Chapter 173: The Black Empire That Changed Masters

Carmen Marie Falcone was born in Naples, Italy.

At sixteen, she fell in love with a man and became pregnant; her father flew into a rage, Lei Ting, and beat her child out of her with his fists.

Mary, who knew nothing of "keeping oneself pure," a scum-like boyfriend, and a violent, out-of-control father together formed a tragedy; perhaps Mary and her father both regretted it endlessly, but unfortunately, there is no medicine for regret in this world.

As for that boyfriend, he vanished from Mary's life after the incident—in simple terms, he turned his back, refused to acknowledge her, and ran, so he probably felt little regret.

Mary wept in sorrow all night, then left home; she eventually arrived in Gotham City and spent the next forty years kneeling in a toilet, making a living as a cleaner.

She never had children herself, yet she raised ten orphans here; nine became outstanding talents in this country, but when she discovered what the tenth child had done and was still doing, she spat on that child.

She reported this tenth son to the police, wept in sorrow all night, and then left home once more.

That child was named Carmine Falcone; for many years, he had waited for his mother to make that phone call and return home.

When Batman finished hearing this intelligence and rushed to a corner of an alley in the East End, he could only see an old woman already lying in a pool of blood; he clenched his fist over that corpse, another life he had failed to save.

But immediately, he remembered the words Ma Ma Zhaodi had spoken when he hurriedly left the botanical garden.

"If the Joker and the Riddler want to kill again, they can at least only succeed after midnight tonight; before that, they cannot do it—at least not with their own hands."

This might have been that officer's partial confession regarding some of his miraculous abilities, but Batman had no time to probe deeply then; now, however, those words gave him a glimmer of hope again, and he immediately picked up his communicator and dialed the hospital.

"Is this the hospital in Metropolis? I need to call an ambulance; an elderly woman named Carmen Marie Falcone is in critical condition, but perhaps she can still be saved. The location is—"

On the other side, Falcone returned to his villa with several bodyguards; by now, an hour had passed since he received the Joker's phone call, and he knew the assassination attempt had failed.

"Useless, a bunch of useless people... can't even handle one Riddler, and now there's not even a single word of news. This absolutely won't do; I must make another call and have the family go find that—"

As he spoke, he casually pushed open his room door; however, the moment he saw his room, the words he wanted to say got stuck in his throat.

A figure in a suit and formal wear, with drooping lips and pale skin, sat in his seat, fiddling with something on the desk.

But regardless of what he was fiddling with, the point was—he had run into Falcone's study.

"How the hell did you get in!"

If Ma Ma Zhaodi were here, he could probably give a very interesting answer to this, but unfortunately, right now the room contained only a gang boss, several bodyguards who immediately raised their pistols to aim, and a Joker who could not smile.

"An hour has passed, and he still isn't dead."

The Joker completely ignored Falcone's question; he idly fiddled with the items on the desk and casually said, "So your old mother's teeth are all here."

"What did you say!?"

Hearing this, Falcone immediately gritted his teeth, his eyes tearing with rage, and retorted; the Joker had called him using a number only his mother and brothers knew, so in his mind, the statement the other party made held a certain logic.

"I said these are her teeth; I pulled all your old mother's teeth out of her mouth and arranged them into a smile—"

The Joker's face was fierce and cruel; he answered word by word, and although he was persecuting Falcone's mother, his own expression looked rather terrible. As he spoke, he raised his gun at Falcone.

"This smile is arranged on your desk."

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

In a mere second, after five gunshots, the Joker stepped out from behind the desk; Falcone's three bodyguards each took a bullet and fell to the floor, blood gushing from their bodies, staining the colorful, luxurious carpet red.

Falcone clutched his arm and half-kneeled on the ground; he was not dead yet, but he no longer had the Resistance Thought to fight back, because the Joker's marksmanship was simply too fast; he had no time to draw his gun, and even his bodyguards had no time to fire before they were all shot down.

Carmine immediately made a judgment in his mind: the current situation clearly was not suitable for continued resistance, otherwise it would be comparing the hardness of his own head against revolver bullets.

As the Joker walked, the smoke from the revolver's muzzle drifted along; he nodded to the man leaning against the wall at the doorway, hands spread wide, who looked like a penguin. This fellow was very sharp; he did not draw his gun immediately but hid far away to observe the situation—he was the one who had dodged the single empty shot.

"You, Fatty, you are my assistant now."

Oswald, that is, the Fatty, heard the Joker's words but did not answer immediately; instead, he stammered, "My, my, Carmine's mother—she lives in Metropolis."

The Joker acted as if he hadn't heard him and continued giving orders: "You and Carmine here will make arrangements together; all his resources now, through you, will obey my command, all for one goal—"

"Kill the Riddler."

Saying this, he walked out of the villa's main door, while the Penguin continued to tremble and say, "The location of Metropolis... it... it is a full three hours from here."

Carmine knelt on the ground with a gloomy face, turning his head to glare hatefully at the Joker's retreating figure; of course he understood what the Penguin meant; he was not questioning whether the Joker had truly kidnapped Carmine's mother, but rather stating one thing.

The Joker's sequence of actions was not to rush to Metropolis first, then call Carmine, learn the mission failed an hour later, then pull out his mother's teeth, and finally return to Gotham City; rather, after rushing to Metropolis, he directly pulled out Carmine's mother's teeth, then directly returned to Gotham City, and only then called Carmine, and an hour later, placed this set of teeth on his desk.

In other words, regardless of whether the Riddler was taken out within an hour, his mother had already suffered.

Even though Carmine realized this, he could not resist the Joker's orders at this moment—even though he knew the other party was an unpredictable, untrustworthy madman, the fact that the other party could find his mother meant they could naturally find his other brothers as well.

He had already lost his mother; he could not lose his older brother too.

(End of this chapter)