Chapter 1456: Birds and Return (I)
The elevator door of Schiller's Thinking Tower opened, and Pride walked out slowly. He adjusted the cufflinks on his wrist, walked towards his room, opened the door, walked to the desk and wanted to tidy up the things on the desk, and heard someone knocking on the door with a familiar rhythm.
"Come in."
Greed opened the door a little, but did not come in. He put a box on the cabinet by the door, gestured to Pride and said, "Your friend came to see you two hours ago, but you were not there. This is his gift. I delivered it. Goodbye."
After that, he closed the door. Pride frowned, tidied the desk first, then walked to the cabinet by the door, and came to the sofa with the box.
The surface of the black box was printed with a matte bat logo, which was the symbol of Batman in the main universe. Schiller opened the lid and found a book wrapped in dark blue paper inside.
After Schiller opened it, he saw that the title of the book was written in cursive English on the cover of the book - "The Birds of Prey".
Schiller gently stroked the protruding part of the gold-plated text with his thumb. After he opened the book, he found that there was a letter between the first and second pages of the text.
Schiller did not open the letter first, but took a look at the part covered by the envelope. It was a poem about birds.
"Summer birds fly to my window to sing, and then fly away.
Autumn yellow leaves, they have nothing to sing, just sigh and fall there."
Schiller's fingertips stroked the simple line of text. Compared with Batman's heart, it was too simple and light.
Schiller never thought that "The Birds" would be Batman's reading material. This beautiful and bright poetry collection seemed a bit out of place even if it appeared on the bookshelf of Wayne Manor.
Schiller took the book and the envelope back to the desk and sat down. After turning on the desk lamp, Schiller picked up the seam ripper and opened the thin wax seal. The letter inside was also printed with the bat logo.
"Greetings, Dr. Rodriguez. Is winter over there? I am writing this letter to you by the frozen Gotham River, conveying my cold and frozen thoughts like morning mist on this solemn winter day.
The half equation I gave you is the result of my joint research with my friend from another world. The chance of our meeting came from you, and that's what you deserve.
But in recent days, I have discovered the powerful power of this equation, so I have to urge you to keep it well, although I know there is no place safer than in your brain.
Unfortunately, my universe is far from being so peaceful. A powerful enemy and overlord in the universe felt the power of the equation and paid attention to the earth and me. I have begun to investigate him.
If you have any news and information about the name "Darkseid", please contact me at Tell me in detail in the reply letter. I know you have it, so I sent you a book as a return gift. I hope you like it.
And another bad news. After my universe time went back, the Joker hid in the dark as always, wanting to make his powerful enemy fall in mid-air, but this time he set his sights on the Bat's Nest.
My four Robins and Batgirl were all shrouded in his dark and cruel eyes, but the Justice League was unable to split up due to the powerful enemies in the universe, and so was I.
We agreed that our first task was to prevent Darkseid from obtaining the equation.
Here, I have to ask you to send the birds to your universe while I set my sights on the universe, so that I don't have to worry about it.
To the doctor. "
Schiller read the letter carefully. Batman's wording was still concise and powerful without losing the literary beauty.
Schiller discovered in his previous correspondence with Batman in the main universe that he was not a dull and rigid person. On the contrary, Bruce Wayne in the main universe was very artistic and not a social mute who didn't say a word for the sake of efficiency as the public thought.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it sentiment. The fact is that Batman's writing is vivid and powerful, and can even be called lively and interesting. The trivialities in the Bat's lair he described have some Mark Twain-style humor.
After reading the letter, Schiller had already prepared the wording of the rejection in his mind. It was not that he was unwilling to contact the Bat family. No matter how difficult the Robins were, they could not be as difficult as Batman himself. He had already taught Batman to graduate, so he didn't need a few birds.
However, in Schiller's plan, he would be committed to restoring his previous social circle for some time in the future, so that he might run between the new world and the old world and participate in social activities.
He first had to go to Washington to attend a sociology academic conference, then to Montreal to attend his former professor's birthday party, then to London to attend a private banquet hosted by an old friend, then to Bordeaux and Paris, and possibly to Sicily to visit his old godfather, so he really had no time to take care of his children.
But at this moment, Schiller saw another sentence below the last speech, the handwriting was more connected than the above content, and it looked like Batman had hastily added it, which read:
"Doctor, you have thousands of reasons to pull this dark city out of the abyss, but when it falls again with great force, you have only one reason not to let go, that is to let your children bask in the sun, and so do I.
I hope you will feel the earnestness of a father when your sunshine melts the floating ice on the Gotham River.
Batman, stay on a winter day."
Schiller stared at every word of these sentences. He thought that when he faced a living person, he could always see his complexity from all aspects. This complexity brought fresh vitality and outlined a three-dimensional image for him.
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Batman seems to be always cautious, but he is not cowardly and hesitant because of his caution, nor does he feel inferior because of it. In other words, people always see too much of his caution, but fail to see that his almost crazy boldness and decisiveness come from his confidence in his own judgment.
Obviously, Batman thought that Schiller would definitely agree to him and take good care of his Robins based on the last paragraph alone. This came from his understanding and analysis of Schiller's personality and behavior patterns.
He analyzed it right, Schiller thought, and his words also successfully moved him, so he deleted the rejection wording that had been prepared in his mind.
But Schiller did not intend to change his social plan. It was not in line with his social norms to refuse the banquet that had been scheduled, but it didn't matter. Anyway, no one from the main universe knew who he was. They would only go to Batman.
So, Schiller sat down at the desk and wrote a reply to Batman.
"I have received your letter and gift. Here are my thoughts:
Winter is almost over here. Rodriguez Manor is not near the Gotham River, but the children who passed by my door returned disappointed with their ice skates. I think the ice has melted.
The equation is safe. The information about Darkseid is enough to be compiled into a book. I will send it to you along with the letter, but the situations in the two universes are different. You should carefully distinguish them.
When you joined the Justice League, the Joker was a threat to any member of the Bat Family. I understand your desire to ensure their safety, but I have to tell you with regret -
The next period of time I am very busy at this time, so if you expect me to provide them with psychological counseling, I am afraid it is doomed to fail.
But if you just want them to take refuge here, then you can directly ask Mr. Allen to send them to Wayne Manor, and the Batman of this universe will take good care of them.
You can't bring me bad news, but I have to tell you the best news that has happened recently. Batman has achieved quite good results in a recent exam..."
Just as Schiller was writing in his own thinking tower, Dick, Jason and Tim walked side by side on the bank of the Gotham River under the setting sun.
"I said that the sun is not necessarily a good thing. In the past years, the ice on the river could at least last for another month." Jason said with a pair of ice skates in his hand, a little disappointed.
There were also many children on both sides of the road who returned disappointed like them. Their shoes stepped on the cracks in the bricks, and the remaining dry grass left wet water marks, leaving intermittent tails under the setting sun.
"Let's go back and eat." Tim tightened his thick scarf and exhaled a puff of white mist, as if he was a little cold. He sniffed and continued, "I bet Alfred must have heated up the vegetable soup and black rice cakes on the fireplace in advance. I'm going to spread a whole knife of cheese on them."
Dick's Adam's apple moved. He put his hands in his pockets, lowered his head and counted the brick joints and said, "After dinner, I have to go to ballet class, and then come back to do my French homework..."
"Why do you have to learn French to learn ballet?" Jason frowned and kicked the gravel on the ground with the front of his boots.
Tim snorted coldly and said, "Because ballet originated in France, many professional terms are in French, and Dick's ballet teacher Sylvia is also French."
"I'm so annoyed." Jason changed his hand to hold the skates, and then said, "Nothing would happen if Thomas didn't come, but now I have to play football with those rich kids on weekends. I'm really afraid that they will fall into their mothers' arms and cry."
Tim laughed foolishly, shrugged and said, "Fortunately my dad made me learn everything I should learn."
"Don't forget that you still have to feed the pony." Dick immediately reminded: "Thomas is exaggerating, we have a whole horse farm."
"Yeah, there's not so much space, and the horse scared by Aisha will hit its head against the wall and die."
The three of them laughed, obviously remembering the chaos that happened when they took Aisha to the horse farm last weekend.
"Did Bruce take Aisha to see the school?" Jason asked.
"What else is he busy with recently?"
"Which elementary school does he want Aisha to go to?"
"Thomas definitely wants Aisha to go to the girls' school in Portash. He will say that Martha graduated from there. Every teacher there has the title of a senior clergyman, a nun or something."
"It would be better to let Bruce donate money to them to rebuild a statue of Jesus. It should be harder than the children's slide. Otherwise, no matter how many nuns there are, they can't stop God's wrath."
They started laughing again and walked along the streets of the wealthy area of Gotham Riverbank back to Wayne Manor, which was not far from here. There was hot soup waiting for them in the fireplace. Tim used a table knife to spread a lot of cheese on the black rice cake.
After they were sweating in their shirts, they sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace and began to speculate how much money Bruce would have to spend to appease God's wrath if Aisha's future elementary school changed the statue of Jesus every week.
After a while, Dick went out to attend class. The three-hour ballet class gave him a good release of energy. He fell asleep in the car due to fatigue. When the driver woke him up, the warm light from Wayne Manor appeared at the end of the dark road.
Dick yawned and got out of the car. He picked up his dance equipment from the other seat and walked back to the hall lazily.
Then he saw Bruce holding Aisha and talking to several strangers in the living room.
One of them was wearing a blue and purple uniform, one was wearing a red hood, one was wearing a red and green uniform, a short boy, and a young lady with two pointed ears on her hood.
There was some noise in their conversation, and it seemed that they were arguing. Jason and Tim were gone. They might have gone to their classmates' houses to do homework together and had not returned yet.
As soon as Dick walked in, everyone's eyes fell on him.