Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 565: A tree cannot grow straight without pruning, and a person cannot be disciplined without repairing him

After bringing the person in, the conversation between the butcher and his wife Becca was nothing special, much like a melodramatic American TV series—a simple exchange of pleasantries: first a hug, then a passionate kiss, then heartfelt confessions, then a brief chat about their lives over the years, followed by an awkward and strange silence.

If there's anything noteworthy, it's that the Butcher didn't ask Becca in detail whether she had betrayed him emotionally at the time, and he only asked roughly about Walter's arrangements for her. He knew that now was not the time to delve into these things.

As Ma Zhaodi said, if you want your relationship to break down, you should wait until you run away first. What's the point of arguing here?

As a child, Ryan was the most bewildered person in the room. When he saw his mother and the butcher hugging, he would instinctively ask if this was his father. But Becca hesitated and did not give a direct answer, only telling him to call this fierce-looking man Butcher, instead of his father.

"But if he's not my dad, why is my mom hugging him?"

Thankfully, the question wasn't asked aloud, otherwise there would have been even more debate about family ethics and marital relationships tonight.

Butcher's gaze toward Lane was complex, half disgust and half pity—in his view, although the other was the homelander he hated most and the child of his wife, he was indeed innocent and had been raised within these high walls since childhood, spending several years in a false world.

Seeing the awkward atmosphere of the three staring at each other, Ma Zhaodi was too lazy to say anything more. He simply stuffed the family of three into the wallpapered room, then went to the high wall and used the same trick to fly out.

It's foreseeable that starting tomorrow, Edgar will most likely realize that his information has been leaked—otherwise, he wouldn't have suffered consecutive losses of Storm and Lion.

One is one of Vought International’s most important laboratories, and the other is something Vought International originally intended to use as a trump card to control Homelander—in fact, Ma Zhaodi is 80% certain that Edgar absolutely intended to train Lane to become the next Homelander in order to continue Vought International’s superhero star industry chain.

He will certainly be more careful in handling Newman and the things that Russia is about to bring to the United States.

With these thoughts in mind, Ma Zhaodi returned to the Black Robe Squad's base as quickly as possible, intending to release Butcher, Bega, and Ryan.

"My God!"

Unsurprisingly, as soon as the door to the wallpaper room opened, the sound of arguing came from inside: "Ryan is my son, I can't abandon him!"

"He's that son of Homelander, that son of a bitch! I didn't say I was going to do anything to him. I could even just abandon Homelander and hand him over to someone else. We could just go somewhere Walter can't reach, wouldn't that be fine?"

"Can you please not argue in front of the children?"

Ma Zhaodi couldn't stand it anymore and knocked on the door frame: "Parents' arguments and fights during childhood can have a great impact on a child's development."

“Ryan is in the room; he can’t hear our conversation.”

The butcher spoke coldly and didn't continue arguing with Becca, but judging from his expression, he was probably not convinced; while Becca just huddled alone on the sofa, her eyes filled with tears.

Ma Zhaodi glanced into the inner room and, sure enough, one door was tightly closed—he had to be thankful that the soundproofing in the wallpapered room was good enough, otherwise Ryan would have been able to hear him groping in the dark.

“You guys come out first, Ryan, come along too.”

Butcher was about to say something, but Ma Zhaodi interrupted him: "Think about it carefully. Ryan's superpowers are probably not much different from Homelander's, or at least not much different in strength. Otherwise, Vought International wouldn't have kept him hidden like this."

"So what?" The Butcher rubbed his beard irritably. "Do you think I should treat him like a god? Or raise him as some kind of super weapon so he can betray his own family? Or use him as leverage to threaten Walter or as a bargaining chip?"

"I thought I had already seen how low you could go."

"I have no intention of doing any of that, and I'm too lazy to be a superhuman babysitter," the butcher immediately retorted. "I'm already being lenient enough by just leaving him here to fend for himself."

"You need to think carefully about what will happen if Ryan doesn't receive any proper education, becomes an orphan without parents, and then grows up to be eighteen years old?"

The butcher was speechless for a moment.

“A sapling won’t grow straight if it’s not pruned. He could be a superhuman with abilities comparable to Homelander, but if you let him grow wild on his own, you’ll only end up with a second Homelander—or worse.”

Ma Zhaodi sighed: "Think about it carefully. Walter has already decided that he will be the next leader of the Seven. If you abandon him, it will be no different from handing him over to Walter."

"No, no, absolutely not!" Becca finally realized what was happening and exclaimed, "We went through so much trouble to raise him inside the wall, completely cutting off anything related to superheroes from his life—TV shows, books, news. Ryan just needs to be a normal kid!"

"The idea is good, but it's like an ostrich burying its head in the sand."

Ma Zhaodi said, "He was born with superpowers. Denying that will only make your family education even more of a failure. Only by acknowledging the status quo and facing reality can we find and solve problems. Acknowledge that Ryan is a superpowered person and teach him how to properly use and control his abilities so that he doesn't become the next Homelander."

After hearing Ma Zhaodi's words, Butcher and Becca fell silent for a moment. Ma Zhaodi ignored them, dragged the two out of the wallpaper room, and then opened the door to bring Ryan out as well.

Ryan didn't notice the strange atmosphere between the Butcher and Becca. Instead, he turned to look at the wallpaper room with an excited expression on his face.

"Wow, what is this? Magic? Are you a magician?"

"What's your name? Do you have a nickname like 'magician'?"

"My name isn't Harry Potter, and I haven't survived anything extraordinary."

Ma Zhaodi rolled his eyes and put away the wallpaper on the wall. The other three members of the black-robed squad next to him watched the butcher's complicated family drama with seriousness and interest, without saying a word, and expressed their amazement.

Fortunately, the butcher's embarrassment didn't last long.

Because a press conference program was being broadcast on the television next to them, and the person on the program was Shen Hai. He was standing under a barrage of cameras and microphones from the media, and he looked a little nervous.

The speech was being held at the dolphinarium in Oceania. At that moment, the dolphins in the pool were jumping around and didn't seem to be in the half-dead state described in the news.

As the news broadcasts became increasingly noisy, the black-robed squad all turned their attention in that direction.

(End of this chapter)