Chapter 69: It's Him, It's Him

The moment he saw that letter, a certain scene exploded in Ma Ma Zhaodi's mind like a thunderclap.

"Warning, the remaining time to accept this side quest is less than five minutes; the final side quest information has been automatically issued."

"Solomon Grundy, born on Monday!"

A bluish-gray hand, spotted with corpse marks, grabbed the man's wrinkled, dirty suit, and powerful muscles lifted him straight up with immense force.

The man, terrified and with an unrecognizable face, had his head wrapped entirely in white bandages, tightly wound until only his eyes and mouth were exposed; even so, people could easily see the abnormality of his left half through the tiny patches of exposed skin.

Bloodshot red eyeballs, completely missing eyelids and eyelashes, and the bloody, gruesome, hideous, and terrifying half of the skin around the eyes.

It looked like the marks left by burns or severe corrosion.

Strangely, the man's right half of the face was perfectly fine, looking exactly like that of a normal person.

"Solomon Grundy! Born on Monday!"

That bluish-gray hand pressed his head and half his body directly into the stagnant water of the sewer; the cold, turbid, foul-smelling sewage submerged his entire body, and any normal person would struggle and resist desperately at such a moment.

But he did not.

He silently held his breath, making no sound, and only after the large hand withdrew did he lift his bandage-wrapped head; the foul, turbid sewage dripped from the bandages, from beneath them, and from all over his body, making a dripping, dripping sound.

This scene, for anyone, was a despairing sight akin to hell.

But he seemed unaware, his scarlet eyeball turning to look at Grundy with interest, reciting the lines from that nursery rhyme.

"Baptized in the bleak and stormy Tuesday?"

"Haa-uh-uh-uh-uh!"

Grundy, who had intended to continue attacking, heard this rhyme and suddenly froze in place, becoming somewhat confused.

The bandage-wrapped person leaned against the rusted pipes in the sewer, slowly stood up, and continued reciting that nursery rhyme.

"Married on the gloomy and terrifying Wednesday, fell ill on the mild and gentle Thursday."

Grundy, listening to the rhyme, suddenly became unusually quiet; he silently walked to a corner of the sewer and sat down to listen to the man recite the somewhat familiar tune.

Since he had consciousness, his memory had been a barren blank, as if only this strange tune remained, so he took the name of this tune as his own name.

"What comes next?"

"Worsened on the sunny and pleasant Friday, died on the joyful and brilliant Saturday."

"Buried on the dry and scorching Sunday."

"Is this what you experienced? Did you die and come back to life?"

The man's hoarse tone seemed to be speaking to Grundy, yet also like a dream's rambling.

"Can a person have two lives?"

Grundy said nothing; he did not understand what a birthday was, could not go to a church to be baptized, had never married, would never fall ill, could not be critically ill, and knew not what death was; perhaps he would never wait for someone to bury him.

That night, Solomon Grundy remembered none of this.

But that night, Harvey Dent had already endured all of this—

"You really think you've got me? Harvey Dent! You think you've got me?!"

In the courtroom, Maroni, shouting, furiously cursed Harvey Dent, who was covering his face and lying on the ground, unable to rise.

And at that very moment, the Knight of Light was completely buried by this city.

"Information issuance complete."

". I have to go on this trip, don't I?"

"You may choose to block this mission notification."

"Block your grandmother." Ma Ma Zhaodi sighed: "If I don't go this time, won't my conscience poke my back for the rest of my life?"

"Vroom—"

"Huh?"

Jason, in the porridge shelter, heard the familiar sound of a car engine starting, so he ran out of the shelter, saw Ma Ma Zhaodi starting the car, and scratched his head in confusion.

"Ma Ma Zhaodi! Didn't you just return?"

"Today is Christmas Eve; a knight is waiting for me to send him a night's peaceful sleep."

Ma Ma Zhaodi winked at him: "Don't worry, I'll be back very soon."

—

Half an hour before Harvey Dent arrived home.

"Squeak—!"

The sound of braking rang out outside the door, followed immediately by the sound of footsteps: thud, thud, thud.

"Let me confirm, we can restore the scene, right?"

"You can purchase the 'One-Click Cleanup and Restoration' service in the System Shangcheng; it will deduct corresponding asset points based on the degree of building damage to replicate damaged substitutes, erase traces, and perform scene restoration."

"OK, how many points do I have left?"

"41,327 points."

"Good, it seems the asset points used for trivial, miscellaneous things in daily life weren't many."

The voice fell silent; after a few seconds, a faint creaking sound suddenly came from in front of the door of Harvey's house.

"Creak—"

As the lock cylinder turned, the front door was gently twisted open; the entire process could almost be described as completely silent.

Intermediate Lockpicking Proficiency cost me three thousand dollars in asset points, Ma Ma Zhaodi thought; this skill had better be useful in the future, otherwise I've lost big time.

He crept into the house, gently closed the door behind him, but did not turn on the lights; instead, he used an infrared night-vision camera to carefully scan the interior of the room. The moment he lowered his head, he saw a set of footprints deep in the room—very, very faint footprints that an ordinary person would absolutely not notice.

These were not Harvey Dent's footprints, nor did they look much like his wife's; Ma Ma Zhaodi, possessing Intermediate Tracking Proficiency, quickly identified the problem and immediately raised his alertness.

This meant that the target of the mission, that super-villain, must have already entered Harvey's house.

"The tactic of ambushing in advance probably won't work," Ma Ma Zhaodi thought.

He lightened his steps, followed the footprints, and walked straight into a small study with a fireplace, only to see a figure wearing a red Santa hat decorating a Christmas tree.

He had deliberately broken into Harvey Dent's home and even finished decorating an entire Christmas tree—ah, if Gordon saw this scene, he would know where to go to retrieve the stolen Christmas gifts.

Ma Ma Zhaodi's steps were very, very light, but this man must have heard them; yet he continued to fiddle with the Christmas tree carelessly, as if he did not regard the person behind him as anything.

"Oh, my dear young man, it seems one half of a small bulb on this Christmas tree isn't lighting up."

He turned his head with a playful laugh, and Ma Ma Zhaodi clearly saw his pale face, dark red lips, and his signature evil smile.

And when he saw Ma Ma Zhaodi, a look of ecstatic joy instantly appeared on his face.

"Santa Claus?!! Ha! This Christmas is getting more and more interesting!"

"Damn it—" At this very moment, Ma Ma Zhaodi, standing opposite him, went completely black before his eyes.

"As expected, a clown."

Asset Points: 41,327 USD

Panel: Novice Driving Mastery, Novice Firearm Usage Mastery, Intermediate English Mastery (leveled up by speaking too much), Intermediate Stealth Mastery, Intermediate Tracking Mastery, Intermediate Lockpicking Mastery, Advanced Wheelchair Driving Mastery, Advanced Culinary Mastery

Items: Ghost Fire Wheelchair, Undying Pumpkin Lantern, Sanity-Draining Pumpkin Headgear, Horn of Plenty, Protective Cross (9/9), Hacker Two-Piece Set, Eavesdropping and Locating Lighter

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(End of Chapter)