Bruce brought Jason back to the Tail Gang's base. As it was very late at night, almost all the children had returned to sleep. When they saw the stranger carrying a bloody Jason, they started attacking Bruce in a manner that he had never experienced before in his life.
The children were like savage and fierce stray cats, bearing their fangs and claws to anything they perceived as an enemy. Even if they knew they might not be able to win, they would never show weakness.
Fortunately, Jason only had a knife cut. The amount of blood might have looked scary, but it did not endanger his internal organs. In a weak voice, he said, "Stop it, everyone!"
The volume of his voice was quite low as Jason didn't dare exert his strength. However, as soon as he finished talking, the commotion stopped. The children's obedience amazed Bruce.
Although everyone was still looking at him with resentment, no one attacked him.
Bruce often placed himself in Jason's shoes, wondering if he at eleven years old could have done this. He thought that it would not be difficult to lead the Tail Gang to wealth, but what was difficult was how to gain their loyalty—something Batman was never good at.
But for Jason, it seemed very easy. After catching his breath, Jason said, "I'm fine. It's an external injury. Sister, fetch the first aid kit from the cupboard. Cookie sisters, fetch some needle and thread. Allie, fetch a basin of clean water. I remember we should have iodine... One of you find it. The rest of you leave and go to sleep. We still have work to do tomorrow."
In less than a second, the children dispersed. Although many of them looked back at Jason with great concern, they obediently followed his orders and left.
Bruce found this unbelievable, but he knew now was not the time to be surprised. He laid out the tools they had brought and started to prepare to suture Jason's wound.
Jason saw that the man in the red hood before him had his hands exposed. The eldest sister screamed in fear but soon covered her mouth because those hands were almost skinless, with the muscles and bones in clear view.
Suddenly, Jason started to struggle, he shoved Bruce to one side and said," Sis, you come over. I'll teach you the process..."
"What's wrong?" Bruce pinned him down and said, "I know first aid and can suture wounds too. You can't move around or you'll bleed more."
"Get away, I don't want strangers touching me!" Jason turned his head away. Bruce stood still, and sister did not dare to reach out to him immediately because Jason was still in his hands.
Jason sighed, "Fine. I still haven't fully grasped what the professor taught me. What I mean is, your hands can't touch water. Don't you know that wounds like these could get infected if they touch water?"
Bruce glanced at his hands, but they didn't hurt at all.
The new lizard potion developed by Connors included some neurology results, which could greatly inhibit pain perception. Bruce's current feeling of losing his skin was that he would occasionally feel itchy all over, and some parts of his body would spasm as if they had been electrocuted, but the pain was not unbearable.
Bruce paused for a while, but let go eventually. He said to the girl next to him, "You come here, I'll teach you how to do it..."
The girl that came over was the younger sister of the Cookie sisters. They were younger and didn't do much heavy work, so their skin was pretty well-preserved. They could sew finer stitches, not accidentally touching the wound and hence reducing Jason's pain.
In this rudimentary basement, there definitely wouldn't be any painkillers. Bruce scanned the room, noticing that none of the children mentioned any special drugs.
Having spent several days in the slums, Bruce was aware that these children weren't that naive. Even though they didn't mention it now, it wasn't because they didn't think about some drugs that could alleviate the pain, but because they didn't dare mention them.
Jason definitely despised drugs. Since he held such prestige among the children, no one dared to suggest it.
Seeing Jason's pale face, Bruce knew that he was in a lot of pain. But in this shabby and rudimentary underground base, Batman couldn't conjure a bottle of anesthesia out of thin air. He could only carry Jason back to his tiny room and sat on the floor by the bed.
The windowless basement seemed particularly dark and oppressive. The light emitted by the bulb hanging on the ceiling was dim yellow, which was not bright enough. Everyone was silent, and they weren't looking at each other.
"Does it hurt a lot?" Jason suddenly asked.
Bruce thought he heard wrong, he asked, "What?"
"I asked, does it hurt a lot?" Jason emphasized again.
Bruce paused and then looked at his hands and said, "No, I don't feel anything."
"We're all the same..." Jason's tone was very low, as if he was enduring something, "Even if it hurts, we can't cry out loud. If I cry first, they will also cry. If we all cry, then everything will be over."
Bruce's hand, that was clutching at the edge of the bed, trembled. He turned his head to look at Jason only to see his face, pale as paper. Jason opened his mouth and said, "This may be the most important lesson of today. If you want to join a gang, then you must never complain about pain."
"Even if it hurts to the point of death or if you are really dying, you can't complain about pain or cry. You can't show weakness to anyone or anything. You have to make them feel like you could still bite off a piece of their flesh even before you die..."
Bruce blinked hard, and looking at Jason, he said, "But you're not that kind of person, are you? You're not really that violent or stubborn. You're not that strong. You really want to cry, don't you?"
Jason turned on his side, laying flat on the bed and closed his eyes. His eyelashes were constantly trembling. He said, "I've lived like this since I was little. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but now I feel very sad. Not because the wound hurts."
"Is it because of what?" Bruce asked.
"I saw another kind of life, a life I always dreamed about..." Jason's voice began to tremble, he said, "To be sitting in a classroom with a professor who likes me a lot, discussing various things that have nothing to do with keeping my stomach full..."
"But such moments are always fleeting, I need to come back here, to bear these hardships, to live this life."
Bruce could hardly believe it, he heard such heaviness in the tone of an eleven-year-old child, he asked, "Why don't you leave?"
"Then why don't you leave? Batman?" Jason muttered as if he was sleep-talking, "Why won't you leave this rotten city? Bruce Wayne?"
At that moment, Bruce had a vague feeling that Jason was receiving some kind of inspiration, making him no longer like his usual self.
He was completely not like an eleven-year-old boy, he was trying to understand Batman's soul, not going crazy because of it, but rather he asked a question that touched his heart.
In the two months he had spent in the slums, countless times of despair had assaulted his heart, but looking back from now, even at its most desperate moment, he never thought of leaving Gotham.
Pain is pain, but the solution does not include fleeing from here.
"Before I knew you were Batman, you said that you want to restore order here, I thought it was ridiculous, but I decided to help you because regardless of whether you succeed or not, at least you would know that there is someone on your side."
"After I learned that you are Batman, I still decided to help you because we are alike...You could have left, and so could I."
Bruce saw that Jason was shivering. He reached out, touched Jason's neck, and found that his body temperature was a bit low.
Bruce stood up, touched the basement wall, and said, "It's getting cold outside, perhaps there is a typhoon, can't go on like this... "
Since the underground of Gotham turned into ice, the average annual temperature of the entire city drastically dropped by more than 10 degrees, almost catching up with high-latitude areas. Even in the summer, the sudden drop in temperature when a typhoon arrives still makes people feel chilling to the bone.
After uttering the last word with the little strength left, Jason fell silent, his breath started to grow longer, as if he was fallen into a sleep, his body kept shivering due to the cold.
In a daze, he felt that someone was holding him, but he thought that was an illusion, because no one had ever hugged him since the day he was born.
This embrace was so warm, it reminded Jason of a fairy tale, the Little Match Girl lit the match and saw all kinds of wonderful scenes.
With that beautiful dream, he slept until dawn, when he woke up, he felt much better, and at this time, Bruce walked in, holding a plate of steaming steak in his hand.
Jason barely sat up, he asked, "Where did you get this?"
"The restaurant owner next door couldn't start the car because of the flood. I helped him fix his car, and he gave me breakfast." Bruce put the plate in front of Jason, the soul-enticing aroma made Jason's eyes wide.
"Eat it, you need to have some nutrients." Bruce handed the plate to Jason. Jason swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said, "No, this is your booty, I can't accept it..."
"Don't you want to collect tuition?" Bruce sat down, looked at Jason's eyes and said, "I can deal with your breakfast every day, that would be my tuition."
Jason sighed, picked up the plate and took a big bite of the steak, chewing heartily, "The first lesson of the day is, only rich people eat breakfast."
Jason hastily finished the steak, feeling more energy in his body, then he turned to Bruce and asked, "Wait, you just said, the restaurant owner's car was flooded, why was it flooded?"
"You don't know? It rained heavily all last night. Probably the heaviest rain in Gotham in the past five years. Many places were flooded."
Jason's eyes widened, and he wanted to get out of bed immediately. Bruce stopped him and said, "Where are you going? Your wounds..."
Jason hammered the bed hard and said, "Are you stupid? You think everyone's house is like your Wayne Manor, not afraid of wind and rain, can just leave it there?"
"Our two strongholds at the front street and the back are definitely flooded, and the basement is lower. It might leak, I need to organize the kids to patch it up. If there is too much water ingress, our rain boots are cheap, and if the water seeps in, and it freezes at night, we might get frostbite..."
Jason limped off the ground, but Bruce pushed him back onto the bed and said, "What you need to do, just tell me directly, I can manage them for you."
Jason waved his hand impatiently and said, "You can't manage them."
Looking at Bruce's unbelieving eyes, Jason sighed, sat on the bed, and reluctantly said, "...Fine, you can try, God bless you."
Seeing Jason lie back down, Bruce went out the door, started telling the kids about the things that Jason had just told him.
But soon, Bruce found that the experience of leading these kids brought back some bad memories.
Dealing with one Aisha already made him almost rewrite the pedagogy of human cubs, but here, there were more than twenty Aishas.