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

Chapter 231 Are you homesick, Jason?

"咚咚-"

Jason stared at the person on the screen without taking off his headphones: "It's not time for minors to log off yet."

The door opened and Bruce, in his pajamas, leaned against the doorframe. "We need to talk."

Jason pursed his lips and said nothing, his attention still on the computer, constantly moving the mouse and keyboard. Bruce was also quite patient, maintaining his posture and watching Jason play for the remaining ten minutes.

"Oh—shit!" The time limit for minors popped up on the screen, followed by "Shutting down." Jason took off his headphones and leaned back in his computer chair. "I want to talk to you too... Let me finish this game before forcing the computer to shut down. Do you know how many people curse me in my emails every time I log in?!"

"You need to manage your time scientifically, Jason. You can't finish a game in ten minutes. That's inevitable."

"Is this what you came here to tell me?" Jason was a little angry and unreasonable - it was clearly him who started the topic.

"You know what I mean." He used the question as an affirmative, resembling Batman's tone, but after thinking about it, Bruce softened his tone: "Are you homesick, Jason?"

Jason:?

He asked cautiously, "Who gave you this illusion?"

It was a misunderstanding caused by Jason running away from home that night and going to Crime Alley, and then stopping in front of his original home.

Bruce knew he was using rhetorical questions to express his attitude, so his slightly tense back relaxed and he changed the subject: "Your attitude towards crime is too extreme."

"You mean I kicked the rapist's penis?" Jason shrugged. "South Korea uses chemical castration on rapists, and the recidivism rate has dropped by 92 percent. Don't tell me you haven't heard that statistic."

"Are you going to criticize the law too?"

Bruce does not criticize the law; all he upholds is the orthodoxy and enforcement of the law.

"This is Korean law," he said. "Besides, I don't think we have the right to punish others in lieu of the law."

"So you just watch those bastards continue to do what they say, despite repeated warnings?" Jason stood up from his chair and paced back and forth. "They commit crimes, catch people, beat them up, throw them into the police station, and then they come out for whatever reason and continue committing crimes... Does that change anything?"

"Phew, just like a clown."

"If we had broken his neck earlier, or just killed him, how could those kids have died?" Jason was still upset about the Joker distributing laughing gas balloons a month ago.

"So you believe that when the law doesn't work as it should, citizens have the right to seek justice for themselves, and bystanders have the same right?"

Jason was silent for a moment, probably guessing what Bruce was going to say next.

"This defeats the purpose of the original intention. If we claim to be superior and able to replace the law, then one day we will rule the world."

Perhaps because it was Bruce talking to Jason, rather than Batman talking to Robin, Bruce broke things down and spoke about his concerns about Jason's increasingly violent behavior.

Jason's attention was elsewhere. He glanced at Bruce suspiciously. Although he didn't think he could hide the fact that he left Wayne Manor to hang out in Crime Alley, it shouldn't be so detailed.

"Auberon Sexton?" he said.

Bruce smiled implicitly: "I gave him the opportunity to interview the Joker." In exchange for all the details of that night.

Faced with disapproving gazes, Jason cursed and turned to close the door.

"No, Jason, calm down." Bruce stretched out his foot and firmly pressed against the door, while raising his hands and pressing down: "No matter what you are thinking now, I don't mean that."

……

Mr. Wayne's face-to-face meeting vividly portrayed Lucian as an example of educational failure through the plot of "tired old father and rebellious son".

Before Lucien could think of a reason to refuse, he offered to exchange the Joker's interview opportunity for the details of that night.

At that time, Bruce Wayne crossed his arms and looked at me sincerely with his blue eyes.

When this playboy is willing to use his charm that has nowhere else to display, even dogs can be affectionate.

……

Lucien knew this was contradictory and imprudent.

But to be honest.

Isn’t this exciting?

Think about it, the culprit who made the Joker what he is today, the person Batman is looking for but has no trace of, and now he is about to interview the Joker through Wayne's connections - isn't this exciting?

It feels unbearable.

……

Jason grew up in Crime Alley and learned the law of survival to "fight violence with violence" rather than uphold the orthodoxy of the law. As he grew older and encountered more scum, this idea became more and more intense.

Add to that a bit of teenage rebellion... In short, after the death of his family, Jason climbed out of the Lazarus Pool and completely transformed into an anti-hero who "fights violence with violence" and "stops killing with killing": the Red Hood.

Of course, Jason is still under the wings of the Batcave, and has become extremely irritable due to the friction between what he learned and the laws of survival.

There really should be an Injustice game to cool him down.

When Lucian told Bruce everything, he could fully foresee the quarrel between the two, and even guessed the content of the quarrel. Batman has conflicts with each Robin, and he can just identify the problem - this is the power of the God's perspective.

"You have two hours for the interview, and the interview transcript needs to be reviewed."

"clear."

The door opened and Lucian walked in. He saw the Joker sitting in the interrogation chair with his head down, not looking at him.

Perhaps no one in the world can recognize what Lucien is, but the Joker will definitely be able to tell him apart at first sight. Therefore, the Joker recognizes Lucien and can equate him with Tom, who injected him with an unknown drug, leading to this situation.

But the clown had no intention of exposing the truth and pretended not to know him, just like he did with other people, with his back hunched and no desire to speak.

"Good afternoon, I'm Auberon Sexton," Lucian introduced himself. "I have a few questions I'd like answered."

There's not much to say about the interview process. The Joker's answers were official and boring, and the aura surrounding him was no longer strange, dangerous, but fatally attractive, but rather like an old man who was about to die.

...Lucian had originally expected that both parties would pretend not to know each other and tease Batman, but the Joker had no intention of cooperating. His answers only had subject, predicate, and object. He did not use any adjectives, nor did he say anything about "love" or "hate".

Chapter 232 The Death of the Clown

This felt unfamiliar to Lucien.

He tapped the table with the pen cap and said, "I've heard of an argument that there will always be clowns in Gotham. This was proposed by you... Let's not discuss why you think so."

"Forgive my intrusion - now, do you think there will be another clown later?" It can be regarded as an explicit provocation.

Hearing this, the clown finally looked up at him reluctantly. However, after a moment of silence, he neither revealed Lucian's identity nor said anything that might lead to misunderstanding. Instead, he shook his head meekly and said, "I don't know."

……

Jokers nowadays are not interesting at all.

Although this is the ending that more people would like to see.

From a big picture perspective, Lucien also accepted it... but it just didn't make sense, like a friend or enemy who was ignorant of the seriousness of the matter but full of vigor and ambition, suddenly returning to a simple life and ignoring any invitation from anyone.

Lucien thought he would continue to argue with the Joker about the effectiveness of the Lucien Virus for a while, and perhaps even get involved in The Killing Joke or Death in the Family.

But now, looking at the man in front of him, who was huddled and trembling in his restraints as best he could, like an ordinary middle-aged man, or perhaps a seriously ill or mentally ill clown, Lucien suddenly asked, "What's your name?"

Not Jack Napier, not Arthur Fleck, not Jerome Valeska... The Joker said a strange name that had nothing to do with the Joker: Wilson Edwards.

When the time came, Lucien left the room and looked at the clown's hunched figure through the glass. He thought: Maybe in this world, the clown has been defeated by him.

…This is unreal.

Lucian has never defeated the Joker. It has always been the Joker who defeated him. Whether it is from the setting, the future, the reality, or any other level, the Joker has always won... Although he has never ridiculed Lucian for winning, nor has he taken anything from him.

But "winning" itself is an attitude. It gave Lucien an invisible sense of oppression, causing him to struggle and grow in a twisted way under the oppression.

The clown was a mountain that could not be moved, a steel needle that pierced the apple...but now, the mountain has been moved and the steel needle has been removed.

In a way Lucien hadn't expected.

He used one hand to stroke the tendons of the other, feeling them carefully, the skin like a taut plastic film covering the flesh.

He can actually kill the Joker with himself...

"Mr. Sexton, do you have any other works?"

The police officer who had been waiting for a long time took the record book and checked it, interrupting his thoughts.

Lucian paused for a moment, then quickly turned embarrassed and shy: "...I submitted an article, but it was unfortunately never reported."

"I heard you're British. For Holmes' sake, perhaps you could write a detective novel about Batman."

"...Oh, that's a good suggestion." Lucian took the notebook and said vaguely, "But I still want to prove myself."

"Excuse me," the officer said after flipping through the records. "You're being too cautious. The last reporter asked Dick about the Joker, and the one before that twisted the relationship between Batman and the Joker into a sizzling story. Look at what this record says."

"Why is he so keen on criminal activities? What's going on psychologically when he kills people? What does Batman mean? Will the Joker appear again..."

"Please," he said, speaking with a tone of someone who had experienced it. "Few people would buy into this kind of interview. Besides, these questions have already been asked by others."

He's right, these are overused questions.

But compared to asking about the Joker's sex life, this popular question can actually arouse suspicion in the future when Batman doubts the identity of "Oberon Sexton".

Seeing Lucien remain silent, the police officer lost the desire to continue speaking. He finally warned: "No matter what the Joker says, don't take it seriously. It's different now. He can no longer hurt anyone."

"Okay...thank you." Lucien smiled, packed up his things, and left the police station.

[I interviewed the city's most notorious criminal and asked him why he committed the crime and why he turned himself in.

But the answer disappointed me.

He simply classified his previous crimes as antisocial personality, and described his subsequent confession as a sudden awakening... The Joker was not born because Gotham was bad, nor did he disappear because Gotham became better.

Perhaps I shouldn't bother with a single criminal, no matter how famous he is.

I was supposed to go to Blackgate Prison and interview the most common criminals, the ones who far outnumbered the rest of the city.

What I heard from them is more reliable and authoritative than what I heard from clowns or other crazy people.

----

The Joker has been dealt with, but in the Batman story, there is another character who is as famous as the Joker.

Some say that the Joker inflicted the greatest mental trauma on Batman, while he inflicted the greatest physical trauma on Batman.

Bane - cholesterol fighter, bone setter, great revolutionary, Gotham winter swimming sponsor, bald masked man... Whether it is positive or negative, figurative or not, one thing is undeniable.

Bane defeated Batman.

……