Chapter 2171

The Penguin, a heinous criminal.

If in his decades of criminal career, he never for a moment realized who his crimes were actually hurting, then he was destined to never stand with the grassroots people. Even if he compromised temporarily for the sake of the situation, he would eventually choose to betray them.

Therefore, Bruce never intended to push him to the grassroots—what if he accidentally died on the revolutionary road? Wouldn't he become a people's hero?

Therefore, Bruce established a screening mechanism for the Penguin—artificially creating an IQ low-lying area around the Penguin.

Why else would one say that the Joker and Batman are the best-matched opponents? They are brilliant when they confront each other, and equally ingenious when they cooperate.

The entire process of the Anderin case designed by the Joker was actually also a screening.

It's not that the public has no brains, it's just that there are too many of them. It's enough to just fool a portion of those without brains to set off a wave of public opinion.

Some people realized that the brutal kidnappers were the root of all tragedies, that this was just another terrorist conspiracy, and that only the criminals should be punished.

Some people thought that Bruce was indeed not prepared, but at least he stood up, which was much better than those who didn't stand up, and he shouldn't be criticized so harshly.

There were also some who didn't realize either, choosing to blame both sides equally. Although the criminals were wrong, Bruce was no better.

And finally, some people felt that Bruce deliberately let go because of old grudges, just to kill Anderin. Such people who take advantage of others' danger are more hateful than criminals.

Surely some people think, does the last kind of heaven-defying person really exist?

In fact, this type of person may only account for 10% of the total population, but the more mindless and extreme the thinking, the louder the voice. 10% of the population can make 30% of the noise.

And the swaying faction of the second-to-last kind who blame both sides equally, hearing this voice, thinks that 100% of the whole society thinks so, so they also follow the trend to change their views, following public opinion to condemn Bruce. At this time, the total number of people reached 30%, and the volume also reached 50%.

Even if the other two kinds of rational people are unwavering and insist on speaking out, it's only half-and-half volume, and in the end, it's bound to be a mess.

And as the wave of public opinion rises, more and more people join in. The volume of the last kind of fools is one against three, and the swaying faction continues to join, while the rational faction is always one is one and two is two. Then, in the end, the irrational voice is bound to get louder and louder.

The louder the irrational voice, the more irrational people will join in, until it completely fills the bubble of public opinion.

This is the basic theory of rumor spreading, and it is also the principle of the method the Joker uses every time he ruins Batman's reputation.

This time is the same, but the difference is that the Batman he faces is talkative and petty.

The most important thing is being petty.

Batman actually has plenty of ways to reverse public opinion. Can a big capitalist be less knowledgeable about manipulating public opinion than a mud-legged Joker? If he wanted to, the media of the Wei En Group would be enough to reverse public opinion overnight.

He doesn't do this because he doesn't care how the public sees him, whether they think he is a criminal or think he needs to be punished. He only needs to do what he insists on. He doesn't need the people, nor does he care what they think.

But Bruce understands the power of the people better than most Batmen, and, he is petty.

Therefore, Bruce chose to "touch porcelain" (fake an injury for compensation) with the Penguin, because he knew that the Joker looked down on the Penguin, this kind of dead fat man who fell into the money pit. Once Bruce fell, even if the Penguin added dog's tail to the Joker's perfect plan, it would disgust the Joker fiercely.

And once he fell, the wave of public opinion rose again. After running through the above principles once, only the most irrational voices were left.

And on the East Coast, the most anti-intellectual are the "White Left."

White Left, if one must use more appropriate vocabulary to describe this group, one could probably call them "Fantastic Beasts." Very fantastic, but not much like humans, and one could also say they don't do human things at all.

Their biggest characteristic is that they never know what "adapting to local conditions" means, and they always place theories and ideologies above the fundamental needs of the majority. In short, it's a pile of shit.

One White Left can still be called a fool, but a group of White Left is a complete cesspool.

But knowing it's a cesspool, the Penguin still has to jump.

If the Penguin were still a mayor with real power, he could naturally ignore whether these people supported him or not, but the act of shooting Bruce Wei En angered the upper class, causing his status to plummet, and even putting his life in danger.

Then this group of fanatical supporters became his only straw to clutch at, because if he didn't use them, there was no one else.

But becoming the leader of the White Left is not that simple—Cobblepot himself comes from the Four Great Families. Letting him lead this group is no different from pressing his head into shit.

What Bruce did was equivalent to throwing the Penguin into a cesspool, making him have to become a "cesspool maggot" to save his life, and he even had to improvise and create "On Why Shit Is Delicious and the Necessity of Eating Shit" in the mountain of shit and sea of shit.

More importantly, shit is shit. You can't pan for gold in a cesspool. If you can't master the technique of splashing shit, the most likely outcome is becoming the culprit of the cesspool explosion.

After confirming that the Penguin was already deep in the cesspool, Bruce urged Peter to evacuate as soon as possible, because he knew that the Penguin simply didn't have the skills to wiggle his way to fame in the White Left cesspool, so if there were no surprises, the cesspool was going to explode.

The Penguin's leadership is not bad, but the most feared thing is having a heart higher than the sky but a life thinner than paper. If he doesn't work hard, at most he will drown in shit himself. If he works hard, the shit will drown Cat Getan.

The thing is like this: the Penguin still didn't intend to give up his plan to compete for the public opinion position. After hard coordination, he still organized a wave of protest teams, marching along Hell's Kitchen to Manhattan to protest.

But don't forget, the two cities have merged now, and the terrain is completely different. This group of people isn't the kind who would look at maps and specify routes in advance. Usually, they just walk wherever they end up, and if they are tired, they sit down on the spot. In New York, where the atmosphere of political correctness is rampant, no one dares to provoke them.

So they took the wrong step in the first step. They should have gone straight to Manhattan, but as they walked, they circled half of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn itself has many idlers. Once they heard about a protest, regardless of what the protest was about, joining in was the end of it.

The more people there were, the more chaotic it became. Everyone followed the trend, thinking the leaders knew what they were doing, but the leaders didn't know the way either. As they walked, they walked to Queens, which is adjacent to Brooklyn.

The people in Queens are even more "heavyweight." Once they heard it was environmental protection, animal protection, LGBT, and petitioning for the mayor, wouldn't they have to join in the fun?

More and more people walked, and soon they were about to cross Queens.

And the Hudson River and Cat Getan River between Queens and the Bronx merged a part. The two sides of the Hudson River between the two districts are also the group of people on the two sides of the Cat Getan River.

As everyone knows, Cat Getan has thousands of murder cases, and the two sides of the river account for half. The servants and sailors brought by the first batch of Europeans who landed in Cat Getan, and the later Black slaves and criminals who fled with the ships, mostly chose to live along the river. This is the real Cat Getan.

Let's put it this way, Cat Getan also has vanguard groups. When they hear about going to the riverside for a daily activity, they shake their heads like a rattle-drum. Batman has to check the almanac before going to the riverside to fight crime. Even the Joker doesn't pick people from this side when choosing victims; he doesn't even live here!

The weather was nice today, cloudless and sunny. They held signs and shouted, drove and honked horns, rode motorcycles and revved engines, adults shouted and children made noise, street vendors and food trucks escorted them. The protest team marched majestically along the Cat Getan riverbank.

The Cat Getan residents who lived in Brooklyn and Queens—the group of fun-seekers who previously provided logistical support for the protest team—saw the direction they were walking and ran away without looking back. Fun is precious, but life is more valuable.

When the protest team, which was about two kilometers long, full of people, and dragging along, drove into the Cat Getan area, the Cat Getan residents were all stunned.

Where had the old Gothamites seen this battle formation? Usually, taxis don't even come in here, and terrorists carrying sixty pounds of explosives would rather take a detour.

What happened? Did Godzilla hit the other side?

"Pop! Pop! Crackle!"

Small windows on the colorful European-style buildings were pushed open one by one. Curious Gothamites poked their heads out, looking at the protest team on the road as if they were looking at rare animals.

A Black young man scratched his head, and then he saw his next-door neighbor—a white-haired old lady in her seventies or eighties—take out a submachine gun from the house, aim it downstairs, and pull the trigger.

"Da-da-da-da-da-da!"

Bullets poured down like raindrops. The strafing without deliberate aiming raised wisps of smoke and dust on the ground. The protest crowd screamed and fled crazily. The old lady was still full of surprise.

"God! It's living people!!!"

Others were also full of disbelief, and then, as if they had found some treasure, they scurried back into their houses, took out a pile of weapons—more complete than the Cat Getan Police Department—and threw them at the crowd.

The street instantly turned into a living hell. Screams were endless. Others scattered like birds and beasts, and many jumped into the Cat Getan River to hide.

And on the roof at the corner of the street, a red-haired figure climbed up the roof along the outdoor stairs. After walking to the roof, she stepped on the edge, took the walkie-talkie in surprise, and said to the other side: "Damn it, wasn't it supposed to be an infiltration mission?! Why are they fighting over there?!"

The female agent hid behind the rooftop door, roaring into the walkie-talkie: "Coulson, what are you doing?! You ruined my mission! I found his trail, and I was only one step away from catching him!"

"It's not me!" Coulson's voice came from the walkie-talkie, slightly aggrieved. He said: "Headquarters didn't receive a fire support mission! You are the only one executing the mission to hunt down the Evil Iron Man, and headquarters only provides communication support!"

"Then what the hell is going on in front?!"

Seeing Natasha took out a nano-drone and threw it out, then opened the screen of the communicator on her arm, and at the same time connected to the headquarters line. The scene that appeared on the screen next stunned everyone.

In just twenty seconds, the whole street was wiped out, and the foundation sank by at least two meters—even the US Air Force would have to bow down.

When the bombing ended, Seeing Natasha poked her head out from behind the house, looked at the messy street in a daze, and slowly said to the walkie-talkie: "Are you sure you didn't provide fire support? This..."

She looked up and met a pair of brown eyes full of shock.

"Stark! Don't run!!!"

The female agent chased after him quickly, and Stark also turned around and ran quickly.

Suddenly, the two of them braked sharply at the same time.

"BOOM!!!!!!!"

Both of them were blown away.