Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

Then one naturally thinks of the white masks who were tried and sent to Blackgate Prison.

"They all left prison for various reasons..." he said. "Falcone and those families can't stop anything."

"Ah, that makes sense." Lucian chuckled. "The fact that they were successfully tried and imprisoned was the most unreasonable part."

He looked at Bruce and asked, "So what do you want to do with them now? Send them back?"

"And then? Wait for them to escape prison and send them again?"

"Prison break, prison break, prison break, prison break, prison break, prison break... it never ends! It's so boring!"

Bruce shook his head: "Since no one can really punish them... then I want to kill them all."

"That won't do!" Lucian turned around and looked at him: "We agreed..."

"So," Bruce interrupted, "I'd like to ask you to kill them."

Batman asks the Joker to kill for him...

Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

The desert wind is cold.

Lucian smiled suddenly, but said, "No."

Although Lucian had no principle of not killing and had killed some people in the past ten years, he still refused:

"I can't possibly help you kill someone."

He spoke almost word by word, grinning maliciously, "Even if you want to hire someone to kill me... I will protect them..."

Bruce wasn't angry: "Okay!"

"You go protect them!"

Lucien:?

"They can't die." Bruce's eyes were burning. "They have to live."

why?

Lucien didn't ask, he was thinking.

...Two effects that Gotham can never do without - the "herd effect" and the "catfish effect".

Are these white masks the catfish that create energy for the sardines?

Who is Sardines?

Lucian doesn't care much about Gotham. Having been away for ten years, he also has no idea about its current situation.

Bruce laughed: "I was worried that you would kill them. Now it seems that I was worrying too much."

"...I'm usually very good-tempered and wouldn't kill anyone," Lucian said, "not to mention I've already let them go once."

Although he had been tricked by the Court of Owls once when he first arrived in this universe, Lucian had no intention of chopping all the earthworms vertically.

Claw training method, electrum, archives, one liquid nitrogen bullet per person, hanging street lamps, two years in prison.

Lucien felt that his scale was balanced.

He really had no desire to retaliate.

……

Surviving in the desert is not a problem for Bruce. He can always find the most accurate route, find enough safe food, get fresh water by various means, calculate the weather and wind direction, and choose the time that saves the most effort.

The future all-knowing and all-powerful Batman is now taking shape.

They walked for two days. Lucian started out carrying Bruce on his back, then he supported him, then they walked one in front and one behind, and finally they walked side by side.

He didn't know whether it was the effect of the electrum or Bruce's physical condition, but in the end, Lucian could no longer see any abnormality in his body.

----

After two days, they finally saw the shadow of the crowd, the taverns and the shops.

"Want to come in with me for a couple of drinks?" Lucian's invitation was rejected, but he wasn't too sad. He looked at Bruce's embarrassed look, pulled out a few bills from his pocket and slapped them into his hand:

"Take care of yourself...Alfred will be sad."

Bruce took it and said, "See you later."

So they said goodbye here.

From the time they met to the time they parted, no one asked the other why the other was there, no one inquired about each other's news, and no one agreed on when to return to Gotham... They met as acquaintances and said goodbye as strangers.

Lucian watched his back as he walked away and disappeared in the yellow wind, knowing that Bruce would look for the people who hurt him and take revenge.

But he didn't care about it. He turned around and went into the pub, bought a glass of the cheapest beer and held it in his hand.

He then squeezed into the crowd of people gambling at the table and, as always, easily gained their trust with his English, which was full of accents from various places.

----

"In the desert, there was a man who could come back from the dead. He saved Bruce Wayne."

The elegant middle-aged man looked at the half-kneeling man in black and listened to what he said.

Chapter 78: The Fountain of Youth

Lucian didn't think about why Bruce suffered such a fatal injury, and naturally he didn't know that the next second after he found Bruce, the Assassin's League in the Middle East was already in place.

This was actually an attack on Bruce planned by the League of Assassins, and they took the opportunity to portray themselves as his savior.

But they didn't expect that the seriously injured Bruce could run so far, nor did they expect that Lucian would find the person before them.

So, by accident, Lucian inserted himself into the bond between Bruce and the Assassin's League, and demonstrated his extraordinary healing and immortal abilities.

……

As the sun set, the oil lamps in the tavern were lit, and the atmosphere at the gambling table became increasingly heated. Lucian no longer participated, but squeezed out, returned the wine glass to the front desk, and said:

“I want a place to live.”

He made a request: "The most important thing is sound insulation."

The bartender wiped the glass with a rag and shook his head: "No."

"…Not again, okay."

Lucien wasn't surprised at all. He tapped the table lightly and said, "Then a bed will be fine."

Most hotels in places like this have several people sharing one room, and there are also single rooms, but the soundproofing is not even as good as in Gotham.

So Lucian had already figured out the pattern.

If there is no soundproof room, just sleep on a big bed... There may be snoring and sweat odor, but since it is a semi-public space, no one will make any weird noises late at night.

This is also his biggest request.

Lucian was led into the backyard and saw a few dusty people playing cards under the light of oil lamps.

The room was not small, but the wooden beds were laid so closely together that there was only enough space for a sideways aisle between them.

"Hey buddy."

A young white man leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette saw him come in and looked him up and down curiously: "Are you so hungry?"

“Something like a mummy underground.”

There was no hint of provocation in his tone, only pure curiosity, so Lucian replied, "You can't imagine, but I survived in the desert for about a week. I wasn't this thin before."

"You just came back from there?" The young man became interested and came over to help make the bed. "They say there's a fountain of immortality in there. Is that true?"

The Fountain of Youth?

It's the Pool of Lazarus.

That is the private property of the Assassin's League.

Lucian glanced at the young man and shook his head. "There's no such thing as a fountain of youth... It's just a trick to fool children. It's nothing but sand."

The young man was a little depressed when he heard this: "That's why I came here... They say this place can bring people back from near-death situations."

"them?"

“…I read it in the newspaper.”

After tidying up the sleeping place, Lucien had a basic understanding of him.

Reuben Arnold is an Israeli whose father was a non-commissioned officer in the Ottoman Empire.

"My mother has cancer..." Reuben's expression was gloomy. "She won't live long. We've spent a lot of money, but it can't be cured."

Lucian took a puff of his cigarette:

"You place all your hopes on the so-called Fountain of Immortality... Have you ever considered that even if you do find it one day, when you return with the water in your hands, all you'll see is a tombstone?"

"Instead of wasting time looking for her, why not go back and spend time with your old mother and let her spend her last days in your eyes."

Reuben didn't say anything. The young man lowered his head, and tears seemed to be shining in his eyes.

"Besides..." A straight stream of smoke drifted from the cigarette. "I think this is just an excuse for you to avoid your child-rearing responsibilities and financial expenses."

……

Lucien felt that he was suspicious and that these words were more of a test.

But Reuben looked like he was about to cry.

……

A bizarre dream.

Lucian hadn't dreamed of the Flash for a long time, nor had he talked to him for a long time. He even forgot the existence of this illusion at one point, just like he forgot the Green Lantern ring hanging around his neck.

"I have a hunch, Lucian... According to your theory, the time for this dark multiverse to return to normal is approaching. We may need some preparation, you know, like Luthor's nuclear fallout."

"But before that..." Lucian saw the Flash, who was also blurry in the dream hallucination: "Maybe I should get some Speed ​​Force? You look like you're about to disappear."

……

Bruce is now 24 years old, and the first generation of Flash, Jay Garrick, will be born four years later, when Batman is 28 years old.

There is no Speed ​​Force in this world now.