Chapter 178

"So, the priest saw my difference and recommended me to the Godfather, letting him hire me as Evans's tutor, actually just wanting me to solve Evans's problem?"

"Neither Carmine nor I could be sure if the Court of Owls was still watching Evans. But now it seems our vigilance was correct; they indeed still haven't given up; they still regard Evans as the key figure of the Water Source Project."

Priest Daniel sighed and said: "This generation of the Court of Owls is far inferior to the previous one; they are too hasty and left too many flaws; I have lived in that cathedral for decades and know every brick and tile there like the back of my hand."

"The freezing Cat Getan encountered was not enough to crack such a large hole in the cathedral floor; they were just controlling Alberto, letting him test whether the Fine Wine was truly mature."

"It seems the blow Batman and I gave the Court of Owls didn't make them behave."

"That move was actually very effective." Priest Daniel paused and said: "It should be said to be the most effective one in decades."

"However, it's still not enough; remember I told you before that neither Falcone nor I knew the answer? That wasn't our perfunctory remark."

"The Court of Owls might be an important chess piece, but it's not everything, not even the King and Queen."

"Falcone and I spent our whole lives failing to glimpse the dark truth behind this."

Falcone also shook his head; the fire of the cigar in his hand gradually extinguished; this old theater seemed even darker; he said: "I said I didn't find them, didn't wait for the opportunity; this is the truth; behind the Court of Owls, there must be other things."

"If that true mastermind has always existed, then no matter how many owls we kill, it's useless."

"I saw the possibility of finding the true culprit in you and Batman." Falcone turned his head to look at Schiller; his eyes were sunk in the shadows of his eye sockets, appearing dim and unclear; he said: "Therefore, I wanted to establish a secret society, but the fundamental purpose of the secret society is not to deal with the Court of Owls, but to deal with the kind of darkness behind him or organizations similar to him."

Schiller leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes; he said with some emotion: "I know, it's impossible for anyone who has lived in Cat Getan for decades not to have any guesses about this, but I didn't expect you to be so persistent."

"We don't care where you come from or what kind of secrets you carry on your back." Priest Daniel turned his head to look at Schiller; his eyes were not as sharp as Falcone's, but always carried a kind of calmness and kindness; he said: "If you, or others, can find the truth one day, please don't forget—"

"Many people have worked hard for this city; the vast majority of them didn't succeed; those who don't belong to Cat Getan will eventually leave here."

"Martial God Asura"

"A lawyer friend of mine once told me a sentence: in this world, you don't necessarily have to reach the finish line to be considered a winner."

"Alright, our two stories are finished; now, it's your turn." Priest Daniel looked at the stage with a smile and said: "Our play is called 'Easter', and you named your play 'It'; does this have any special meaning? Can you talk about it?"

"That thing under Cat Getan Cathedral is not called a Fine Wine pool; the thing inside is called the Lazarus Pit factor; it can indeed make people immortal."

Schiller's words were astonishing; Falcone and Daniel both looked at him; Schiller paused and then continued: "But that's not an antidote, but a poison, the most poisonous poison in the world."

"It can create the craziest lunatics in the world; I prefer to call it—Blood of the Mad."

"Judging by your tone, you seem to know it very well."

"There is more than one place in this world that has this kind of thing."

"I almost forgot your resume; have you seen this kind of thing in other places? You told me before that you had complete confidence in ensuring Evans's safety; I hope you weren't lying to me."

"Of course not, Your Excellency Godfather; don't worry, all of this has to start from when Evans came to find me before."

"When he came to me for help, he seemed very troubled by his relationship with his father; I think at that time, Alberto was about to be resurrected, so I gave him a suggestion, letting him hide in a mental hospital through some methods."

"Although I told him that it was to let him express an attitude of concession and ease the relationship between father and son, it was actually because I wanted to observe him for a long time; I needed some more definitive evidence."

"You noticed something was wrong at that time?"

Schiller shook his head and said: "I had some premonitions, but no evidence; Evans at that time didn't have any abnormalities, but my intuition told me that something was wrong."

"So, I let him come to the Arkham Asylum where I worked, and share a room with a smart guy."

"After those heavy rains, his performance should have been very obvious, right?"

"Yes..." Schiller's voice also gradually fell into memories; the three of them looked at the stage.

In the pitch-black ward, the moonlight from the window sprinkled on the floor, the metal of the hospital bed railing emitted a faint luster; Schiller stood in front of Evans's hospital bed, staring at him, seeming to feel his emotions.

Falcone asked Schiller: "Then after you confirmed this point, what did you do?"

"In fact. I didn't do anything, because I knew he would definitely reveal flaws, and sure enough."

The old curtain of the theater stage closed and opened again; a burst of dust rose; the scene on the stage changed to Xie Dun's office.

Schiller was squatting in front of Xie Dun's desk; he forcefully pried off the last drawer of Xie Dun's desk; it was filled with tapes.

"What is that?" Priest Daniel asked somewhat curiously.

"It's the phone recordings he left behind from eavesdropping on me; he's already dead, so these recordings are useless; I'd better take them back."

Sitting in the chair closest to the stage, the light in Xie Dun's office shone on Schiller's glasses again; afterwards, he stood up from in front of Xie Dun's desk, took a tape recorder from the cabinet, found a blank tape, and recorded his own voice into it.

"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; their cargo volume is too large, so the delivery port is set in the basement of a nightclub; if you need it, I can say hello to him..."

"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..."

Then Schiller squatted down again and put this tape into the side of the upper drawer.

Hearing his own name, Falcone smiled and said: "Don't tell me you wanted to use this trick to scare away those police?"

"Quite the opposite; the police might be scared away by the Godfather's name, but there is one person who won't; I am sparing no effort to provide him with clues."

Then, Schiller stared at the scene on the stage and said: "I waited for a long time before Alberto finally revealed flaws; maybe he was dissatisfied with Xie Dun's indecisiveness, or felt he had the victory in hand and wanted to silence him."

"Alberto must have found an excuse to talk to Xie Dun alone, and then pushed him off the building in the middle of the conversation."

"But what he did was still not enough; if I hadn't cleaned up the mess for him, let alone Batman, the police would have been able to find something."

Seeing on the stage, Victor opened the corridor window; he looked down and saw Xie Dun's corpse, so he hurriedly ran down.

But if he looked up, he could see Schiller's busy figure.

"Actually, there is one point he did well; he let Xie Dun call Victor in advance to call him over, and then stuck to a perfect time, making Victor an eyewitness, and also making him stained with suspicion, used to confuse the police's line of sight."

"At that time, I didn't know Victor would come; if I had known Victor would call me over with another phone call, I wouldn't have returned to the mental hospital, but would have just waited next to the administration building."

"The mental hospital is very far from Cat Getan University; how did you run a round trip in a few minutes?"

"That's not important."

Seeing Schiller's attitude of not wanting to answer, Falcone didn't ask again.

"Afterwards, during the police summons, I had to propose another possibility to confuse the police's line of sight, letting them not come to add trouble; after all, next, it should be Batman's stage."

"When patients went crazy, did you guess that it was the effect of Fine Wine?"

"No." Schiller denied this point and said: "Actually, before I personally came into contact with this substance, I didn't draw conclusions rashly."

"But Alberto sent me an Easter egg, which made me confirm that the substance inside was the same as that in the patient's blood, and I knew what it was."

"So what did you do?"

Schiller shrugged and said lightly: "I sent him an Easter gift."

The moonlight sprinkled from the theater window projected onto the old curtain; as the curtain slowly closed and opened again, the stage gradually enlarged, and a rich aroma of wine drifted out from Cat Getan Cathedral.

Batman looked left and right; he heard crazy howling coming from the nearby dark alley, as if singing for the newborn ceremony.

After that burst of crazy laughter, Batman saw a figure crawling out of the green pool; he had a crazy smile, like an evil ghost just born from hell.

Batman's muscles were tense; he was clear that the force of the explosion just now was enough to blow Alberto to death, and now, he had crawled out of the pool again, which meant that the green pool must have a problem, and what was born inside might be some kind of monster.

The Alberto who crawled out had his blonde hair wet and stuck to his forehead; his face was pale, his mouth was grinning, and those green eyes were completely occupied by madness.

Batman took out his Batarangs again; he loaded his pistol, clearly prepared to welcome a fierce battle, but the development of things still exceeded his expectations.

After that rich aroma of wine spread out, countless crazy laughter sounded in the streets around the cathedral, and immediately following, one crazy figure after another surrounded this place.

Batman looked left and right; there were at least a hundred people, and each one was like Alberto, with a crazy smile on their face, approaching him like walking corpses.

"I said it." Alberto's voice became incomparably hoarse, like sawing wood with a blade: "I am resurrected, and I will live forever..."

Just when Batman was staring at him silently, another voice familiar to him sounded behind him.

"Do you have any special feelings? Batman?"

Batman turned his head to look; as he expected, standing behind him was Schiller Rodriguez, his psychology professor who insisted on calling himself an ordinary person.

Batman took a deep breath and said: "Don't tell me this is you again..."

"You have to answer my question first; what do you think of him?"

Batman turned back; he looked at Alberto and then said: "What do you mean what do I think?"

"Hmm... did you remember his laughter?"

"No, what does this mean?"

"It seems he is not the candidate you want." Schiller said with some regret.

"What?" Batman turned his head to look at Schiller who walked to his side; Schiller said: "If you didn't have any other feelings when facing him, that means he is not the opponent destined for you."

"Batman." Schiller's tone began to lower: "If one day, crazy laughter sounds in your heart, that means you found the right person."

"And this one..." Schiller sized up Alberto and said:

"He broke my Easter gift; now, beat him up."