When the night rain in Gotham fell again, Bruce, who had been circling the city, returned to Wayne Manor, his hair wet on his sideburns and his face a little pale.

When Alfred came up to hand him the towel, he cautiously asked, "Master, are you alright?" ”

Alfred doesn't often take the initiative to show concern for Bruce, he prefers to do it, but now Bruce's condition looks really bad.

He let himself get drenched in the rain, his hair and clothes wet, and his eyes were a little dazed, like a drug addict in the streets.

Hearing Alfred's question, Bruce seemed to have suddenly grasped a life-saving straw, and in an instant, his eyes focused on Alfred's face, and looked at him and asked seriously: "Alfred, are there really ghosts in this world?" ”

Alfred reached out and put the towel on Bruce's head, took him by the arm and sat down on the couch, and began to wipe his hair, saying "It depends, what your definition of a ghost is." ”

"I always believe that the death of human beings is not the end, as long as someone is still alive in the memory of others, then he is not completely dead, in the eyes of his loved ones, although someone is gone, but everywhere there are traces of his life, this kind of longing is like a ghost wandering in the room."

Bruce leaned back on the couch a little sluggishly, and he muttered to himself, "No, I don't mean this philosophical explanation, I ...... Forget it, Alfred, please help me get a thermometer, I probably have a fever. ”

Alfred touched Bruce's forehead with his fingertips, shook his head and said, "No, sir, you don't have a fever, your body temperature is normal, if you feel uncomfortable, I can pour you a glass of hot milk." ”

To Alfred's surprise, Bruce didn't refuse, he just clasped his hands together and nodded, and said, "I feel a little cold, can the milk be a little hotter?" ”

After a few moments, Alfred brought back a steaming glass of milk, and Bruce leaned forward almost impatiently, stretched out his arm, and picked up the glass with his somewhat trembling fingertips.

In the next second, he shook his hand so hot that he almost spilled the milk, Alfred stood by his side helplessly, and said, "Master, I know that you and Dick haven't gotten along so well recently, and you may feel angry, but Dick is still a child after all......"

"No, it has nothing to do with Dick." Bruce held the hot milk cup in his palm, and he pursed his lips and said, "You may think I'm talking nonsense, but I just ran into a guy when I went out, and he ...... He looks like Thomas. ”

Alfred's eyes widened, and he folded the towel as he walked to the phone, and said, "Sir, I'm afraid I'll have to help you contact the psychiatrist, hallucinations are a very bad omen." ”

"I wonder if I'm hallucinating, but ......," Bruce took a sip of milk and fell back into deep thought, recalling every detail of his meeting with Thomas in his mind, and finding no flaws.

His superior intelligence, calmness and sanity, his attention to factual evidence and psychological profiling all tell him that there is a high probability that the other party is Thomas Wayne.

But the problem is that these things are telling him that Thomas is already dead, and he once saw the body buried with his own eyes.

Bruce's pale face came from his poor mental state, but it was not because he was shocked to see Thomas that he had a mental breakdown, but he began to wonder if there was something wrong with his memory.

The vast majority of unconscious mental disorders in this world, before the onset of the disease, a significant sign is that the patient begins to disbelieve their own memories, and some inexplicable fragments that they have not experienced are stuffed into their brains, making them unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Bruce vividly remembers every detail of Thomas and Martha's falls, and every look on the faces of every guest at the funeral afterward.

Little Bruce stood in the midst of the flow of people coming and going, imprinted everything that day in his mind, and for more than ten years, he had been a nightmare and could not find peace.

But the scene that appeared countless times in Bruce's dreams was overturned at this time, and his reasoning ability told him that it was Thomas Wayne that he had seen tonight.

This is by no means something that can be done with a simple plastic surgery, and a good detective will look at more than just his face when judging who a person really is.

Bruce is like that, therefore, he remembers all the logic of Thomas's actions, and the Batman who appeared today perfectly fits this logic.

Alfred's eyes rolled slightly, and then he walked to Bruce and sat down, took his hand and said, "Master, calm down, when something appears in reality and is completely opposite to your memory, it may be that neither reality is wrong nor your memory is wrong, but there is something behind it that we don't know." ”

"If you judge that he is Master Thomas, then it is possible that he is, and you remember that he was dead, maybe he was dead at that time, but it could have been suspended animation, or he was resurrected later, which is not impossible, isn't it?"

Bruce looked up at him, his eyes were still a little dull, but in an instant, a violent look burst out from his pupils, and he stood up a little excitedly and said, "That's right, what you said is right!" Thomas and Martha may have faked their deaths, they may not have died at all, they may have lived in seclusion, and now they are back! ”

"No, I'm going to go to him now, I'm going to ask what the hell is going on." Bruce was about to leave, but at that moment there was a sudden burst of noise upstairs.

As soon as Bruce looked up, he saw Tim lying on the guardrail of the patio looking down at him, and shouted to him, "Hey, Bruce, you better hurry up and take a look, Dick seems to be having a nightmare." ”

Bruce took a deep breath, trying to cool his boiling blood, he stepped several steps and rushed into Dick's room, the tears on Dick's face had not disappeared, and he leaned on the pillow in a dazed manner, Jason sat next to him.

Bruce walked over, gently grabbed Dick, wiped the tears from his face with his fingers, Dick seemed to break down, he pulled Bruce, and said in a crying voice, "My ears hurt a little......"

Dick's tears were still falling, and he was even shaking with fear, and kept trying to push Bruce away with his arms.

Bruce hesitated, not knowing whether he should continue to push harder or let go of Dick, Jason glanced at Tim, Tim stepped forward and took Dick's hand, and Jason pulled Bruce out.

"He was very scared." Jason said to Bruce, "It's an obvious stress disorder reaction, what the hell is wrong with you two?" ”

"I'm ......," Bruce thought back to the day, and he lowered his head and sighed, "I don't know why Dick doesn't want to do his homework well, even if I'm with him, he keeps grinding." ”

"He didn't have a good study habit, and I was anxious for him, so I said a few words to him, and he ran out."

Jason scratched his head, but Bruce crouched down and looked into Jason's eyes and said, "You have a strong ability to empathize and even see what I'm thinking, so do you know what Dick is thinking?" ”

"Have you read a book about the rebellious period?" Jason asked.

Before Bruce could answer, Jason touched his chin and said, "Before, when I was reading those psychology textbooks, I occasionally saw some books about adolescence and rebellion. ”

"There's one theory that's interesting, and that's. Rebellious behavior is actually very normal, and it is a necessary stage of personality growth. ”

"The rebellious period is like a watershed." Jason's tone became a little more softened, and it was clear that he was retelling the contents of the book.

"Before the rebellious period, children's understanding of the world and their own standards of behavior come from the authority established by their parents, who tell their children what they really are, what they can do and what they can't do, and the children accept this information without reservation."

"But when they reach a certain age, kids start to build a sense of self, and they start to think, 'Who am I?' What do I think the world should be like? And, what kind of person do I want to be? ”

"These are questions that you can't get answers from your parents, who will only say, "You're a child," and they will only tell you what they think the world is like."

"As a result, children begin to explore, no longer accept the information instilled in them by their parents without reservation, and begin to try to judge things and understand the world with their own eyes."

"But to do this, first of all, they must not be trapped in the judgment of their parents, whose authority encroaches on the space for their personality growth, and when building their self-awareness, they must delete some of the concepts that their parents have instilled in them, so that they can have room to put their own ideas."

"But in order to break through the concept of parents, you must first rebel against authority, so children begin to try, with repeated rebellion against parents, to try to break through the shackles of other people's thinking and establish their own personality."

"That's why rebellious children tend to be capricious, irritable, inexplicable, and especially like to work against their parents."

"In their subconscious, they desperately want to prove that they are an independent person, not an accessory of their parents, they want to prove that they have a unique view of everything, that their personality is complete and independent."

"But in this age group, the vast majority of children cannot survive without their parents, and their parents do not think they are independent, so it will lead to very sharp family conflicts."

"Children feel that their parents oppress them, they don't want them to have a complete personality, they feel that their parents' views are old and outdated, and they want to brainwash them."

"Parents feel that their children are vexatious, ungrateful, and a ruthless and unrighteous white-eyed wolf."

Bruce listened to Jason's analysis in a bit of a daze, he seemed to hear who Jason's analysis came from, and every pause between the lines was very familiar to him.

So, Bruce forgot that it was Jason in front of him, his own child, not the teacher, and just instinctively asked:

"How do you fix that?"

(End of chapter)