Between the mountains, a village that may have long been forgotten.
Bruce Wayne wore a black coat and climbed over the mountains to this mountain range. The information given by Lex Luthor led him here. If what Luthor said is true, this is the endpoint of the solar energy trajectory belonging to Superman. Batman and Lex Luthor were far from allies, but at least he felt that Luthor had no reason to lie about this matter.
Bruce couldn't get his mind to calm down all the way, maybe it was the unpleasant encounter with the fake Superman last night that got him distracted when it came to this long-dead friend. He didn't know what he was expecting to find in this remote mountain village. Maybe his best friend still had a one in ten thousand chance of still being alive, or maybe there was only an immortal corpse waiting for him in the deep mountains.
So he simply stopped thinking about it and decided to take a step by step.
He climbed the mountains and passed through several villages in a row, showing Clark's picture to everyone in the village and asking if anyone had seen him. And after a morning of futile efforts, a little girl in a certain village finally said with some uncertainty that she might have seen a similar person, but that was also several years ago. She said the man had only been in the village for a few months and then left for no apparent reason.
It's not a very valuable clue, but it's at least the beginning, which refreshes Bruce's spirit after a half-day of nothing. He continued to ask if he knew where that person might have gone. The little girl bit her lip and thought for a while, and finally pointed to him the village on the opposite hill with some uncertainty.
Bruce visited village after village, and in several of the following villages people said with great uncertainty that a similar person might have been there, but he seemed to linger in each place for a short while. Bruce climbed two hills in one day, walked through many villages, and finally came to this last mountain village when the sun was about to set.
This small mountain village seems to have experienced the baptism of rain last night. The road up the mountain is full of wet, sticky mud, but compared with Gotham, at least the air here is fresh and the light is abundant. He found the only tavern in the village, and left a green note on the bar lavishly, allowing the bartender to be more than happy to answer the outlander's questions while he prepared a cocktail for him.
Bruce chatted with him for a while, naturally broaching irrelevant topics, then bringing up that he was looking for an old friend when he saw fit. The bartender proudly said that they were the only tavern in the village, and as long as they were people in this village, he must have at least seen them.
Bruce showed a picture of Clark Kent--of course he was a reporter, the one with the "S" tag and the red cape was no need to ask, if Superman was here he should have known.
Disappointing but not unexpected, the bartender shook his head and said he had never seen such a person.
Bruce sighed lowly, stopped talking, and just drank the suffocating wine to himself. It has been six years, and he already knew how low the possibility of valuable discoveries would be from this trip, and he didn't even know what he was here for. But the kid named New Superman who came out this year, and the guy who looked like Clarke who fought last night, maybe he was just stimulated by these things to miss an old friend even more.
Let's face it, Bruce. Clark was long gone, he said to himself.
He gulped down another glass of wine dejectedly, and out of the corner of his eyes caught a glimpse of a group of burly men sitting at the table in the corner of the tavern. There was a malicious gleam in their eyes, and they all glanced over Bruce's purse pocket, intentionally or unintentionally, almost writing their full malice on their faces.
Bruce secretly felt amused, not only because he would be chosen as the target of the robbery, but also because these wicked guys were far inferior to Gotham's third-rate criminals. They reveal their intentions so plainly that after watching all the crime twists and turns in Gotham, Bruce almost begins to think they look a little cute.
He settled the bill, got up, and pushed open the rough wooden door of the tavern. The few local big men stared at him and walked out of the gate, got up suddenly without thinking, and swarmed after him. Several locals, including the bartender, of course, knew what they were doing, but they just kept silent and pretended not to see it.
Bruce put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, pretending not to notice the people behind him - even though their tracking technology was unbearable to look at. He even deliberately chose an empty space where no one was there to choose the most perfect environment for the gangsters, but those simple-minded guys didn't notice anything wrong and were still secretly delighted.
When a muscular dark-skinned hunk like a boulder stopped in front of Bruce, he knew these guys had finally made a move, and he was almost impatient to wait. He turned around calmly, and there were four big men behind him. They were all tall and muscular. Bruce is close to 1.9 meters tall, but he has no height advantage in front of everyone. No wonder these big, muscular idiots are so confident, the size alone is enough to intimidate most outlanders.
"We don't want to make things ugly, outlanders." The one who seemed to be leading the way came out and said slowly, "Your coat, wallet, cell phone, and watch, leave that behind. , we will consider letting you go down the mountain completely."
It seems that it is not the first time that they have done this, and they can't even find the slightest sense of guilt in their eyes. Bruce swept them all blankly, mentally giving them a simple crime rating, which determined how badly they would be beaten in a minute.
The five gangsters tacitly narrowed the encirclement, Bruce clenched his fists in his jacket, and the smell of gunpowder in the air became stronger.
"Hey! Stay away from that stranger!"
All the gangsters stopped at the same time, including Bruce showing a surprised expression. They followed the sound and saw a man in old-fashioned clothes standing about ten paces away. His bare arms were full of sturdy muscles, and the beard on his chin that had not been trimmed in a long time made him look slightly more Sloppy, but his straight waist made him somewhat more energetic. The hair on his forehead was curly, his blue eyes were as clear as water, and there seemed to be a sense of righteousness in them, making it difficult to look directly at him.
It took Bruce nearly twenty seconds to recognize the facial features of his former best friend from this almost completely different face, and the expression gradually changed from a little accident to a stunned - and when Batman showed these expressions, that generally means the end of the world.
The five gangsters temporarily threw aside the foreigner they were about to rob, and formed a new encirclement to surround the new big man. The guy in the lead said viciously: "You just can't keep your business, right? The big one?"
The man who looked like Clark looked at them seriously: "I can't because that's not right, like what you're doing."
"Oh, yes? And guess what? We're going to do something even more incorrect."
As the leader said, he winked at his companions, and everyone strode around to Clark. With his hands still in his coat pockets, Bruce stood there and watched. If that's really Clark, then he doesn't need any help, maybe the next second he'll use super speed to tie up these few country bastards into a big dumpling, or maybe he'll stand there and let those guys beat up until their fists are swollen, and then give them a mocking smile.
But things didn't seem to go that way.
"Bang!"
With the muffled sound of the fist hitting the cockroach, Clark Kent threw a string of bloodshot saliva from the corner of his mouth and was planted in the mud in a daze.