Chapter 230: Batman: Feed Me Peanuts!
Bruce Wayne opened his mouth.
Looking at the frozen darkness on the screen.
Then, hearing Green Arrow’s roar of “Refund!” in his ear.
For the first time in his life, he had a strong urge to grab a certain bastard from the Kent family and run him over with the Batmobile a hundred times.
“What the hell… is this?!”
His expression finally solidified into a complex product of mingled shame and annoyance, confusion, injustice, and philosophical contemplation of “What is wrong with this world?”
Earth.
Cannot allow such an awesome existence?!
This kind of framing and scapegoating tactic is too dirty, so dirty that even Batman, the dirtiest in the DC universe, finds it unbearable, and he can hardly wash the dirt off himself.
After all.
The person who knows Batman best is Superman, and the fake Batman created by Superman’s son uses language and a style of conduct that indeed seems to have Batman’s style.
“…”
Bruce Wayne stared at Batman, who was gradually merging back into the shadows on the screen. Ian, that little bastard, had money now and was no longer playing with cheap battle suits.
The fake Batman’s battle suit looked identical to his usual one—perhaps it was stolen from his home, or possibly taken from Damian.
Both possibilities were fifty-fifty, but Bruce Wayne, the real Batman, didn’t care. His mind was completely occupied by a stampede of Grass Mud Horses.
Every word, action, and pose of the fake Batman made Batman lose his composure. He had no doubt that he might come in second place in a Batman impersonation contest.
“No, how did he make his image the one in people’s minds as Batman!” Bruce Wayne was completely overwhelmed, but that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that if Green Arrow, Oliver Queen, also thought he set up the scheme to harvest global capital, then other major capitalists who knew Bruce Wayne was Batman would likely think the same—Bruce never believed all capitalists were utterly stupid.
In fact.
Batman was middle-aged.
With so many years of activity, his actions as Batman in Gotham, if someone had enough information sources and logical reasoning skills, and was willing to analyze them, they could roughly pinpoint who Batman might be, and pointing to Bruce Wayne as Batman had a very strong logical chain.
Batman possessed extremely advanced equipment, vehicles, a city-wide surveillance network, and multiple secret bases, all of which required astronomical wealth and top-tier technological research and development capabilities.
In Gotham City.
There were very few individuals or organizations that could afford all of this.
As Gotham’s richest man, Bruce Wayne, with his vast technological and industrial empire, Wayne Enterprises, was the most fitting candidate with both “motive and capability.”
Batman primarily operated at night.
Bruce Wayne, a playboy by day, often missed board meetings, stayed out late, or claimed to be “handling personal matters.” This temporal “gap” highly overlapped with Batman’s active hours.
Batman was a world-class fighter, detective, and strategist. Bruce Wayne had traveled the world, studying under various martial arts masters and detective experts, and their motivations were highly consistent. Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered in Crime Alley, which directly led him to vow revenge on criminals.
Batman’s entire existence was a declaration of war on Gotham’s corruption, and its core driving force perfectly matched Bruce’s childhood trauma. Based on these points, an intelligent observer, such as the Riddler or Hugo Strange, had every reason to focus their investigation on Bruce Wayne.
On the entire Earth.
There were definitely more than ten people who knew Bruce Wayne, and every single one of them was a difficult and intelligent person. And if this group participated in the gambling match like Green Arrow…
“………”
Bruce Wayne dared not think about it. He was the bravest man in Gotham, but this identity did not prevent large beads of sweat from appearing on his forehead.
A bad premonition rose in his heart.
And Oliver Queen’s voice was still roaring in his headphones.
“Refund! Damn it! Refund!”
Clearly.
This wealthy hero, who also participated in some “small bets for fun” activities.
Had also witnessed the “earth-shattering” betrayal just now and unhesitatingly placed the blame on Batman, Bruce Wayne.
Although Oliver Queen of Green Arrow was not a member of the Justice League, he was a veteran funded hero and had a relationship with the Justice League that was neither distant nor intimate.
He particularly disliked Batman, who was also a billionaire like himself and competed in many areas. Therefore, when he discovered Bruce Wayne was about to gamble with the big capitalists, he chose to join.
Heaven knows how many resources Oliver Queen of Green Arrow mobilized, how many analysts calculated, not to make money, but just to annoy Bruce Wayne so he couldn’t get what he wanted.
He calculated many things.
He just didn’t expect that damn Ian Kent to collude with a dirty capitalist like Batman and put on such an outrageous black box operation for the entire world.
No.
Superman’s child.
How could he have such a low moral bottom line!
It was more infuriating than insider stock trading for Oliver Queen of Green Arrow. He could indeed do without the money, but he couldn’t just watch his invested funds be scammed in this way!
“Uh… Oliver, calm down, let me explain.” Bruce Wayne took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice consistently calm.
His emotions were not much better than Green Arrow’s.
“Explain?”
A cold snort, almost amused in its anger, came from Green Arrow through the communication.
“It’s more like listening to your quibbling! A global live broadcast! Billions of eyes are watching! You organized a fraud ring!” In Green Arrow’s mind, a normal child definitely couldn’t do this.
Someone from Gotham must be behind it.
“It’s not quibbling. This has nothing to do with me. I just want to clarify a fact…” Bruce sighed helplessly, a rare, genuine weariness in his voice. He was about to explain in detail how wronged he was, how the child from the Kent family had been learning how to evolve from a slave owner into a human entrepreneur since before birth.
However.
“Heh.”
Green Arrow interrupted Bruce Wayne with a purely sarcastic cold laugh.
“Still the same old routine, right? ‘It has nothing to do with me,’ ‘Everything has a reason,’ ‘This is all within my plan’… Bruce, you’ve been repeating the story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ over and over. Do you think I’ll fall into your trap again?”
Oliver’s voice carried a resolute tone of “I see through you.”
Without waiting for any response from Bruce Wayne.
“You wait! We’re not done this time! We’ll see each other in court…” Oliver paused slightly here, then changed his words with an even more vicious tone.
“Going to court would be too easy for you! We’ll see each other at the Superhero Popularity Center! Prepare to regret it!” After saying this, he didn’t give Bruce a chance to speak again.
The communication was unilaterally and harshly hung up.
Leaving only a busy signal.
Bruce: “…”
The first half of Green Arrow’s “see you in court” didn’t scare him; Wayne Enterprises’ legal department wasn’t for show. But the latter half, “Superhero Popularity Center”… Although it sounded childish, Batman knew very well what kind of “cesspool” it was.
Although most people on Earth loved the Superhero Popularity Center, and there was a lot of fun content about superheroes there, Bruce Wayne, who was Batman, was an exception.
The reason was simple.
Because he was the one repeatedly made fun of on the Superhero Popularity Center. In his mind, the Superhero Popularity Center was comparable to the “Little Red Book” software’s “sisters” district in the eyes of normal people.
The thought that Green Arrow, a genuinely capable guy, would join his “little hater” ranks made the picture too vivid. Bruce felt a headache just thinking about it.
“No! I can’t let him log into that damned website!” Even with his Batman backup, it was too late to remotely operate and try to cut off Star City’s network.
One had to know.
Oliver’s control over that city was not insignificant.
Many of Batman’s methods had been found by Oliver. Because of this, without activating the final plan against Green Arrow, and unable to directly use Money Power to disable Star City’s network services or parts of its power facilities, Batman could only decisively take out his mobile phone and find help.
He directly called Alfred, who was in another Batcave.
“Alfred.”
Bruce’s speech was extremely fast.
“Immediately initiate emergency plan ‘Operation Cut the Cord’! Target: Queen Manor’s main residence and all known external network interfaces of Oliver Queen’s safe houses!”
“Use micro-drones to physically cut his network cables!” What is returning to simplicity? This is returning to simplicity. Alfred on the other end seemed stunned for a moment, but his excellent professional ethics kept him from asking too many questions. The most mature Batman was indeed adept at solving problems in the simplest ways.
Alfred was already used to this. After all, when he was in a business war with Chinese merchants, he had once been entrusted by Batman to water and kill someone’s money tree in the middle of the night.
It was all about information gathering and psychological warfare.
The effect was also very good.
Sometimes, even for seemingly simple problem-solving methods, as long as they led to the desired and expected results, the resourceful Batman wouldn’t mind launching verbal attacks on others.
“Yes!”
Hanging up the call with Alfred, Bruce calmed his slightly disordered breathing and heartbeat. He was truly extremely frustrated. This feeling of being framed and unable to defend himself made him realize that his actual credibility and reputation seemed to be even worse than the universally despised situation he had originally predicted.
Honestly, if this financial operation had truly been his brainchild and successfully harvested global capital, he, Bruce Wayne, would have grit his teeth and taken the blame for “eliminating an uncontrollable powerful entity,” for the sake of greater interests… no, wrong channel, for the sake of a greater plan.
Perhaps he would have accepted it.
But he hadn’t!
He irritably turned his gaze to the several floating screens in front of him, which displayed the interface of a special gambling match he had set up in his private network regarding this incident.
Although the transaction flow and final settlement numbers on them looked normal, with the invested funds and profits safely residing in various anonymous accounts.
But this did not relieve Bruce Wayne.
He knew Ian Kent, that little bastard, too well! The kid went to such great lengths to put on such a big show, opening a global market, and then forcing an “unexpected win for Batman” as the ending?
This was completely illogical! That kid would never be so “kind” as to let such a feast go to waste! This looked like he was going to abscond with all the capital invested in the gambling market!
“This guy must have done something.”
Batman’s intuition was screaming warnings. He immediately took action, his fingers flying across the virtual keyboard like a top pianist playing a symphony. Countless streams of data were mobilized by him, silently invading the central systems of major banks worldwide, directly examining the flow of funds at the lowest level.
The result… surprised him somewhat.
The funds invested by the billionaires participating in his private gambling match, as well as his own huge stake, were currently safely stored in their respective accounts.
Not a single digit was missing.
It was as if the shocking gambling match had never happened. Of course, the more “normal” it seemed, the deeper Bruce Wayne’s brow furrowed.
This was too abnormal!
Would Ian kindly “return” the money of the landed gentry?
Absolutely not!
This guy was the most ruthless when it came to the rich! Suddenly, an extremely absurd but perfectly fitting thought about Ian’s behavior flashed through Bruce’s mind like lightning!
He abruptly switched his monitoring target, no longer focusing on the numbers in the banks, but directly accessing the real-time surveillance of his most secret private vault beneath Wayne Manor.
As expected.
Bruce found the truth.
The image on the screen flickered, showing 360-degree surveillance footage from inside the vault. Piles of gold bars emitted an alluring glow behind the bulletproof glass.
Everything looked orderly.
But Bruce’s gaze was like the most precise scanner, and he immediately spotted what was wrong!
In the southeast corner of the vault, the area that should have been stacked like a small pyramid, the standard gold bars imprinted with the Wayne family crest had completely vanished.
Such a significant change.
It couldn’t escape Batman’s eyes! He immediately retrieved the asset list for verification—as expected, one-third of his private vault’s gold reserves were gone! After mental calculation, the value of this lost gold was exactly equal to the stake he had previously put into that private gambling match!
“He really didn’t take a cent more…”
Batman’s lips twitched.
The veins bulging on his forehead showed his inner frustration.
That boy, that boy understood “finance” so well! He didn’t even touch the dollars, which were just numbers, in the banking system. Instead, he used an even simpler method than Batman cutting network cables—he took matters into his own hands and directly moved the equivalent value of physical gold!
This was true hard currency!
In this way, there was no change in the book assets, and no one could find any problems. But the actual losses were squarely borne by every participant!
Losing gold was much more painful than losing dollars!
After all, today’s dollars could no longer be called dollars.
“I’m definitely not the only one who suffered… right?”
Bruce, with bulging veins, gritted his teeth.
He switched to the private vaults of other major capitalists.
Yes, he had secretly installed surveillance in many of their homes. These areas, which he had originally considered reserve funds, were things he considered necessary for emergencies.
Because of this.
He was able to realize immediately that most capitalists were missing a lot of gold, and the value shrinkage was roughly equivalent to their invested stake!
Bruce could also calculate how much gold other billionaires had lost, as he knew better than the billionaires themselves how much hard currency they had hidden at home.
“And this one.”
“This person was also robbed.”
“Across so many places, hiss… Did he really create a new Justice League?” Honestly, Bruce really wanted to tag Green Arrow right now.
Let Green Arrow see who the real dog was.
Yet Bruce couldn’t find any fault. The other party only took the gambling stakes without showing any superfluous greed. It was difficult to convict Ian with his “values.”
“I don’t believe it!”
Finally, Bruce froze the screen on the surveillance of the private vault of a certain oil sheikh in the Middle East, Prince Saraman, known for collecting gold, which was like a small museum.
Here, he finally saw the culprit! A girl wearing a casual hoodie, jeans, exaggerated earphones, and seemingly chewing gum, was humming an off-key tune and walking leisurely among the small mountains of gold bars as if strolling in her own backyard.
“Ian God! Activate!”
She held a device that looked like a tablet but flickered with magical light, scanning the gold bars, then looked down at a crumpled notebook that appeared to be a “gambling list.” After confirming, she shone the tablet again, and a faint spatial fluctuation flashed.
Several corresponding gold bars instantly disappeared.
“Madison Montgomery, Ian’s henchman, lackey.” What made Bruce’s eyes twitch was that next to Madison was a precise electronic scale.
She was actually weighing the gold bars! Seemingly ensuring that the weight taken was exactly the same… Even rounding wasn’t used, clearly someone had specifically told her not to be caught with any loopholes.
Otherwise, the “little hater” would jump out.
This criminal group was quite principled, making every muscle in Batman’s face twitch—if only Ian were here, he would definitely categorize him as someone who had taken too much medicine to the face.
Staring at the screen like this.
The silent Bruce Wayne watched Madison “swipe” away the gambling stakes that should have been taken, and then, before leaving, the girl left an A4 paper on the ground that made Bruce go from silent to stunned.
《 Gambling is harmful, and you can lose everything in an instant — Gotham Anonymous Gamblers Anonymous Association Announced》
A moment of pleasure, a lifetime of regret!
All-in leads to a third generation ruin? Ruin in an instant!
Smiling at the gambling table, sleeping under a bridge tomorrow!
Winning is tempting bait, losing is a hook through the gut!
Today win a watch, tomorrow lose a suite!
All in, all in, the hospital’s orthopedics will praise you!
If you want to live long, stay away from dice players!
……
“No, what the hell is this guy preaching about quitting gambling, and he wants people to praise him for being so nice?” At this moment, Batman’s mind was filled with lingering question marks.
He couldn’t understand why Ian’s actions were so absurd.
But wanting to find the main culprit to inquire, question, and confront, Batman searched all over Earth, but couldn’t find Ian, who had “bowed out” after that epic performance.
“Didn’t come back?”
Batman was indeed right.
Ian was still in his Dark Dimension, but he wasn’t afraid of Batman coming to ask for copyright fees or extort him, this fifteen-year-old child.
Still in the Dimension.
It was mainly because Ian held grudges and couldn’t sleep if he didn’t get revenge the same day.
“The real creditor is me, sealing the debtor inside my own body, so the debtor can’t escape.” Ian was introspecting his body.
After all, in his prostate, two characters he needed to settle scores with were sealed.
Golden Superman.
And Tiga.
