Chapter 3177: The Detective Will Die (39)

Schiller couldn't be certain that the Joker had definitely used aversion therapy to break this family, as there might be an element of imitation involved. But without a doubt, if one had to pick a person from the entire team capable of such a thing, it had to be the Joker; Owlman didn't have this style.

Some might think that a reformed Joker is Batman, and a corrupted Batman is the Joker, but in reality, that's not how it works at all. A corrupted Batman still pursues efficiency; he will stop at nothing for profit, but if there is no profit, he won't do anything superfluous.

Only the Joker would do something like this, taking pleasure in tormenting others.

Moreover, Schiller felt that the Joker he was dealing with this time was the Heath Ledger version, who was particularly fond of this sort of thing. The most famous case, the ferry hostage crisis, was his doing, and its main theme was showcasing the cruelty of human nature to Batman.

However, Schiller felt he might have chosen the wrong target. That tactic worked better on the Batman of the *Knightfall* era because he hadn't been active for long and wasn't yet severely traumatized; facing such a dilemma would have made him hesitate.

But here was the Prime Universe Batman. Trying to break him with this sort of thing was a bit of a stretch, as the Joker of the Prime Universe had done far worse—he had kidnapped Robin directly. What kind of storms hadn't the Prime Universe Batman weathered?

Yet, Schiller felt that since the goal was to break the Prime Universe Batman, the Joker couldn't have just left a few corpses behind.

"Did you find anything in the lighthouse?" Schiller asked.

"I was just about to tell you," the Prime Universe Batman said. "There is a lighthouse keeper's bedroom upstairs. Deep inside the wardrobe, there is a safe. I can see signs that the safe has been tampered with recently, but I don't know the code. Do you?"

Schiller pondered this. He felt that the Prime Universe Batman wouldn't ask this without reason. Should he know the code?

"Take me to see it first," Schiller said.

They arrived at the 8th floor of the lighthouse. There was indeed a well-furnished bedroom here. After pushing open the door, Schiller saw the open wardrobe.

It was a closet containing some clothes, and at the very back was a safe. It wasn't embedded in the wall; it could be removed.

After taking it out, Schiller examined it. He didn't know how Batman had concluded that the safe had been tampered with recently, but it certainly didn't look like something that could be cracked by force.

They hadn't encountered anything related to numbers along the way, not even on the posters on the walls or the quantity of certain items, which didn't seem sufficient to form a code.

"Did you check the crime scene?" Schiller asked.

Batman nodded and said, "I examined every corpse carefully, but I couldn't see anything."

Schiller could tell that Batman meant he had seen some issues, but given his identity as a hunter and wilderness survival expert, not a detective, he shouldn't be able to understand such things.

However, since Batman hadn't figured out the code after staring at it for so long, it meant the code wasn't on the corpses. And since Batman was asking him, it meant he had come into contact with something Batman couldn't reach.

Schiller was slightly stunned. He took out the handgun Greed had given him. He hadn't looked at it closely when he received it, but now, looking carefully, he saw eight digits engraved on the underside of the barrel.

It really was you! Greed!

Schiller tried entering the eight digits into the safe. With a crisp click, the safe opened. Inside was a hard drive.

Although he already knew the background of this world was modern, seeing such a modern hard drive still made Schiller feel a bit overwhelmed. He could have accepted an old-fashioned VHS tape common in horror movies, but a hard drive!

There was a computer in the lighthouse, though it had no internet. Under Batman's guidance, they went to the 7th floor, to a study, and inserted the hard drive into the computer.

They soon discovered that this hard drive likely belonged to this computer originally. It stored quite a few things, but one folder stood out because its filename was a smiley face made of symbols.

Schiller had that bad premonition, but Batman clicked on the folder without hesitation.

Inside was a video file.

After double-clicking to play it, the Joker's large face appeared on the screen first. A familiar voice said, "Alright, it's adjusted. Move back a bit, otherwise, nothing will be captured."

It was Greed's voice.

How could he have forgotten that his primary profession was a photographer?

The Joker stepped back a little, and Batman and Schiller saw the Huff family tied to chairs in a dimly lit room, lined up in a row. Everyone looked terrified.

Schiller looked closely and realized the little girl wasn't there. Had the Joker turned over a new leaf?

But looking closer, the little girl was being held by the Joker. Very well, he had underestimated his level of perversion.

Schiller had already guessed what the Joker intended to do.

Seeing her daughter held by this perverted freak, the lady wearing the headscarf—the little girl's mother—kept wailing, even though her mouth was taped shut.

And Huff was glaring at the Joker with rage.

Schiller simply observed the expressions of those present and could roughly infer the relationships within this family: a virtuous mother, an irresponsible father, a selfish older brother, and a helpless daughter.

There is a saying: "Poverty brings sorrow to a married couple." While the original intent might differ from the literal meaning, the literal meaning holds true.

Wealthy families aren't necessarily harmonious, but they have many reasons for discord. In poor families, discord is almost always because of poverty.

One could tell from their attire that their economic situation was dire, perhaps to the point of struggling to eat, and this had likely been the case for a long time. It was normal for their affection to have been worn away.

While Schiller was thinking, the Joker on the screen had already announced the rules. He demanded the little girl point out the person she disliked the most.

The little girl hesitated and shook her head, seemingly unwilling to do so. The Joker crouched down, smiled at her, and said, "Really? You don't intend to choose? Then close your eyes and point at someone at random, okay?"

The little girl looked even more hesitant, clearly worried about who she might point to. She glanced at Huff, her eyes filled with fear, then at her two brothers, and finally at her white-haired grandfather.

By now, her two brothers had realized what was happening and were glaring at the little girl. The little girl shivered and didn't dare reach out, finally trembling as she pointed at her sister-in-law.

Her sister-in-law was the woman who had died in the storage room with a man whose throat had been slit, her entire abdomen exploded.

Soon, the Joker walked off-camera. A moment later, he pulled out an electrical wire. He had modified the middle of the wire with a device resembling an output limiter, and at the end of the wire was an iron rod made of twisted multi-strand wire.

This was clearly a homemade electric shock device.

"It really is an imitation crime," Schiller sighed. "But the details are different. And Huff doesn't look like the type who would resign himself to fate."

Batman looked at him and raised an eyebrow, seemingly wanting him to explain.

"I've heard of a case..." Schiller briefly introduced that case, then said, "However, I've heard experts analyze that the perpetrator must choose victims who are cowardly, crave love but lack it, and have low self-esteem."

Schiller felt that Huff and his two sons weren't that type. Not to mention that Huff had worked as a sailor for most of his life and had escaped alone from a dangerous shipwreck, one could tell from the brothers' threats toward their sister that they were the type who would never blame themselves for anything. Such people were very difficult to control.

But Schiller soon understood why the Joker dared to do this. The device he had modified was almost on par with professional electric slaughter equipment; the toy used by the perpetrator in that other case was nothing compared to this.

The woman saw him approaching and struggled desperately, shaking her head and screaming. But Schiller heard something unusual in her cries. She didn't seem to be screaming for help, but saying something else.

Schiller caught a few intermittent syllables and suspected he heard the pronunciation of "Siltk."

He remembered that the woman's abdomen contained fish, meaning she might also be one of Siltk's test subjects. Was she trying to get Greed to save her?

Sure enough, everyone else was terrified; only that woman kept looking at the camera. But she wasn't looking at the camera; she was looking at Greed. She was indeed counting on Greed to save her.

But the Joker wouldn't give her that chance. He pressed the electric shock device directly onto the woman's shoulder. The next second, the woman let out a terrifying scream, her body convulsed, and white smoke began to rise from the contact point.

Everyone else watched such a terrifying scene and shrank to the side, but their legs were tied to the chairs, and they couldn't touch the ground, so they couldn't escape at all.

After the Joker pulled the device away, the woman's eyes were completely unfocused. She seemed to have fainted with her eyes open. The Joker curled his lips, seemingly bored.

Then he led the little girl over and told her to point out someone else she disliked.

This time, however, he removed the tape from everyone's mouths.

"Jenny! Jenny! I'm your father!" Huff roared immediately, but soon he lowered his voice and said, "Mr. Siltk is very generous. He has already promised to rehire me, and he will give me the money first. That money is enough for your schooling!"

"Shut up! Huff!" The middle-aged woman wearing the headscarf suddenly erupted. Everyone looked at her in shock, as if they had never seen her like this before.

"If it weren't for you losing Doris's tuition, she would have gone to study in town long ago! You damn bastard! You ruined everything! You should go to hell! You should go to hell!!!"

Huff's face turned red. He seemed completely unprepared for his wife to speak to him like that.

Soon he exploded too, spewing all sorts of foul language, while the two brothers kept begging Doris.

At this moment, Schiller suddenly remembered a sentence Huff had written to his daughter on the back of that family photo. It seemed Huff should have loved his daughter very much, so how could he have lost her tuition?

Batman seemed to see Schiller's confusion and said, "Perhaps he didn't love his daughter any less; he just loved himself more."