Chapter 4226

This time, the dream was exceptionally deep and exceptionally long. Bruce dreamed that he was walking through a dark tunnel. Countless dark tunnels led to one circular room after another, each room glowing with a faint pink hue.

Suddenly, the crying of an infant rang out one after another. Bruce saw an infant appear in the center of the room; it was fair, tender, and very cute, but it just kept crying.

Then, suddenly, a giant hand appeared above these rooms and grabbed all the little pink houses. Then, flames ignited beneath their feet, as if they had fallen into hell in an instant.

Bruce felt that heart-wrenching pain of being roasted. The sharp crying of those infants lingered in his mind, leaving him dazed and torn, almost losing consciousness.

But Batman is not so easily defeated. The more this happened, the more Bruce understood that someone wanted to crush his will, and he would not let them succeed. So, he bit his tongue hard, and the intense pain woke him up.

He suddenly discovered that he had woken up from the dream with a start. However, there was no Kent, and no dilapidated house. His body had also become very dry; clearly, he had not actually woken up. He knew he was dreaming, but he simply could not wake up.

His consciousness gradually cleared, and Bruce began to examine his surroundings. He found himself in a very tidy room. It was a very new house; the walls were painted clean and white, the wood used for the furniture looked high-quality at a glance, the tiles embedded in the walls were bright enough to dazzle the eyes, curtains fluttered in the breeze, and a faint scent of lily of the valley drifted in the air.

Bruce sat up, not feeling any abnormalities in his body. On the contrary, he felt full of strength, energetic, and even somewhat agitated.

But this immediately made Bruce vigilant. In order to train his ability to cope in various dangerous environments, Bruce had tried almost every stimulant in this world, and repeatedly, to find out the different ways each stimulant stimulated the body, so that if he found himself in any uncontrolled state of agitation, he could quickly judge exactly which trick had been played on him.

Excellent talent combined with acquired effort had forged Batman into an almost perfect human. Just like now, Bruce immediately realized that this agitation was definitely not produced by his own body; it must be related to the fragrance he had just smelled.

He immediately rushed to the window and opened it. However, he did not breathe in fresh air; the air outside the window still held that faint fragrance. Thus, he understood that ventilation would not solve the problem.

Bruce took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly. This was also an ability he had learned during his past training: when external stimuli caused an excessive secretion of dopamine, he could manually lower the body's original dopamine secretion through meditation, even lowering it to a dangerous level approaching severe somatization, almost balancing the euphoria brought by all drugs except for strong nerve stimulants, including most drugs known to the public.

People often ask why villains like the Joker don't find a way to give Batman a shot and get him addicted to drugs. They have had many such opportunities, even including Hugo, who controlled Batman back then. And the answer is: they might have tried, but it was useless.

The hardest part of drug withdrawal is psychological withdrawal, because this stuff destroys the human body's own dopamine secretion mechanism, leading to a series of chain reactions. But to guard against this, Batman had long since practiced countermeasures, so this stuff only caused him physical damage. And because he was rich, some physical damage could be alleviated by other drugs.

This time was the same. Bruce immediately suppressed dopamine secretion by regulating his emotions, and that overly clear sense of agitation vanished instantly; he returned to his normal state.

And at this moment, the door was suddenly opened. Appearing outside the door was actually Aunt Kane—a young version of Aunt Kane.

Aunt Kane was very beautiful. She had shiny blonde hair, a pair of amber eyes, fair skin, a good complexion, and was wearing a bohemian dress, looking graceful and charming.

"You're awake," Aunt Kane said to him. "You young people are really something; you don't drive a perfectly good car, you have to ride a motorcycle. I was scared to death when I found you in the ditch on the country road. Come, drink some hot water."

Bruce kept a straight face and did not answer. He didn't believe a single word. If this was a trap carefully laid by someone, then he could only say that the other party's level was simply too clumsy. If they hadn't drugged him at the start, he might have been suspicious, but giving someone stimulants right off the bat? Only a fool would believe what they said.

"Thank you. Where is my companion?"

"Companion? What companion? Did you fall and scramble your brains?" Aunt Kane said with some surprise. "Could this be a murder? But there was only you in the ditch at the time. Who did you come with?"

"Nothing," Bruce said, not even looking at her. "I might have a concussion and had some hallucinations."

"It's okay," Aunt Kane suddenly sat down beside Bruce. Bruce smelled that faint fragrance on her too, so he began to adjust his breathing frequency to prevent himself from inhaling too much of the dosage.

"You are so handsome," Aunt Kane suddenly said.

Bruce looked away slightly. The infatuation in Aunt Kane's eyes could not be more obvious. But Bruce turned a blind eye to it. Since he was born, almost everyone had looked at him with such eyes; let alone ordinary people, celebrities from all walks of life—who could not envy, be jealous of, or hate Wei En?

Because he was suppressing his emotions, Bruce had no time to play the playboy. He sat there with a cold face, but it added a few more touches of ancient Greek-style melancholy to his already handsome face.

Aunt Kane's hand rested on his shoulder, and Bruce subconsciously brushed her hand away. Aunt Kane seemed to realize her loss of composure; she stood up and said, "Alright. Sir, shouldn't you tell me your name?"

"Wei En," Bruce said casually. Anyway, no one in this world knew about Wei En Enterprises, so it didn't matter if he used his real name.

"Alright, Mr. Wei En. I'll be downstairs; call me if you need anything."

"Wait," Bruce suddenly stopped her and then said, "You found me crashed in a ditch and brought me home. I told you I have a concussion; would you rather seduce a patient like this than take me to the hospital?"

And to his surprise, Aunt Kane actually showed a blank expression. She said, "Hospital? What is a hospital?"

Bruce immediately narrowed his eyes. He said, "You don't know what a hospital is? Then what do you do when you get sick?"

"When we get sick, we rest," Aunt Kane said. "We pray at home, and the illness will get better soon. By the way, you don't know how to pray yet, do you? Let me teach you..."

"Thank you, no need," Bruce said.

"What? How can there be no need? Didn't you say you had some concussion? Just pray a few times and it will be better."

Bruce shook his head. When he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of the teacup placed on the table next to him, and he was stunned for a moment. What Aunt Kane had brought him was pure hot water.

Bruce didn't believe it and specifically picked up the cup to smell it; there was indeed no tea or coffee aroma. He even took a risky sip and identified it as pure boiled tap water.

"Is there any coffee?" Bruce felt strange and asked casually. As a result, Aunt Kane showed that blank expression again.

"Coffee? What is coffee?"

"Tea?"

"Tea? What is tea? Are you talking about the letter?"

Bruce immediately realized that there must be something strange about this place. It would be one thing not to know about hospitals, after all, modern hospitals haven't been developed for long, but tea and coffee are different. These two things have a long history in Western culture; even a three-year-old child knows them. Does Aunt Kane really not know, or is she playing dumb?

However, looking at her confused expression, it seemed like she really didn't know, which made it even stranger. This kind of memory loss seemed very artificial.

"Then do you know 'medicine'?"

"What is that?"

"What about 'treatment'?"

"Of course, you need treatment, I know. That's why I wanted you to pray, so you will get better soon."

Bruce immediately understood. In this world, all vocabulary related to hospitals had been replaced by prayer. Medicine meant prayer, and the way to treat illness was also prayer. But the problem is, does this prayer really work?

Bruce wanted to know, but he didn't dare to try it easily. After all, if he followed along with the prayer, something might go wrong, so he said, "I think I'm much better. Can I go downstairs and walk around?"

"Of course. You are free. I'm leaving now."

If she hadn't said this, Bruce wouldn't have felt anything, but as soon as she said this, Bruce's vigilance immediately rose to the highest level.

As everyone knows, the highest level of manipulation is not restricting freedom, but making you feel that you are free. You can freely make the choices you want, but in fact, all choices eventually point to one point. And this kind of fake freedom is the easiest to numb people.

If it were a young person who didn't realize the air might be a problem and had no social experience, hearing that their movements weren't restricted, they might think this really was the real world and that the previous weird situation was just a dream.

However, Bruce certainly wouldn't think so. On one hand, he was a player, and his health bar was still hanging over his head; on the other hand, as the saying goes, the planner of this trap was too low-level. This kind of method couldn't even fool a smarter person or an ordinary person with similar experiences, let alone fool the battle-hardened Batman—taking a class from the Joker would be considered a masterclass, and here, it's suggested to turn left and find Amanda.

After going downstairs, Bruce saw another young and beautiful girl, looking about fifteen or sixteen years old, with blonde hair like Aunt Kane, but she looked completely different from Linda and was much prettier than Linda, but she also revealed a rustic feeling.

"Oh, you're the weirdo my mom picked up," she said. "My god, you're so handsome, better looking than the most handsome guy in our town. Can I know your name?"

"Bruce Wei En. And you?"

"Patri Familo."

"Familo?" Bruce frowned. "Where is your mom?"

"Katherine Kane, oh, now it should be Katherine Familo." The girl acted a bit shy and said, "Wei En is really a very nice surname."

Bruce certainly understood the other party's hint, but he didn't want to pay attention to it and asked, "What about your nickname? Is it Linda?"

"Linda? Of course not. How could Patri's nickname be Linda? My childhood name is Lily. Of course, only close people call me that."

"Alright, Lily, can you get me a cup of coffee?"

"Coffee? What is coffee?"