Chapter 47 Don't let waiting become a regret. Busy, everyone's busy, keep busy...

The next morning, unusually, Thomas got up later than Bruce and Dick.

"Is Thomas really alright?" Dick yawned. "Isn't he up at this hour?"

“If young master Thomas’s fever doesn’t break, I’ll have no choice but to take drastic measures,” Alfred said, shaking his head.

“Coercive measures?” Dick looked at Alfred with some awe.

"Take Thomas to the medical center..." Bruce added casually, "I've already told Lucius that Thomas won't be going to Wayne Enterprises today."

He seemed to be thinking about something, absentmindedly putting food into his mouth, almost getting meat juice on his clothes.

“You don’t need to pretend anymore, Master Bruce.” Alfred handed him the milk. “I think everyone in this manor knows who you are.”

"Thank you, Alfred."

Bruce was so worried that he almost spilled the milk in his mug on his breakfast, mistaking it for gravy.

"Are you having any trouble, Bruce?" Dick's voice was a little muffled.

“Nothing,” Bruce said, snapping out of his reverie. “I was thinking about quantum mechanics and new energy sources. Thomas’s ideas about new energy engines and quantum power generation are fine, but something seems a bit strange. I’m going to ask Lucius about it.”

Last night—or rather, this morning—he specifically dug out the paper Thomas had mentioned and studied it carefully.

"What's that paper about?" Dick asked him curiously.

“Just like he said, it mainly concerns quantum new energy and its transportation and storage technologies. It’s forward-thinking and creative, and I believe he has a great passion for these things… But I still think it’s something Thomas wrote when he was drunk. There seem to be many errors in it,” Bruce said uncertainly. “He seems to have misspelled many theoretical names, and some data seems inaccurate. I did some calculations and simulations using the Batcomputer, but I couldn’t achieve the results he described at all.”

"So you suspect Thomas of academic fraud?"

“No,” Bruce hesitated for a moment, “I suspect he actually made some research findings and deliberately wrote this paper so poorly to cover them up. I noticed he intentionally chose a less professional journal…”

“That makes sense.” Dick thought along with him.

“Are you interested in quantum mechanics, Dick?” Bruce smiled.

"Are you... okay?" Dick hesitated for a moment.

“I remember Thomas said he could give you his raw data.”

“No, wait a minute!” Dick sat up straight. “Are you expecting me to understand Thomas’s research? You yourself said his research was very forward-thinking!”

“You don’t need to really learn everything, Dick,” Bruce said seriously. “You just need to know where the raw data is stored. I’ll handle that myself.”

“And, Master Dick,” Alfred added, “it’s clear from last night that Master Thomas is extremely enthusiastic about this research, and I’m sure he’ll be very happy to have a curious family member trying to understand it.”

“Alright then?” Dick accepted the task hesitantly. “But why don’t you go yourself, Bruce?”

"It's probably because he didn't say he would send me the raw data."

-

Thomas also had a slight fever.

Okay, low-grade fever.

Thomas took a sugar-coated fever reducer provided by Alfred and was forced to rest for a day.

A few years ago, Thomas would have gladly accepted the day off, but he has more important things to do now…

So he could only accept the day off with a sullen face.

What else could he do?

He lay on the sofa with his eyes closed, silently reviewing some recent events in his mind.

"Thomas?" Dick leaned on the armrest of the sofa, asking hesitantly, "That paper you mentioned yesterday?"

"You're curious about this?" Thomas opened his eyes.

"I don't quite understand your paper."

He didn't just not quite understand; he couldn't understand it at all.

“There’s no need to understand. When I wrote that paper, I didn’t expect my progress to be this slow now,” Thomas replied. “These things probably won’t be useful for several years at the earliest.”

“I’m really curious, Thomas,” Dick persisted. “I want to see what this blue light you’re talking about looks like. Yesterday, Alfred and I only heard you praising how beautiful it is.”

No.

I guess you don't want to.

But Thomas still got up from the sofa and took Dick into his room.

Thomas placed the small blue cylinder, which emitted a soft yet bright light, on his bedside table.

“I’m planning to get a water-patterned lampshade… but a lampshade with a cloud pattern doesn’t seem to match the room’s decor,” Thomas said. “I think this blue light would look better with a water-patterned lampshade.”

“It does look quite nice,” Dick said, walking over. “May I pick it up and take a look?”

"Absolutely. The shell is very sturdy; you could drop it on the ground and it wouldn't be affected."

"Wow." Dick carefully cradled the hundreds of millions of dollars in his hands. "Where is it in your thesis?"

“It’s not inside. This thing is a prototype I made based on theory. It can stably store a large amount of energy and release it under certain conditions, similar to a battery.” Thomas pulled out a stack of papers from the bottom drawer of a cabinet in the room. “These are the raw data. You can look at them with Bruce.”

Several hundred million dollars almost fell to the ground, but fortunately Dick nimbly caught it back in his hand.

"...It has nothing to do with Bruce, right?"

“Because I believe you would have a hard time understanding quantum mechanics on your own, and I don’t have the time, but it seems clearly Batman wants these things more.” Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Honestly, I thought you were genuinely interested in my research.”

"Sorry, Thomas."

"What does it matter?" Thomas said nonchalantly, shoving the paper into his hand. "It's nothing important."

You absolutely cannot find anything in this paper.

Because this was written by Thomas a few years ago, its content can be described as green, healthy, and positive.

At least it's more positive and uplifting than his current mental state.

For a considerable period of time, Thomas pondered what he should do after his rebirth (after all, even the quantum bomb hadn't completely killed him, and he had made a pact with Bruce, so he probably wouldn't die anytime soon, and he could only think about how to live). For a short time, he planned to try to "embrace redemption" and "be a good person."

This paper was a product of that time, so what Thomas wrote was no different from what a mentally sound, honest scientist would write. The main content was about the benefits of using this energy and the methods of using this energy.

At that time, he had not yet resumed his plan to destroy the world, and Gotham had already been thoroughly dealt with by him. Out of boredom, he organized some of the theories he had discovered while making the quantum bomb.

Thomas then realized that this powerful force could not only destroy the world, but was like a more powerful form of atomic energy, which could be applied to many more places.

That's how that paper came about. It was the product of Thomas's initial plan to promote the technology as quickly as possible. Many people from Wayne Technologies participated in these studies during this stage.

But Thomas ultimately abandoned the plan.

A tremendous power, yes, it is an extremely powerful power.

Extremely, extremely powerful; just a little bit is enough to completely destroy a prosperous city, and Thomas believes that the vast majority of humans are idiots who are not much better than insects.

It would be idiotic to think of letting this group of people wield such power.

Ultimately, whether human technology advances or not has nothing to do with him, but wars between humans could very well affect him.

Therefore, Thomas very quickly altered a large amount of data and used it to contaminate Wayne Group's database, and also spent a long time destroying all data backups of the relevant members.

Of course, things are different now. A few days ago, Thomas even considered whether to publish the method for making quantum bombs.

Humanity will soon destroy itself; yes, they will, they certainly will. Humanity will relentlessly destroy everything it can obtain, until it loses all its foothold on land…

Okay, actually he was just thinking about it.

Thomas preferred to allow everyone to embrace death equally at once, rather than letting humanity die in batches in a very inefficient manner.

Why are humans like cancer cells? If you can't kill them all, they'll keep spreading.

“Thank you, Thomas.” Dick put down the “wick”, took the thick stack of papers from Thomas, flipped through them, and then closed them with a dizzy feeling. “I will study quantum mechanics hard in the future.”

“There’s no need for that,” Thomas muttered under his breath.

Quantum mechanics is not something that everyone needs to master.

Moreover, he personally believes that humanity probably has no future.

“I think it’s necessary,” Dick said, looking away awkwardly. He had already made up his mind not to lie to Thomas anymore, and being caught red-handed was extremely embarrassing. “I have to go now… Goodbye, Thomas!”

"Aren't you off today?"

"I need to prepare for next week's game," Dick said, a little nervously looking away.

“Okay.” Thomas pondered, “I think I also have something to do.”

"You're not going to work, are you?" Dick asked Thomas warily. "Alfred, Bruce, and I have reached an agreement that you can't go to work today no matter what. I'll keep an eye on you. It just so happens that school is closed today."

“School?” Thomas repeated the word, then looked away guiltily.

He remembered something he had forgotten.

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Author's Note: Sorry Jason ( )

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I suspect I've been cursed by the evil clucking chicken. I also have a headache and fever today, which is why this chapter is a bit poorly written...

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I've read every single comment from you lovely angels, and everyone's analyses are excellent. However, if I reply, I feel like I'm giving away spoilers, so I can only offer some formulaic replies... Sorry [helpless]

Another little angel's long review was deleted by the system, and my appeal failed [crying]. I don't know if you received a red envelope.