American comic book: After mastering resurrection, I became incredibly popular.

"How far is that dock you mentioned from the Wayne Hotel?" Wang Baixi frowned.

Alfred glanced at him, a knowing glint in his eyes that had weathered countless storms. “Very far, Mr. Wang.”

"Could it be related to the figure I saw?"

“We are also investigating, but there is currently no direct evidence to suggest a connection between these events. However, the coincidence at this point in time is so striking that it cannot be ignored.”

Joshua turned and paced a couple of steps in the drawing room. "How long was it between him leaving the manor last night and that... signal loss?"

"About four hours, sir."

“Four hours is enough for a well-trained person to do a lot of things, and also enough for an equally well-trained person to set a trap.” Joshua stopped and turned around, saying, “My opinion is to send people out to search immediately; every minute we wait increases the danger.”

But Alfred did not answer immediately. He stood there with his hands crossed in front of him, looking like a telephone pole that had been blown by the wind for forty years without falling.

“Mr. Joshua, your proposal is perfectly correct in terms of pure rescue efforts. But we need to consider a more complex issue: Bruce was buried less than a week ago, and his legal heir, Dick Grayson, has gone missing. If this news gets out, how will the Gotham media report it?”

"This will undoubtedly cause a huge sensation."

He wanted to find Dick faster than anyone else, but that was the problem they faced: he had to protect the company for Bruce.

After hearing this, Joshua did not refute Alfred, but sat down on the sofa with his hands crossed on his knees. That posture reminded Wang Baixi of the portraits of Wall Street old foxes he had seen in movies.

Sitting on the other end of the sofa, Wang Baixi was conducting a more straightforward calculation in his mind.

He was thinking about the five percent of Wayne Enterprises shares that Joshua had promised.

If Wayne Enterprises' stock price continues to plummet due to the news of Dick's disappearance, his 5% stake will shrink, and wouldn't the returns he's made for all his efforts be greatly reduced?

My money!!

"So... the situation isn't just about finding someone, right? Bruce just died, and Dick has disappeared. The company's stock price has already dropped once. If it drops again, do you think someone might take advantage of this opportunity to make a move?"

Wang Baixi's face looked as if he had swallowed a fly.

Joshua's reaction was more direct. He turned sharply to stare at Wang Baixi, a glint in his grey-blue eyes. "You're right, Wang. You're absolutely right. In the business world, every crisis is accompanied by opportunity, and for some, others' crises are their opportunities. I did overlook that just now."

He stopped and turned to Alfred:

“Pennyworth, if I were the one who wanted to devour Wayne Enterprises, what would I do?”

"I would first release information that the Wayne family heir is mentally unstable, and then find a few media outlets to write a few reports about the 'Wayne family curse' to drive the stock price down to its lowest point."

"Once the stock price hits rock bottom, I will use a series of complex financial instruments to begin acquiring shares scattered across the market."

"By the time Wayne Group realized what was happening, I already had enough shares to challenge them at the shareholders' meeting."

Alfred's face remained expressionless. "Your familiarity with modern financial instruments surprises me somewhat, Mr. Joshua."

“The essence of business never changes; only the tools change.” Joshua gave a wry smile. “You now have all sorts of derivative products that I’ve never even heard of, but all these fancy things ultimately point to only one goal: to buy things from others at a lower price.”

Just as Joshua was about to continue sharing his insights on hostile takeovers, the door to the reception room was pushed open.

Tim Drake walked in.

The boy's face bore a tired expression that was far more mature than that of his peers.

Without exchanging pleasantries with anyone, he walked straight to the center of the reception room and said to everyone, "Gentlemen, Alfred is right, Dick is missing. Our top priority is to find him, whether he is dead or alive, we need a definite answer."

Being unsure of one's fate does not necessarily mean that one is dead.

If you live, find the truth.

If he dies, then bring him back to life!

"Do you have any leads, kid?" Joshua asked.

"A little."

Tim walked to the giant display screen embedded in the wall in the corner of the living room, took out a palm-sized tablet from his pocket, and swiped it a few times on the screen.

Then, the screen lit up, displaying a holographic map of Gotham City, followed by a yellow trajectory line that started from Wayne Manor, passed through downtown Gotham City, and finally ended at Adams Pier.

“This is Dick’s movement trajectory last night,” Tim said, looking as if he were giving an academic presentation with a headache. “But I have some bad news for you. His positioning system malfunctioned not because of equipment failure, but because it was interfered with. The source of the interference is in the dock area, and the interference is strong enough to disable the positioning function of all electronic devices within a radius of 200 meters.”

Wang Baixi stared at the yellow trajectory line on the screen, and an idea suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Did Bane do this?" Wang Baixi asked directly. "I mean, Bane killed Batman before, and now Dick has disappeared. Don't you think this is too much of a coincidence? Could it be that Bane wasn't satisfied and wanted to take out the entire Bat-family one by one?"

Tim tapped the edge of the tablet twice, and the map on the screen shrank by one level.

"There is no direct evidence that Bain is involved in this matter!"

More direct evidence!

“However, no matter who it is, we have to find Dick.” Tim put the tablet back in his pocket and calmly looked at Wang Baixi. “Mr. Wang, we called you here because we actually want to ask you for another favor. Didn’t you say you could sense the residual consciousness of non-human, inanimate objects?”

Wang Baixi was stunned for a moment, then immediately realized what Tim was talking about.

Those rats, pigeons, wild cats, and cockroaches.

Those little animals that crawl, fly, run, and die in every corner of Gotham.

No one cares about them when they are alive, but what about the fragmentary information they leave behind after they die?

Just like he boasted back then: he could use his Deathrattle ability to create an intelligence network covering the entire Gotham.

"You want me to use Death Language to hear what those little animals saw before they died?" Wang Baixi was both amused and exasperated. "Tim, are you sure those little animals can provide any useful information? They spend most of their time looking for food and avoiding predators. Besides, we don't have much time either."

“So we need to narrow down the search.” Tim turned the display back on, and three highlighted areas appeared on the holographic map. “We created this map based on Dick’s movements before the signal disappeared, marking every street and intersection he passed through. If you can collect the residual consciousness of the inhuman and dead objects in these areas, you might find some clues that we can’t see with the naked eye.”

After listening to the conversation, Joshua frowned deeply. "So your plan is to have the king talk to the mice and pigeons to see if any of the mice happened to see Dick being kidnapped?"

Tim nodded.

“That’s right, Mr. Joshua.”

"In fact, we have checked all the monitoring systems and satellite images in the bat cave. The period when Dick disappeared coincided with foggy weather and signal interference."

"And now, the crucial clue we're looking for is likely among the non-human creatures at the scene."

“Ahem, the problem is,” Wang Baixi raised a hand, “even if I could hear what the little animals saw before they died, I wouldn’t know exactly what they saw. Gotham is so big, and there are so many rats. I can’t possibly ask them one by one, can I? I’d have to keep asking them until next year.”

Then, Tim tapped the screen twice more.

At that moment, the map on the display screen switched to another display mode, with three different colored trajectory lines radiating outward from Dick's last location point, extending in three different directions.

“It’s not entirely hopeless. We can narrow down the search further, provided we have more intelligence,” Tim pondered. “Hmm… I’ve got someone in mind. She might have Dick’s location information, and this information doesn’t come from our regular surveillance system.”

"There are other experts?" Wang Baixi wondered to himself.

"Who is that person?" Joshua asked before he could.

"oracle."

Chapter Fourteen Barbara Gordon

"oracle?"

Joshua couldn't understand, but he was deeply moved.

"Aren't we in the 21st century? Can't we handle something more modern?"

Clearly, this 19th-century old man had no idea what the "oracle" Tim Drake was referring to was.

In fact, "Oracle" was the codename used by Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, after she was crippled by the Joker and went into hiding. Even during this time, she continued to provide intelligence support to Batman and others using her exceptional hacking skills.

Although Wang Baixi was naive, he was aware of this.

The question is, should he show an expression of "Haha, so this is the oracle you were talking about?"? His intuition tells him that there's no need to do so.

So he feigned confusion and asked, "Oracle? Sounds like the code name of some kind of superhero?"

“You know her!” Tim Drake keenly perceived what was behind Wang Boxi’s clumsy disguise.

"How did you even figure that out...?" Wang Baixi thought to himself.

“Mr. Wang, your reasoning is too accurate. Can you tell me, this time it was your animal friend who gave you the information again?” Tim continued to question.

“Oh no, not this time.” Wang Baixi shrugged naturally. “I was just thinking: since you said it’s a ‘person,’ then this person must have a close relationship with you, otherwise you wouldn’t have thought of this person, so I can only make this guess.”

Tim then lowered his guard, and Joshua also realized what was going on, saying, "I see! Child, you just mentioned 'her,' who exactly is this 'oracle'?"

“The Oracle is the daughter of Police Chief James Gordon, and she’s also one of our partners,” Tim said.

"Police Chief?" Joshua was surprised, wondering if the Wayne family's network of influence was that vast? The police chief's daughter was even here?

Why do you think she might have clues?

“Barbara and Mr. Dick once had a romantic relationship…” Alfred explained to Joshua with an unchanged expression, but then he realized that saying this might portray Barbara as someone who still stalks her ex-boyfriend after the breakup, so he changed the subject: “Ahem, anyway, she is proficient in information technology and is quite concerned about Mr. Dick.”

Tim is actually a pretty good hacker, but he pales in comparison to Barbara.

"I see..." Joshua understood a lot after hearing Alfred's explanation.

On the other hand, Wang Baixi had no interest in the various pairings in the world of American comics, which were practically permutations and combinations, and instead raised a more important question:

"What about the deceased? And the figure I saw in the hotel building? Should we continue the investigation?"

“Of course,” Tim said, arms crossed, his tone urgent. “While these two matters don’t seem directly related at the moment, it’s hard to say they’re not connected. I’ve already sent the Angel of Death to investigate the deceased’s identity.”

Alfred chimed in, "I've also had people check the surveillance footage from the surrounding neighborhoods as much as possible, hopefully we can find clues about young master Dick."

"In that case, shall we go find that little girl named Barbara next?" Joshua asked.

"No, no, no! It wasn't us!"

But then Wang Baixi walked up to Joshua with a smile, trying to give him the most constructive advice.

"I think that at this time, Mr. Joshua, you should take charge of what you do best! That is, the business world!"

Dude, don't get involved. Do you have superpowers? Do you think you're Batman?

If something happens to you, wouldn't I have to be resurrected again?

“But… I also want to fight crime!!” Joshua’s eyes suddenly lit up.

Clearly, this is an unrealistic fantasy.

If he's fighting crime, what nickname should he have? Batman? Wayne Knight? The point is, you're just a mortal, so just accept your place in society.

Even the old butler disagreed with Joshua's idea.