Misunderstanding

Su Ming picked up the little girl's laptop and quickly typed in the name. The search returned nothing, so he tried the console instead, switching to a facial search. Still nothing.

Sure enough, Batman's surveillance had excluded him. Su Ming had expected as much.

Using Batwoman's system to search for her real identity had merely been a gamble. There was no harm in trying.

Now, only one possibility had been ruled out.

He sat off to one side, waved Barbara back to wait for dinner, then pulled out his cigar.

Barbara slowly returned to the table while studying his expression. She neither asked about Su Ming's search results nor said anything, as though nothing from before had happened.

She changed the subject. "Is Indian Hill really that terrifying?"

"If I remember correctly, yes. The moment you push open the door to that underground laboratory, there are deformed monsters everywhere." Su Ming described what he had seen in the TV series Gotham. "But let me correct one thing: Deathstroke never fears anything, and he never abandons a mission."

"Then what is your mission? I don't think anyone could afford to hire you to save my father and me. My family doesn't have that kind of money." Barbara asked again.

She knew her family's finances perfectly well. Before becoming paralyzed, she had always managed the household. How much they earned each month, how much they spent on food and daily necessities—every expense had been carefully recorded in her little notebook.

Deathstroke had previously revealed on television that his base price for killing someone was two million. Saving people was far more troublesome than killing them. Even if it killed her, she could never come up with that kind of money.

Su Ming glanced at her. The speed of her change was practically visible to the naked eye. In such a short time, she had accepted everything that had happened and was able to think normally again.

She had initially seemed like a little country girl, but now she could stay calm even in front of Mercenaries. So people really did differ in their aptitude?

"We can't tell you what our mission is. Once everything is over, ask your father." Su Ming tapped ash onto the table, leaving a small scorched yellow patch on Batwoman's beautiful metal tabletop. A yellow stain had appeared on the gleaming panel.

Still, Alfred would probably be the one suffering over that. Su Ming had some respect for the old butler, so he decided not to flick any more ash onto the table. He would flick it onto the floor instead.

He casually brushed off the little girl's question, because there were some things she could not accept yet. If this had been Oracle from the Main World, perhaps Su Ming would have told her and let her offer some advice. But for now, it was better to find Commissioner Gordon and see what he knew.

After hearing Su Ming's words, Barbara lowered her head as though she understood something. When she thought, she liked to rub the sleeve of her sweater, which had already become covered in fuzz from friction.

Vicki finished her work at that moment. Panting heavily, she brought Pete over to the table as well. She sprawled across the tabletop as if utterly exhausted, savoring the coolness of the metal.

Su Ming slid the remaining half-bottle of liquor across the table to her, and she drank straight from the bottle without any hesitation.

"I need to tell you something. We found their hideout. Our next move is to rescue Commissioner Gordon."

"Huh? Isn't that a good thing?" Vicki pulled the bottle from her mouth with a pop. Her pretty face was full of confusion. Did this really need to be so serious?

Were they planning to go back on their word and refuse to let her report the story after all?

"However, the enemy hideout is unexpected. We can now be completely certain that it's a trap. If you keep following us, you'll be in considerable danger. Mortal danger."

As Su Ming spoke, he noticed Pete's face gradually turning pale. He looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown.

Vicki's eyes shifted. This woman did not know the meaning of giving up. She pointed at Barbara beside her. "Then is the little girl going with you?"

"Without her, Commissioner Gordon won't trust us, so Barbara has to come with us. We'll protect her too. But you're different. Cindy and I are only two people. We can't spare the effort to protect you as well." Su Ming nodded and admitted it openly.

Without even thinking, Vicki's red-and-gold head bobbed nonstop like a chicken pecking grain. She did not care about her life. What she wanted was the story.

"We'll come with you too. How can mighty warriors like you possibly go without a reporter to record your heroic bearing? Oh, right, Mr. Deathstroke. As a man working as a Mercenary, what are your views on the men's rights movement that has risen in recent years?"

If Su Ming's right eye socket had not been empty, and if he had had a glass eye, he would definitely have dug it out and thrown it at her so she could see what an eye roll looked like. There was seriously something wrong with this woman's brain. What did the men's rights movement have to do with him?

"You'd better ask your partner. He looks like he's about to piss himself. Soon enough, your shoes will have the answer." He pointed with his chin at Pete beside her. The burly man was curled up there like a lump of mud. "If you've decided to come, I can tell you that this is a Biohazard Crisis. You'd better prepare protective suits and Gas Masks."

"Cool!" Vicki immediately jumped to her feet and kicked Pete beside her, telling him to hurry and see whether the Batcave had any protective suits. "I've been waiting for a Biohazard Crisis to break out for ages. It's finally here at last. Praise Goddess Hera!"

"Fine. If you find any, get one for Barbara too. Vicki, help her put it on." Su Ming was already too lazy to bother with her. She would not die no matter how recklessly she courted death, so he might as well let her do as she pleased.

"You two don't need them?" Vicki immediately agreed, then thoughtfully asked whether he and Cindy needed protective suits as well.

"No. Our helmets have chemical protection functions, and our physical abilities far surpass those of ordinary people. If we notice anything wrong, we can still retreat in time."

Hearing Su Ming's words, she immediately pulled out a little notebook and wrote it down: Deathstroke suspected to be an enhanced human. Then she gave him an OK gesture, turned, and ran off.

"You like red-haired women?" Barbara suddenly asked from beside him, nearly making Su Ming choke.

"No. Why would you ask that?"

"Because it feels like you're being very... indulgent toward Miss Vicki." Barbara looked at him with probing eyes, her expression carrying an indescribable meaning.

"I'm indulgent toward you too. Even though you're also a redhead, that doesn't prove anything." Su Ming patted her head, telling her not to let her imagination run wild. She would be better off using the time to charge the laptop. "If I weren't trying to reunite you and your father as soon as possible, I could have simply left you here to provide us with intelligence support."

"But didn't you just say you were taking me along so my father would trust you?" Barbara frowned. She had thought she had value. In her shallow understanding, people in the darkness always judged others by whether they had value.

"I lied to Vicki. Even if we didn't bring you, do you think Commissioner Gordon would have any other choice after Cindy and I put four blades to his throat? He'll thank us afterward anyway."

Su Ming exhaled smoke and watched it swirl through the cave on the faint breeze, turning into a skull one moment and a bat the next.

That was actually a lie too. In the TV series, that underground laboratory had countless electronic devices and security doors. Without Barbara, this Oracle, he and Cindy would probably be at a complete loss.

Barbara's little face reddened. She had misunderstood what Su Ming meant. A young girl's imagination had led her in another direction.

Could it be... he means he likes girls like me? But I'm a police officer's daughter. What should I do? Still, he really is quite reliable... but my legs...

At her age, it was easy to think of such things, especially with their seemingly forbidden identities. Her heart began to race even faster.

He had appeared at precisely the time when Barbara was at her most helpless. At first, he had brought her nothing but fear, but gradually, that feeling of terror so intense it seemed to stop her heart had changed. Her heart was now beating in an indescribable rhythm.

This was what psychology called the Suspension Bridge Effect. In a dangerous environment, people instinctively developed affection for the opposite sex around them.

It was an instinct for human reproduction inherited through bloodlines. In ancient times, humanity had needed to preserve its bloodline in desperate circumstances, and this instinct had been etched into human DNA.

It might also have merely been a form of compliance psychology. A more famous example was Stockholm syndrome. The women in the later Cellar Slave-Rearing Case, who had been kept for so long that they assisted their abusers in evil, had acted from a similar mindset.

When a strong person completely controlled a weak person's life and freedom, even the tiniest kindness occasionally offered by the strong would be magnified without limit in the weak person's eyes. Over time, the weak person would develop admiration for the strong and obey them without question.

This had led psychologists to propose a famous hypothesis: humans could be domesticated, just like cats and dogs.

In truth, Su Ming had no such intention at all. His mind was filled entirely with thoughts of survival.

Just as Barbara was letting her imagination run wild and Su Ming was smoking while considering his plan, Cindy returned. She came down the spiral staircase carrying a huge roasted turkey in one hand and a pot in the other.

"This was the only ready-made food I found upstairs. But there doesn't seem to be any holiday recently where people eat turkey, right? I really don't get it. There were also potatoes, onions, and some other vegetables. I threw them all into the pot to boil. Make do with it."

The three gathered around the metal table and began their unusual dinner. Cindy was somewhat curious about what Vicki and Pete were rummaging through in the distance, but she could not be bothered to care. Su Ming would handle it anyway. Their previous missions had never been this easy.

Now, she was already considering how to keep Su Ming as her partner after they survived this global crisis.

Su Ming had been right before. Without friends, business only became more and more limited. For the sake of her carefree life in the future, it was time to find a partner.

Who could be more suitable? Naturally, it was Deathstroke from another world—Su Ming, who worked with her so seamlessly.