Chapter 175

Batman is currently on the roof of a building in the West End; he came here following clues about the Easter eggs.

The Easter eggs the Holiday Killer sent to the gang leaders didn't contain any specific clues, but he shouldn't have sent one to Bruce Wei En.

The perimeter of Wei En Manor is covered in cameras set up by Batman, and two of them, located at the main gate, captured a figure.

It was a paperboy who delivers newspapers between the South and East Ends; such paperboys frequently travel between the southern wealthy district and the printing plants, and almost no one pays attention to their existence.

The cameras didn't capture the paperboy's face, but they did record his clothing; eventually, Batman found him at a newspaper printing plant in the East End.

This paperboy didn't know much information; he only told Batman that someone had paid them to deliver the eggs.

This kind of job is very common among paperboys; they often have a fixed gathering point, and some people who need errands run will go to their gathering point to find them, paying them to deliver things to others.

This group of paperboys is very familiar with Cat Getan's terrain and routes, and for the sake of convenience, Gothamites have a tacit understanding not to make things difficult for these children who run errands, so many people like to hire them to deliver food, keys, or beer.

Batman arrived at the paperboys' gathering point, and the group of children described the Holiday Killer's appearance in a jumble, but it was of no use; they don't care who the client is when they take an order, as long as they confirm that what they are delivering isn't dangerous contraband that might get robbed, they take any order, and since too many people come every day, no one can remember specific appearances.

However, one of the sharper paperboys provided an important clue, saying that he smelled a kind of chemical agent on the person who hired them, something a bit like the smell of gunpowder.

Following this clue, Batman investigated all the chemical plants within Cat Getan City.

There are actually many chemical plants in Cat Getan City, but they must be categorized by size; after the disasters of flooding and freezing, most small chemical plants ceased production, and only a very few production lines could continue to operate.

There were only four or five chemical plants that could operate normally, and the investigation didn't take Batman much time; in the end, he locked his focus onto a chemical plant in the West End.

This chemical plant is located underground in the West End; its scale is small, and it has few production lines; their assembly line is not advanced, and what they produce shouldn't be anything important, so logically, it should have closed down along with the other small chemical plants.

Moreover, after the disaster, almost all of Cat Getan's underground structures were destroyed, and this underground chemical plant was nearly buried; the building was severely damaged, more than half of it collapsed, and most of the production lines were paralyzed, but even so, there were still traces of human activity nearby.

What kind of cargo could possibly be so essential that it had to be produced at a time like this?

Prying open the lock on the back door, Batman walked in along the door crack; he put on his night-vision goggles and saw that the inside of the chemical plant was in chaos.

The southeast corner had partially collapsed, the ground was covered in rubble, many crates were crushed under the walls, and some liquid was leaking out; the night-vision goggles couldn't clearly see what the liquid was, so he moved closer.

Soon, Batman smelled a foul odor; he walked closer to look, and those crates were all filled with smashed goose eggs, with egg yolk and egg white flowing all over the floor, and with no one to clean them up, they were about to ferment, emitting waves of stench.

And further away, there were some crates that hadn't been affected; Batman walked over and saw that they contained goose eggshells that had already been processed.

Easter eggs are not painted directly on raw goose eggs; goose eggs selected as Easter egg materials must be processed; if not hollowed out, they also need to be soaked in chemical agents to make the surface suitable for painting, and if hollowed out, other methods are needed to maintain the hardness of the eggshell.

It seems that the raw materials for the Easter eggs stored here include both types, it's just that some of the unhollowed eggs were crushed by the fallen wall.

Batman stepped forward and picked up an eggshell to look at it; this eggshell had already been processed but had not yet been painted with a pattern; Batman took a few such eggshells and brought them back to Wei En Manor for comparison.

Several different Easter eggs were placed in front of the laboratory bench; first was the Easter egg sent by the Holiday Killer that Bruce received; Batman hadn't touched it, so it hadn't exploded and still maintained its complete shape.

Another was the one Schiller gave him, the Easter egg with a smiley face that Schiller painted himself, and the last was the unpainted eggshell Batman brought back from the warehouse.

It was very obvious that the first and third Easter eggs were almost identical; whether it was the size and shape of the goose egg or the processing method, they were completely consistent.

In comparison, it was obvious that Schiller had just found a random goose egg, which didn't even look much like a farm goose egg, but rather more like a swan egg taken from a nest.

Its size was inappropriate, clearly too small, and it hadn't undergone any processing; he had just taken it and painted it directly, and the eggshell surface was too smooth to hold the paint, which is why that smiley face was drawn somewhat distortedly.

In other words, these Easter eggs sent to gang leaders and upper-class figures were flowing out of that chemical plant in the West End.

"West End chemical plant..." Batman muttered in a low voice; he was suddenly stunned, then quickly left Wei En Manor and drove the Batmobile to the Cat Getan Police Department.

Gordon was finishing his busy day and planning to go home when he heard a noise in the corner behind him; he didn't even need to look and said, "What is it again, Batman?"

"The tape from last time..."

"Tape? Oh, you mean that tape of Schiller's phone records? That's in the evidence room, but the staff there have already gone off duty..."

As soon as Gordon finished speaking, Batman had already disappeared; Gordon shook his head, thinking that it was probably for the best that such dangerous goods were kept by this freak, lest someone be unable to resist their curiosity and insist on listening to it one day.

Batman arrived at the pitch-black evidence room; he found the tape and put it into the tape recorder; after a burst of static noise, Schiller's voice sounded again: "Their cargo from Plantation No. 9 goes through Old Wilkin's route, which is the route passing through the three main streets of the East End..."

Batman twisted the button on the tape recorder and fast-forwarded a section: "You're worried about this? No need at all; as far as I know, that underground chemical plant in the West End is also Falcone..."

"... family property; after the Godfather handed it over to Evans to be in charge, they also started moving cargo along Elizabeth Street, but later, due to poor management, it was shut down for a long time; you don't need to worry that the Godfather would care about that little bit of profit..."

"Chemical plant? Evans? Evans Falcone..." Batman's voice sounded in the dark room.

Just at this moment, Batman's phone rang with a sharp ring; after he answered, Cobblepot's voice came through: "... EVANS!! IT'S EVANS!!!! HE HAS A KNIFE... HE WANTS TO KILL ME... NO, HE ISN'T... COUGH... HURRY, HURRY TO GOTHAM CATHEDRAL, STOP HIM..."

Batman looked up out the window; at this moment, a bright moon hung high in the sky.

When Batman arrived at Cat Getan Cathedral, Evans seemed to be already waiting for him.

Evans stood at the crack in the center of the cathedral, looking at the floating light surging inside the crack; Batman smelled a scent that made him dizzy, like evaporated high-proof alcohol.

He dropped down from the window and stood in front of Evans; Evans ignored him and instead knelt halfway on the ground, staring straight at the crack.

"Who are you?" Batman asked.

"Who am I? Don't you recognize me? I'm your classmate..."

"You are not Evans."

The person opposite let out a cold laugh and said, "Don't mention that name to me; that's just a fake, I am the real Falcone."

"Are you his second personality?"

"No, he is my second personality."

The person opposite stood up, and his blonde hair became somewhat eerie under the moonlight; he revealed the kind of cold expression that Evans would never show, and he said, "I said, I am Falcone, Alberto Falcone."

"Then you are his second personality."

Alberto was somewhat provoked; he frowned and narrowed his eyes, his green eyes filled with anger; his voice was very low, sounding completely different from Evans.

"I have always been Alberto!"

"Isn't Alberto already dead?"

"Heh... that farce back then really did fool quite a few people." Alberto sneered and said, "I died? No, of course not, just a fool replaced me."

"It seems this must be a long story, but that's fine..." Batman pulled a Batarang from his waist and said, "Tonight is Easter night, it should be a long night, you can take your time thinking."

"The Holiday Killer must be you, right?"

"That's right, I..."

Before he could finish speaking, Batman threw something at Alberto; Alberto dodged to the side vigilantly, and then he turned his head to look; it was a broken Easter egg.

"Damn it, are you mocking me?"

"No. This was an Easter gift from someone to you, but now it's broken, but that's because you didn't catch it, it has nothing to do with me."

"Don't try to use these little tricks to distract me; my goal has already been achieved, no one can stop me."

"Is that so? You call yourself the Holiday Killer, yet you didn't kill anyone on Easter; the only principal you killed, Xie Dun, had a crude modus operandi with many flaws."

When Batman said such things in that calm, monotonous tone, it was always very annoying.

"Do you think you're very clever? Wearing a tight suit and pretending to be some kind of superhero?"

"But at least I found you; oh, no... it wasn't even me who found you, but that unremarkable Cobblepot."

Mentioning Cobblepot, Alberto seemed truly angry and said, "That damn kid, he almost ruined my plan..."

"So, you failed? Facing a short and skinny poor kid, facing the first person you wanted to kill on Easter, even with full preparations, you still couldn't kill him."

"I didn't want to kill him at all; if it weren't for him giving Evans those stupid ideas, I wouldn't have laid a hand on him; he's completely unimportant!"

"That's why I said your methods are crude and have many flaws; anyone can see that Cobblepot is a dangerous person."

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"Yeah..." Alberto let out a cold laugh: "A poor little thing who lost his father; he still doesn't know that his father's death wasn't a coincidence."

Then, as if venting something, he said: "The funeral? Yeah, I died, quite a few people attended my funeral."

He looked up at the window above the cathedral; the moonlight was like a curtain sprinkled in, gently covering the statue of Jesus; this suffering Son of God had bled dry for the betrayer, and in this cold night full of suffering, only the moonlight was willing to add clothing for him.

"But tonight, I will be resurrected, and I will live forever."