Chapter 2216: 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 tried 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, saying, "I'll tie it for you when you come back. Go ahead."

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

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

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

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 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 is essentially paying more attention to the children, and Thomas is 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 degenerate 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 is more emotional, only emphasizing "what I did". Self-centered expression is also common in children. They don't have a clear understanding of the world, nor do they understand the complex structure of interpersonal relationships, which leads them to only emphasize their own feelings.

Strong emotional expression will attract more attention, because human empathy organs must 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 with this sniper.

"And you plan to stand there until Alfred brings the meal." Thomas pointed the spearhead 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 were sitting there talking in low voices. Batman heard them talking about Sherlock Holmes. They didn't have much time just now, so they only read a short section at the beginning of "A Study in Scarlet", which was the plot where Dr. Watson met a strange roommate when he went to rent a house.

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

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

If you use your free time to read another greatest detective in the world after you have practiced it yourself and been called the 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 in about six months, Gotham will have its own new airport."

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

"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 silently turned his face away. 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 microphone, Bruce rushed the three children over. 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 the referee's black whistle, Piccolo and I would definitely teach them a lesson!"

"Then let's make it clear." 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 wicked that referee is." Bruce tapped the table with his hand and said, "He didn't blow the whistle for the opponent's two offsides. Jason's team didn't even lift their feet. His whistle was so loud that we always got yellow cards when a conflict was determined. I have to keep an eye on the referee at home this time..."

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

His eyes fell on Batman again.

"And you plan to sit here, not helping your mother and Alfred, and even not tying your napkin, huh?"