Chapter 1764: Summer in Fool's Village (13)

The Bingshan Restaurant, located on Lanche Avenue in the South District, is a high-end establishment within the Cobblepot Bingshan catering series and a flagship product of Cat Getan's tourism industry in terms of dining culture.

Since his mother's condition stabilized, Cobblepot has poured a massive amount of time and energy into business. Cobblepot is a good businessman, and with the Falcone family as his backing, he can be said to have reaped the full benefits of the era's dividends, catching the high-speed train of Cat Getan's transformation.

After the second Bingshan Restaurant had been running smoothly in the East District for a year, Cobblepot led a group of followers who had emerged from the living hell of the East District to launch the "Polar Bingshan" catering culture concept, integrating the industry into two business lines: Polar and Bingshan.

The Polar business is positioned for Cat Getan locals, featuring comprehensive entertainment venues—some built by them, some invested in—including nightclubs, casinos, strip clubs, and so on. The Bingshan business, meanwhile, faces tourists and high-end consumers, focusing on the catering industry. The restaurants promote Cat Getan local fusion cuisine, and each restaurant is equipped with a massive iceberg landscape to make it convenient for tourists to take photos and check in.

Cat Getan's tourism industry is becoming increasingly prosperous, and the Bingshan Restaurant has begun to gradually appear on the pages of East Coast gourmet and travel media. Cobblepot's net worth has risen accordingly. As the weather has grown hotter, some local middle-class citizens have also begun to prefer dining at the Bingshan Restaurant.

Cobblepot has seized the opportunity even further; in addition to the massive iceberg landscape, he has placed small iceberg-mist landscapes on every dining table, unified the floors and ceilings into ice-crystal-like ice blue, and used dry ice white mist to create a cold and refreshing atmosphere. The restaurant's business has become even hotter, and most of the time, it can be described as "hard to get a seat."

But today, the only Bingshan Restaurant in the South District informed all diners that the second floor had long been fully booked, all private rooms had been sold out, and no service would be provided for the time being.

Loyal diners felt somewhat disappointed, but they knew that this must be because the restaurant's owner, Cobblepot, had distinguished guests to entertain. The last time he cleared out an entire floor of the restaurant was to host all the heads of the Twelve Families.

Yet today, the second floor of the Bingshan Restaurant was empty, with only two figures sitting at a table by the window. Shiler raised his eyes to examine the decor of the Bingshan Restaurant, comparing what was different from the last time he came.

When the Bingshan Restaurant first opened, Shiler and Victor had come once, but they hadn't told Cobblepot. After all, they were just there to eat, so there was no need to make a big scene.

Compared to that time, the characteristics of the Bingshan Restaurant are now more obvious. It is clear that Victor made some suggestions to Cobblepot after returning. Now it seems these suggestions were quite prescient; I'm afraid this is the only restaurant in the world that uses dense ice as furniture.

It's not that the restaurant is called the Bingshan Restaurant because it actually uses an iceberg for cooling. The reason it is relatively cool inside the Bingshan Restaurant is still that the air conditioning is turned on full blast. Now, this version of dense ice can be placed in a room-temperature environment without participating in any heat exchange; it is more like a dense material that looks like ice.

But the vast majority of people don't understand the principles behind this. They only feel that walking on ice and eating with tables and tableware made of ice is a very cool thing. Coupled with the dry ice white mist that is quite visually deceptive, it feels as if once you enter this restaurant, all the unbearable heat and sweltering air completely disappear.

Shiler looked at the steaming dishes served on dense ice plates and also felt somewhat curious. Cobblepot adjusted the position of the plates on the table and explained: "This is the dense ice technology specially developed by Professor Victor, specifically used to insulate heat. It presents better material properties than glass in all aspects. Unfortunately, the cost has always been difficult to bring down, so unless you take the customized high-end route, it is difficult to become a rising star in the material industry."

"Luo Yi has been trying to promote this technology unique to Cat Getan, but decorative dense ice doesn't have any particularly attractive features compared to other glass and resin materials, so sales are average. Currently, the flagship product of Cat Getan's cold chain industry is still industrial-grade dense ice."

"It is too early to consider the decorative building materials industry now," Shiler shook his head and said, "However, it is indeed possible to use this unique material for urban landscape decoration, such as making city statues or as raw materials for public space art."

"The Mayor has already considered this issue, but the municipal government team is still discussing how to cleverly combine it with Cat Getan's greening work."

"My garden has been rebuilt," Shiler shook his head and then said, "I'm afraid this is also an issue that my butler and I need to consider. I was even planning to move an ice sculpture back, but I just feel that no matter where I put it, the style won't match."

"How about making it into a children's playground?" Cobblepot suggested, "Slides and swings made of ice will definitely be loved by children. The strength of dense ice is much higher than that of glass and crystal, so there's no need to worry about safety issues."

Shiler showed a thoughtful look, seeming somewhat tempted. Cobblepot cut the ham on his plate and said: "I have plans to add a children's playground to the third floor of the Polar Shopping Center recently. After all, only by liberating parents from those little devils can they have the time to go shopping."

"I will send the purchase list to your email tomorrow. You can mark the items you are interested in, and I will have the factory make an extra set and send it over."

"You opened a shopping center?" Shiler asked with some surprise, "Where did you open it?"

"Near the newly opened tourist beach in the East District, not far from the Falcone Hotel and the new Wayne Grand Hotel."

"That's a good place. How is business?"

"Not very good before," Cobblepot gave an answer that Shiler hadn't expected. He said: "I miscalculated the diversion of tourist crowds. The crowd that wants to go to the beach to sunbathe, surf, and swim does not overlap with the crowd that wants to go to the city center to shop. They rarely book hotels in the same place. I might as well buy the old shopping center in the city center and renovate it."

"So, did you lose money?"

"I can only say it's breaking even. So now I plan to transform the new shopping center into a comprehensive entertainment venue related to marine culture, doing swimming equipment sales and rentals, seafood restaurants and seafood specialty catering, post-exercise relaxation massage and therapy, as well as visits and popular science at the seaside cultural center, family parent-child interaction, and other industries, instead of selling jewelry and clothes like before."

"Your business acumen is admirable. I think this will be successful," Shiler said sincerely.

After a pause, Shiler still brought the topic back to the main point. He said: "The murder case you entrusted me to investigate has made some progress. I haven't found the murderer yet, but I think the appearance of the murder case might be related to me."

Cobblepot frowned. He wouldn't think that Shiler was saying he was the one who killed them. He immediately and keenly speculated: "Could it be that someone else wants to attract your attention by killing people in the city?"

Shiler shook his head and said: "No, it's not. My club has been very stable recently. They have been discussing topics related to blood diseases recently. No one on the entire East Coast has made a move. This time, it might be a real enemy."

Cobblepot immediately became nervous. He stared closely at Shiler and said: "Are they very dangerous? What do they want to get from you? Do you need to take some defensive measures?"

Shiler opened his eyes slightly in surprise. He really didn't expect that even when things had reached this point, there would still be someone genuinely worried about him. But he couldn't say he wasn't moved by this, so he said: "My safety is not a concern. The situation will not develop to such an extreme degree. It's just that the subsequent probing and harassment might continue for a period of time, so I must warn the Gangster Prefecture, the government, and some other important figures in Cat Getan to be on high alert during this period."

Cobblepot frowned, thought for a while, and then spoke: "Is the other party difficult to deal with?"

"Have you heard of the League of Assassins?"

"Seems to have a bit of an impression," Cobblepot recalled and said, "I heard Alberto mention it a few times, but that might be a grudge from the old Godfather era. The old Godfather and the priest of the Cat Getan Cathedral might have dealt with their leader, but that was decades ago, and Alberto doesn't know the details."

"The leader of the League of Assassins is called Ra's al Ghul. He is an immortal who has probably lived for nearly a thousand years. He believes that the existing order of this world must be changed, and what's important is that it must be changed by him."

"Some of my previous actions interfered with the world order. He keenly discovered that besides the League of Assassins, there were others influencing the historical trajectory of this world. They were very dissatisfied with this, so after much probing, they set their sights on me."

"They view me as an enemy, but at the same time, they want to win over my student." Shiler's fingertips tapped lightly on the tableware, thinking as he spoke: "Ra's al Ghul appreciates Batman very much. He wants his daughter to marry Batman, thereby making Batman join the League of Assassins. If that doesn't work, he wants to obtain his genes to get an excellent descendant."

"But I think his plan should only be at the first step now. They are still trying every possible way to win over Batman, but in the situation of being my enemy, Ra's al Ghul is very likely to want to kill two birds with one stone."

Cobblepot's action of cutting food paused. He spoke: "He wouldn't want to use Batman to deal with you, would he?"

"It's not impossible," Shiler tapped the plate lightly with his fork and said: "Standing from the perspective of a bystander, what kind of relationship do I have with Batman?"

Cobblepot just wanted to comment "a teacher and student who torture each other," but he thought about it and felt that not everyone could understand what Shiler and Batman were actually doing while torturing each other these past few years.

Or rather, perhaps only Gothamites can understand that mutual torture is actually a necessary process for the development of friendship, while in the eyes of normal people, once a confrontational relationship is formed, the conflict will inevitably deepen.

"When I took the initiative to accept the FBI's investigation into dereliction of duty, Talia appeared in the FBI. I don't think this is a coincidence," Shiler brought up another detail and said: "Talia might not know what she is actually doing, but Ra's al Ghul must be very clear about the hidden meaning behind every one of his orders."

"When I was accused of dereliction of duty, Ra's al Ghul knew this was the best opportunity to observe the relationship between me and my student, so Talia appeared there at the right time. It looked like she was just going through the motions and didn't do anything, but she brought back the best news for Ra's al Ghul."

"Batman is not a student who respects his teacher, and I am not a tolerant and loving teacher. He felt he had found the rift between us that was enough to stir up conflict, so Talia came to Cat Getan."

"A honey trap?"

"Rather, I'd say heterosexual hormones are the best accelerant for mental manipulation," Shiler lowered his head slightly and smiled, saying: "Now it just depends on which of the two of them is better at manipulating." ===== CHAPTER 1765 =====