from his tattered jacket. The destination written on them was a word that was both strange and familiar to them—"Mexico."