Chapter 1222: Farm of Justice (Part 4)_1

Bruce was not a person who enjoyed the process of eating. To him, eating was merely a necessary step for humans to sustain their lives. He believed that indulging in the pleasure of taste could lead to unrestrained binge drinking and eating.

Thus, his daily diet was extremely regular and tended to be light. Simply put, it consisted of tasteless leaves and proteins.

This dietary habit was not something he was born with, his mother, Martha, despite being from the prominent Kane family of Gotham, was also a great cook.

After Martha's death, Bruce's meals became simpler. Primarily because he was considerate of Alfred's advanced age and did not want to hire another cook. So, whenever Alfred asked him what he wanted to eat, he would simply reply, "Something simple will do."

Without a doubt, Clark's mother, Martha, was an excellent cook. Since the Kents were a farming family and farming required stamina, a lot of meat was needed for ample calories. Perhaps due to the frequent handling of meat, her cooking technique was adept.

The meat filling in the fish meat pies was marinated, deboned, and smashed into stuffing. Chicken mince and diced onions were added in a certain ratio, and after freezing the rich broth into small pieces, they were all wrapped into the pie. The resulting baked pies were filled with thick, savory juice.

The Kent family's secret recipe for baked chicken and cinnamon rolls were both marinated with the same formula of spices. They completely eliminated any potential gamey taste, and the heat control was just right - they weren't dry from being fully cooked.

The other dishes were restaurant-standard, with balanced seasoning, served piping hot. Human taste buds inherently don't reject this type of cuisine, and Bruce was no different.

By the time he realized it, he'd consumed two large pies, a whole chicken leg and wing, five or six cinnamon rolls, countless salads, and a big bowl of pea soup. It doesn't seem like much, but Martha's dishes were always copiously portioned, thus exceeding Bruce's usual intake.

What was scarier was that Bruce didn't feel satiated. Due to the variety and complementary mouthfeel of all the dishes, he unwittingly consumed a lot.

Bruce looked at Martha with the most sincere gaze he had ever had since birth and said, "Thank you, Ma'am, but I really am full."

Seeing the disappointment on Martha's face, he felt intense guilt. This guilt crescendoed when Martha brought two more large plates of steaming-hot apple pies and over a dozen muffins to the table.

Bruce was having a hard time keeping a straight face. He should have anticipated that the "dessert" would also reflect the robust, farmhouse style - nobody here would make petit fours like the high-end dessert shops in commercial districts, everything was made in a hearty and substantial style.

The apple pie with warm filling was rather sweet. But after just one bite, it's clear that this sweetness didn't come from sugar or honey, but the natural fructose from the apples - the dessert was incredibly sweet because the apples were sweet.

The texture of the cooked apples was a little odd, it has a sort of sour sponginess in the mouth, but that was compensated by the perfectly flaky and crisp pastry crust. Bruce had barely chewed a few bites when a deep sweetness surged straight to his brain.

The sweetness of fruit is the most fundamental dopamine stimulant, and the sweetness of carbohydrates is ingrained in human genes as a source of joy. Bruce hadn't quite registered this when he found that an entire apple pie, as large as his palm, had already vanished.

Seeing a muffin being thrust before him, Bruce hastily gobbled it up in a panic, wiped his mouth, and turned to Clark, saying, "I've eaten a bit too much. Shall we go for a walk?"

Clark, who was devouring an entire apple pie, regretfully put down his food, stood up from his seat, tugged his slightly wrinkled shirt downwards, walked over to the table, and waved at Martha. "I'll take him for a walk around."

Jonathan, who was washing dishes, glanced back at them and said, "You can take your friend to see the lambs and calves in the sheepfold. During your time working away, our big family has added three little ones. They are most likely at their fluffiest and cutest state right now, capable of healing every ailment in this world."

Clark discerned Jonathan's hint, his dad was an amazing educator. It was as if he could read minds. During this short interaction with Bruce, he instantly noticed that Bruce's mental state was not very good and suggested a seemingly effective plan - such as seeing newborn animals.

Standing by the door, Bruce felt his stomach working tirelessly. Never had this organ of his worked so hard that even his heart was pleasantly surprised, pumping a great flow of blood to it, making Bruce drowsy from time to time.

Bruce thought he could walk out right away with Clark. To his surprise, Clark first rummaged for keys on a wooden board nailed to the wall. As he searched, he mentioned, "Let me see...Which one is the key to the sheepfold?...Oh, I should also bring the keys to the house."

After a long search, Clark held a couple of keys in his hand, then started looking for coats, handing a heavy one to Bruce before finding one for himself.

Next, he searched for gloves throughout the whole house. At long last, he found two pairs of rubber gloves under a small table beside the sofa and handed one pair to Bruce.

After that, he began rummaging for rain boots, umbrellas, hats, masks throughout the house. Finally, he brought out a crowbar and a rake from the backyard.

Stuffing the rake into Bruce's hand, Clark, looking at a bewildered Bruce holding all these items, blurted out: "What are you waiting for? Hurry up and put them on!"

"We're just going for a stroll, right?" Bruce asked uncertainly.

"Um, by 'stroll', do you mean a walk? Around here, a stroll usually involves checking the chicken coop, gathering eggs, counting the sheep in the pen, checking the rings in the cows' noses, distributing hay to all the stalls in case it might rain the next day, securing the barn doors, and then at the grazing ground we sweep away the grass to see how the pasture is growing, deciding whether or not there's a need to add more seeds..."

Bruce glanced down at what he was carrying. The coat was probably for the cold nights, the gloves for handling livestock, the umbrella in case of rain, the hat and mask for hygiene, the rake for gathering the feed, and the crowbar to pry up the roots.

Looking over at Clark, fully equipped and ready, Bruce thought no one else in the world could look more like a farmer.

After getting dressed in the same gear, the two men, looking every bit the farmers they were impersonating, glanced at each other's somewhat comical appearances. Clark was the first to laugh, "If people knew I brought Bruce Wayne here for farm work, they'd lose their minds."

Using the rake as a walking stick, Bruce trudged forward, each footprint sinking into the slightly damp mud of the night. "If you were to write a report on this, it would be more sensational than a meteor landing here."

"We would have no peace then. The whole town would swarm around my house, gawking at the richest man in the world to see how clumsily he works the land."

"I'm not clumsy," Bruce quickly pointed out.

Clark, shaking his head with a laugh, said, "Do you think just because you have a strong body, agile limbs, and can fight, you'd excel at all this?"

"I am not the typical young master you have in mind who can't even distinguish wheat seedlings," Bruce shook his head, strongly disagreeing. "Even if I lack the experience, I'd learn quickly."

"When I first started working on the farm with my dad, I thought the same. But the truth is, even after all these years, I've still not even half as skillful as him... Just a tenth of my grandfather," he commented.

"When it takes a year to see if something is done right, you realise that a man's lifespan is not that long. We are just equivalent to eighty or ninety cycles of winter wheat, and the potential mishaps on the farm are more numerous than those."

Bruce lifted his head to gaze into the far end of the farm. There were different layers of contour farming connected by windbreaks, the old grain grinding mill, windmill and the distant starry sky.

Gotham never had such a bright starry sky. As if every star was within reach, the moist vapor stuck to his eyelashes reflected the glowing stars with each blink, as though the universe was reaching out to wipe away his tears.

Just as Bruce was mesmerized by the night sky, he felt his foot sink. Looking down, he realised he had stepped into a muddy puddle mixed with water and dirt.

Clark steadied him by the arm to keep him from toppling over. "Be careful, we have to walk along the side of the creek," he advised.

As Bruce turned towards the creek, he saw an even closer reflection of the star-filled sky. The shimmering surface of the trickling creek sparkled even more brightly under the stars, and up ahead the reeds swayed gently with the wind.

The numerous sounds of a summer night were both rich and astonishing. The breeze brought the sweet smell of earth and plants, while the cries of the insects that had awoken early seemed feeble, like a calming symphony.

Bruce pulled his foot from the puddle and they walked a little further to the barn. The land here was drier but still, animal tracks were visible. Clark bent down to examine them and said,

"When we were kids and walking this path, Jonathan would always have a game with me - guessing which animals left each of these footprints. It's not that easy, right?"

"These are footprints of chickens, those are of cows. The ones near the grass over there are of pigs. I do not see footprints of sheep. Don't they live here?" Bruce pointed at the ground with his rake.

"I see, nothing can stump you," Clark commented while fumbling with the keys. "You're eager to prove that you're not the typical young master everyone assumes you to be, but here, we really don't need another animal detective."

Clark chuckled as he opened the barn door and walked in, with Bruce following him. As Clark moved deeper into the barn, he continued,

"Our animal detective, Bat Cat, when it first arrived, had been on a mission against animal crimes throughout the farm, focusing on key criminals like the rats that stole grains, the roosters that picked feathers off others, and birds that snuck seeds."

"You could just say it came for a buffet."

"Precisely."