Chapter 2194: Battle of Two Cities! (Fifty-Eight)

Thomas sat in the main seat and read the newspaper, which was his favorite Gotham Pier Evening News. He was examining every word on the front page with a sharp eye like a hawk.

This brought back Batman's childhood memories. Almost every morning and evening, when he walked out of his room, he could see Thomas holding a newspaper.

Martha was confirming the completion of the dishes with Alfred at the door of the restaurant. Soon she came over and nodded to a few people and said, "Dinner will start in 10 minutes. Children, go and call your friends over. Don't let the food wait too long."

"I bet Dick is rushing his homework again, and these two are helping him finish it before the deadline so that they can deal with my inspection after dinner." Thomas said without raising his head.

The three Robins brought down by Batman sat down one after another. Tim ran upstairs to call the other two. Batman walked to the opposite side of Bruce, but did not rush to sit down.

Bruce was tidying up his napkin, stretching his hands to reach the knot behind his neck, as if he wanted to untie it and tie it again, but he couldn't reach it after a long time.

Martha came over and stood behind the chair to help him untie the napkin. Bruce turned back and smiled at her, "Thank you, Mom."

Martha patted the back of his chair gently, smiled and walked away, and Bruce tied the untied napkin back again. His action attracted Thomas to look at him.

"Go upstairs and take a look." The majestic head of the family put his eyes back on the newspaper and said.

Bruce nodded to him, stood up and wanted to leave. Thomas sighed, looked at Bruce and said, "Don't take the napkin anywhere else. It's very unhygienic."

"But I just tied it."

Martha waved at Bruce, and Bruce sat back in his seat. Martha gently untied his napkin, folded it and put it on the table and said, "I'll tie it for you when you come back. Go."

By Bruce's series of actions just now, Batman concluded that there was a master.

I'm afraid this guy's excellent graduate is not low in gold content, Batman thought, in just two minutes, Martha and Thomas' attention was all involved in Bruce.

Batman dared to bet that Thomas, who was reading the newspaper, didn't read a word, and Martha, who was staring at the kitchen, didn't pay attention to the kitchen at all.

They didn't even fully realize that they had been paying attention to Bruce for a few minutes just to see if he had tied the broken napkin.

The cultural ecology on the dining table is very interesting, and it usually reflects the most traditional folk customs of a country and region.

When Batman was young, the Wayne family was a more traditional Catholic family. They followed the living customs of the first batch of European immigrants, with clear rules and order of seniority.

In this kind of old aristocratic family, they value inheritance and education more, so the younger children are of course the most concerned.

If there are three generations living together, the middle generation is the most easily ignored, because the head of the family is busy with work, and having dinner at the table is the only time they have free time to contact the younger generation, so they naturally want to know more about the children's education and life.

People from such families often develop such living habits, and after they become elders from juniors, they will unconsciously do so according to instinct.

Martha and Thomas both come from old aristocratic families. Such living habits are engraved in their genes, and they did so instinctively at the beginning.

Martha asked Tim to go upstairs to call the other two children, which was essentially paying more attention to the children, and Thomas was also concerned about Dick's homework.

Theoretically, after caring for the youngest child, it was the turn of the three older Robins, but Bruce successfully attracted the attention of Thomas and Martha by tying his napkin.

Batman had long observed that the napkin was tied with a common slipknot, and any normal person with two hands could easily untie the knot with at least two fingers. Bruce stretched his arms and tossed and turned there, waving his claws for more than 20 seconds.

And you can pick it, but you have to tie it again after picking it, and based on his knotting action, those who know him think he is tying a slipknot, and those who don’t think he is building a Great Wall behind his neck.

Batman knows that this is essentially a deliberate use of regressive performance in exchange for the instinctive response of parents to infants and young children.

The instinct to help, care for and rescue cubs is engraved in human genes, which is the most important guarantee for human reproduction and survival. Therefore, as long as certain conditions are triggered, human attention will be attracted to it.

Bruce's actions seemed childish. He sat at the table but didn't sit properly. He reached out to play with the napkin, untied it and tied it again. It was essentially a childish cry to attract the attention of adults and to firmly lock everyone's eyes on him.

Thomas asked him to go upstairs and take off his napkin. His response also seemed unreasonable. Just putting on something was not a reason for him not to take it off. Even if it was a reason, the adults' answer would be "it's troublesome" or "it won't get dirty."

Bruce's expression was more emotional, emphasizing only "what I did". The self-centered expression is also common in children. They don't have a clear understanding of the world and don't understand the complex structure of interpersonal relationships, which leads them to only emphasize their own feelings.

Strong emotional expressions will attract more attention, because human empathy organs work before rational thinking.

Although he understood the principle, Batman still didn't understand why Bruce did this.

Batman knew that Bruce and Thomas and Martha couldn't be considered a long-lost reunion, because they had lived in the universe where Bruce was for a long time before, and there was plenty of time to experience family affection.    But Bruce was making trouble and attracting attention here, and Batman didn't know who he was aiming at.

"And you plan to stand there until Alfred brings the meal." Thomas pointed the finger at Batman again.

Batman paused, but still pulled out a chair and sat down, and then he found that he put himself in an extremely embarrassing situation.

The three Robins sat there and talked in a low voice. Batman heard them talking about "Sherlock Holmes". There was not much time just now, and they only read a small section at the beginning of "A Study in Scarlet", which was the plot where Dr. Watson went to rent a house and met a strange roommate.

They were discussing whether the young doctor was Sherlock Holmes. Batman had read the rest of the story, so he knew that he was.

But he couldn't discuss this topic with Robins now, because Thomas was there too. Batman didn't want Thomas to know that he was reading Sherlock Holmes, because for Thomas, detective was not a good career.

If you have already practiced and been called the greatest detective in the world, and you still use your free time to read another greatest detective in the world, Batman would want to give himself a diagnosis of mental illness.

Batman knew the content of the Gotham Pier Evening News that Thomas was reading. The front page said that the airport of Gotham Sky Island was under construction. This was a good topic before dinner, probably just enough to talk about until dinner.

So Batman said, "I heard on the news that Gotham will have its own new airport in about six months."

The Robins' attention was really attracted. Red Robin said, "Really? The kind of airport used to dock spaceships?"

"I heard it was." Nightwing also said, "With the airport, we can communicate with the ground normally, and we can deliver goods or people."

"Then do we have to go back to the top of the East Coast?" Red Hood asked.

"Of course, it's still Gotham." Thomas said, "We can't give up our home on the ground. It will be a better new city."

"And if some people take out three hours to really care about the construction of Sky Island, we won't have to wait for six months."

Facing Thomas's death stare, Batman turned his face away silently. This is why he is so idle now but doesn't go into the laboratory, because if he doesn't help Gotham build an airport, but takes out a lot of bat equipment from the laboratory, he will have to face Thomas's eyes every day.

And he didn't help Gotham build the airport because he was not sure whether it was a good thing to let Thomas and Martha build the new Gotham. If the air-to-ground transportation channel was opened so quickly, the two of them would join forces to eat up other investment groups.

Seeing Batman silent, Thomas retracted his gaze, shook the newspaper, used the newspaper to block his sight and said: "Turning your elbow outward."

Batman opened his mouth, he actually wanted to refute.

Because he recently discovered that Wayne Group had a large amount of funds flowing to Mexico, he really didn't dare to think about why Thomas was so eager to develop new city real estate to make money.

Before figuring this out, Batman must not let Thomas make more money, so he would rather hide in the manor and watch "Sherlock Holmes" than go to the laboratory to contribute to the construction of Gotham Airport.

Batman chose to continue to play dead.

In the past, this trick worked well. Martha and Thomas were not the kind of parents who had a strong desire for control. They were relatively open-minded and respected their children's wishes. As long as they did not do something too out of the ordinary, they would not interfere too much, let alone get to the bottom of it.

But as soon as Batman closed his mic, Bruce rushed over with his three children. Damian was also out of school, and the four children of similar age sat neatly opposite Batman.

"Then let's go on Friday afternoon." Bruce looked at Jason over Dick and said, "We must get back at them. We can't let them be so arrogant. Who do they think they are? The boss of Mulberry Street?"

"Of course they are not!" Jason raised his voice and said, "It's not that I look down on them. If it weren't for that referee blowing a black whistle, Beak and I would definitely teach them a lesson!"

"Then let's put it this way." Bruce turned his head and looked at Thomas and said, "Dad, I won't go to the lab on Friday. I'm going to play football with Jason to avenge their defeat in last week's game."

Thomas shook his head helplessly and said, "It's just a friendly match. Don't take it too seriously."

"You don't know how black that referee is." Bruce knocked on the table with his hand and said, "He didn't blow the offside twice on the other side. Jason's team didn't even lift their feet. His whistle was so loud that we always get yellow cards when judging conflicts. This time at home, I have to keep an eye on the referee..."

Thomas snorted softly, shook the newspaper again and said, "Go, who will count on you?"

His eyes fell on Batman again.

"And you're just going to sit here and not help your mother and Alfred, and not even tie your napkin, huh?"