In the hallway, Bruce, holding a stack of papers, briskly walked towards the office. He knew if he arrived two minutes later, it would be almost impossible for his thesis to pass today.
Bruce knocked on the door, but the sound coming from the room was that of high-heeled shoes. Opening the door was Anna, the math teacher. Bruce glanced into the room and asked, "Isn't Professor Shearer here?"
"He has something this afternoon. Are you here to have him look at your thesis?" Anna glanced at her watch and said, "You might have to come back after seven in the evening. By that time, he should be back to get his things."
Bruce stopped in his tracks, and said, "After seven? But it's only two in the afternoon now. Where has Professor Shearer gone?"
Anna shook her head and said, "I don't know. After he finished lunch, he hurried back to pick up two basic psychology books and then left. Why don't you try looking for him in the library or somewhere similar?"
"The library?" Bruce said in surprise, but seeing Anna's expression, he didn't ask any further, instead, he turned around and left with his papers.
Standing at the bottom of the office building, Bruce felt a bit lost. He suddenly realised that he really didn't know where to find Shearer.
As far as he knew, Shearer hardly ever went to the library. Because the Gotham University library is old and has limited seating, even with strict librarians, it's inevitably noisy. Shearer usually wrote his papers at his own manor.
After all, Gotham University does not have a principal, no one checks the attendance. Professors are free to leave after their morning and afternoon classes. So the professors at Gotham University are very free, if they don't have classes in the afternoon, they can go home.
Bruce thought for a moment, then went to the parking lot, got in his car, and drove to Rodrix Manor. Once there, Merkel opened the door for him. Merkel was surprised by Bruce's arrival. He said, "Mr. Wayne? What brought you here?"
"I'm here to see Professor Shearer. Is he here?" Bruce asked.
Merkel paused for a moment and said: "No, he has been staying at school recently and hasn't returned for several days now. You might be able to find him there."
Bruce was about to say that he had just come from the school, but after a moment of thought, he decided not to say anything more. He got back in his car and returned to the school.
Then he went to the teacher's dormitory, but the dormitory manager told him that Shearer had left early in the morning and hadn't returned to his room all day. Next, he went to the usual psychology classroom and laboratory, but couldn't find Shearer anywhere.
In the end, Bruce chose to call Gordon to see if he had seen Shearer, and when the answer was still no, Bruce began to get a headache.
If there is still an inviolable rule in Gotham at present, it is that when Shearer is quiet, it must mean he is up to something.
This was all very unusual, in the last few days, Bruce has had to keep alert every minute and second, fearing he will miss Shearer's call. If that happens, he can forget about getting his paper through today, and very likely it may be sent back for a rewrite.
Discussing the thesis often lasts hours, often beginning before lunchtime has passed and lasting until dinner. Moreover, Shearer expressed great discontent with Bruce's need to eat, and even suggested that he create a life-sustaining armor to reduce the time spent on solving physiological needs.
Having been racing against the clock for so long, the time he'd saved, might have been less than what he wasted this afternoon. Bruce didn't think Shearer would disappear for no reason, it was more likely that he had come across something more troublesome and had to go and resolve it.
But, what could possibly be bothering Shearer?
With that thought, Bruce was on high alert. If there really was something that could make the professor spend hours dealing with, despite urgently needing time, it could potentially threaten the life and death of Gotham and even the entire East Coast.
Thinking of this, Bruce hurried to the Batcave and activated his surveillance system all over Gotham.
Batman's monitoring is everywhere in Gotham. With several technological iterations, the cameras have become very durable, hard to destroy and even more concealed. The entire Gotham city is under Batman's surveillance.
Before he opened the screens, Bruce had hoped to see Shearer's shadow in them, because if Shearer was not in Gotham City, things might be more troublesome.
However, when he turned on the screens, before discovering Shearer, Bruce identified another unexpected visitor first, because his dressing was really peculiar which drew Bruce's attention.
This man was wearing a black one-piece suit with a green cloak on the outside. He was carrying a flute in his hand and a gun on his leg.
At the moment, the man was on a main road not far from Gotham University. Bruce saw that he seemed to have just come out of a music store with two records in his hands.
Bruce wanted to investigate further, but the more urgent task was to find Shearer's location.
He continued to look at the monitors and then found out that Shearer was actually in the Gotham University all along. He was just in an empty classroom on the top floor of the teaching building, sitting opposite him was Jason Todd, the kid who had stolen Bruce's tires.
Zoning in on the view, Bruce noticed that Shearer was holding a basic psychology book, pointing to the text, and explaining something to Jason who was listening attentively.
Just as Bruce was about to overhear what Shearer was talking about, another anomaly on one of the monitors caught his attention.
The strange man in the green hood attacked a mafia member on the street, or rather, he took out a flute and started playing. The mafia member, who was across the street, suddenly started dancing.
But in the next second, he found himself surrounded by heavily armed mafia thugs. Bruce quickly got to his feet, donned Batman's outfit, and rushed to the scene.
Fortunately, the man was still alive, albeit has taken a few hits.
Batman was very sure that he was an outsider, because a local person wouldn't be dressed in strange clothes standing on the street where three mafia territories meet. This was as if shouting through a loudspeaker that "There's a perfect target here for shooting practice".
While the mob members were distracted, Batman dragged this strange man onto the car, then took him to the Batcave, gave him a simple surgery, and bandaged him, waiting for him to wake up.
Several minutes later, this man wearing a green hood finally woke up, still in a haze, he saw Batman's face, instinctively tried to get up and run, but the intense pain made him unable to get up, he heard Batman ask:
"Who are you? What are you doing in Gotham?"
The man in the green hood was just about to speak, and Batman picked up the surgical knife from just now, wiped it off with a piece of paper. The man in the green hood swallowed and said: "You can call me the Pied Piper ..."
"What are you doing in Gotham?" Batman asked again.
"I...I came for a tour..." The Pied Piper barely finished speaking when he saw a Batman dart land next to his ear. He moved his head slightly, then said, "Okay, I came to save someone."
"Save who?"
"It's...Master Mirror and his group."
"Master Mirror?" Batman squinted his eyes, a skeptical expression appeared on his face, then he continued to ask:" Who else?"
"Also... Captain Cold." The Pied Piper took a sharp breath, the pain made him somewhat dazed, and being threatened by Batman, he began to spill everything:
"Savage, the Great King, he wants to use Gotham as a foothold on the East Coast, he sent Master Mirror and Captain Cold here to scout, but both of them were trapped, trapped in Gotham University, there's a professor there, they can't handle him..."
"Savage received their distress signal, told me to come to support them, I originally wanted to go directly to Gotham University, but the record store next to it was playing the music I like, so I went in to buy two records..."
Batman looked at the flute next to him, he said, "Can you control others with this flute?"
"Yes." The Pied Piper said, "That's why I'm called the Pied Piper..."
"Tell me more about the Great King."
While Batman was interrogating the enemy for intelligence, Shearer was explaining the basic concepts of psychology to Jason in an empty classroom, he said:
"... of course, this subject can't completely answer your doubts, but you can also choose to study philosophy and social engineering, and some content is included in economics, but these subjects are different from the techniques you've learned before."
"They won't let you learn a certain specific craft, they are more like a summary of human thought. Compared to some technical majors, it has both shortcomings and advantages."
"If you are not sure whether you like these courses, you can first read these books." Shearer handed Jason several books, in addition to the basic psychological knowledge, there were also introductory textbooks on philosophy and economics.
Jason was holding the basic psychology book Shearer had just given him, reading it thoroughly, while Shearer was reading an economics book he had just borrowed from the library.
The atmosphere in the room quieted down, after a while, Jason rubbed his eyes, let out a long breath, and said: "This is really amazing, I never thought that people's thoughts could be explained like this."
Shearer took the book from his hand and said, "Which part have you read? Have you read this part?"
Jason looked at the place Shearer was pointing at, he said, "I've finished it, and I've finished the next unit."
The next unit..." Shearer flipped back, he discovered that the next unit took up a full twelve pages, and unlike the simple explanation of basic concepts before, it was mixed with some neuroscientific content.
Shearer frowned and asked Jason: "Did you understand all the content before?"
Jason hesitated for a moment and said, "I'm not really sure, but at least, I've memorized all of them."
Shearer's eyes widened, "What did you say? You've memorized all of them all?"
Jason nodded, then began to recite from the beginning.
As everyone knows, the tone and rhythm of recitation can show whether the other party really understands the content. If it is rote memorization or unfamiliar, there will be problems with the sentence segmentation, and there will be pauses for thinking.
But Jason didn't have this problem at all, he recited it very fluently. Shearer, who has been teaching this content to many grades of students for several times, knew that he not only memorized it, but also understood most of it.
Accompanied by Jason's recitation, Shearer's eyes got brighter and brighter, but at this moment, the phone on the side of the podium suddenly rang.
Jason was startled and stopped his recitation. Shearer stood up, walked to the phone, picked it up, then said:
"Hello? Who is this? ... Bruce?"
"Who is Bruce?"