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

After the door to the duty room closed, Joshua sat down in a chair. Wang Baixi poured him a glass of water, which he took and drank in one gulp. Then he stared straight at Wang Baixi with his gray-blue eyes.

“Sir, you don’t seem surprised that you’re dead?” Wang Baixi scratched his head.

“Death is not scary; death is like a cool summer night, allowing one to sleep peacefully without worry,” Joshua said with a touch of romanticism. “Go on talking about American history. You just mentioned the outbreak of the Civil War. So, which side was good and which side was bad?”

“Okay…it should be the Union Army, you know, the troops led by Lincoln.” Wang Baixi said, his face full of black lines.

"Did Lincoln win?" Joshua asked eagerly.

“We won,” Wang Baixi said gravely. “The North won, and slavery has been abolished.”

He wondered if the guy in front of him was some kind of racist. But the result was beyond his expectations. After hearing this, Joshua's shoulders visibly relaxed, and he said something in an almost self-talking tone. Wang Baixi only understood the part "thank God".

Then the second question came right away.

"By the way, you're Chinese, right? How come there are Chinese people in Gotham?"

He knew that a railway company was planning to bring in Chinese foreign workers, but he had only been dead for a few years, and it was already starting so soon?

Wang Baixi thought for a moment and felt that explaining globalization was too complicated, so he just casually said, "It's complicated. Basically, back then, the streets were full of Irish and Italians, but now the streets are full of people from all over the world."

Joshua raised one eyebrow, seemingly finding the explanation easy to understand.

Just as he was about to say something, his gaze was suddenly drawn to the radio on the table.

A late-night talk show was playing on the radio, the host joking about the plummeting stock price after Bruce Wayne's ascension. Joshua walked over, circled half the table, and examined the plastic shell from different angles.

"This box is talking," Joshua exclaimed, greatly shocked. "Who's inside?"

"There's no person inside, sir. This is called a radio. You can imagine: someone is speaking from a very far place, and this box can pick up what they're saying and play it back to you."

"Huh?" Joshua frowned, then tapped the radio twice more, as if to confirm that it was indeed hollow. "You mean, sound can travel through thin air without wires?"

"Yes, wireless."

Joshua was silent for two seconds, then seemed to laugh in anger. He straightened up, crossed his arms, and looked at Wang Baixi with a certainty that said, "I have seen through everything."

“Let me tell you, son. I’ve seen arc lamps and Morse code machines,” Joshua said sarcastically. “But you’re saying sound can fly out of thin air? Without even wires? And fit into such a small box? Impossible, absolutely impossible!”

He reached out and patted Wang Baixi hard on the shoulder.

"You made up those words!"

"This is definitely magic! Just like what you did to me!"

Wang Baixi opened his mouth to refute, but then realized that he really couldn't. He was just a liberal arts student who suffered a lot of discrimination in society. You could ask him to talk about American history, but don't expect him to explain the principles of radio.

“Sir, it’s entirely possible.” He could only offer the weakest excuse in the end, “Everything I said is true, it’s just a bit complicated to explain.”

“Really?” Joshua was clearly unconvinced. He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and adopted the posture of a shrewd businessman who had gained the upper hand at the negotiating table.

“Alright, let’s not talk about this anymore,” Joshua sighed. “Anyway, we’re in Gotham now, right? My brother Solomon should be running the Wayne family.”

After all, he died without leaving any descendants.

"To be precise, it's your brother's descendants who are managing it. Oh no, to be precise, your brother's line has died out!" Wang Baixi said with a wry smile. "The last head of the Wayne family was Bruce Wayne, who passed away not long ago. He's currently playing a resurrection match down there."

"Ah! What year is it now?" Joshua ignored Wang Baixi's carefree banter and instead began to think about the possibility of him coming to the future.

"2026."

The number made Joshua's breath catch in his throat. He looked down at his hands, covered in mud, turning them over and over, as if to confirm that they were indeed still on his body, still able to move, and had not turned into a pile of bones.

The silence lasted only four or five seconds before he looked up again.

Is the Wayne family mansion still there?

“Here.” Wang Baixi glanced at the Gotham City map hanging on the wall and pointed casually. “Look, it’s right here.”

Joshua stood up and walked to the map. He immediately spotted the location of Wayne Manor and his gaze lingered there for a long time.

“When I died…this place wasn’t finished yet,” he murmured to himself.

Then, Joshua turned around, his expression as solemn as iron.

"When did my brother's descendant die?"

Wang Baixi thought deeply for a second or two before answering the question.

"Yesterday? Maybe the day before yesterday! Hmm, I don't know..."

Chapter Two: I Admire Mr. Wayne

After Wang Baixi finished speaking, the duty room was quiet for a few seconds.

Joshua Wayne stood in front of the Gotham City map, his muddy hands still resting on the location of Wayne Manor.

But when he turned around, all the composure on his face had vanished.

“Yesterday, or the day before yesterday,” Joshua repeated the time. “How come Bruce Wayne didn’t even leave behind any descendants! Where are his parents?”

"He's dead too!"

"Damn it, that means the Wayne family is now without anyone in charge!"

"That's how it is in theory."

"But what's the reality?"

"Actually... Wayne Group's stock price is plummeting, and the board members are probably scrambling for seats, but it's all just a technical adjustment, so don't panic. I guess the Wayne family still has an old butler holding everything together."

“A butler?” Joshua frowned. “You mean the Wayne family is currently managed by a butler?”

“Yes, his name was Alfred Pennyworth,” Wang Boxi recalled. “He was Bruce Wayne’s butler for decades. If nothing unexpected happened, he should have been in charge of handling Mr. Wayne’s funeral arrangements and company affairs after his death… Oh wait, why am I telling you this?”

“Because you were the one who dragged me out of the field,” Joshua said matter-of-factly, “and you seem to know at least a lot of things, much better than I was wandering the streets on my own. Besides, you seem to know a lot about our family affairs…”

I only know a little bit about it.

He can't exactly say you're all characters from a comic book, can he? That's way more ridiculous than him having magic powers.

On the other side, Joshua sat back down in his chair and then pointed to another chair opposite him.

"sit."

Wang Baixi sat down instinctively.

After he sat down, he realized: This is my duty room, why are you letting me sit here?

But before he could say anything, Joshua continued with his questions.

"Is this butler named Alfred reliable?"

"As far as I know, it is very reliable."

"Does he have the ability to stabilize the situation?"

Wang Baixi was stumped by this question. In his mind, Alfred was an all-around old butler who could be a doctor, a driver, a technical support, and a spiritual mentor.

But can he manage a business empire with a market value of over 100 million?

He really didn't know.

“I’m not sure,” Wang Baixi said honestly, “but please trust him.”

Joshua laughed out loud. "Believe? Your Majesty, I've managed companies before. You should know that the word 'belief' doesn't exist in the creed of capitalism."

Then, he asked a question that almost made Wang Baixi fall off his chair.

"What do you think would happen if it were me?"

"you?"

“Yes, me,” Joshua said, as if he were talking about a perfectly normal business deal. “I am a direct descendant of the Wayne family. Bruce Wayne did not leave any heirs, so now, the only person still alive in this family with Wayne blood is me.”

Yes, this chain of logic is indeed flawless. In a sense, he is indeed the most legitimate living heir of the Wayne family.

The prerequisite is that someone can prove his identity.

“Wait a minute, sir,” Wang Baixi raised his hand, “You need evidence. You can’t just walk up to Wayne Manor and knock on the door saying, ‘Hello, I’m your ancestor,’ they’ll think you’re crazy. I can take you for a DNA test, what do you think?”

"DNA testing? What new term are you making up now??"

Wang Baixi looked at him speechlessly, then shook her head. "Fine, you can continue. Do you have any good ideas? Like facial recognition?"

“Well, although I don’t understand what you’re saying, I have a way to prove my identity.” Joshua’s voice turned serious. “Child, do you know what’s beneath Wayne Manor?”

The first answer that popped into Wang Baixi's mind was "bat cave," but he swallowed the word back.

"What could it be? It's not some kind of cave, is it?"

“So you really knew! You’re a powerful wizard!” Joshua raised an eyebrow, a hint of approval in his eyes. “It seems my family didn’t seal that place off after I died. Yes, that cave. I hid things and people there when I was alive.”

"Hidden someone there?"

“Yes, I’ve been helping Southern slaves escape to the North since the 19s. Wayne Manor was located at the end of an escape route. I dug a passage between the manor’s drainage outlets and the caves to hide the escapees and then send them to the next destination when the time was right.”

He spoke in a very calm tone, but Wang Baixi knew very well that this was a very important chapter in American history.

He continued, “But you should also know that there are some inhuman, conservative people in the North who sent bounty hunters to hunt me down. At that time, I was in the woods, not on the manor.”

“Unfortunately, as you can see, I eventually died, but thankfully I still had a breath left,” Joshua sighed. “But I knew I wouldn’t make it, so I crawled toward the manor’s drain.”

Why go there?

“Because at that time, the abolitionist movement was a crime under the law,” Joshua said, a hint of irony in his eyes. “If I were to die like this, someone would trace the entire escape network. The Wayne family would also be guilty of harboring runaway slaves, and my family would be ruined because of me.”

“So I must die on the plantation. If I die there, I will be a businessman murdered in his own basement, not a criminal who helped a slave escape. In this way, my brother Solomon can preserve the family’s reputation and business.”

Finally, he gave a bitter smile: "Guess what? I made the right move. You see, more than a hundred years have passed, and nobody knows about it."

Wang Baixi pondered for a long time.

He wondered what Bruce Wayne's reaction would be if he knew that his family's underground cave had once been a transit point for an underground railway.

Oh no, most importantly, the underground caverns of Wayne Manor have been transformed into a bat cave, haven't they?

"So, this is your evidence?" Wang Baixi asked.

“Yes!” Joshua scoffed. “The location of the secret door from the manor’s drain to the cave, the markings at the crossroads, the direction of the underground river… all of these are in my head. After all, for me, death is a thing of the past.”

“Even after more than a hundred years, things made of stone will never change. I can take Mr. Alfred down for a walk and point out to him which corner I personally carved out.”