Colt hoped his mecha would be perfect. The alloy used for the mecha's skeleton had to be incredibly strong, the outer shell had to use self-repairing memory metal, Vibranium had to be included, the power source would definitely be an Arc Reactor, it needed an intelligent system, brain-computer neural interface was a must, then there were the life support system, weapon systems, defense systems..
Colt stuffed everything he had learned over the years into the mecha, much like stacking building blocks.
[Your phone has received a new message from Dad..]
A pop-up window appeared before Colt's eyes. He took a quick glance; the plasma shield held in his left hand and the force field held in his right hand collided, causing the newly assembled mecha to crash and shatter all over the screen.
Dad is coming home!
Oh my god! He's coming home this afternoon! Only three hours left!
Colt hurriedly shut off the light screen and inspected the culture dishes that Joseph had instructed him to maintain. All the cultures were full of vitality, not a single one had died, the mice had been bred into five cages..
Wait, these aren't the important things.
Colt rushed upstairs, taking the clothes and tablet Timothy had left scattered on the sofa to the second-floor guest bedroom. He also dismantled the ping-pong table in the foyer and moved it into the storage room, tidied up the slippers, leather shoes, sneakers, tactical boots left messy in the walk-in closet..
[Tim.]
Timothy was in a meeting and frowned slightly upon hearing the sound. Colt rarely communicated with him from a distance; when they weren't face-to-face, he usually sent text messages in the Encrypted Chat Group.
What happened?
Timothy rested his cheek on one hand, his fingers seemingly resting unconsciously against his ear as he watched the person speaking, letting out a sound of agreement: "Mm-hmm."
[My dad is coming back, so don't come over tonight.]
Is Dr. Joseph on vacation?
Timothy flipped through the documents in front of him but couldn't find the R&D department's report. Instead, the secretary suddenly knocked and entered, interrupting the New Energy Vehicle Project Manager's briefing.
Mr. Drake, the Frontier Lab requests your presence; they require you to go there as soon as possible.
Does it have something to do with Dr. Joseph suddenly returning home?
Timothy stood up and instructed the project manager whose report had been interrupted, "I'll take the documents back to review them. If there are any issues, I'll email you, we can discuss them in our online meeting."
The Wayne laboratory was bustling with activity, employees were whispering among themselves, creating a chaos reminiscent of a self-study session without a teacher present. However, within the gathered crowds, there were no researchers in white coats; they were all administrative or logistics staff dressed in blue, black, brown, or green.
Lucius also arrived.
After Lucius became the CEO of Wayne, his focus shifted toward corporate management. Frontline scientific research and inventions were handed over to the many researchers hired by the laboratory; Joseph was an important technical supporter for Batman, so Lucius rarely appeared in the laboratory anymore.
As soon as Timothy met with Lucius, the Executive Assistant stepped forward and reported with excitement, "Mr. Drake, Mr. Fox, we have discovered a new room-temperature superconductor. It exhibits superconductivity between -20°C and 42°C, with a stability that exceeds all known superconductors. All teams are conducting replication experiments, the fastest team has already reached 60% progress, with data consistent with Dr. Joseph's paper."
“Where is Dr. Joseph?” Lucius asked.
The Executive Assistant looked a bit embarrassed: "Dr. Joseph has gone home. Dr. Joseph's contract does not include a mandatory non-disclosure agreement, so we cannot force him to stay. Dr. Joseph has been in the laboratory for a long time without going home, he still has a special child at home.."
Lucius naturally knew what kind of contract Joseph had signed; the company's only requirement for Joseph was that any patents he invented during his period of employment would remain the property of the company.
In a conventional laboratory at a room temperature of 16 °C, irregular pieces of metal floated quietly on the workbench. Timothy flipped to the last page of the paper on the light screen, his expression looking somewhat strange.
"Timothy?" Lucius patted Timothy's shoulder.
“Oh, I didn't notice anything wrong, I just felt,” Timothy looked at Lucius, “that maybe I'm just too lucky? When I want something, it appears immediately; that kind of thing shouldn't be possible in reality, right?”
He felt that something incredibly terrible must be waiting for him.
..
Colt finally finished tidying up the messy house, before he even had a chance to take a sip of water or eat his lunch, Joseph arrived home five minutes earlier than he had said he would.
"Dad, you're home." Before the car had even come to a complete stop, Colt rushed to the front of the vehicle and enthusiastically opened the door for Joseph.
Birdie was a step slower than him, zooming down like a rocket to land on Joseph's shoulder, chirping incessantly to complain.
Joseph's heart skipped a beat, he felt that something was wrong.
Colt, you've put on a little weight; you look very healthy." Joseph hugged Colt, then gave Birdie some equally attentive pets. "You too, Red Robin; birds need to build up fat reserves to survive the winter. You're healthy and plump.
Birdie nodded its head vigorously, nuzzling Joseph's fingers, its chirping becoming soft and melodious.
Colt grabbed the bird that was acting spoiled and rolling around in Joseph's hands, protesting, "Dad, the doctor said Red Robin is too fat; he even has fatty liver and needs to lose weight."
Birdie didn't want to hear the word fat; he pecked at Colt's finger, flew onto the roof of the car, tilted his head to glare at him.
Joseph also looked at Colt, his gaze scrutinizing him, scanning him from his hair down to his heels.
Colt felt nervous under the scrutiny. He had changed his clothes—an old T-shirt paired with a long-sleeved white lab coat, matching white lab pants, slippers. He definitely hadn't accidentally put on Timothy's clothes.
"Fatty liver can't be diagnosed through an online consultation; who took it to see a doctor?" Joseph hit the nail on the head.
If only I had said I discovered it through scanning! Colt kept his hands behind his back, trying his best to make his expression appear natural and casual. "A kind netizen."
Timothy was indeed kind-hearted, they truly were online friends.
Mm." Joseph nodded, neither confirming nor denying his belief, opened the trunk for Colt to take the things. "The company will issue bonuses in a while, likely in the seven or eight-figure range, the annual salary should increase even more. If there's anything you want to buy, make a list. Since we have some time over the next couple of days, I'll go and buy them for you.
I don't lack anything." Colt followed behind Joseph, carrying the things. "You have no idea how crazy rich people are. Someone asked me to translate love letters—five hundred dollars per language, if there were many languages, the price doubled. They gave me a total of a hundred thousand dollars. I also sold some intelligence and picked up some unclaimed cryptocurrency. I'm rich.
Joseph stopped and scuffed the floor with his foot. Several places of the marble tiles in the foyer had originally been smashed, yet he didn't see those cracks that had persisted for nine years.
Colt followed Joseph's gaze toward the brand-new floor tiles, his mind racing: "Dad, I've discovered that fine control of Spiritual Power can allow objects to fuse at a molecular level."
He could indeed use Spiritual Power to repair floor tiles, but molecular-level micro-manipulation was more exhausting than maintaining a holographic simulation lab, so it wasn't worth the effort. These tiles were simply extras that Timothy had bought in excess during the renovation of the adjacent room, he was fixing them while he was at it.
Joseph nodded, seemingly convinced.
Colt moved the things to the living room.
Joseph pushed open the door to the cloakroom, finding that the full-length mirror had been replaced with a new one, a shoe bench had been added in front of the mirror.
He hung his coat on the hanger, only to find that the floor rack, which had a broken wheel and was missing two hooks, had also been replaced with a new one.
He opened the shoe cabinet and discovered that Colt had even more shoes now, along with a pair of very cute plush panda ear slippers.
He changed into the slippers and stood before the jewelry cabinet, taking off his watch, cufflinks, tie clip. He noticed that the jewelry wall Alisa had left behind now included several men's hairbands, small hairpins, hair claws, most of which were silver.
He opened his own jewelry drawer, where everything was arranged neatly, looking exactly as it had the last time he opened it. Opening a second drawer, he found several expensive luxury watches inside the once-empty drawer, along with gemstone brooches, cufflinks, tie clips—things that would never be worn by Colt..
Colt asked from outside, "Dad, how many days of vacation do you have this time?"
"Theoretically, I can take a month off, but I've accepted an invitation from Gotham University, so I'll be giving a few public lectures and then heading to Germany to see some friends," Joseph replied. He calmly closed the drawer and changed into lounge clothes, but as he turned around, he noticed a piece of red cloth peeking out from under the cabinet.
He bent down, pinched the red cloth, pulled it out, revealing a business tie. Much like the luxury watch in the drawer, it looked expensive.
Joseph shook out the tie expressionlessly, took a few steps, opened the wardrobe behind him.
Empty.
Colt's bedroom has a small walk-in closet. Most of the clothes are kept upstairs, so it is normal for this place to be empty, but there used to be many hangers in the cabinet, now even the hangers are gone. It is as if someone was in too much of a hurry when packing up the clothes and took the hangers along with them.
Joseph picked up a shirt button from the corner of the wardrobe; it was obsidian, bearing the Wayne logo, from an old brand that specialized in custom-made clothing for Wayne.
Hmph.
Joseph rolled up his tie, put away the obsidian buttons, walked out of the dressing room.
Colt was tidying up in the living room, with Birdie using its claws to help slice through the tape on the cardboard boxes, while a robotic vacuum cleaner adorned with Little Red Bird stickers whizzed around.
The living room looked quite normal, yet it was less gloomy than before and possessed a greater sense of warmth and life. A basketball hoop had been added to the wall, a basketball rolled across the floor, soft cushions had been added to the sofa, blankets were draped over the backrests.. On the coffee table sat a fish tank containing several small red and white fish, its bottom decorated with a miniature landscape.
"The fish are kept by Red Robin. I fed them this morning, so you can't feed them again," Colt reminded.
Joseph withdrew his fingers from the fish tank, leaned back against the sofa, picked up a panda-shaped throw pillow that could be unfolded into a blanket.
The Photography Club is organizing a trip to the Metropolis Zoo to photograph pandas; I asked my classmates to help buy them," Colt said, picking up a box of materials. "I'll take them to the storage room first.
Joseph watched his son's fleeing back, set down the cushion, then felt something hard in the crevice of the sofa.
A stylus with a broken tip, a red Domino Mask, with scratches on the front and traces of skincare bio-adhesive on the back.
Joseph narrowed his eyes, identifying the model of the Domino Mask.
Very good, from Red Robin.
Joseph stuffed the Domino Mask back into the crevice of the sofa exactly as it was, twirling the penless stylus between his fingertips. He picked up the takeout burger and pizza and went to the kitchen to reheat them. There was a new multi-functional smart coffee machine in the dining room, along with half a jar of coffee beans in an oversized candy jar.
He looked up, noticing the obvious fingerprints on the edge of the top cabinet, opened the door, revealing a dazzling array of art mugs. Each cup was unique, one could tell what their inspiration was at a single glance.
Gothamites' sense of aesthetics is understandable.
Joseph froze for a second, closed the cabinet door, took out some tableware from the cabinet, which integrated washing, sanitizing, storage.
There were quite a lot of common utensils in the cabinet, with enough knives, forks, chopsticks for two people. Normally, when his son was alone, he would feel that running the dishwasher for just one bowl was a waste of electricity, so he would choose to cover his bowls with plastic wrap or even use disposable bowls.
Joseph took out a plate, silently closed the cupboard, then saw the pepper jars on the transparent spice rack.
Colt doesn't eat pepper; whether it's black pepper or white pepper, he hasn't liked it since he was a child.
Joseph rubbed his forehead and opened the refrigerator to take out some milk.
The refrigerator was well-stocked with top-tier marbled steak, black truffles, caviar, along with fresh vegetables like baby bok choy, flowering cabbage, mushrooms, all labeled as organic farm produce not supplied to supermarkets. There was milk, as well as the yogurt that Colt disliked, which was also from an organic farm.
Joseph closed the refrigerator and looked at his cute and well-behaved son, who was moving goods back and forth like a robot: "Colt, take a break and come eat your favorite pizza and hamburgers."
Colt put the things down, washed his hands, sat opposite Joseph, obediently ate his pizza.
Takeout is usually not delivered to Oak Tree Manor, it wasn't convenient for Colt to go buy it himself. The less he could eat it, the more he craved it; Colt did indeed used to love this kind of junk food. But after Timothy treated him to it so many times, he felt that junk food was just so-so, wasn't nearly as delicious or nutritious as his own cooking.
“I saw that the place next door has been renovated. Have you met the new neighbors?” Joseph cautiously chose a less sensitive topic.
Colt's chewing slowed down as he nodded cautiously. "He had the road repaired, fixing the path all the way to our doorstep, even trimmed the trees along the roadside."
Joseph asked again, "Do you know when they are moving in?"
Colt swallowed the pizza with difficulty: "I'm not sure. His kitchenware isn't complete yet, the downstairs is also lacking furniture.. What I mean is, a newly renovated house needs to be aired out for a while before it's habitable."
Joseph nodded. "If they move in, let me know. Having neighbors is a hassle for us."
Colt hesitated, wanting to tell the truth, but not knowing how to say it.
Joseph stood up. "I'm going downstairs to see how that cage of mice is doing."
They're very healthy, the pups they gave birth to are healthy too; I just re-housed them today." Colt chased after him. "Dad, I bought some Vibranium.
"You bought some Vibranium?" Joseph looked very shocked.
I bought it during summer vacation, the goods only arrived after school started." Colt could hardly say he wasn't bragging. "Since Tony introduced me, the seller gave me a huge discount; he only charged 3 billion for a thousand kilograms of Vibranium. I saved a hundred kilograms for you and put it in your safe.
Whether it's a good deal or not aside, where did you get 30 billion?" Joseph thought about it and decided that even Wayne would find it difficult to produce 30 billion all at once. Although the company was wealthy, balancing the books was never easy. "Wait, Black Mask and Penguin got into a fight a while ago because of 30 billion. Was it you?
Colt: "I don't know. I picked up some cryptocurrency, there's no name on it. According to Gotham rules, whoever finds it, keeps it."
Joseph looked at his well-behaved and adorable son, unable to utter a single word of reproach. Cryptocurrency circulating on the black market truly belonged to whoever obtained it. Rather than letting Black Mask use this money to wreak havoc on Gotham, it was better to let his son take it to exchange for Vibranium.
“Next time you encounter something like this, let me know. Can you clean up the mess?” Joseph said, casually brushing aside the 3 billion.