Chapter 2473: The Cape War (38)

However, as if to gain the trust of these two buyers who had finally arrived, the man began his account. Actually, there was nothing to tell; it was just that when he was cleaning one day, his movement of lifting the vacuum cleaner wasn't standard, causing the vacuum cleaner's nozzle to deviate. The tag happened to be hanging outside, and then it was sucked in.

Although the tag was finally rescued from the vacuum cleaner's nozzle, the string was snapped, and the tag was scratched. The man clearly couldn't reconnect the string, nor could he forge a new tag. When he got off work, he was discovered by the boss and was required to buy the damaged product.

Jason read two suspicious points from this. First, Batman couldn't be stupid enough not to know how to use a vacuum cleaner. Even if his daily life was taken care of by Alfred, Batman's mechanical operation skills were maxed out. Not only could he operate the Batmobile and Batplane, but any mechanical equipment was obedient and very obedient in his hands.

Second, even if Batman really did such a stupid thing, he had ten thousand ways to make up for it before anyone discovered it—including but not limited to instantly hand-crafting a string exactly the same as the original and connecting it, completely restoring the scratched tag, and at worst, he could at least persuade the shop owner who arrived to let himself not bear the compensation.

But the man who looked exactly like Batman in front of him was just so helpless and waited for the worst result. This was too far from Batman.

So Jason began to ask about the man's name and his past from the side. Now there were no other customers in the shop, and the man also looked bored to death, so he actually chatted with Jason.

This man was named Bruce, but his surname wasn't Wei En, but Gordon. He said his parents were indeed the Waynes, but after they were killed, the Wei En Group completely collapsed, and he was adopted by Gordon. He went to school and studied normally. Because he didn't have money to go to university, he studied at a community college and then went out to work.

Because he had been investigating the cause of the Waynes' death impartially, Gordon was retaliated against by those shareholders who wanted to divide the benefits. When Bruce had just entered middle school, he suffered a serious gunshot injury and was still paralyzed in bed.

Because he had to take care of Gordon, Bruce couldn't hold a long-term job and could only do odd jobs everywhere. This toy shop was one of the odd jobs he did. Unfortunately, he caused trouble not long after he arrived.

Jason could clearly see that the man in front of him hoped to move them with this story so he could sell it at a higher price. This was similar to psychological manipulation, but it was too straightforward and shallow. The Robins didn't play this anymore.

Jason felt that if viewed according to this setting, this Bruce belonged to the type who had some talent but not much. He couldn't take the lead immediately after his parents died as in reality, or rather, he tried to do so but failed, leading to the collapse of the Wei En Group, and he himself was kicked out.

He could do odd jobs while taking care of a patient paralyzed in bed, and he was relatively strong and could keep himself very clean, which showed that he still had some ability, but it was only slightly stronger than ordinary people.

And jumping out of all these stories, now it was in a dream, which meant that if the Bruce in front of him was really the Batman of his universe, then this was his image in the dream.

Would Batman hope to be an ordinary person?

Jason hadn't thought about this question before, but he had had many moments where he felt from the bottom of his heart that Batman was pretentious. Was his parents' death really enough to make him care for so many years? Even if he witnessed it with his own eyes, was his willpower that could allow him to overcome everything not enough to let him overcome the shadow?

Jason also knew that his own way of thinking was a bit of "not having experienced others' suffering, standing and talking without back pain." It wasn't that he had seen more rotten things at the bottom that gave him the position to demand others not to be in pain, so he only thought about it and never spoke it out.

But at this moment, he really felt that Batman was a bit pretentious. The image in his dream used to escape the painful reality was actually just an ordinary person who was nothing.

Jason always felt that Batman had too many unrealistic beautiful fantasies about the lives of ordinary people, just like those rich people who always muttered all day long that rich people also have rich people's troubles, and sometimes being an ordinary commoner is quite good.

Jason knew very well that they muttered like that, but he didn't see them handing over all their property to others. Standing from the perspective of an ordinary person, he often thought, since you feel troubled, why not give the property to me? I'll be troubled for you, and you go live the happy life of a commoner.

So Jason often scoffed at these rich people's fantasies about the lives of ordinary people. Even if it was Batman who thought this way, Jason would only mock his stupidity in his heart. If the lives of ordinary people were so good, why did everyone want to become rich? Why was everyone complaining about not having money?

The fact was, money was really important. The considerations that increased in those days of stretching one's budget were much heavier and more tormenting than the earth-shattering troubles that rich people occasionally had.

Time was never a butcher's knife; poor years were. Rich people all sought longevity. If life was really not easy and there were so many troubles, were they masochistic to want to extend this painful life?

Jason sneered in his heart. He didn't expect Batman to have such a cowardly and escapist side. And this one here was even more heavyweight. Jason used his eyes to glance at the Spider-Man next to him again. He didn't fight back when bullied, waiting for social rules to teach those people a lesson. I want to see what's so good about this kind of life.

Jason counted out the change and slapped it on the counter, grabbed the doll over, and carefully checked it, finding that indeed, except for the tag, every part was intact.

Then he quickly squeezed past the messy counter, took a brand-new Christmas rubber duck from the shelf under the display window, and stuffed it into Spider-Man's arms.

He turned to ask Bruce, "Where did you rent the house? I'm here in New York for a few days and also need a place to stay. If you can introduce me to a good place, I think I can come here to browse more often."

Bruce appeared a bit surprised, which quickly turned into embarrassment. To tell the truth, not having a house in the United States was still quite rare. Although there were many people renting in big cities like New York, most people just didn't want to return to their hometowns to work, and in other states, they at least had a house belonging to themselves or their parents.

After all, the United States had such a vast territory, but the population wasn't large, and housing wasn't in short supply at all. In Europe, one could still see people squeezed into apartment buildings, but in the United States, except for mega-cities, the worst was a small detached house.

People who didn't have a house in the entire territory of the United States were either homeless or illegal immigrants. Local American bottom-level people might be doing poorly, and the house might be very old and need to pay taxes, but it wouldn't reach the point of having to rent a house.

Of course, there was another possibility, which was being unable to pay back loans or taxes, and the house being confiscated by the bank. This was also the main source of homeless people, because if one couldn't pay back the loan, the credit score would definitely be at the bottom, and it would be very difficult to find work again. Without work, one couldn't rent a house, and naturally, one became homeless.

Jason asked, and found it was really like this. Gordon wasn't injured in the line of duty, but was attacked on his day off. There was no compensation, and he had to treat his illness, so he could only go and take out loans.

Because the injury was severe, the insurance couldn't reimburse much, and the loan was used up seven or eight-tenths, but he lost his ability to work and couldn't pay back the loan at all, so he could only hand over the collateral to the bank.

At that time, Bruce wasn't an adult and couldn't work either. The two stayed at Gordon's old colleague's place for a period of time. After Bruce became an adult and earned money, he then took Gordon to rent a house and moved out.

"What about Barbara?" Jason asked.

"They divorced." Bruce had just finished speaking when he reacted. He didn't know how Jason knew about Barbara.

"I mean, don't they have children?"

"Yes, but that girl has been following Gordon's ex-wife and is now studying in another city. Gordon doesn't want to drag them down, so he has never had any contact with them."

Understanding the basic situation, Jason couldn't help but think in his heart, you want to be an ordinary person, but a patient paralyzed in bed for a long time isn't so easy to take care of. If it's total paralysis, it's even worse.

"I can introduce you to the place where I rent a house, but don't expect any environment. I only have one requirement for renting a house, and that is cheap." Bruce wiped his hands on his apron again and said, "Still, thank you for buying this, otherwise I would have lost quite a bit of wages again. It's getting late, I have to go to the restaurant to work. Goodbye."

Jason looked at his back walking towards the back door and sighed deeply, feeling for the first time what it meant to be "hating iron for not becoming steel." Leaving a good rich life and super genius not being, he had to do this to escape reality. Others escaping reality were all fantasizing about a beautiful life, but you came here to cyber-work.

Wait, even in the fantasy, it was just being adopted by others after his parents died, instead of his parents not dying. Has this psychological shadow become so severe?

Jason was filled with emotion, but at this time Spider-Man had already hugged him and cheered, "You are too amazing, Jason! You only spent half the money to buy two toys, and they are both limited editions! Simply too cool!!!"

Jason looked at the two toys Spider-Man was holding with some disgust. He had long passed the age of needing a duckling to take a bath and needing to hug a doll to sleep. Moreover, even if he were at this age, he wouldn't need these things to comfort himself. It was simply too childish.

Looking at Spider-Man's happy smiling face, Jason still thought with some confusion, what is the necessity of putting a duck in the bathtub when taking a bath? What is the function of this thing? Does it only serve a styling purpose?

Completely unable to understand, Jason didn't care either. He walked out of the gift shop with Spider-Man. Spider-Man happily hugged the two toys, saying as he walked, "Actually, this gift shop is a bit far from my community, but it's closer to our school. However, only this shop has the Christmas limited edition this time. Fortunately, I came early."

Jason agreed with this point, because when he just went to get that Christmas duckling, he found that it was the last one except for the one in the display window. It was also possible that this shop only had this one. Coming later might mean not being able to buy it at all.

They had just walked out of the street where the gift shop was and turned a corner when they heard a shout, "Isn't this poor little Peter? Why are you here?"

Jason looked and saw three people walking towards them, a classic American bullying group. The leader was a big guy—at least compared to Spider-Man, he was a big guy.

"Thompson??? You... you didn't train today? I I I I I I I... I also... I..." ===== CHAPTER 2474 =====