Chapter 1201 Lamb's Cry (Twenty-two) (Patreon)

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Dick seemed to be stunned. He felt that the person in front of him was lying, because the black figure that appeared before him was completely different from the Batman he knew.

But he couldn't refute it either, because apart from Batman, no one would fit Gotham's dark night so well.

Or rather, the strange person in front of him who claimed to be Batman was more suited to the darkness of this city than the Batman Dick knew.

When he stood in the slightly damp air of the Gotham night, every bit of moisture from his hair to the ends of his skin felt like a black wave crashing towards him.

Dick had never seen such a Batman.

He knew that Batman was Gotham's Dark Knight, and he knew that Batman was not the kind of bright and great hero written in fairy tales, but it was this dark charm that deeply attracted Dick, and at this moment, he seemed even more fascinated.

"Who are you exactly?" Dick asked the figure in a slightly confused manner as he took a step forward.

"I am Batman." The other person answered again, but looking at Dick's youthful face, he seemed to have a little more patience, so he added, "The Batman from another world."

"Another world?" Dick murmured, repeating those few words. He felt that he shouldn't accept such a bizarre explanation. Did other worlds really exist? Was there also a Gotham there? And a Batman?

"You know the Batman of this world." The black figure said in a declarative tone, as if it were a matter of fact.

Dick became a little more alert. He took a step back, baring his teeth like a cat, and said warily, "What do you want? You imposter, I won't tell you anything about Batman!"

"He shouldn't be Batman." The black figure said in an extremely slow tone, each word echoing clearly in Dick's ears, with a mysterious attraction.

"What are you saying?" Dick asked in surprise.

"Batman is Bruce Wayne." The low voice sounded again, and before Dick could be surprised that he knew so much, he heard the person say.

"He should be Bruce, not Batman."

Dick's mouth fell open. He suddenly felt a little guilty, instinctively glancing left and right. He stared straight at the person in front of him, wondering if he had telepathy.

Just now, when he was standing upstairs, the scenes of Batman taking him for a ride on the Gotham rooftop and Bruce comforting him by the bed had alternated, making his already unstable mind even more chaotic.

And when this stranger suddenly exposed his thoughts, Dick felt frightened, but he couldn't help but think that everyone must be thinking the same way, and it was normal for him to think that way.

While Dick was lost in thought, the black figure disappeared. Dick didn't even notice how or when he disappeared, but this made him believe that the other person was indeed Batman, because only Batman could come and go so stealthily.

The thoughts of a young child are always written clearly on their face. When Dick returned to Wayne Manor, Alfred brought him a towel to dry the moisture in his hair, and Bruce just happened to walk out of his bedroom.

When Dick saw Bruce's movements, he suddenly felt a little angry. He turned his head away and refused to look at Bruce. Bruce looked a little puzzled as he walked over to the sofa and asked, "What's wrong, Dick? Where did you go just now?"

"Why did you go into my room?!" Dick stared at Bruce's face, and when he saw Bruce's slightly puzzled expression, he got even angrier and raised his voice, "There's no secret in my room, great detective!"

"No, Dick, it wasn't that I wanted to pry into your secrets. It was Aisha who went into your room to ask you to tell her a story, and when she found you weren't there, she started crying loudly and messed up your bedding. Alfred and I just carried her out." Bruce explained very patiently.

Dick had nothing to say, but the anger and irritation had not disappeared at all. He gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, it was my ignorance. Batman is always right."

With that, he angrily threw down the towel, taking Alfred's hand holding the other end of the towel with it.

Bruce immediately frowned and stood in front of the door to Dick's room, saying, "Dick, don't do that. You almost hit Alfred. You need to apologize to him."

Dick turned back and glanced at the old butler's aged face, then lowered his head and muttered, "I'm sorry, Alfred. I'm going to my room to sleep."

With that, Dick rushed into his room and closed the door without looking back. Bruce looked at his retreating back and shook his head helplessly, saying, "Sometimes I really don't understand what he's thinking."

A hint of hesitation appeared on Bruce's face, and after a while, he nodded and said, "Maybe I've been focusing too much on Jason and Tim lately. Dick is naturally a sensitive child. The fact that I've adopted Tim may have made him feel unhappy. If I show too much affection for the two of them, he's sure to be hurt."

"Have you asked about his academic performance?" Alfred reminded as he folded the towel, "Master, you just arranged for Jason's transfer, and have been keeping an eye on their homework lately. Perhaps you should also pay more attention to the eldest master's studies."

Bruce stroked his chin and nodded, feeling that Alfred's words made sense. He thought for a moment and said, "Previously, I frequently changed his schools, which even led to him being bullied. I feel I should go to his school to take a look, but I can't just barge in there in my Batman costume, that would be too terrifying."

"How about you go pick him up from school tomorrow?" Alfred suggested, "You can go early and talk to his teacher, and observe his classmates to understand his school life better."

Bruce raised an eyebrow and nodded, saying, "I have to say, Alfred, you always provide me with valuable inspiration. I really should talk to his teacher about his academic performance, future development direction, and the arrangement of extracurricular activities and so on."

After returning to the bedroom, Bruce was thinking about the content of his conversation with the teacher the next day as he drifted off to sleep.

It was a night when everyone had their own thoughts. Bruce did not sleep well, and for some reason, he felt nervous.

He knew that in this City, almost no one could blame him, but when he thought about facing Dick's teacher and understanding his school life, Bruce still felt a bit at a loss.

The next morning, Bruce got up early like students facing an important exam, and went to the canteen of Gotham University to find Victor, who was having breakfast.

Victor was a bit surprised that Bruce came to see him. He put down his knife and fork and said to Bruce, "You didn't get the meeting time wrong, did you? I said it was next Tuesday, not today."

"No." Bruce sat down across from Victor, but for some reason, he seemed a bit awkward, with his hands on the sides of his coat, shaking his head at the waiter who was about to come over, indicating that he didn't want to order anything.

"I'm going to Dick's school today to ask about... his academic performance," Bruce said, his words a bit dry, and his wandering eye contact also showed that he was a bit nervous.

Before Victor could speak, Bruce put his hands on the desktop and said quickly, "I made a mistake before, I let Dick change schools frequently, which made him always in an unfamiliar environment, and he was even bullied. If it wasn't for Tim mentioning this, I wouldn't have known."

"I'm a little worried..." Bruce said, pinching his fingers.

"What are you worried about?" Victor asked.

"What if Dick doesn't do well in school? Can I keep transferring him? When will it end? If he doesn't feel comfortable in an environment, he wants to change to a new one, but if he's not familiar with the new environment, what should I do?"

Victor smiled and said, "Don't worry, Bruce, Dick is a big child now, he has his own ideas and will choose a way of living that he feels comfortable with."

Victor looked down and cut the food on his plate, saying, "I don't have children, but I have taught middle school students. At this age, children have a lot of ideas. Although adults may not believe it, they can actually handle more things than you think."

"Children of this age are not as fragile as you think. Dick is especially smart and strong, so you don't have to worry too much."

Although Bruce nodded, his rationality told him that Victor had comforted him to the best of his ability, but his heart could feel that Victor's comfort was not the answer he wanted.

Bruce didn't have breakfast, but he didn't feel hungry either, just a sense of emptiness in his abdomen and a sinking feeling in his heart. This feeling became more obvious after he took the car to Dick's school.

The principal of the school warmly welcomed Bruce. Dick's counselor was an experienced older woman. She sat with Bruce in the reception area of the principal's office and talked about Dick's school life.

But there wasn't much to talk about. In front of the principal, the counselor couldn't say that Dick was bullied or hurt, nor could she say that Dick was not a good student.

When it came to his actual grades, the counselor tactfully said that Dick might have better development in ballet and artistic gymnastics, and Bruce immediately understood her implication.

"Is Dick's grades not very good?" Bruce asked.

The female counselor hesitated for a moment, but still said, "We don't encourage putting too much learning pressure on children at this age. There are many parents in the class who are eager for their children to succeed, and they focus too much on grades, which puts a lot of pressure on the children."

Bruce understood her subtle hints again. The counselor couldn't directly say, "Dick's grades are not good because the parents don't pay attention to him."

Bruce actually didn't have such high emotional intelligence to understand the counselor's subtle and subtle words. He could only use his superior intelligence to decipher the secrets behind these social hints, but this was actually very tiring.

"What do you think I should do? I mean, to improve his grades without putting too much pressure on him," Bruce said carefully, then added, "I'm not saying he has to get into some famous university, but I feel that these grades are a waste of his talent. If it's because I haven't asked him to do it, and he's become slack, I think there should be some changes."

The female counselor took a few notebooks from the bag next to her and pushed them to Bruce on the table, then said, "These are the homework problems left by the math teacher yesterday. The questions are a bit difficult, and it's normal for him to have trouble with some of them given his current level."

As Bruce listened to her, he opened the notebook, and the counselor continued, "We also allow children to write their own calculation process next to the questions, so that the teachers can better understand their problem-solving thinking and help them correct their mistakes."

"What worries me is that Dick's calculation process seems a bit sloppy. The first half is fine, but for some reason, he gets stuck on one answer in the second half, and keeps recalculating it over and over again, and even angrily crossed out the previous process."

The counselor shook her head slightly and said, "We always tell the children that if they can't do a problem, they can just leave it blank and come ask us. Every teacher will be happy to explain the solution to them."

"But in the homework he turned in today, there is not a single answer, the calculation process is sloppy, and he even scribbled in the notebook. And during the day, he didn't go find the teacher to ask about the real solution process."

"Mr. Wayne, if you want him to get better grades, I think you can start with his study habits and patience. Dick doesn't just have this problem in math, if your company can help him reduce his impatience, I think it will greatly improve his grades."

Bruce looked down at the notebook with Dick's notes, his brow deeply furrowed. He could feel himself getting angry, because Dick's homework was indeed very sloppy, it was clear that he didn't carefully write it on the desk, and some of the ends of the calculations had thin ink traces, like little bugs crawling on the paper.

Clearly, this was not a problem of ability, but a problem of attitude. Last night, Dick didn't do his homework well, just scribbled something down, and when he found he couldn't figure it out, he even covered up the previous calculation process, as if afraid someone would find out he had calculated a lot but got it wrong.

This was sending out bad signals, Bruce thought. The teacher's words were a bit too tactful, this kind of impatience and attempt to cover up mistakes would make any teacher who saw this homework angry.

So when he picked Dick up from school in the evening, Bruce seemed a bit silent.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 1202 Lamb's Cry (Twenty-three)