Chapter 2037: The Knight's Night of Terror (16)

*Screech—*

The sharp sound of braking rang out. Poison Ivy used all her strength to steady herself with the hand gripping the steering wheel. She turned her head, looking at Peter with a horrified expression, and asked again.

"What did you say?"

The expression on her face clearly spelled out what she was thinking right now—*Are you sane? *

Peter turned to look at her and said, "I haven't lost my mind. We'll take another exit out of the city, go to Blüdhaven, and ask Gordon where he put the Joker's ashes."

"I guarantee I can make you accept my plan before we reach our destination, because this is truly the best solution right now."

"I can't imagine how absurd your explanation could be." Poison Ivy let out a long sigh but still stepped on the gas. She kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting outside the car window, saying, "Actually, we all know this city is the city of Batman and the Joker. Anything related to them is so insane it's unbelievable; no one wants to get involved."

"That is exactly the problem, ma'am." Peter's attitude was very serious. "Perhaps you feel it's a good thing the Joker is dead. I feel the same; he is a heinous criminal, and no matter what retribution he receives, it wouldn't be enough."

"But death is not the ultimate punishment. He even received a gift through his death: he has become one with Batman."

Poison Ivy looked at him with some confusion. Peter sighed and said, "I suspect the blood the Joker injected into Batman's body back then has been affecting him."

"Actually, I don't know what complex entanglements exist between the two of them. I only know that if a fortress is impregnable from the outside, then anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would think to break it from within."

"I believe all the previous plans to kill the Joker using Titan toxin might have been orchestrated by the Joker himself. His goal was to defeat Batman from the inside."

Poison Ivy frowned. She bit her lip, pondered for a moment, and said, "It's not impossible. Before you came here, they clashed countless times but could never determine a winner."

"Batman doesn't kill the Joker, and the Joker finds it very hard to truly defeat Batman. I've witnessed their clashes a few times. Honestly, it's hard to understand, but one can see that the Joker will use every method to break Batman."

"He is almost successful, which is why we cannot let him get his way."

"Do you really think the Joker can break Batman from the inside?"

"No, I don't think he can, but he can break Cat Getan." Peter sighed. "Based on my observations, Batman's willpower is like steel; simple hallucinations cannot break him."

"But don't forget, while there is internal stimulation, there is also external pressure: the Scarecrow's fear toxin hasn't been solved, the Penguin, Two-Face, and the Riddler are waiting for their chance, the Arkham Knight has suddenly appeared, and then there's me..."

Peter gripped the file, his tone heavy as he said, "The Joker laid his plans even earlier. If it was indeed he who kidnapped Jason, then his plan might have started back then."

"Taking away Batman's child, letting himself die from poisoning, being reborn within Batman's body, and having Jason reappear as the Arkham Knight—all while coordinating with the chaos of the disaster in Cat Getan."

"The irritation caused by the interference of hallucinations, the heartache of seeing his child tortured, the guilt of facing the Arkham Knight, and the pressure and anxiety of needing to solve the disaster immediately."

Peter turned his head away, feeling a sense of emotion, and said, "The Professor was right. The Joker is the true master of playing with human hearts. It's hard to imagine who else could withstand such multiple layers of emotional pressure without making a mistake."

"And once Batman makes a mistake, it will inevitably lead to a chain reaction of dire consequences. Cat Getan will see many deaths, the city will be destroyed, the Arkham Knight will die, and Batman will be abandoned by his allies and disgraced. Tonight, this city will fall into a carnival of total chaos."

Peter gripped the file tighter and tighter, saying, "In this plan, the Joker can fail countless times, but Batman can only fail once."

Poison Ivy seemed to understand a little. She looked at Peter and said, "Honestly, I don't want to see the situation develop like this either. I haven't even found a proper refuge for my plants yet. So, how do you intend to resolve this situation?"

"To be honest, the moment I failed to realize the Joker's plan and started executing my own, the situation became irredeemable."

Peter sighed helplessly. He knew it would be very difficult to get a high score, but clearly, it wasn't time to hand in the paper yet. He had to fight for some process points.

"The Doctor told me that the best way to crack a flawless plan is to do something the mastermind never expected."

"Perhaps everything is within the Joker's expectations—whether it's the Arkham Knight's betrayal, the disaster unleashed by the Scarecrow, or the plan I'm executing—but there is one thing he likely never anticipated."

"That someone would resurrect him?" Poison Ivy said.

"Yes. No one has the motive to do so. He is the most notorious criminal in this city, a mortal enemy of Batman. Bad guys would mock him for dying early, and good guys would applaud his death."

"This creates an unsolvable dilemma for Batman. He cannot tell anyone that the Joker isn't dead at all and is still living inside his body, because if he did, it would only lead to two results: those who don't believe him won't understand his plight, and those who do believe him will lose their trust in him."

"But he didn't count on you." Poison Ivy's hands on the steering wheel became steadier; clearly, she had accepted this explanation. She said, "If the Joker is resurrected, there will be two scenarios: either the original Joker leaves Batman's body and becomes himself again, or there will be a new Joker. Which one do you think it will be?"

"Regardless of which one it is, the Joker's plan to break Batman from the inside will definitely be disrupted, and his first-mover advantage will vanish." Peter's face remained solemn. "I know we shouldn't resurrect a criminal with blood-stained hands, but if there must be a Joker in this world, it absolutely cannot be Batman. Otherwise, the entire world will be destroyed."

The Spider-Man of the past would never have resurrected any criminal, but if there was anything Peter had learned from observing Batman and everything that had happened tonight, it was that Batman was the strongest human in the world.

But this was clearly a dilemma. He had to find a way to pull the Joker out of Batman's body; otherwise, once the Joker was reborn within Batman, he truly couldn't imagine the catastrophe the world would face if such a powerful superhero went insane.

Poison Ivy seemed to sense Peter's distress. Her hands on the steering wheel paused, but she still spoke: "That's just how this city is, boy."

"A big problem right now versus a big problem in the future—which one should we choose? No matter which one we pick, we will feel very painful. That is the life of most people."

The car entered the underground cold storage in Blüdhaven again. Poison Ivy used a vine to wake Gordon. Gordon was very surprised to see Peter.

However, he didn't know who had attacked him at the time and thought Peter had come to save him. But Peter persuaded him to stay there. Gordon didn't want to at first, but seeing Barbara still unconscious nearby, he ultimately didn't act impulsively to return to Cat Getan.

After explaining his intentions to Gordon, Gordon showed a very obvious look of hesitation. Peter looked at him and said, "We don't have time, Commissioner. You know Batman can't have any problems; he is the last hope."

Gordon, who looked a bit aged, leaned against the corner of the wall, sitting with his hands on his knees. He looked up at the ceiling, sighed deeply, and said, "Actually, I don't approve of Batman doing this either. I don't know if this is the Joker virus in his body at work."

"What's wrong with him?" Poison Ivy asked curiously.

"He's not the only one infected with the Joker virus." Gordon shook his head. "A few days before the Scarecrow announced the destruction of Cat Getan, I discovered a base he used to imprison Joker virus victims. There were at least five patients there, all showing symptoms of the Joker virus infection."

Peter frowned deeply. He really hadn't expected the Joker virus to be a contagious disease.

"I don't mean to slander Batman, but I really can't understand why he would do this." Gordon lowered his eyelids and said, "I tried to persuade him. The excuse he gave me was that he wanted to cure everyone, but that makes no sense."

"This certainly doesn't look like something a superhero should do. If he wanted to cure them, he should have at least tried to treat them. If he was worried about them causing damage, he should have sent them to the police station, not imprisoned them privately."

Moreover, Gordon knew that Batman actually had more and better ways to handle these Joker virus victims—for example, borrowing Mr. Freeze's technology to freeze them until a cure could be found, or simply using Batman's sleep pods to keep them in a coma.

Instead, he kept them in a base, letting them suffer while fully conscious, which only dragged their symptoms out and made them worse.

"Why on earth would Batman do this?"

Peter voiced his question, and Gordon, who knew both the Joker and Batman better, speculated:

"The Joker couldn't have known his blood was infectious out of thin air. He must have conducted some experiments before, and those five people were his test subjects."

"But even if it infected ordinary people, it wouldn't prove it could infect Batman. Batman is special. The Joker couldn't have accurately judged the success of the infection before actually making his move."

"If the infection succeeded, then it would be fine if he died. But if the infection failed, he clearly couldn't accept the fact that he died before defeating Batman."

Peter suddenly realized and said, "So those five people were actually backups the Joker left for himself. If the plan to infect Batman failed, one of them would become the Joker instead."

"In other words, the Joker knew that there would only ever be one Joker," Poison Ivy immediately reacted and said, "He would eventually be reborn in someone's body, and the best result would be Batman."

"But Batman chose to keep them, and even let them be." Peter frowned. "He neither treats them nor takes restrictive measures."

Peter suddenly realized that Batman should know the Joker better than he did. It was impossible for him to be completely unaware of the Joker's plan. Could it be that this base holding the Joker virus victims was actually one of his countermeasures?

Wait, could it be that Batman's line of thinking was the same as his own? That he kept those Joker virus victims to resurrect the Joker, so the Joker would leave his body and couldn't infect him from the inside?

Peter immediately realized that tonight was his stage, but in the end, it was the stage for Batman and the Joker.

He thought he was the weaver of the web, but he had never seen the net cast by Batman and the Joker long ago. The turbulent undercurrents of their struggle had been flowing deep in the riverbed long before he laid his first thread.

Then the question was: what exactly was the plan of Batman and the Joker? When did they start laying their plans, and how did they do it?