80. Gotham: Peter Pan
88.
Ah, actually she didn't really want to talk about this topic, Aria thought.
For players who don't have a concept of death, the death of an NPC can actually bring a deep sense of frustration. Some story-based games are particularly fond of this, designing a guiding NPC in the early stages to accompany the player on adventures and provide shelter for newbies, only to kill them in the late stages of the game, leaving players to think back years later and curse, "What a jerk!"
Lincoln March's departure may really be just the disappearance of a string of data in this world, but saying that he is not sad is also deceiving himself - lying in front of Batman is a very difficult thing after all.
"I thought I could get a perfect ending." The farmer seemed absent-minded, but anyone with a discerning eye could immediately see her annoyance. "If I hadn't been unable to load the save file, I could have saved Lincoln March."
Batman doesn't think so.
After repeated analysis, the lingering strange feeling finally found its source: "Life is not a game, Aria."
Perhaps it was the farmer's superpowers that gave her this worldview, believing that the whole world is just a game and she can stir up trouble at any time - but the dead will not be resurrected, and the broken heart will still have cracks after healing.
Life is not a game, it is an endless series of challenges and a different path that each choice leads to - the results of each choice are not always completely under human control.
But she was still young, and youth always gives one the right to make mistakes. He had also fallen because of mistakes and climbed out of them. The most important thing is not to avoid making mistakes, but to not be crushed by them and learn something from them every time.
...There is still a chance to guide them slowly. There is no need to make the relationship awkward after just one conversation.
"You've done your best," Batman said. "Next time, try to accept an imperfect ending."
…
The medical equipment made a steady sound of operation, and when Night Owl opened his eyes, he was greeted by a sea of white.
He couldn't go to heaven after his death, and of course, the serum he injected wouldn't let him die just like that. Night Owl tried to move his fingers, but when his flexible knuckles didn't respond in time, he knew this wasn't the real world.
Previous court research did not mention the consequences of a second injection of serum. Due to the sufficient reserves of claws, those shrewd businessmen preferred to adopt a strategy of replacing them when they broke. There were almost no people who took advantage of the serum to its extreme like he did, and the consequences were unknown.
But Night Owl knew he was dreaming—noise, blocks of color, no matter how many times he looked back, his memory always carried an unbearable visual flaw, accompanied by the smell of decaying old things—this was a useful basis for distinguishing reality from illusion. It let him know that he was not only dreaming, but his memory had returned to his childhood.
If you know where you are, everything is under control.
This is the Willow Grove Children's Rescue Center, the most advanced hospital in Gotham for treating children with mental illnesses and neurological disorders* - before the curtain of truth was revealed, this place was the hope of many families.
Parents sent their sick children here for closed treatment, hoping that the hospital would one day give them healthy and active children, and paid a hefty monthly fee for this. For those who could not afford it, Thomas Wayne's foundation provided assistance to these struggling families.
In Gotham, such a peaceful, tranquil, and hopeful place is rare. However, just as lies are bound to be exposed one day, the seemingly glamorous rescue center collapsed, revealing the cruel truth it concealed. The whole community was in an uproar. Only then did people realize that for the children sent to the Willow Rescue Center, who would most likely spend the rest of their lives there, the Willows were almost indistinguishable from hell.
However, when Thomas Wayne Jr. was there, the Willow Forest Rescue Center had not yet been stripped of the lambskin that symbolized pure white innocence.
When he was a child, unable to move, forced to lie in bed all day, the world he knew was noisy—corporal punishment, hunger, and abuse were common occurrences. The shelter had poor soundproofing. When it rained, it was fine; little Thomas Wayne was alone in his world. But when it didn't rain, his fellows would wail, a mixture of sobs and gritted teeth, intermittently on every rainless night.
Strangely, no one dared to inflict those horrific tortures on him. He later realized that his very existence was a source of capital for these hypocrites. Donations from the Wayne Foundation were the lifeblood of Willow Grove, and he—son of Thomas Wayne—was the most obvious bargaining chip. As long as he lived, even a half-dead shell, the funds would flow.
"I hope he dies sooner than his father," he heard them mockingly discussing while changing the medication, "otherwise, without the funding, he'll have a hard time in this place..."
Thomas Wayne Jr. didn't care about any of this. His condition was improving, and he was gaining more control over his body, from being able to open his eyelids a little to being able to move his mouth. He began learning to speak, just to ask for one thing: to move his bed to the window.
He knew that outside his window he could see a building his father had built. When the sun shone on the glass curtain walls, the building shone brightly, like a golden miracle. He loved that brilliance, as if it could lead him to a free future.
He knew he had an older brother—those people had shown him photos of his parents and brother—who was a healthy, smart child. He was happy that Bruce Wayne had a healthy body and didn't have to lie in bed all day like himself, but little Thomas Wayne also firmly believed that one day he would be able to stand up and run, like his brother, or even run faster than him!
Those beautiful ideas were spinning in his mind - what would they say when they came to pick him up after he was fully recovered? Thomas Wayne thought about it for a long time, but he still couldn't come up with an answer. So he decided that no matter what they said, he would give his own welcome gift - this was the ceremony he had planned for this reunion for a long time.
As soon as he could move his fingers a little, he started to try origami. Those people taught him how to fold an owl, and he used his medical record book to fold three different models, two large and one small, and put them in a drawer, looking forward to giving them to them personally when they met.
…
Night Owl looked at his younger self, staring coldly through the dream.
He knew that this child would never see that day. His family never showed up, their shadows forever existing only in photos and his fragmented memories. The owl he folded eventually gathered dust, lying in the corner of a drawer, slowly forgotten until it decayed.
He would smell an unbearable stench, but it wasn't the smell of rotting paper—under the bed lay another child, who had hidden there at some point to escape the beatings, curled up in a ball, and died silently. For that week, Thomas had shared a room with a corpse, and only the growing stench reminded him that the truth might be just around the corner.
The body was finally found, and the manager dragged it away while sighing, "What a hassle."
The room was cleaned, and Thomas Wayne looked at the empty space under the bed, but felt a stiff cold grip him. He began to suffer from insomnia from that night... because there was no safe place in his dreams.
It's almost done, he said to himself. The cowardly little boy was dead, and now what remained was the night owl that made everyone fear the darkness.
After killing Batman, the city will pay him back for what he deserves. Gotham will kneel at his feet, and he will...
"Hey, have you seen my shadow?"
The sound suddenly interrupted his dream and interrupted his thoughts.
Night Owl—or Lincoln March—froze in his tracks and turned around in disbelief. The black-haired girl was sitting right in front of the window.
The girl looked dusty and dirty, with grass still stained on her clothes, as if she had just fought a goblin. Even so, she still had a bright smile on her face, which was inconsistent with the gloomy tone of the whole dream.
Perhaps this is the magic of dreams. He has never seen what the farmer looked like as a child, but the girl in front of him really does have the words "Don't block me from farming" written on her face.
Ignoring his silence, the child farmer hopped down from the windowsill with considerable familiarity, muttering to himself as if he had a mental notepad: "What bad luck! What bad luck! I should have left my shadow behind when I went out."
"I'm really unlucky today. There's nothing good in the crab pot, and I even lost my shadow."
She walked around the room and when she passed by the trash can, she took out a handful quite naturally - she took out a ball of waste paper, which was the result of his failed origami practice in his early years. But the farmer looked like he had picked up a treasure and stuffed it into his pocket.
Of course, this wasn't true. Dreams reflected real desires, and the farmer only seemed happy when she found something good. Trash like paper balls would probably just make her shake her head and sigh at her bad luck.
Night Owl clenched his fists, instinctively wanting to end this dream.
He tried biting himself, hoping the lack of pain in the environment would clear his mind. But the farmer in his dream was even more annoying than in reality. She bounced around like a ball, looking unfazed even after losing something important. "Oh, oh, what are you doing?"
"I won't hurt myself if I lose my shadow," she pinched her cheek and made a face. "Whose child is so unhappy?"
"Is it because of illness?" The farmer patted his quilt, which had the logo of Liulin Hospital on it, and remained silent.
"Or is it because you didn't fold out any nice patterns?" She took out the scrap of paper, folded a lifelike cow and handed it to him, but he remained silent.
No matter what she did, Thomas Wayne Jr. remained silent—as if he had made up his mind to reject this stranger.
The farmer, who never gives up, became more and more courageous. She soon thought of another way and demonstrated on the spot "how to fly from the floor to the ceiling" - not only did she make an upward movement, but she also hung in the air like a real bird: "Flying will always make you happier, right?" After learning this, she will not be unhappy anymore, right?
She flew over and held his hand. His cold, stiff body unexpectedly broke free from the constraints of gravity. The two of them huddled against the ceiling like released hydrogen balloons. The farmer's smile grew wider. "You see, every child can do that."
Her dark eyes shone brightly, completely different from the night that the night owl was familiar with: "If you just think about beautiful things, you can fly."*
At this moment, the dream finally and ruthlessly exposed Night Owl. The farmer, smiling, took him by the hand and extended an invitation to Neverland: "How about it, Lincoln March? Flying is super fun! I have even more fun things on my farm. If you're interested, you can come and visit me today!"
It's impossible.
Whether in dreams or reality, Thomas Wayne Jr. will not deviate from the path he has chosen.
Night Owl's eyes gradually grew colder, and he held the farmer's hand instead, not to take off - even if the other person was just a phantom in his dream, a fantasy he had constructed, he wanted to drag her into the deeper darkness of the dream.
So the dream was shattered.
Night Owl woke up from the negative effects of the serum, stood up and patted the dust on his body - he was now standing on the former site of the Willow Grove Children's Rescue Center. The Wayne family gave him a start, and he planned to end it here.
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* “You just have to think wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they’ll keep you aloft.” Peter Pan
Dreams are a projection of real desires. Some of the night owls want to go with the farmer (farmer: You want to be a laborer, right?), but this person obviously values power more than anything else.
P.S. The author has always believed that Night Owl in Cat Law is not Bruce Wayne's biological brother. He is just a person who was brainwashed by the court and mistakenly believed that they were related.
I'm a little worried that some of the little angels might feel uncomfortable with the recollection part. If many people mention it, I will add a warning before the article. By the way, I will also give some red envelopes to the first 30 little angels who comment on this chapter to calm their nerves ()
I'm sorry if this scared you.
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