"If a student doesn't study well, it will make me very helpless, and the head teacher will not make me angry, but what will really affect my reputation in the academic world is the release of exams." Schiller said with a sigh.

"The topic of the Bruce graduation exam is manipulation and anti-manipulation, who do you think is more difficult?"

"To manipulate others and not to be manipulated by others?" Helen thought for a while and said, "It should be more difficult to manipulate others, you need to learn a lot of skills, and you have to be able to quickly analyze a person's personality and formulate targeted strategies." ”

Schiller shook his head and said: "Skills can be learned, finding the weaknesses of other people's minds is not technical work, it is difficult to understand a person in a week, but as long as you are willing to invest time and cost, you have been circling around a person for several years, no matter how difficult the other party is, you should understand almost it." ”

Helen nodded thoughtfully, she touched her chin and said, "Is it difficult not to be manipulated by others?" ”

"It's hard not to be influenced by others." Schiller took another sip of tea and said: "It is very difficult for people to be immune to the influence of their surroundings, and the more important people are to you, the greater the influence on you, and it is impossible to be completely immune to this influence." ”

"And once the other party wants to manipulate you, his understanding of you and his important position in your mind will become the most powerful weapon, unable to resist not because of weakness, but the essence of manipulation is that he loves you, and you also feel his love, and you feel that this can make up for his manipulation of you."

Helen silently took these words to heart, and then she said, "Now that Bruce has graduated, it proves that he has learned to manipulate others as well as to resist manipulation." ”

"Jack himself is also manipulating Bruce, this is the same point of knowledge, but in a different form." Schiller said with a sigh.

"And the easiest way to resist manipulation is not to look for recognition in other people, to completely give up thinking about whether other people will be disappointed in you because you did it, just do it."

"I see." Helen held out a finger and said, "Jack stressed to Bruce that if he didn't participate in the test, you would be disappointed, and if he was worried and anxious about it, and even took the initiative to find a way to get a high score, he was manipulated by Jack." ”

"This proves that he didn't really complete the project." Schiller sighed and said, "It also proves that I have released water on his graduation exam, and I have previously publicized the news of his excellent graduation, which will definitely deal a major blow to my reputation in the education world." ”

"It's really hard!" Helen leaned over the couch and said, "Who can not pay attention to the feelings of those close to them?" Wouldn't it really hurt them if you never thought about what they thought before doing things? ”

"So it's important to grasp the scale." Schiller, while aligning the corners of the newspaper, said: "If you think too much, you will gain and lose, and if you are ruthless and unrighteous, you will lose, and everyone has a knife called affection in his hand, and he can either hurt or dull it with it, or feel guilty or suffer, and there is no other choice." ”

"But this problem is not so difficult to solve, in fact, there is another way of thinking." Schiller said sharply.

"What's that?" Helen asked a little curiously.

"Either Bruce remembers against Jack's manipulation by realizing that he shouldn't pay attention to my opinions, or he can also realize that there is no point in saving this Gotham."

"It's not that Batman from another universe needs to save Gotham, he needs to do the same, after all, Gotham from another universe is not the same as his Gotham."

"Gotham, where the other Batman is located, has reached a dead end, and if Batman fails to establish order in the first place, it will be difficult to explore the most suitable path for his city in the golden age, and if you start exploring now, it will cost too much."

"Then a virtual, unaffected Gotham is the best testing ground, and this is a valuable opportunity for him, so of course he should be bold."

"But for Bruce, the Gotham he is in no longer needs to be explored, his Gotham has found a route, it just needs to be developed step by step, so there is no point in finding a way to save Gotham, at least not the highest priority."

"But he has to do the top priority, and he has to let go of his anxiety about test scores, isn't it still one thing after all?"

Schiller shook his head and said, "It depends on what is the highest priority, or if there is one thing that is worth the risk of disappointing me." ”

Helen stared at Schiller, not letting go of any expression on his face, but still didn't see any emotion in his face, and just as she withdrew her gaze, she heard Schiller whisper.

"If so, how could I be disappointed?"

The ringtone of Gordon's phone in front of the screen drowned out Schiller's voice, and Gordon picked up the phone and said "Hey, hello...... Clarke? What's wrong? …… Your cat is missing and Bruce can't get through on the phone? You want me to help you ask if he saw your cat? ”

"Sorry, Clark, we can't reach Bruce right now, but I don't think a cat can get from Metropolis to Gotham...... Does he have superpowers? I should have received a report of the crime a long time ago......"

"Oh, you're not crazy, are you? But I really didn't hear anything...... No, it's okay, I'll be the first to get Bruce back...... What? Is your cat back? Ok bye. ”

Clark put down the phone, picked up the batcat who jumped on the phone desk with both hands, then took him into his arms, rubbed his head vigorously, and said, "Where the hell have you been?" I'm going to make a sandwich and you're gone, what are you talking about, what's going on with Bruce? You say he's looking for you? ”

"He was really looking for me just now." Batcat licked his paw and said, "But the call was vague, and I couldn't determine the exact location. ”

"Is he in any danger?" Clark said a little anxiously: "He invited me to Gotham before, but the newspaper work can't leave, so I didn't go, he can't be in any trouble, right?" ”

The batcat tugged at his beard with his paws, dodging Clark's stroking hand and said, "I'm more inclined to think he's probably trapped somewhere in the Dream Country." ”

"Why?"

"Why else would he contact me instead of you directly?" The batcat looked up at Clark and said, "If he has a chance to send a message, then the first choice will definitely not be a cat, unless he can only send a message to me." ”

"And the only restriction that he can send a message to me, but not to you, is that I am from the dream country, I am part of the dream of a thousand cats, and I can communicate with Cat City Gotham at any time, and you are a human being, and no one in the dream country can contact you without dreaming."

"Bruce is trapped in his dreams? Then I have to hurry to him, didn't you say that you died in a dream or you really died? He's definitely very dangerous right now......"

Clark turned to leave, and the batcat yawned unhurriedly and said, "Do you think you can walk to the dream country?" ”

Clark reacted at this time, stopped a little embarrassed and said, "Uh, it doesn't seem to work, can you take me there?" ”

"Yes, but why don't you want to think about how dangerous it must be to trap Batman?"

Looking at Clark's blank expression, Batcat had no choice but to explain: "Batman's soul strength is very strong, and his willpower is unparalleled in the world, it stands to reason that as long as he realizes that it is a dream, he should be able to wake up." ”

"But since he sent a message from the dream country, it proves that he can't return to the real world for the time being, and it proves that the things that trap him in the dream country will be very difficult to deal with, and it may not be useful for you to go alone."

Clark put on a serious expression, he touched Batcat's head and said, "You're right, it's not easy to trap Batman, but I don't know much about these gods, I have to ask Diana." ”

After a while, in the café next to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Diana took a sip of iced coffee with a coffee cup in both hands, and then said, "You say Bruce may be trapped in the dream world?" I don't know much about it, but how did he get in touch with you? ”

Clark looked at the batcat next to him, who was crouching on the edge of the table, hanging his tail under the table, and said in his usual serious tone, "This is about to talk about the origin of the dream of a thousand cats, you know?" The world was once dominated by cats. ”

Clark laughed, he wanted to reach out and touch the batcat, but the batcat dodged, he looked at Clark with a very serious look and said, "It's not a joke, it's true." ”

"Once upon a time, cats ruled the world, and humans were slaves to cats, but one day, a thousand humans collectively had a dream, and they used this dream to change reality, so humans dominated the world, and cats became pets."

"So how did the dream of a thousand cats come about?" "A Siamese cat that became a human pet followed her reproductive instinct and gave birth to her babies, but her owner only found these little mongrels troublesome, so he pocketed them and sank them to the bottom of the river. ”

"The Siamese cat sensed darkness and fear, and the deep pain of losing her child awakened her extraordinary feelings, and she began to pray like a human, and a mysterious dream answered her prayers."

"The Siamese cat finds herself in this dreamland, the place she is going to be remote and mysterious, and there are powerful guards, but this does not stop an angry mother, who has gone through many dangers to come to the cave, and what awaits her is the god of cats, who has another familiar name, the master of the dream country - the Sandman."

The Sandman told her about the feud between humans and cats, and from then on, the cat hoped to find a thousand cats to form a dream of a thousand cats, and use the dream to rewrite reality and return the era to the era when cats ruled.

"Wait, I have a question." Clark asked, "If cats have ever ruled over humans, why haven't they left a trace in history?" ”

The bat cat sighed and said, "Because this is not history at all, the dream of a thousand people has completely changed reality, and the material world that exists now has been ruled by humans from the beginning, and the world line ruled by cats has been completely erased." ”

"So that means that if the Dream of a Thousand Cats really works, the timeline of human domination will also be erased?" Diana asked.

"Yes, but that didn't happen." The bat cat shook her ears and said, "The end of the story is that the Siamese cat wakes up, and she keeps repeating her story to her companions in reality, and she wants to find a thousand cats to have the same dream." ”

"This Siamese cat's speech made a world with only cats appear in the dreams of more and more cats, so the dream country also began to appear like the Cat City Gotham, where the inhabitants are only cats, and we are part of the dream of a thousand cats."

"But you still haven't said how Bruce got in touch with you."

"I told him this story." After a pause, Batcat said, "So he knows how to get the Dream of a Thousand Cats to hear his call." ”

"What's that?"

"Weeping over the loss of a child."

(End of chapter)