Chapter 2876

After the afternoon tea ended, everyone else left, leaving only Batman and Shiler sitting at the table. Batman looked at the leftovers on the table and remained silent.

"I don't want to say anything like 'I told you so,' but if you think that mixing holy water into the food without testing that someone is abnormal means you can rest easy, I won't put any more energy into your life safety."

"What did you say to Barbara?" Batman asked. He looked at Shiler and said, "And why did you provoke Tim to go and trouble Barbara and Dick?"

"I thought you heard."

"I just didn't understand."

Shiler seemed a bit surprised by his directness, but he tapped the side of the teacup with his finger and said, "I am adopting a simpler security method."

He reached out, dipped his finger in the tea, and started writing on the table.

"Assuming vampires are naturally on the same side, we divide everyone here into two factions and make them hostile to each other. If we stand on one side..."

"Then there is a fifty percent chance that there are no vampires on our side, and a fifty percent chance that all the vampires are on our side."

Batman frowned slightly; he seemed to have guessed something.

"If there are no vampires on our side, then the vampires have to deal with half the Bat-family plus us. If all the vampires are on our side, then in order to gain our trust and deal with the other half of the Bat-family, the vampires will at least temporarily stand on our side."

"This is a question of discourse power," Batman said. "When they become hostile to each other, they all have to win us over, regardless of whether they are vampires or not."

"Exactly," Shiler said. "Since the vampires haven't taken violent action immediately, it means they still need to lurk."

"When there are no enemies and everyone is united, they can stay quietly, only appearing at critical moments to guide the development of events, and then pushing the responsibility away cleanly afterward."

"But once there is another faction that is always at odds with them, they need to win the trust of the higher-ups to increase their discourse power. Otherwise, if the higher-ups trust the other faction, their discourse power will drop, and they won't be able to guide the team at critical moments, and lurking will naturally become meaningless."

"So that's why you deliberately split the Bat-family," Batman said. "You don't look like a surgeon; you look like a sociologist."

"Everything I do is to force the traitor to move," Shiler said. "Letting you expose your weakness is naturally to give them a target, making them feel they don't need to lurk for too long and will soon have a chance to act."

"Dividing the Robins into two factions is to make the traitor feel that their position is unstable and they might lose your trust, thereby losing the chance to act, and thus thinking of other ways to win you over."

"Once they take the initiative to contact you, as the one who knows your children best, wouldn't you be able to see who is the cookie that has already gone stale?"

Shiler suddenly leaned forward, stared into Batman's eyes, and said, "Or is it that you have already made a decision, but just don't want to admit that your favorite child has betrayed you, and you still want to give him a chance?"

The teacup fell to the ground. Batman turned his head to call Alfred. Shiler returned to a relaxed posture, sighed lightly, and said, "You know there will definitely be one. If you count on this one to repent, you are destined to lose the second, the third..."

"Enough." There wasn't much anger in Batman's tone, but rather a warning. He said, "Don't try to interfere in the affairs of the Bat-family. Just be prepared for the surgery."

After Batman left, Shiler sat quietly in the chair for a while, pretending not to notice the figure eavesdropping behind the porch, and went upstairs after retrieving the ironed clothes from Alfred.

Back in the room, a knock on the door came within five minutes.

Shiler smiled slightly. The Robins were smart, just not mature enough. If someone turned them into vampires and wanted to give Batman a fatal blow, that was probably just betting on Batman being soft-hearted.

In a head-on game, they had no chance of winning.

Shiler sighed lightly, but the person standing outside the door was somewhat unexpected—it was Dick.

Shiler lowered his eyes as quickly as possible, restrained the surprised look in his eyes, and invited Dick in.

"I didn't expect you to come over," Shiler said somewhat ambiguously, while he touched the cross in his pocket lightly as he turned around, but didn't actually take it out.

He turned to pour tea for Dick.

"I'm very worried about Batman," Dick said. "It just so happens that at this time, he has a surgery that he must perform."

"Are you also worried about a vampire invasion?"

"I don't think any external force can break into the Batcave."

"Do you think you might be broken through from the inside?"

"The Bat-family has always been united."

"Until I appeared?"

Dick stood up, took out a cross the length of his forearm from his bosom, and handed it toward Shiler.

"Do you suspect I am a vampire?" Shiler looked at Dick and asked.

"I am giving you a chance to prove yourself. After all, you didn't touch anything during the afternoon tea today."

"It seems you already know what was put in the food."

"Yes, and I ate half a piece of cake and drank a whole cup of tea."

"That doesn't prove you aren't one either, child. You want me to prove it to you, but the guarantee you make for me isn't necessarily that credible."

"I'm not trying to guarantee for you; I'm just trying to ensure Batman's safety. I am his assistant, and this is what I should do."

"His assistant is Robin, and you are Nightwing." Shiler walked to the opposite side, bent down to put down the teacup unhurriedly, then stood straight and looked at Dick, saying, "On that night when you were determined to go far away to Blüdhaven, did you think about what you should do?"

Dick's hand holding the cross tightened instantly. He frowned deeply, his chest began to heave continuously, and he felt as if a knife had been stabbed into his heart.

This was a topic the Bat-family tacitly didn't mention—about his departure, about Jason's return, about Tim's existence.

And Shiler obviously didn't intend to let him off just like that. He walked slowly to Dick's side, held the wrist of the hand holding the cross, pressed down lightly, and said, "In your view, is the threat of a powerful vampire greater, or is the threat of an ordinary person who knows the history of the Bat-family and is deeply trusted by Batman greater?"

"Can't it be both?"

Shiler lowered his head and laughed deeply, saying, "If I were both, could you still be standing here safely?"

Dick was speechless.

But the strength in his arm loosened slightly, and the cross was pressed down. Shiler let go and walked behind him again, saying, "The vampire's goal must be Batman. If I were one, since I have the ability to persuade Batman to reveal his true identity to me and bring me back to Wayne Manor, I wouldn't wait until tomorrow night to act. A long night brings many dreams."

Shiler paused and continued.

"This shows that the real vampire might not even be as trusted by Batman as I am. At least he thinks so himself, otherwise he would have acted long ago."

"He didn't act, which proves he thinks Batman is on guard against him—think about it, when he finally reveals his ugly face and stretches his claws toward Batman, what he sees isn't Batman's shock and sadness, but the same calmness as always, as if he had guessed everything long ago."

Shiler circled to Dick's side and back again, saying, "That indifferent expression is as if to say, 'I knew you were this kind of person long ago, I knew you would betray me long ago, so I was prepared long ago.'"

"This will negate the meaning of the first half of his life... As Batman's assistant, as the person Batman should trust most, yet he was never truly accepted by him for a single moment, never obtained his frank confession, and never saw him without any defense."

"Knowing that getting rid of Batman is a huge step forward in the grand plan of occupying the Earth, this coward, because he doesn't dare to bet on whether Batman has true feelings for him, delays and doesn't dare to act."

"Batman's expression haunts him more than the throne that overrides all of humanity, making him restless."

Shiler's tone was tinged with a smile. He reached out and took the cross from Dick's hand, tapped Dick's shoulder lightly, and said:

"So, boy, tell me, who is this coward?"

"Enough."

It wasn't Dick's voice. Batman's voice echoed in the room. He said, "Dr. Shiler, I warned you, don't participate in the affairs of the Bat-family."

"How could I forget, there is an even bigger coward here." Shiler, however, had no intention of stopping. He tapped the cross in his hand and said, "Knowing that his dear child is already sharpening the knife to kill him, yet still harboring naive delusions, unwilling to convict him until the moment he acts."

The moment Shiler turned around abruptly, Dick knew it was bad. The red light in his eyes had faded too late.

Shiler raised the cross abruptly. Dick stretched out his arm to block—only shadows arrived.

The sound of the cross breaking through the air disappeared, stopped in mid-air, turned gracefully, and was handed in front of Dick.

"What's wrong? Dick?"

Shiler's smiling voice came. Dick felt his teeth almost couldn't hold on.

"I don't think this thing can help me defend against vampires. You should take it and use it yourself," Shiler said. "The things Batman prepared for me are much more exquisite than this."

Shiler took the cross pendant out of his pocket, shook it in front of Dick, and said, "He seems very worried about me being bitten, thinking that putting this thing on my neck can help me resist a fang attack once. This thing is a bit special, isn't it?"

Dick looked at the pendant. He had seen this necklace at Batman's place. It seemed that when the vampire rumors first spread, he got it from a priest, but in the end, it wasn't hung around any Robin's neck.

Unique, right before his eyes.

Shiler's gaze remained unchanged, but his tone became sharp.

"Dick, the perfect disguise you painstakingly prepared to fear no sunlight and holy water, is it really to deceive Batman, or is it just that you don't dare to look at his expression of disappointment in you in public?"

"Even at the moment of life and death, do you only dare to act from behind where you can't see his expression?"

Shiler raised his hand, and the cross pendant was suddenly thrown out. The silver light drew a beautiful arc in the air. When it was about to fall to the ground, Nightwing instinctively bent down and reached out to catch it.

He looked at his hand in shock. Indescribable humiliation made him unable to suppress the red light in his eyes any longer.

"Nightwing... is this what you should do? Be a dog that catches a frisbee?"