Chapter 2869: The Jade Prince (Part 1)

The Joker corresponding to the Lego Batman didn't disappoint Shiler and the others; he was also a natural-born Lego assembly master, and relative to Batman's more order-oriented building style, the Joker excelled at using Lego bricks for artistic creation.

He wasn't a supporter of modernism, but he equally disliked overly complex Gothic style; if forced to describe it, he was dedicated to combining naturalism and Bauhaus style, which sounded utterly insane.

But he actually pulled it off, perhaps also because the base Shiler obtained truly had unique geographical advantages — it was a jungle of varying elevations, very suitable for bold architectural structural experiments.

The Shilers unanimously decided against a high tower — they wanted flatter, more spacious personal space; in plain terms, a large flat-floor apartment that perfectly satisfies human living needs.

Due to certain force majeure factors, the high tower's structure had certain defects; important personality traits like Arrogance that frequently surfaced mostly didn't have very broad living space either.

Arrogance had a two-story loft-structured bedroom, but anyone who's actually lived in a duplex-structured house would understand — this structure is not comfortable to live in at all; if it were a villa with a yard it'd be fine, but crammed into an ordinary building it's simply a disaster.

The Shilers had yearned for a large flat-floor apartment for a long time, but the high tower could only stack upward, with basically no way to expand sideways, so they decided to realize their dream in the Doujie base.

The Joker didn't just build a single block building; he cleverly utilized the cliff's elevation differences, constructing a massive Lego cliffside villa composed of twelve interlocking octagonal levels.

Aside from the one or two sides facing the cliff, the remaining sides were all floor-to-ceiling windows; almost every Shiler who had gained an independent body could obtain a perfect, spacious view room.

Looking out from the bedroom window was a boundless green ocean; countless ancient plants glittered under the sunlight, and when the wind blew, verdant waves rolled in, the excessively deep blue sky draping a refreshing chill over this green, while at sunset it turned into an intense, scorching red.

Arrogance sat on the table by the window, watching the Lego figurine gesticulating animatedly, nodding perfunctorily, seemingly listening seriously to the Joker's proposed terms, but looking like his mind had already wandered off for a while.

Recently, his and Greed's situations had completely reversed; in the previous few years, Arrogance had been bored out of his mind.

Don't let Gotham's bad state fool you, but in reality Gotham's bad situation had nothing to do with him, because most of the time Arrogance just went two points in a straight line — from the manor to school, then from school back to the manor.

Although those bizarre students gave him a headache, in terms of labor intensity, Arrogance was far inferior to Greed, who had been running himself ragged for Earth all along.

His life was regular to the point of monotony: Monday to Friday teaching classes, Saturday grading student assignments, Sunday morning drinking coffee and writing papers, afternoon gathering with colleagues at the club to unwind.

Only on extremely rare occasions would he grab an umbrella on a Friday or Sunday night and step into the rainy night, invited to investigate a mysterious murder case.

In contrast, Greed at that time had a SHIELD expense report in his left hand, a Hydra evil scheme in his right, coaxing this one and that one, swindling and ambushing, lightning-five-whip, every day making cosmic demons witness what a black hand is.

But as the saying goes, it's not that it won't be repaid, the time just hasn't come.

Greed has now achieved complete success; he's basically resolved all troubles on Marvel Earth, and there aren't many troubles in the universe either — most are just work that needs time to make progress.

Superheroes have also basically been coaxed into compliance; aside from a few with terminal illnesses, mentally there's no major problem, they could even film a documentary themed around tearing into each other, rather than actually coming to blows while cracking jokes.

But Arrogance's side is a bit troublesome; a once-in-a-century Great Depression completely shattered his teaching life's regularity; he has to find ways to earn extra money, and also deal with complaints from people around him whose lives aren't going well.

Precisely in this downward situation, both he and Bruce saw the possibility of thoroughly changing Earth's pattern through external pressure, so they still have to scheme for this; recently it's basically been rising early and sleeping late, not a moment of leisure.

So when he finally had time to lean back in his chair drinking coffee and watching the scenery, what the people around him said wasn't very important anymore.

One look at his expression and Greed knew — his body was here but his soul wasn't — so he had to pick up the Joker and go discuss in detail on the side.

The other Shilers were mostly touring the house; truth be told, Pathology doesn't all like living in basements either, it's just that at the time the high tower really had no room left, and living upstairs was a bit dangerous, so they all squeezed in the abyss.

Manipulation really liked the first-floor bedroom, because it wasn't that high here, basically level with the tree canopy, the angle of sunlight entering was just right, leaving dappled tree shadows drifting softly in the spacious room; his first task upon moving into the bedroom was organizing the wardrobe.

The other Pathology traits basically wouldn't choose independent rooms, mostly pairing up in twos; worth mentioning is that Moonlight returned to his rightful position, staying together with the Pathologies.

The Magic-side personalities occupied the top-floor library; although books made of Lego really had nothing worth reading, the atmosphere of discussion and study here was very thick; the Bishop believed this was the life he should have — if he went to kick Nya's door again he'd be a dog.

Greed put the Joker back in the hamster cage, waiting to run into other Jokers in the instance next time and package-send them over.

He sat down opposite Arrogance, but Arrogance still hadn't snapped back, so he started flipping through his own chat interface — in fact, all Shilers' chat interfaces.

Shiler's specialness lies in the fact that they are actually one person, and the vast majority of people who know him also can't tell what personality traits he has, resulting in — aside from a very few individuals — many people being unable to send targeted messages; they just fill in "Shiler" in the email recipient field.

So their so-called private chat interface is actually a group; the personality traits can see all emails sent to the name "Shiler".

Greed discovered many interesting things in it, just previously too busy to look; the first thing he saw was an email marked urgent.

Upon opening it, it was actually sent by Green Lantern Hal.

The Hal of the Shiler universe encountered a tiny little problem.

As everyone knows, the Green Lantern Corps is a group, so it's impossible to put all Green Lanterns into one team — that would be a total mess — so the Green Lantern team refers to Earth Green Lanterns, and most Earth Green Lanterns are Hal Jordan.

Also well-known: in most works concerning Green Lantern, Hal faces a very awkward situation — the ring runs out of power.

Generally, when a Green Lantern ring runs out of power is entirely determined by plot needs; whenever the editor doesn't want Hal participating in the plot, that's when they say his ring is out of power, so this is completely a metaphysics problem.

Once the ring is out of power, he has to return to the Power Battery to recharge, so the Green Lantern Hal participating in Doujie faces a more awkward situation than other superheroes.

If Iron Man's armor runs out of energy, he can still hand-build an Arc Reactor, but Green Lanterns can't build a Power Battery; when they're out of power, they can only each go home, each find their mom.

Green Lantern energy has a magical property different from other energies — it can create objects, meaning things constructed from Green Lantern energy can be converted into physical entities.

The Green Lanterns appeared in a desert; looking at the harsh environment around them, they naturally thought to quickly build a shelter, so everyone went clanging and banging building away.

By the time the house was built, everyone realized their power was limited; once power ran out they'd have to go offline to recharge, and although they could come back online anytime, running a trip back was still quite a hassle.

Some Green Lanterns who worked without slacking, comparatively honest ones, had already hit rock bottom on energy, and were discussing whether to go back and recharge first.

The Hal of the Shiler universe wasn't too clear on what the other universes' versions of himself were like, assuming they were about the same as him, so he casually fished out two Green Lantern energy stones and handed them to those out-of-power Green Lanterns.

So what situation is the Hal of the Shiler universe in now?

Put it this way: if the Little Blue Men are the Emperor, then Hal right now should be Chancellor plus Grand General plus Six Gates Chief plus Embroidered Uniform Guard Commander; he shouldn't be called Green Lantern, he should be called Green Lantern Equality King.

The only cosmic work Arrogance participated in and carried out — the Green Lantern Power Theft Plan — proceeded quite smoothly; years later, as Ion, Hal already held great power, and began using his stockpiled Green Lantern energy to trade with various civilizations in the universe.

As the saying goes, in his position he plans his affairs; these years, aside from participating in Mexico's revolutionary work, Hal has basically just been linking up various civilization forces in the universe, doing business on a huge scale.

Since it's all become doing business, don't expect this Hal to have any reverence for Green Lantern energy anymore; so him casually handing out Green Lantern energy stones is actually equivalent to handing out cigarettes before a business talk.

But the other Green Lanterns aren't like that.

The slightly younger Green Lanterns are basically still in the stage of diligently maintaining universal peace, and firmly believe in the Green Lantern Corps oath.

The older Green Lanterns, though they've already suffered lessons, understand better than anyone that the Emotional Spectrum is the vital force they rely on to survive and protect their homes, so no matter how stupid the Little Blue Men are, as long as they still hold the technology to extract spectrum energy, they themselves are people under the eaves who have no choice but to bow their heads.

But the Hal Jordan of the Shiler universe is truly too unique.

Compared to the Little Blue Men, it was Shiler who approached him first; compared to Shiler's whole set, the Little Blue Men's set doesn't measure up; this Hal Jordan was never hoodwinked by universal peace.

Toward Green Lantern energy, his initial attitude was similar to Shiler's — just treating it as an important resource.

Later, he was dragged to Mexico by Green Arrow, and gained a more profound understanding of certain things.

He realized revolution isn't a banquet, and it's absolutely impossible to manage the universe well together with those insect-like Little Blue Men; the Little Blue Men hold the gun, but completely lack the ideology to guide such a dangerous weapon, so fundamentally it's impossible to maintain universal peace.

Since that's the case, only by grasping the most important resource in his own hands is the best method to ensure universal peace.

The years spent in Mexico made Hal abandon illusions prematurely, so even though he hasn't experienced any Green Lantern Corps crisis, he clearly realizes that putting down anything to cooperate with anyone is inferior to keeping the gun in his own hands.

A revolutionary storm sweeping across the Americas changed everyone caught in its midst, yet it also blew them in different directions, landing them on different sides.

Green Arrow Oliver became a true liberator, so he chose to let go; Superman Clark saw himself as the land's guardian deity, intent on carrying grain justice through to the end; Lex Luthor was a red pragmatist, treating the theory merely as a weapon to achieve his own goals.

And Hal Jordan, the "Champion of Willpower" whose personality wasn't particularly outstanding in the Justice League, inevitably walked the path of Green Hegemony opposing Red Hegemony by virtue of that very trait.

Compared to a hero, the Hal Jordan of the Shiler universe resembles a powerful minister more.

If every Green Lantern had to have a unique callsign of their own, then perhaps this Hal's callsign would be——"Emerald Prince".