Chapter 2159: Battle of the Two Cities! (Part 37)

Following the Penguin's shout, staff from the Mayor's mansion immediately rushed in, but the Emperor Penguin had already closed the door and shot the Penguin a look.

The Penguin slapped his own forehead; he understood what the Emperor Penguin meant. If the person couldn't necessarily hold on until rescue arrived, or if the rescue might not succeed, it would be better to destroy the evidence early and act as if this had never happened—at the very least, it would allow him to distance himself from it.

But what kind of person would attempt to destroy the evidence of Batman? Even if Batman were a greenhorn just starting out, this was a mission that was fundamentally impossible to complete.

Besides Batman being Batman, he was also Bruce Wei En. Even if many people wanted Bruce dead, if he truly died, the subsequent investigation by the FBI, Congress, S. H. I. E. L. D., or any similar organization would certainly be extremely serious.

Capitalists would not allow the corporate groups they had built into their own private fiefdoms to be so easily stolen by others. If one could simply kill the parents and then the child to easily take their place, then none of them would be safe.

They would pay an unimaginable price to eliminate such a security risk; even if he were only half-suspected, he would become an enemy of the entire upper class in an instant.

The Penguin's face turned ferocious as he waved his hands vigorously and shouted, "Call an ambulance! Don't touch him! Don't touch him! You bunch of idiots!!"

The group of staff from the Mayor's mansion in front of him actually wanted to lift the upper body of a man who had been shot in the chest, and someone else was grabbing his legs, wanting to lay him on the ground.

The Penguin rushed forward with all his might to push everyone back. At this moment, he discovered the benefit of his original self maintaining a gang structure; soon, a group of people wearing security uniforms, but clearly recognizable as gang members, rushed in.

They were very experienced in dealing with such gunshot wounds and quickly replaced the previous staff. Before long, the ambulance arrived, and Batman was quickly loaded onto a stretcher and sent to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The Penguin instructed the Emperor Penguin, "You must watch him the entire time. If you can't get into the operating room, then bribe a nurse, or all of them. Absolutely do not let anyone pull any tricks. No matter what, you must keep Bruce Wei En alive."

The Emperor Penguin nodded and left. The Penguin stood where he was and sighed, then remembered to go and retrieve that revolver.

Someone must have framed him, the Penguin thought. This conspiracy might be as follows:

They told this foolish kid, "You just go and gamble your life against the Mayor. We've bribed the Mayor's people and swapped one of the revolvers; the bullet definitely won't hit you."

Perhaps they even showed Bruce some kind of technology to make him believe that by cheating in this game, he would be absolutely safe, and Bruce just believed it.

In reality, the pistol had indeed been tampered with, only it changed from absolute safety to absolute danger; the bullet would definitely strike Bruce Wei En.

Doing this had two benefits: first, it could eliminate the nominal owner of the Wei En Group, allowing Bruce Wei En to usurp power within the Wei En Group.

Second, it could pin the blame for the murder on the Mayor, while simultaneously leaving the Penguin—the Mayor—too busy to handle himself, unable to face the next election, allowing them to seize the opportunity to get their own candidate into office.

No wonder, the Penguin thought. When Batman first came in, he had seen a kind of confidence in him, and from his previous analysis of Batman's behavior, he wasn't a very confident person—or rather, most of his confidence was put on.

But the confidence and arrogance just now were perfectly natural, even making the Penguin mistakenly believe that the Batman from their universe had already arrived and was guiding the rookie Batman from behind the scenes.

Yet he hadn't expected that this Batman, who was green to the extreme, had actually just been deceived and possessed a very blind confidence that he would win. This, this was a false alarm.

But what the Penguin couldn't accept was that he had actually been fooled as well, truly believing that Batman had found his rhythm and had come to play games with the villains again.

This was the danger of empiricism. The Batman he was familiar with was indeed keen on doing this, but this was a brand-new Batman who was infuriatingly green. He had neither the ability to design a game nor the possibility of completing a game on his own.

The Penguin thought with a gloomy face, "Learn from your mistakes. Next time, remember that this guy doesn't have any hard-to-read conspiracies or schemes at all. Guessing in the direction of the greenest possibility is the right way to go."

Then he discovered that Batman might be even greener than he thought, because the Penguin didn't find any mechanisms in the revolver Batman had been holding.

The revolver in the Penguin's hand was the one he had provided to Batman; in other words, this gun was the Penguin's.

The chamber was intact, the cylinder part was smooth, and the firing marks were clearly visible. This gave the Penguin a terrifying conjecture—could it be that Batman was just purely unlucky?

Here, one must introduce the basic nature of Russian Roulette. Simply put, it's a six-shot revolver with one bullet inserted. Of course, it's possible to insert two or three, but that would greatly increase the danger.

Spin the cylinder, then pull the trigger. A random chamber will be fired. If there is no bullet, that counts as a victory, and the gun is passed to the next person to continue firing. Those who get stage fright or die lose.

It can be seen that if this game continues, one side will inevitably die, but in fact, there is another ending: someone gets stage fright and chooses to give up voluntarily.

The Penguin agreed to the gamble with this idea in mind. Judging from this Batman's previous behavior, he wasn't a very courageous person, and his psychological quality wasn't that strong at all.

Some people aren't unable to formulate good plans; it's just that their psychological quality and ability to act prevent them from executing those plans.

At the time, the Penguin thought it was the Batman from the main universe who had given this rookie Batman such an idea, but he felt that the Batman from the main universe might not know how green the rookie Batman was. This was his loophole, and he could exploit it.

The Penguin would demand more bullets when it was Batman's turn for the second time; he was confident in using words and actions to apply pressure on Batman, forcing him to push past his emotional threshold until he gave up out of fear.

By then, the situation would be that the gun was in the Penguin's hand, pressed against Batman's forehead; if Batman wanted to leave, he wouldn't be able to without coughing up something more.

The Penguin wanted to use this to give the main universe's Batman a small warning: my heart for defending my power and status is no weaker than your heart for justice, and I will pay any price to keep enjoying all of this.

But the Penguin couldn't figure out how the gun in his hand could have no problems; did the main universe's Batman really want to let this rookie gamble?

No, that's impossible; Batman isn't that kind of person. If a certain plan inevitably leads to bloodshed and injury, then he will definitely do it himself. Still, that saying holds true: all Batmen have a kind of naive kindness.

But even if Batman didn't tamper with the gun and this was a normal game of Russian roulette, how could the first shot hit? This is a one-in-six probability; it makes no sense from a statistical standpoint.

Could it be that this universe's Batman is not only a rookie but also particularly unlucky?

The Penguin instinctively felt something was wrong, but soon he received a call from the Emperor Penguin. The doctor on the other end of the line said a bunch of technical terms the Penguin couldn't understand; the only thing he could understand was that Batman's current situation was very dangerous, he was currently undergoing emergency treatment, and the estimated time for the rescue could not be calculated.

Before the Penguin could hang up this call, he heard another call coming in, so he had to hang up the first one to let the other line connect, only to hear Gordon roaring.

"Oswald Cobblepot, what are you doing?!! Your party leader, Wood, called and demanded that I suppress the fact that you killed Bruce Wei En. What have you done?!!!"

The Penguin was also stunned; how had this matter already reached the party leader's ears? Less than half an hour had passed since Bruce Wei En collapsed, and the party leader was in Washington; how could he have received the news earlier than Gordon?

The Penguin hurriedly called his assistant over; the assistant's expression changed several times before finally speaking under the Penguin's interrogation.

"At 4:00 this afternoon, there was a regional party inquiry meeting regarding the next election in the conference hall downstairs. You were notified yesterday, but you said you wouldn't attend..."

The Penguin's eyes widened, and the assistant, pale-faced and trembling, said: "When the str-stretcher was carried down, it just happened to pass by the entrance of the venue..."

The Penguin couldn't catch his breath, clutched his chest, and stumbled back a few steps; fortunately, one hand caught the back of a sofa chair. He looked at the assistant and said: "How did they know it was Bruce Wei En?"

The assistant was stunned, then cautiously said: "Uh, because none of them suffer from face blindness?"

"I mean, wasn't he wearing a mask?!!!"

"The doctor said that his clothes were obstructing his breathing." The assistant swallowed and said in a small voice: "So as soon as the stretcher was carried into the hallway, the mask was taken off."

"Then couldn't you have..."

The Penguin wanted to say couldn't you have found a piece of cloth to cover his face, but upon reflection, if Bruce Wei En had been carried out of his office covered by a white sheet, the FBI's gun barrels would likely already be pressed against his forehead.

There is a limit to how much Congress will leave Gotham alone; if they didn't intervene when the mayor publicly shot the richest man, the Federation would truly be finished.

The Penguin was certainly aware of this point; he stomped his feet hard and was just thinking of a countermeasure when the assistant spoke again.

"To avoid obstructing his breathing, the doctor took off his jacket directly. It happened to be the end of the meeting, and those party members all saw the wound on Bruce's chest; the traces of the gunshot wound were quite obvious."

The Penguin's vision went black; his phone rang again. He instinctively pressed the answer button and put the phone to his ear; the party leader's roaring made his head buzz.

After hanging up the phone, the Penguin covered his eyes with one hand, his chest heaving like a bellows working hard beside a raging fire. After a long while, he raised his somewhat trembling arm, waved his hand at the assistant, and said.

"Go, find the best doctor, must make him... forget it, prepare the car, I'm going over now."

The Penguin straightened his suit jacket, picked up the umbrella beside him, and walked out of the office with long strides; several security guards who were former gang thugs followed him into the elevator.

With a 'ding', the elevator arrived. After the doors opened, countless microphones and cameras nearly knocked the Penguin over.

"Mr. Mayor, may I ask why you shot Bruce Wei En? Was it to vent anger for the agitated public?"

"Mr. Cobblepot, some say that your wounding of Bruce Wei En is to win over public support for the election a month from now. What is your take on this? Is this the first step for the Democratic Party to change its campaign style in New Jersey?"

"What is your take on Party Leader Wood's proposal in Congress regarding the amendment of the New Jersey Unlimited Self-Defense Rights draft? Is your action providing actual behavioral support for the draft revision?"

"Mr. Mayor, may I ask Bruce..."

"Mr. Mayor..."