Chapter 56: Surveillance.

The entire day was busy, leaving Bruce with little time to spare.

After the meeting, he was forced to follow up on two long-pending project reviews, and later attended a business reception.

By the time he returned to his apartment after his routine inspection, it was already late at night.

As the door closed, shutting out the day's hustle and bustle, he shook off his fatigue and sat down at the living room dining table.

Compared to back at the manor, his overall diet had declined significantly over the past two days. Without a butler to meticulously prepare his meals, he mostly opted for delivery or whipped up simple meals in the kitchen.

But Batman's job was incredibly physically demanding. Without adequate calorie intake, his body would remain in a state of low energy, leading to a loss of muscle mass and reduced mobility—

in short, he was hungry.

Bruce pulled two Batburgers from the refrigerator—he'd picked them up yesterday from a fast food restaurant called Batburger.

He microwaved the burger for two minutes, then retrieved a knife and fork from the cupboard. Once heated, he meticulously plated the burger.

Bruce picked up a piece of bacon and put it in his mouth.

It tasted good. He thought, maybe he could bring Dick and Jason to try it next time. They'd probably like it.

Of course, behind Alfred's back.

The laptop screen on the desk suddenly lit up.

It was displaying a live feed from the security camera. Bruce looked up at the screen.

A bright yellow beam suddenly appeared in the previously dark screen, filtering through the half-open bathroom door, illuminating a corner of the bedroom.

The room looked clean, with only the necessary furniture and no extraneous ornaments. The walls were white, the tiles were white, but the sheets and quilt were black, revealing an eccentric personal style.

...something like Arkham Asylum.

Bruce calmly took a bite of lettuce.

The security camera showed Jack's bedroom.

He had broken into the fashion house the night before, and it even had a microphone, hidden in a discreet location.

A bony, pale hand suddenly appeared on the screen, gripping the door firmly. The reflection on the ground wavered, disappearing between the bricks.

Small drops of water clung to the skin on the back of the hand, leaving wet marks on the door from the fingertips.

A few seconds later, the door swung open completely.

The first thing Bruce saw was a pair of legs.

Thin, slender, with prominent ankle bones, and bloodless, like plaster—against the gray-black background, they stood out, striking.

Jack emerged from the bathroom.

His damp hair tumbled back, and he was thin, with only a thin layer of muscle. He casually wiped his hair with a towel, seemingly in good spirits.

The heat from the bathroom didn't alter his complexion much, but Bruce could see—drops of water trickling down his pale neck, following the bruises on his chest, past his protruding ribs, and on down—

…

Bruce set down his knife and fork and took a sip of his coffee.

...It seems the Joker isn't used to wearing a bathrobe, Bruce thought calmly.

Technically, this wasn't the first time he'd seen the Joker like this—he'd walked around the room naked before, even knowing the safe house was under surveillance.

Perhaps the Joker had no sense of shame, or perhaps he simply enjoyed displaying himself like this—a characteristic consistent with a psychopath's psychology.

But out of respect... Bruce decided to turn down the screen brightness.

His fingertips tapped lightly on the keyboard, dimming the screen to a level just bright enough to see the image clearly.

In the video, Jack pulled a tube of ointment from a drawer and applied it to the darkened area of his cheek, as if treating the bruise left by Batman's blow the previous night.

Then, he walked over to the bed and lifted the covers, revealing a patch of gray beneath. Jack reached for it—

he pulled out a Batman doll pillow.

Bruce stared at the pillow, his thoughts pausing for a moment.

The doll was wearing the combat suit he used most often, with a yellow tactical belt, a gray bat logo on the chest, and two black pointed ears on its head - the corners of the doll's mouth drooped, giving it a serious expression.

Jack pounced on the bed, rolled over the quilt, and the doll was thrown to the head of the bed.

After a while, he giggled.

He raised his hand and gently pinched the pointed ears on the bat doll's head. The black velvet deformed under his fingertips. After playing with it for a while, he poked the doll's cheeks again.

"Why do you look unhappy, Batsy?"

Jack pressed his thumb against the stitches at the corners of the doll's mouth, forcing them to rise -

"Eon, why are you always so serious? You should smile more -"

Bruce put down his coffee cup.

He thought expressionlessly, great, it turns out the Joker doesn't just call him that - the Joker also named his own doll "Batsy"... so it's a shared nickname - maybe all the plastic props in the Joker's display case are called that, and the Joker might even have ranked them - Batsy No. 1, Batsy No. 2... so what's his own number? Bruce frowned in thought.