Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

……

With only the light coming in through the glass, without lighting a candle or turning on the light, Lucien ate the meal cleanly, scraping the last spoonful of mushroom soup to the bottom and putting it into his mouth.

Jenny wanted to clear the dishes and wash them.

"Don't go." Lucian said the first sentence, and moved his eyes to the face of the mannequin: "My relationship with you is over. In my impression, you are already dead."

“…but you are willing to eat the food I cook.” Jenny said hesitantly in a low voice.

"Yes, because my wife forgot to make breakfast for me before she died... I regretted it for a long time."

Jenny's hands were twirling the hem of her clothes as she said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's all..."

"Stop." Lucien interrupted. "I'm not here to put on a show with you... I'm not here to listen to your apologies or your difficulties. In fact, I'm here to kill you, Jenny."

He put the gun on the table. The dark and smooth mechanical creation was not something that flesh and blood could resist, but Lucian just put it on the table. He did not pick it up, but clenched his hands into fists, then put his elbows on the table, raised his arms, and together with his fists, covered half of his face.

Make green eyes more prominent.

"I've witnessed the cremation of almost everyone who died before me... I hate resurrection, and knowing you're alive makes me hate it even more." He said, "I've already invested my emotions, including the sadness of my wife's death and the pain of my child being dug up. I'm even willing to join the resistance, oppose Paul, and become the Joker just for what you want."

"But your heavy lifting is wearing on me—it makes my emotions cheap and unnecessary, and makes me look like a fool—it's pointless, you're playing me."

"You're not the first person to play tricks on me, but that was a showdown between intelligence, strategy, intelligence, and force. I failed only because of my incompetence."

"But you were being emotional—I thought it was a genuine thing, well, I just thought."

Lucian sighed, "This is terrible... You're not even willing to sacrifice your life to kill me... No one is willing to die with Lucian, so Lucian is still alive, and he crawled back from the clown."

Jenny's cheeks flushed slightly, as if with shame, or perhaps embarrassment. Lucien had no idea what she was thinking, nor did he have the patience to analyze her emotions. "So I came here to kill you—I have to make sure I wasn't so cheap."

He raised his gun, pointed it at Jenny, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot was a bit muffled due to the silencer.

……

Lucien went to the kitchen, found a kitchen knife, and used it to split Jenny's head open. He stirred the sticky material with his hands and finally found a very thin and tiny chip.

He rinsed it with water and dried it with a towel.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"What is this called, human-machine love?"

……

The beautiful lighter made a crisp sound, and the flame rose and began to burn the chip.

It was so small that Lucian's fingers were burned trying to hold it.

……

It became bent, shrunken, deformed, and completely destroyed.

This time Jenny died.

Chapter 148 Batman

Rather than suffering in one's lifetime, it is better to achieve black sublimation in the midst of the collapse of heaven and earth.

—Camus

……

Pushing open the door, a huge, cumbersome and unnecessary container was revealed, and a human figure was clearly reflected on the smooth ceiling above.

Lucien stood at the door, looking around carefully.

Pipes, liquids, lines, meters, bubbles... the whole room is like a part of Bruce's body.

"I didn't expect your good son to be an Oedipus... He's playing a lot of games - props, transformation, human-machine, imprisonment, coercion, control, incest."

"Do you have a chastity ring?" She approached, tapping her knuckles on the bed, looking him down condescendingly and scoffing, "Sorry, I forgot you don't have any below the waist."

Obscene and vulgar.

……

Lucien didn't get any response. His eyes searched and naturally fell on the object stuck in Bruce's trachea. He sighed: "...What a good son, Wayne."

With no intention of removing it from Bruce, Lucien simply tried to twist the device that secured his head.

He helped him up again - as if he were a plastic doll, ensuring that he could see the scene he wanted him to see.

……

Arthur brought in Paul, who acted like a competent assistant—laying the sharp boning knife on the ground.

After making sure there is nothing else needed, leave the room and close the door.

……

"Want to know about my collaboration with your Joker?" Lucian said to Bruce as he sat aside.

The air flowed out of the trachea, and naturally no response was received.

"He was in his twilight years, and I inherited the title of clown. I gave the Dionysus gene to my good son—the one just mentioned. It's like a tooth changing, and he's that baby tooth. Sooner or later, it will fall out—sooner or later, he will die. He and I both knew this, so we made a pact."

Lucien told the story in a tone that was that of a child, neither hurried nor slow, without any trace of the vulgarity he had just used.

"I said I was going to calm you down - to become the Batman that everyone knows, and then drive you crazy. It's not that crazy is not allowed, but I think crazy should have something to do with the Joker... like what I'm doing now."

There should have been some response, but Lucian still didn't get it, which made him feel a little uncomfortable - how could someone who wanted to confide in someone not speak?

This closed Bruce's open trachea, allowing air to flow into his nasal cavity, and his vocal cords vibrated to produce syllables:

"In my current state, no matter what, I won't be of any use. What you're doing is meaningless."

"Why is it meaningless?" Lucian felt much more comfortable:

"You should understand what I mean... It's not about the results of this matter. The results themselves are superficial and two-dimensional, and I can't imagine any depth... The meaning of this matter lies in itself, in the process of doing it."

Lucian walked up to Paul with a knife, tapped the cut on his arm with the flat of the blade, and looked back at Bruce: "It fits the character's behavioral logic and satisfies the audience's curiosity... That's the meaning."

……

Blue eyes appear gray in bright light, but in low light, the color itself stands out.

But Lucian didn't know why. He looked at Bruce and felt that his irises were not as blue as he imagined, until Bruce suddenly spoke:

“I saw your speech.”

"……How about it?"

"That will only lead to the destruction of the city."

"Destroy it, the question is - how do I compare to the old Joker?" Lucian cared more about himself, especially how he was viewed by Batman.

"To encourage them in the name of freedom, you know it will only lead to them killing themselves."

"This has nothing to do with me. I mean, what about me?"

"It's terrible." Bruce stared at him, his face expressionless, and said coldly: "I thought you would be different."

"Stop it! I really can't stand it anymore—same! Different! You're all comparing me to him...even me!" Lucian suddenly exploded. He looked at Bruce, and there was even hatred in his green eyes.

"You are the least qualified person to say this, Wayne. You betrayed me, you mistook me for him, and you tried to kill me too!"

Bruce planned the explosion because he caught the shadow of the Joker in Lucian.

Lucian knew exactly what would happen - but he didn't believe it. Relying on his immortality, he naively didn't believe Bruce would do this.

But now, looking at Batman's old face and gray eyes, he couldn't vent his anger: "I'm sorry, I shouldn't treat you like this - you are different people."

Lucian transferred his feelings for young Bruce to old Batman, and was also seeking almost equal affection and trust.

"Let's not talk about this... let's change the subject. Did you see the scene where I killed your son?"

"..."

Silence is sometimes an answer.

So Lucien smiled, and leisurely took out a handful of black ash from his pocket as if he was in his comfort zone.

"I'm not sure there's any part of him here—I burned him, and there's nothing left."

Gray rose in the air, like a heavy mountain. "You want to destroy both you and me, and then leave your own son with a Gotham that is on the decline but not in any major crisis."

"A father's love is like the collapse of mountains and the splitting of seas."

The smile widened: "You failed."

I sighed: "This is a rare victory for me."

……

What Batman probably didn't expect was that Lucian could survive the explosion.

He hadn't anticipated that the rebels, who had a huge advantage, would be easily defeated, and Damian would be easily killed.

……

"I understand your confusion, Batman."

"It's like cheating, right? I can tell you, it's not that I'm so amazing—if I stand in the right wind, even a pig can take off—I'm just following the flow of things."

"This is a fallen universe. Although I can't remember the name, in the dark multiverse, destruction is more like divine intervention than salvation. Even if your explosives were ten times more powerful, even if I was constantly assassinated and stripped bare, even if I became what you are now."

"The rule is this: apples fall to the ground. Even if you try to throw it up, it will always fall to the ground."

The green eyes stared at him intently, trying to see the shadow of despair in them:

"The world is hopeless."

……

-22, with the cooperation of Batman and the Joker, sacrificed the entire Gotham and almost all the superheroes to put the world into a time stop.

-32 Lucian wanted to use this as a stepping stone to enter the bright universe... and then at the cost of his departure, the entire universe would succeed.

Now this new universe.

Since saving yourself is so difficult, what about self-destruction?