Gotham, on a morning that was neither sunny nor warm, Bruce was startled awake by Alfred.
He squeezed his eyes shut in agony, feeling a throbbing headache. Alfred, standing by the door, said to him, "Young master, I am sorry to disturb you so early, but there is a phone call for you that seems quite urgent…"
"...Whose call?"
"It's from Professor Shearer."
"Tell him I'll call back right away." Bruce's voice was extremely hoarse, obviously, the overly complicated and thrilling dream had drained all his energy.
He sat on the edge of the bed, trying hard to recall the dream, accompanied by a headache, was a feeling of relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted.
Bruce had never felt this way before; he thought it was just a temporary illusion. However, after sitting on the edge of the bed for a while, the headache was still there, and so was this feeling.
If he had to make a comparison, it was like a child who was born with a sandbag. He didn't think there was anything wrong with it; he had even gotten used to carrying the weight of it. But one day, the sandbag suddenly disappeared. The feeling of lightness actually made him very uncomfortable.
Now, Bruce felt top-heavy and light-footed. His body had a long-lost feeling of relaxation, but his head still ached.
He had to get up from the bed and go to the washroom; the second he was about to bow his head, he suddenly stiffened.
The terrifying memories from the dream made him very distressed, but eventually, he managed to lean over dizzily, washing his face with cold water, there was no frightening Joker appearing behind him.
The cold water helped Bruce regain some clarity. He walked out of the washroom, then walked downstairs. Alfred handed him a cup of warm milk. After taking the milk, Bruce said to him, "Thank you."
He walked over to the phone while sipping the milk and dialed Professor Shearer's number. Once the call was connected, Professor Shearer's voice came through, and Bruce said, "What's the matter, Professor? Is something wrong?"
"To celebrate your great victory in last night's dream, I have prepared a gift for you. Come to my office to pick it up after you finish your class today."
"A gift?" Bruce's slightly sluggish mind started to work at a high speed. He had an extremely bad premonition, as if he was hearing the clown-faced lunatic say he was going to prepare a big surprise for him.
"You think I'm that lunatic who wants to prepare a surprise for you? Definitely not, I'm just an ordinary person, I don't have the leisure time to prepare any bomb attack. This is a real gift; you will know when you come and see…"
Bruce closed his eyes and covered his forehead with his hand. He wanted to decline Shearer's kindness, but the call was disconnected.
Alfred saw Bruce's somewhat rigid expression and asked with concern, "Young master, what's wrong? Does your professor have important things to say?"
"Um..." Bruce found it difficult to explain, but he didn't want to lie to Alfred, so he said, "Because of some progress in my performance, my professor has prepared a gift for me, but…"
Before he finished, he saw Alfred's eyebrows lift, forming a curve, and his eyes squinted, obviously very pleased. Alfred said cheerfully, "Really? That's great. Master Wayne used to worry a lot about your future performance. He would often say that when he was young, he used to be mischievous and perform poorly, worrying that his son would follow his…"
"If you get complimented by the professor, that would be great. Professor Shearer prepared a gift for you?"
Alfred turned around, put down the tray, and said, "If you don't prepare a return gift, that would be quite impolite. I'll see what suitable things we could give to a professor. Let me think... I remember we have a collector's edition of 'Hamlet', that should be nice…"
With that said, Alfred quickly walked upstairs. Bruce hadn't seen Alfred this happy in a long time. The guessing that was filling his stomach was swallowed back down, and Bruce had no option but to leave the mansion and drive to Gotham University.
There was nothing much to say about the morning classes, but surprisingly, this rather leisurely campus time made Bruce feel a little relaxed. He never had this mood before; wasting time always made him feel guilty, but today, he actually listened to most of Professor Shearer's theoretical definitions.
When class was over, Bruce initially wanted to follow Shearer straight to his office, but then Evans came to him to discuss club matters.
Previously, when Gotham was frozen, Gotham University had suspended classes for a long time, so the club's work never made any progress. Now, Bruce, the biggest benefactor of the club, was back at school, so all the Psychology Club students swarmed over. Bruce could only placate each one of them.
It was only after he had dealt with all of these matters that Bruce got the time to head to Shearer's office. When he arrived at the office, he found that Professor Shearer was the only one inside. Before he could even knock, Shearer greeted him with a grin, "Come in."
This enthusiasm caused Bruce to break out in a cold sweat; he felt that his bad premonition was about to come true.
When Bruce walked next to Shearer's desk, Shearer clapped his hands and said, "Your performance was truly brilliant, it made me..."
"Professor, what is the gift you were talking about?"
Bruce's stiffness was all over his face. He scanned every corner of the room with his eyes, like a bomb disposal expert about to defuse a bomb. Shearer reassured him, saying, "Don't worry, there is no bomb."
"Then…"
Just as Bruce was about to speak, Shearer stood up from his chair, bent over, and from the side of the desk that had been blocked by the cabinet, brought out a... little girl.
Bruce's eyes widened. Shearer, holding the little girl by her armpits, much like one would carry a pet dog, showed her to Bruce, saying, "This is the gift. What do you think? Do you like it?"
Bruce opened his eyes wide, his facial expression hadn't been this exaggerated in a long time, therefore his facial muscles felt very stiff.
No wonder he was so shocked. The little girl in Shiller's arms looked roughly 80% similar to him.
The little girl was around three or four years old with black hair and blue eyes. There isn't much difference between her and Bruce, in fact, it could be said they look exactly the same.
"Do you remember the battle yesterday?"
Bruce nodded stiffly, his gaze never leaving the face of the little girl.
"That monster that came out of the Laughing Egg was erased by you using your will and the will of the Grey Lamp Ring. But have you forgotten something?"
"Who..."
"The Parallax, the Yellow Lantern Beast that entered your body and helped you defeat that monster at the last moment."
"When you erased that monster from the egg, it wanted to take you down with it, so it disturbed your entire consciousness space. The Parallax is harmed in your consciousness space. To avoid damage from the collapse of the dream, it went into the shell where that monster was hatching..."
"Then, it floated into my Thought Palace with the chaotic flow of the dream. At that time, the dream space had completely collapsed so I brought everyone back to reality. But... the process of coming back was a bit beyond my expectations."
"What do you mean?" Bruce suddenly had an epiphany.
"When I created the Grey Lamp Ring, indeed, it was just to allow you to combine your wills to defeat that monster. But what surprised me a bit is that when it returned to my hand, it had some unusual functions..."
"Such as?"
"For instance, turning my will into reality."
Before Bruce could question further, Shiller explained, "In order to bring others who went into the dream space back to reality, I said the words 'return to reality'. But at that time, I had the Grey Lamp Ring at full power, so something that shouldn't appear in reality was then manifested in reality..."
Shiller and Bruce's gaze fell on the little girl, and Shiller said: "... It's the Yellow Lantern's Lantern Beast, Parallax."
"Theoretically speaking, the Lantern Beast has no physical body and it must possess a person to move."
"But whether it's the power of the Lantern ring exceeding our imaginations, or its own desire for a physical body being so strong, after I said those words with the ring, not only were the consciousness of other people brought back to reality but it was too..."
Bruce held a hand over his eyes, took a deep breath, then asked, "But why does she look like me?"
"I suspect that this could be because the Parallax went into the shell where the other monster had been hatching to avoid harm from the collapse of the dream..."
"You must know that you and that embryo are two sides of the same coin. That's to say, you are it and it is you. That eggshell became the basis for the Parallax's physical body in reality, and so..."
Bruce extended one hand and said: "Okay, fine, but why is she a little girl?"
"You may find this hard to swallow, but this Lantern Beast seems to believe it is female..."
Bruce's facial muscles were convulsing, but Shiller shrugged and said: "You don't need to understand the mechanics because it's already happened and there's no going back. Can you stuff her back inside? Because I sure can't."
Shiller let the little girl walk on his desk with her feet. He guided her two steps forward to approach Bruce and then said, "I can see that you're hesitant but the problem now is, if you allow her to run around on the streets, it won't be more than ten minutes before news breaks that you abandoned your illegitimate daughter..."
Bruce stared at the little girl's face. He had to admit, Shiller isn't wrong, because apart from her gender being different, she looked exactly like him. If anyone claimed she was his illegitimate daughter, Bruce would have no argument to defend himself with, as they truly looked uncannily alike.
"In terms of ethical relationships, she indeed is your daughter, because she hatched from your dream, which is to say you gave birth to her. Your blood relationship is even closer than that of a father and daughter. She not only shares your physical characteristics but also has a very similar soul..."
"Isn't her soul that of the Parallax?"
"This is difficult to explain..." Shiller adjusted his glasses and said: "The Yellow Lantern Beast Parallax is an ancient entity that represents fear, but when it acquired its physical body and realized its desire, its life form underwent some changes."
"At least for now, its soul and body are completely in sync. It's not a matter of the Parallax's spirit entering a human's body. It's the combination of both creating a new life form."
"Once the barrier between dreams and reality is broken, anything could happen. Some illogical entities in dreams, when they materialize in reality, would naturally have to conform to some laws of reality. You can consider this a kind of 'encoding'. Parallax has truly become a human being during this encoding process... at least it looks like one."
"Looks like..."
Before Bruce finished speaking, he saw the little girl in front of him open her mouth wide, revealing a smile. But this smile was truly terrifying because her mouth, spread wide, revealed two rows of sharp fangs.