In the Bat Cave, Tim, who came from the night tour, was so sleepy that his eyelids were fighting.

Behind him, Bruce, who had changed into the Batman suit, also showed a relaxed expression.

Tim's hand subconsciously reached for the bat's counter, trying to reach for his coffee cup.

It wasn't until he pressed the rim of the glass to his lips and took a big sip that Tim realized that the liquid inside was milk.

Alfred must have changed it when he wasn't looking, and he didn't even notice the whole time.

The cup was right under his nose, could it be that he was so tired that he fell asleep for a few seconds?

The old butler appeared behind Tim out of nowhere, looking faintly at Tim's fingers as he tried to put the cup back, with a hint of disapproval in his tone.

"Is it because the milk is not to your taste this time? I can change it for peanut butter for you. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, Tim could visibly notice that Bruce's face was a little heavier than before.

Tim: "......"

Batman: "......"

Enough is enough, let Peanut go, it's been played too many times tonight!

Tim laughed dryly, "It's amazing, I've never drunk peanut butter at home before." ”

The old butler nodded indifferently.

"Of course, you didn't show a preference for that before. I purchased a box of it after hearing about Theo's taste. ”

The old butler thoughtfully: "It tastes really good, and you can use it with bread for breakfast in the future." ”

Don't add fuel to the fire, Alfred.

Look at Batman behind you.

If this continues, Article 426 of the manual will become "All peanut products are forbidden to enter the bat cave"!

Tim decisively put an end to the dangerous topic and gulped down a whole glass of milk.

He obediently lit up the bottom of the cup to the butler: "I'm going to sleep." ”

A truly witty Robin has to learn to shake off the mess in front of him.

Tim ran up the stairs with a light movement.

Behind him, Bruce wanted to use the bat computer to check the information for a while, but was asked by the housekeeper: "It's half past three, do you want to sleep now, or do you want to drink a cup of peanut juice before going to bed?" ”

It's horrible, Butler.

Once Ah Fu uses this polite tone of choice, it means that his orders cannot be disobeyed.

Batman: "...... I also went to sleep. ”

Even Batman doesn't want to drink peanut syrup!

*

That being said, it's impossible to sleep properly.

Tim has always had a harmless glitch - he's a little obsessive-compulsive when it comes to doing things.

Once a thing is taken over by him, it is impossible to give up halfway, and it is absolutely impossible to do perfunctory, and it is more uncomfortable to let Tim fish than to kill him.

Even in the group work at school, he is the kind of fairy thigh with a belt of five.

Fortunately, Tim was born in a wealthy family, otherwise he would have become the boss's favorite choice to squeeze the worker.

…… Although Robin, who has now become the natural choice of Batman, it doesn't seem to be too bad.

Now, Tim was lying on his back on his queen bed, the soft duck down mattress sinking into a chunk of his weight.

The silky creamy sheets were like a puddle of cream, and Tim nestled in the quilt was a red bird trapped in a pile of cheese.

He opened his eyes in the darkness and reviewed the events of the day, and the obsessive-compulsive disorder automatically followed.

Tim couldn't help it, he kept thinking of Theodore.

Theodore's performance today, there seems to be no problem:

He was a newcomer, and he was cautiously tentative about Wayne's house.

Tim gave an explanation for the brothers' situation, and Theodore accepted it without any fuss.

The environment of the orphanage made Theodore observant, and he took the initiative to cook and make his new family a peanut butter soup.

It's normal to take out every single order.

But when he put them together, Tim always felt that something was wrong.

Robin's instincts, Tim always felt that Theodore seemed to be separated from him by a layer of fog, as if it was hazy and impossible to judge what was really going on.

…… At least the peanut-flavored pancake that everyone eats, Theodore definitely did it on purpose.

When a good guy frying maple pancakes, he will add a lethal amount of peanut butter to them!

Oh, think of that poison that almost died. This peanut butter is really a "lethal amount" in a double sense.

Tim was amused by the hellish joke and raised the corners of his mouth and quickly flattened it.

He felt that because of tonight's episode, he couldn't judge that Theodore was deliberately trying to make people allergic.

After all, poisoning is such a thing, and the first-time offenders do it secretly, how can there be such a fanfare as Theodore.

And if someone in the family is allergic to peanut butter, it will never be within easy reach of the kitchen, which is the simplest reason.

Theodore wouldn't even have the ability to reason.

Before Theodore arrived, Tim had imagined his reaction.

In his prediction, Theodore could be excited, nervous, or like a little hedgehog with soft thorns...... Every emotion that may be manifested is a little more intense than it is now.

And not as it is now...... What should I say, he is too calm? Too submissive? Too well-behaved?

But when Theodore was usually in the school class, was this kind of character?

- Of course, it cannot be ruled out that I was preconceived and influenced by that investigation report.

Tim secretly warned himself in his heart that perhaps Theodore's personality was much calmer than he expected.

Before going to Grimm's orphanage, Batman investigates Theodore's origins.

At that time, Tim was by Bruce's side.

Two and a half months ago, Theodore was found in a coma and curled up at the entrance to Arkham Asylum when he was spotted by patrolling guards.

He didn't have any scars on his body, he was neatly dressed, and he didn't wear a bomb on his body. Bullets, guns. Branch, poison. Gas and all other offensive items.

…… But in Theodore's right hand, a clump of human ears was pinched tightly.

He pinched so hard that the flesh outside the cartilage of his ears was almost crumbled, almost turning into a puddle of flesh.

The guards were shocked, put their heads together and exchanged urgently:

Should you send the boy to GCPD, or should you open an Arkham room nearby?

In the end, with the principle of one less trouble, they called the police in Gotham City.

According to GCPD records, Theodore woke up from the police car halfway through without any reaction to his current condition in handcuffs.

He narrowed his eyes, looked at the speeding scenery outside the window for a moment, and suddenly asked two questions.

"Where is this?"

"What day is it?"

The police looked at him suspiciously, almost treating him as a teenager addict who was so hiatious that he couldn't even recognize his mother.

But blood test reports showed that Theodore was not addictive.

As for that ear, it was indeed a fresh human ear.

According to Theodore, he picked up the ear on the road and held it in his hand when he looked at it for fun.

Police: "......"

These days, Gotham's neuropathy is not unusual.

But it's still rare to be so neurotic that you pick up human organs on the street.

No matter what the officers asked, Theodore insisted on not changing his words.

The GCPD has not received a similar case recently, and it is unable to prove the relationship between Theodore and this human ear.

Theodore could not be found in the household registration system.

In the end, the police had to help Theodore contact an adoption agency and stuff him into the Green orphanage before he became an adult.

During the whole process, Theodore did not express any objections.

Only before leaving, he very politely expressed his desire to take the ear with him.

"I want to keep a souvenir, I really like that."

The Gotham Police Department was also very polite in telling him that this was not possible.

"Don't dream, boy, who's going to let you take the evidence."

Seeing Theodore's regretful departure, several policemen whispered bets.

"Do you think he'll be in Arkham in a few years?"

"Three years, I guess."

"I think two years is enough."

"One year."

"Hey, guys, doesn't anyone think this kid can go the right way?"

The police officer with the longest service squinted at the rookie who had just joined the company for a short time.

"He has an Arkham air all over his body, and you tell me that he will not return to the promised land that he has been destined for a long time?"

What's more, it was the infamous Grimm Orphanage.

Just think about it, what kind of good place can it be to still dare to take over his orphanage after hearing about this child's experience?

*

It turns out that the life of the director of the Grimm orphanage is not as hard as Theodore's.

In just two months, Theodore survived two deans.

Although there is no evidence that the deaths of the first two deans had anything to do with Theodore, there is an unspeakable strangeness in the whole thing.

Batman manages to get the piece of evidence from the police station and bring it back to the Batcave for testing.

After many days, the flesh on the human ear had almost rotted, which made the marks on the cartilage clearer.

There were no signs of a knife or fire on the ears, and they were not violently torn off by someone when viewed from their overall state.

Distinguish carefully, those twisted and broken marks at the edges are more like ......

"Some kind of animal's tooth marks?" Tim hesitantly offered a conjecture.

This size, this distance...... Could it be a rat?

Tim took multiple angles of the ear and took possible remnants of DNA from the wound for testing.

Half an hour later, the analysis report was completed.

Tim held a few sheets of printer paper, and the more he looked at it, the more solemn his expression became.

"B, come and see this."

Computer analysis showed that the animal that best matched the tooth marks was a carnivorous bat native to Latin America.

Bruce took the report, flipped through it quickly, and folded the paper symmetrically.

"What about the owner of the ear, does the computer have his DNA record?"

Tim shook his head regretfully.

"There's no DNA record of the ear, and there's no data about Theodore — I've compared it with a 3D model of Theodore, and he hasn't left any surveillance records in Gotham for at least five years."

The computer did give a lot of surveillance images with similar images.

Tim judged them one by one, making sure none of them were Theodore.

Among them, the computer thought that the most similar was actually Clark Kent, a reporter from the Planet Daily who came to interview President Wayne - the similarity between the two was as high as 63%.

But that doesn't tell the story.

is also a handsome man with black hair and blue eyes, and according to AI, the similarity between Bruce and Superman is still 54%.

Nightwing is taller, he has 57%.

Tim frowned, pressed the computer button, and played Arkham's surveillance footage of that day.

"Half an hour before Theodore appeared, the monitoring became a blank, and it was determined that it was a physical hardware problem, and Arkham Hospital carried out emergency repairs."

Half an hour later, monitoring resumed. From this moment on, Theodore was already lying there. ”

Tim pursed his lips and looked at Batman, "Bruce, what do you think ......"

The boy, who had a blank history and was holding a human ear with a bat's tooth print, suddenly appeared at the door of Arkham Asylum.

He seemed like an obvious trap, and like an invitation full of mysteries.

During the surveillance, Theodore was seen in a coma with his eyes closed.

But his existence is like challenging Batman from afar.

- In the city of Gotham, there is a new puzzle.

- So Batman, are you going to the appointment?

Batman pondered for a moment at the monitor, then dragged the progress bar back to the beginning, played for dozens of seconds, and pressed the pause button.

"Here, the guards decided to call the police, and that's normal."

"But after calling the police, why didn't they write it into the day's emergency log?"

It's understandable if it's just a guard laziness.

But two of the four guards are Batman's informants.

And Batman has not received any news about it before, which is very unusual.

Is it being bought?

Is it magic?

Or is there a larger conspiracy hidden behind it?

In the end, it's up to Batman to put the final word.

"I'll go to the Grimm Orphanage."

He would see Theodore with his own eyes and then make his own judgment.

If Theodore is an innocent person involved in the incident, Batman will protect him.

If Theodore had been coerced into harboring other schemes, Batman would have pursued him.

If Theodore has secrets but isn't a threat, Batman will keep an eye on him.

Remembering this, Tim couldn't help but turn over with his pillow in his arms.

He didn't think about another possibility at all:

That is, if Theodore was innocent, well-intentioned, secretive, and unstable, Batman would have adopted him!

Laughing to death, life is like a box of chocolates, scratching open the box of lottery tickets, and every day there is a chance to get a new brother.

Rolling over again, Tim flattened himself on the two-meter-wide bed.

It's over, I can't sleep.

Do you know how uncomfortable it feels for a detective to have a mystery sitting under the tip of his nose and not being able to solve it right away?