Chapter 185

He saw the scattered paper balls at Alberto's feet—each one identical to the ticket in his hand, just messy fragments of newsprint and white paper torn apart.

When had he truly believed this was a ticket? When had he thought it actually contained clues?

Was it when Schiller insisted he drive the Batmobile to the TV station's mailbox to buy it? When they actually went to the theater's ticket checkpoint? Or when Schiller and Alberto both stared at him earnestly and recited line after line of clues?

Batman suddenly understood: none of these were the real reason—the root cause was his arrogance.

He had always held the belief that while everyone else was drunk, he alone was sober; he thought the madman on stage was no different from the crowd on the street, and he scorned to understand him, scorned to engage—so he never participated at all.

And so he had been fooled.

There had never been any clues—it was just a group of madmen executing a bunch of fools.

"Do you know what this means?" Schiller stood up, bracing his hands on the back of the chair in front of him, asking Batman.

"It means that the earlier joke was truly hilarious."

Schiller turned and took the popcorn bucket from Alberto's hands, grasping the paper balls inside, then flung them into the air. "See? This is 'money.'"

"... his is what they chased after. Isn't that funny?"

The clown on stage stared fixedly at Batman. Suddenly, he lowered his head, letting his green hair cover his eyes, and asked Batman: "You really don't want to laugh at all?"

"Enough." Batman leapt to the front of the stage.

"The farce is over." His voice carried irritation.

"Before coming here, I pulled up all the historical records of the Gotham Theater—including its original blueprints."

"And in the last few minutes, I read them all."

Batman turned his gaze to the center of the stage. "The man who built this theater was a former European noble. To prevent actors' footsteps from being too loud and ruining the performance, they didn't use the hollow wooden stages common in American opera houses—they built a solid stage of solid rock. Your footsteps just now proved it."

"From the moment you issued your announcement until now, without explosives, you couldn't have dug a hollow space into this stage and planted a bomb."

The clown stared at Batman, then suddenly snapped: "How can you still not get it? This isn't a detective story! You idiot!"

"Forget it. You'll understand. You will..."

He twisted his neck, then his waist, then unfastened his tie and undid the buttons of his suit jacket. His body was covered in bombs. As he unbuttoned, he muttered: "I told you I should've bought a larger size—this is way too tight."

"Oh, look! You were right, Detective Batman! The bombs are right here!"

"See? So many!" The clown pulled his chin back, tilting his head downward to try to see the bombs strapped to his waist.

"I'm about to detonate them—blow you and this whole crowd of fools into the sky!"

The clown dropped the triangle iron he held, then pulled a pistol from his waist and pointed it at Batman: "You won't stop me!"

Batman stood opposite him. Without hesitation, before the clown could make another dangerous move, several bat-shaped projectiles sliced through the air, severing the ropes suspending the people above. One by one, they crashed to the ground, screaming in pain.

The clown's attention was drawn by the sudden, piercing screams. In an instant, Batman lunged forward—first kicking out his arm joint, sending the pistol flying, then punching him in the face, and finally wrapping his arms around his neck, yanking him backward and wrenching off his other arm.

The clown collapsed, howling. Batman crouched down, reaching to disarm the bombs. As he lowered his gaze to meet the clown's eyes, he saw the man's face break into a triumphant smile.

A scream erupted from the center of the stage. Fatty Haru clutched his neck and fell to the ground—a small iron rod, used to strike the triangle iron, protruded from his throat.

The attacker was another muscular man. He grabbed Haru's neck, yanked out the rod, and blood spurted instantly. Haru collapsed, lifeless. The man shouted: "You low-class nouveau riche! How dare you humiliate us? I—"

Before he finished, a gunshot rang out. Cheli trembled, gripping the pistol, screaming furiously: "I've had enough of you! If you hadn't insisted on throwing that party, how could we have been so humiliated?!"

Two men were dead in an instant. All the court members began frantically struggling to free themselves from their ropes.

When they had been suspended in the air, no matter how they struggled, they couldn't break free—but now that the ropes had been cut, the knots binding them were loose. As the ends were severed, the bindings loosened further. The strongest man broke free first.

The triangle iron and pistol the clown had thrown had already been picked up. In the chaos, everyone grabbed whatever they could find—bricks, torn rope—everyone's eyes were bloodshot, frenzied, attacking each other without restraint.

But soon, they discovered the best place to seize weapons.

One man dashed toward the orchestra, reaching for a music stand as a weapon. Another rushed to strike him. After a brief struggle, one of them grabbed the violin bow beside them, seized his opponent's opening, and wrapped it around his neck from behind.

He screamed: "It was you who threatened me, made me obey their demands so you could get the real answer! Die!!!"

He yanked hard. Blood shot high into the air, spraying the ceiling like a crimson fountain, like ivy climbing a trellis.

Batman, who had just rushed forward to stop it, was drenched in blood. The thick stench flooded his mind, making him momentarily dazed.

Only when the corpse collapsed did the killer suddenly collapse to his knees, trembling: "No! No... what have I done? But..."