Chapter 91: Rainy Night, But No Maybach
Tonight’s rain.
Getting heavier and heavier.
Tonight’s wind.
Also blowing more and more fiercely.
A luxurious stretch sedan stopped outside an ordinary apartment building. In this apartment with few residents, one lit window was being stared at by someone inside the car.
But the busy figure inside the window clearly hadn’t noticed.
“Finally done!”
Scientist Leonard was drenched in sweat, as if he had battled a beauty for three hundred rounds, but actually he had just tidied up his room and put back the previously messed-up comic collection.
This might not be high-intensity exercise for most people, but he was Leonard, a fragile scientist, and he had nearly given half his life in this tidying up.
“Sheldon can’t pick on me anymore now.” The reason Leonard had spent so much time cleaning was naturally because he had an extremely obsessive-compulsive roommate.
He walked out of the room.
He was just about to show off to Sheldon when he saw a girl sitting cross-legged on the carpet eating potato chips, while Sheldon on the sofa was weighing the takeout with an electronic scale.
“Hi, Penny.”
Leonard’s proud rooster demeanor immediately toned down a bit.
“Hi, Leonard.”
The girl ate potato chips while watching television without turning her head, which allowed Leonard to seize the chance to run to the restroom, tidy up his appearance a bit, and then come back out.
“The person you were just talking to on the phone was that genius comic artist, right? You even messed up your own room because of it.” Sheldon spoke with certainty while recording his food intake.
“I’ve already cleaned up the room.”
Leonard immediately salvaged his image.
Slightly proud.
But the girl seemed not to pay attention to him, and was instead surprised by Sheldon’s hearing.
“You were clearly playing a game right in front of the television, and you could still eavesdrop on Leonard’s phone call in that situation? You didn’t install surveillance software on his phone, did you?” The girl named Penny was quite attractive; she was the neighbor of the two weirdo scientists and Leonard’s dream girl.
“Hm?”
Sheldon straightened up his head like a marmot.
“Good idea! Penny, I didn’t expect you to have a flash of inspiration too. Maybe you really don’t have to be a waitress forever.” Sheldon’s tone was full of emotion—he didn’t look down on his friend beside him; he just liked to equally discriminate against everyone’s intelligence. Theoretical physicists inevitably had a bit of superiority complex.
Hearing this.
Penny expressionlessly put down the potato chips in her hand.
“If you’re really that smart, shouldn’t you know not to offend the girl who serves your food?” She turned her head to look at Sheldon, with a very strong threatening tone.
“…”
Sheldon didn’t dare retort. He turned his head to stare at Leonard and started changing the subject. “What did the genius comic artist want with you? Let me guess, don’t tell me yet… Hm! He must have seen the 1000 pages of suggestions I hacked into his computer and planted in it, and specially called you to thank me on his behalf!”
The thirty-something theoretical physicist had childlike expectation in his pretty blue eyes. However, Leonard’s head-shaking response shattered this man’s beautiful fantasy.
“No, he didn’t mention you, nor your thousand pages of comic suggestions. Actually, that kid just consulted me about some superhero comic stuff.”
Leonard struck a proud pose as if he were the comic know-it-all.
But it didn’t attract the girl.
He was a bit dejected, but still continued, “I think our genius comic artist is looking for inspiration… Also, maybe because I initially doubted his strength, he even told me he has the person closest to Mr. Bruce Wayne as his angel investor.”
“Gave him a full ten million US dollars in no-strings-attached investment.” At this point, Leonard couldn’t help but be amazed; such wealth was absolutely an unimaginable fortune for him in his lifetime.
“You believe that?”
Girl Penny rolled her eyes.
She had always thought her neighbors just ran into a bragging middle school student.
“He said he doesn’t like to lie… I think it’s quite credible.” Leonard clutched his mobile phone, feeling a bit guilty. He just wanted to exude male charm by being valued by others.
“Then you’re beyond hope.”
Penny gave an earnest evaluation.
“What do you think?”
She even looked at Sheldon.
But the weirdo shut-in Sheldon didn’t care about this.
“He didn’t even mention me! Not a single mention?” Sheldon’s voice rose eight degrees. “Not even calling me that annoying tall physicist?”
The big boy was very unwilling.
“Yes, none.”
Leonard helplessly gave the answer. He couldn’t lie, because lying would give Sheldon a foothold; no one knew better than him how annoying this roommate could be.
“Okay, I get it. Looks like he’s not as genius as we thought!” Sheldon abused the food in the food box with his fork, as if those innocent meat chunks were some comic artist who let him down.
He shoved a piece of meat viciously into his mouth.
Sheldon puffed his cheeks and chewed hard.
“Listen to me, you have to believe me…” Penny still wanted to say something at this point, but her words were interrupted because Sheldon suddenly jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
“Cherry pit! Cherry pit!”
His face turned beet red, fingers clutching his neck.
“Damn it, you only ate cherry meat! The Chinese restaurant didn’t put real cherries in it!” Leonard complained while rushing to rescue his roommate first.
Penny hurried to help too.
After a bout of extremely practiced fussing, Sheldon was finally successfully saved.
“I swear, this guy’s survival to now is the best proof I should believe there really is a God in this world.” Penny patted Sheldon’s back to help him catch his breath while sighing to Leonard.
“This isn’t my fault, it’s the cherry pit. I can’t handle it anyway; to me, it’s like Superman facing kryptonite.” Sheldon, recovering his breathing, weakly protested.
But all he got were two very synchronized eye rolls.
“You can even tie this to superheroes? They wouldn’t get their throats stuck by cherry pits!” Penny tried to wake her friend immersed in false analogies with cruel reality.
“Penny’s right, and that wasn’t a cherry pit; it was just a pea.” Leonard, who had washed his hands, had water stains on them that made Sheldon avoid him.
“I ordered cherry meat; there wouldn’t be peas in it.” Sheldon seriously corrected. However, neither Penny nor Leonard was willing to believe his sophistry.
“But that was a pea!”
Leonard emphasized again.
So Sheldon thought for a moment.
“No, that wasn’t a pea; I ordered cherry meat.” Sheldon still insisted, even when Leonard pulled out the pea he had spit up; he just glanced at it.
“It just looks like a pea; I’m not admitting it’s a pea anyway.” Sheldon lowered his head again to poke at the food box but hesitated to put any more food in his mouth.
“That’s self-deception!”
Leonard gnashed his teeth.
“Who collects food spit out by their roommate? You two are really too weird.” Girl Penny couldn’t help but sigh as she stood up and smoothed the wrinkles in her clothes.
Her mouth, as if sore like it had an ulcer, moved twice. “You know? I used to think you guys obsessing over superheroes in comics but not daring to chase real-life superheroes was crazy enough.”
Penny’s words weren’t finished yet.
“And now?”
Sheldon reflexively followed up.
“Now?” Penny grabbed her jacket and scooped something off the table casually. “Either I’m crazy, or you are; it can’t be that the world is crazy anyway.”
“To be honest, not talking about what just happened.”
“Just saying you believe some fourteen- or fifteen-year-old kid has ten million and knows that billionaire Bruce Wayne… If I were a con artist, I could scam you until you have nothing left, not even your underwear.”
“Believing that is worse than believing I could run into Bruce Wayne flirting with me right now when I go out.”
Penny was really sincerely admonishing her two friends not to fall for the scam of some billionaire showing up at the door, but she found both friends silently unresponsive.
“Sigh, sooner or later you’ll end up homeless on the street, but I’ll definitely take you in… Who doesn’t like keeping pets?” Penny said as she opened the apartment door to head back to her own apartment.
“Pa~”
The door closed.
The two shut-ins looked at each other.
Moments later.
“Penny actually realizes she’s crazy; that’s really unbelievable.” Sheldon sincerely sighed and withdrew his gaze from the door.
“Who says otherwise? Actually, she doesn’t even need to scam me; I’d take off my underwear for her.” Leonard withdrew his lovesick gaze, lowered his head to enjoy tonight’s late-night snack.
However.
Seeing the empty table, his expression froze instantly.
“Where’s my takeout?”
Leonard thought of Penny’s casual scoop earlier.
Tone astonished.
“Leonard, Leonard, I told you before to buy three portions of takeout. You may not believe math or me, but you really should believe our neighbor will consistently perform as expected.” Sheldon poked nonstop at the food box with his fork but didn’t eat a bite, his tone pitying.
Leonard was extremely helpless.
But he was still a bit stubborn. “This is all part of my plan. Penny will eventually become dependent on my takeout, can’t leave me, and end up marrying me.”
Truly the fantasy of a shut-in.
Leonard was completely excited.
“Look, this is the opportunity she left me.” He noticed Penny’s forgotten mobile phone on the table and proudly grabbed it, rushing toward the apartment door.
Just reaching the corridor.
Leonard saw Penny, who for some reason was still standing at the door.
Is she waiting for me?
Harboring this thought, Leonard hurried over.
“Br-br-br…”
Penny stiffened in place like gazed upon by Medusa, lips trembling, repeatedly stuttering the same syllable.
“Br-what?”
Leonard confusedly walked up to Penny.
Thus.
“Br-br-br…”
He became a repeater too.
The two’s stuttering tones were very synchronized.
And at that moment.
“Leonard!”
Sheldon rushed out in a panic too.
“Bad news! My computer is done for! That comic artist’s computer is full of viruses! He might really be a genius! He predicted my prediction in advance, causing my computer to completely break!”
Sheldon’s tone was dejected.
He saw his two friends standing rigidly in the corridor.
Before Sheldon could ask.
“What comic artist are you talking about?” Dressed in suit and leather shoes, with the posture of a successful person and extremely luxurious temperament, Bruce Wayne moved from in front of the two to the side.
Sheldon’s eyes immediately went straight.
“Bruce Wayne!”
He gave a complete exclamation.
But.
This might have used up all his strength.
“Oh~ God~”
As an atheist, Sheldon rolled his eyes and fell straight back. That’s friendship for you; Leonard and Penny snapped back and hurriedly caught the theoretical physicist. Then, the three capsized together, sitting on the corridor in a weird pose.
“Sorry.”
Leonard didn’t know why he was apologizing to Bruce.
“Um, sorry.”
Penny didn’t know why she followed with an apology either. Mainly, their brains were still blank, unable to believe they were seeing a global billionaire in such a cheap apartment.
“Not inviting me in to sit?”
Bruce was speechless inside but kept smiling on the surface. Hearing this, Leonard and Penny nodded hurriedly, clumsily stood up, and carried Sheldon to the apartment door like lifting a patient.
“Please come in!”
Penny didn’t forget to poke her head out and say to Bruce.
In the living room, Bruce elegantly avoided the scattered 《Star Wars》 figurines on the floor, his gaze lingering on the wall full of comic posters. Leonard was nervous like a student facing the principal.
His hand serving coffee was shaking.
“So, Ian Kent, my nephew, is he planning to hire you two?” Bruce politely took the coffee, set it on the table, and got straight to the point.
His gaze shifted from Leonard to the fainted Sheldon on the sofa.
“What about me?”
Penny couldn’t help but interject. It was her first time seeing a living top-tier tycoon, so she seemed uneasy and wanted to lighten the tense atmosphere with some humor.
“No.”
Bruce looked at the girl and responded seriously.
“Uh…”
Penny felt the pressure and retreated a few steps. “Really… Actually, I’m great at cleaning. Even the most high-class company probably needs excellent janitors.”
She gave an awkward laugh.
“No need.”
Bruce responded concisely.
He didn’t know why he thought of the sterilized female janitor from Ian’s other novel; he felt maybe he’d been affected by that stuff lately and his mental state was a bit off.
“Okay.”
Penny scratched her itching scalp awkwardly and retreated to the corner. She felt a bit self-humiliating, her mood complex, feeling like the extra person in this room was like a joker.
Thinking this.
Penny, noticing Bruce had looked at her a few more times, didn’t think it was her charm at work; she just felt this world was so crazy it seemed unreal.
Who would have thought.
The bragging little boy her neighbor ran into wasn’t bragging; he really had billionaire Bruce Wayne showing up at his door. The probability was like getting hit on the head by a meteor while walking on the street.
Penny thought it more and more fantastical.
And Leonard was the same.
“Yes… sir, Mr. Kent did say he’s willing to offer me and Sheldon a new job, but…” Dazed Leonard hadn’t finished speaking.
“Very good.”
Bruce nodded and interrupted him.
“Accept my nephew’s offer.”
The old-money tycoon’s words were extremely serious.
“So, this is an official hire from Wayne Enterprises?” Leonard cautiously probed. Like Penny, he felt the situation fantastical and even secretly pinched his thigh.
“You can see it as my personal extra hire.” Bruce corrected the other’s wording. He needed people to constantly watch if the alien tech Ian might still be hiding was safe enough.
“Extra hire?”
Leonard’s mind immediately played out a full 《Mission: Impossible》 plot. “We’re commercial spies? That might not match our university job nature, right?”
He was having second thoughts. No matter what, Leonard really didn’t want to give up his university job; after all, scientific research wasn’t just for the future but to benefit all humanity.
Just as pride rose in Leonard’s heart.
“Average US university professor annual salary is two hundred thousand US dollars, and I’ll give you five hundred thousand US dollars annual salary, not counting what Ian Kent will pay you.”
Bruce unleashed his most unbeatable money power on this planet.
Just a slight move.
And it already stunned the poor Leonard into a wooden chicken.
“Five hundred thousand!?”
The scientist with scientific ambition was hit by money—he and Sheldon’s salaries weren’t low, but the student loans they had to pay weren’t small either.
In America.
The higher the degree, the more money it costs behind it; that’s the capitalist market of free America. Most high-salary professionals spend most of their first twenty years’ income repaying student loans.
“This… this…”
Leonard’s heart began to waver.
And Penny, hearing this salary promise, gave an assist.
“Oh my god! Leonard, you’re really going to get rich! You’ll be the richest… nerds I know!” Penny’s timely sigh was like a shot in the arm.
“Richest nerds?”
Leonard seemed to feel his male competitiveness. Whatever scientific ideals, human future—nonsense; reproducing offspring is humanity’s most essential mission!
“Don’t worry, Mr. Wayne, Sheldon and I are best at being commercial spies!” Leonard took off his glasses and gave Bruce a firm assurance.
And at that moment.
“Leonard! Leonard!” Sheldon suddenly bounced up from the sofa like an electrocuted frog. “I had a dream! Dreamed I met Bruce Wayne!”
“And then I fainted from too much excitement!” He first looked at his roommate, then followed his roommate’s gaze to Bruce sitting in his side blind spot.
“So it wasn’t a dream, my marmot day~” With that, Sheldon fainted again. His nonsensical performance embarrassed Leonard greatly.
“Maybe only I’m good at it…”
Leonard guiltily coughed twice and touched his slightly embarrassed face. Bruce inwardly couldn’t help complaining that the abnormal Ian sought out equally abnormal scientists.
“Not commercial spies.”
Of course, on the surface Bruce remained elegant, pretending to ignore the farce as he chose his words. “I’m more like finding two caretakers for my nephew.”
This was the truth.
After all, Batman couldn’t constantly watch a Metropolis little boy. Thus, Bruce needed these two scientists targeted by Ian to watch Ian for him, to avoid situations he and Clark might not want to see.
Bruce would of course also prepare to stuff other more reliable scientists to Ian.
However.
Two more people didn’t matter.
“Caretakers?”
Leonard didn’t quite get it.
“That is, nannies.”
Penny quietly explained from the side. She felt this world was too absurd; who would spend a million US dollars a year just to hire a playing-house nanny for a kid?
“But Mr. Wayne, Sheldon and I are people with scientific ambitions…” Realizing this, Leonard started struggling, his last stubbornness dying.
To this.
Bruce calmly pulled out two checks from his suit inner pocket and lightly placed them on the coffee table piled with comic books.
“This is settling-in fee.”
Bruce stood, straightened his suit; even the fabric friction sounded like money’s texture. “Besides, who says you can’t continue top-tier scientific research?”
He gave Leonard a mysterious smile.
Tech that can blow up Earth—what could be more top-tier!
“Real research?”
Leonard’s eyes widened.
“Oh! Oh my god, Leonard, you can move into a big villa… that’s the life of my dreams.” The numbers on the check made Penny gasp.
She was just purely shocked inside and sighed.
But lovesick Leonard felt he detected the key element.
“I’m in! I’m doing nanny!”
He was firm again.
“Your assist was good.”
This was Bruce pulling out a few bills, stuffing them into girl Penny’s hand as thanks. He turned back with a smile and glanced at the still-fainted Sheldon on the sofa.
“Someone will convince him.”
Leaving this sentence.
Bruce set down the untouched coffee and left.
“Are you leaving?”
Leonard and Penny hurriedly saw him off.
Very enthusiastically.
Einstein on the living room wall quietly witnessed this.
Another scientist corrupted by capitalism.
Just like him.
…
Gotham’s rain always carries a rusty iron smell.
While Metropolis’s rain smells like diluted lemon cleaner.
Alfred held a black umbrella standing under the apartment building.
The umbrella’s tilt perfectly let rainwater flow along the folds of the Gotham richest man’s custom suit without wetting the meticulous hair of this face-conscious billionaire.
“Back to Gotham, young master?”
The old butler asked while opening the car door, his voice carrying the calm of seeing through everything.
Though he was already very old, and Bruce was middle-aged with a father’s identity, his address for Bruce hadn’t changed.
“Not tonight.” Bruce loosened his tie and casually tossed aside the remaining two pounds of the ten-pound listening device he had secretly brought into the apartment building.
“Ian Kent is still a student; he can’t fly and has just started awakening ability, so his secret base must be in Metropolis.”
Bruce made a reasonable analysis. Yes, he had a realization at Ian’s house earlier because he felt he grasped an important clue.
What cosmic machine god—just artificial intelligence?
That was completely like Superman’s childhood experience!
Before.
Bruce thought he had seen everything.
Because he associated it with Clark’s information.
Extremely similar.
This was also why he suddenly returned everything to Ian; he realized Ian, like Clark, might have a fortress of solitude not belonging to Earth!
“I can see you’re very concerned about little Mr. Kent.”
Alfred saw the light flashing in his young master’s eyes from the rearview mirror—that excitement he knew so well when discovering a new puzzle.
“So, will little Mr. Kent go to Arkham?” The butler hero had this curiosity too, after all; he had seen Batman’s mental evaluation report on Ian.
“Why do you think I’d reward him? Arkham doesn’t need a second king.” Bruce didn’t look up; his fingers quickly swiped on the car computer.
Neon lights outside the car window cast flowing colors on Bruce’s face.
“Maybe little Mr. Kent comes from Krypton too?” Alfred drove steadily; he always chatted idly with Bruce and seized chances to talk.
As Bruce’s close associate.
No one knew better than him that his young master was Gotham’s biggest mental illness case.
“If it were just that, I’d be happy to see it. But the situation might be even more bizarre and complex.” Bruce kept swiping on his tablet.
“What exactly is his awakened ability… Soon, we might know the answer.” On the tablet on his knee appeared photos he stole of Sentry comics, and surprisingly even Homelander comics.
Sentry’s shattered golden battle suit, Homelander’s twisted smile—being enthusiastic about creating such works made Bruce think Ian was definitely not just money-loving or creation-loving that simply.
He thought he had grasped the key to the problem.
And.
Approached the truth about Ian Kent that was being covered up.
“Drawing power from fantasy—is that really possible…” Bruce felt he grasped key info, but even he thought this guess too absurd.
Of course.
Absurd isn’t impossible.
So it needs time’s verification.
And before that.
“Start searching for his secret base near his school first.”
The sedan splashed through puddles.
Bruce made his nighttime “operation” plan.
Very cautious.
But no one could say for sure.
If he was just making excuses to temporarily escape the nightmare he’d continue experiencing back in Gotham.
〔ps: 1.9 more tonight〕
Thanks to the big shot’s super huge tip! Extra chapter for the big shot tomorrow!
