Chapter 3241: Bloody New City (Part 1)

Cat Getan, Municipal Office Building, 8:00 AM.

A knock on the door sounded, and with a creak, the door was pushed open. A woman in formal attire walked into the office with documents. The work badge hanging on her neck indicated that she was the mayor's assistant, Ms. Weiss.

"Mr. Napier, this is the manuscript for your news interview this afternoon. I have made final revisions. You can take a look and then memorize the important items."

The figure sitting in front of the desk didn't move, just raised his eyelids, and then said: "Put it there, I'll read it in a while."

"You have an inquiry meeting about the pollution of the X15 chemical plant in two hours. We have already set up the venue. Do you want to go and take a look in advance?"

"No, I have visitors in half an hour."

"Name?"

"Mr. Naive and Professor Rodriguez."

"Okay, I will send Angeli to welcome them."

"No, don't let Angeli go, let Gray go."

"Okay, sir."

The figure at the table put down the document he was reading, sighed lightly, rubbed his eyebrows, and picked up the news manuscript that had just been placed on the table.

He flipped through it casually. Pale fingers skipped over the pitch-black text, and the straight lines made the English letters look hunched.

When he saw one of the items, his eyes darkened. He looked at the document he was reading before on the side of his hand. The keyword "X15 chemical plant pollution" appeared in both documents.

He stood up from the chair and walked to another table on the side. There was a map of Cat Getan City here, on which many colored thumbtacks were placed. Only he knew what these thumbtacks represented.

Cat Getan is divided into five areas, namely B, E, F, G, P, and X.

This is not the original geographical structure of Cat Getan. Cat Getan in this universe, like most universes, is divided into four districts: east, west, north, and south, and can also be divided into the new city district and the old city district, which is the lower city and upper city commonly used in American cities.

The letter identification is the regional division strategy he adopted after taking office. B stands for business, E for education, G for politics, F for finance, P for public, and X for production.

This is not a simple geographical concept, but just a regional division. Many areas are not concentrated in one place, but scattered everywhere, so numbers often follow the letters, representing which specific area it is.

This X15 production area that had an accident this time is a chemical plant area located in the east of Cat Getan. About half a month ago, a super criminal took hostages to this place. In order to hinder the police investigation, he destroyed the chemical production pipeline here, leading to the leakage of dangerous goods.

Batman successfully caught the criminal and rescued the hostages, but the leaked chemical gas had already entered Cat Getan's atmosphere. To prevent public panic, the media mostly used the serial number X15 to refer to the leaked gas.

And at this time, sitting in the mayor's office chair, he recalled the farce that had happened in the past half month.

About three months ago, Jack Napier, who officially announced his participation in the mayoral election, received a strange invitation letter. The invitation letter told him that he was approved to participate in a carnival party participated in by all universes, which could solve all the dilemmas he was currently encountering.

They called that promised land—Battleworld.

Napier was very clear about what was troubling him. What worried him most was that his body had begun to develop immunity to drugs, and the medicine that made him regain sobriety and maintain sanity was no longer effective.

That madman was coming back soon.

What was even more terrifying was that he used public opinion to pull Batman off the altar and sat on it himself, but if that madman named Joker occupied this body again, everything he did would be in vain.

Napier had no other choice, he could only bet.

But the good news was that he won the bet.

In this special space, his condition would not worsen, and those crazy whispers that always appeared in the middle of the night, the terrible laughter that entangled his soul, would never appear in Battleworld.

Although he met more crazy Jokers here, they were not him, nor would they fight for control of his body. It didn't matter to listen to their boring jokes.

But this was never a long-term solution. He would always have to leave Utopia one day and return to the broken city to find a way to solve the problem.

And what was fortunate was that he also met some friends here, and that special Bruce was one of them.

The Pale Knight invited Bruce back to his universe, actually hoping that he could help his Cat Getan. After all, things had come to this, and there was no such thing as too much power.

Bruce didn't let him down. Maria, who was treated as a substitute for Harley Quinn but fell into complete madness, was no match for him at all.

He defeated Maria's conspiracy, defeated her army of madmen, and out of consideration for subsequent arrangements, let Batman, who was originally reviled by the public, be a real hero for once and regained his prestige.

Just like that, with Bruce's help, the Pale Knight reached a reconciliation with Batman. Although Batman still didn't join the GTO (Cat Getan Tactical Operations) established by the Pale Knight, the two reached a subtle balance.

Batman still ran on the front line of fighting crime, and GTO also worked hard to clear Cat Getan's security. Bruce thought he could replicate the medicine that saved Napier, which made the Pale Knight breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed everything was developing for the better.

But how could things go so smoothly?

All the above actions were after the toxic gas leakage case that occurred in the X15 industrial zone, exposing its deepest drawbacks—they had no money.

Batman invested more than 3 billion US dollars in natural disaster funds every year, and this money was put into their pockets by those who used Batman's actions to speculate on land or conduct financial investments.

3 billion a year, 30 billion in ten years.

They used this money to short the Wei En Group's local industries in Cat Getan on a large scale, bribe officials, hollow out every mayor, and then take more funds from the municipal government, putting all the money of Cat Getan people into their own pockets.

Fighting crime requires money, maintaining the operation of the anti-terrorism team requires money, investing in slums requires money, and even the Pale Knight himself needs money to manufacture more medicine.

But they had no money. The Wei En Group's liquid funds were getting less and less, the municipal government's pockets were cleaner than their faces, and the Pale Knight himself couldn't take out a single cent.

This made the Pale Knight, Batman, and Bruce, who finally saw a glimmer of hope and had high ambitions, all dumbfounded.

"He asked me where the money to save Cat Getan came from." In the car heading to the municipal building, Bruce said to Schiller: "I answered him as truthfully as possible."

"What was his reaction?" Schiller asked.

"He said I had a good father. I told him that in fact, I also had a group of good friends. If it weren't for Oliver and the others, we couldn't have easily gotten so much military funding."

"Of course, you also have a good teacher. If it weren't for him, the Soviet Union wouldn't have helped Mexico burn that fire so vigorously."

"Indeed." Bruce sighed and said: "But not everyone in this world has such good luck, at least the Batman and Joker in this universe don't. They have no channels to make money, let alone getting rich overnight."

"In the final analysis, he is unwilling to carry out a thorough revolution." Schiller pointed out the problem, but changed the subject and said: "I fully understand what he is considering. His foundation for settling down is the support of Cat Getan's poor, but to take action against the rich, there will definitely be pain. A grain of sand in the era falls on a person, and it is a mountain."

"So I didn't persuade him." Bruce continued: "To this day, 80% of Cat Getan's industries are in the hands of that group of people, and more than 90% of Cat Getan's permanent residents have to beg for food in their hands. Even if you kill them all, what can you do?"

Schiller also shook his head and said: "There are always people who say that for Cat Getan's problems, you only need to flatten the place with missiles, and for the problem of the gap between rich and poor, there are always people who feel that as long as all the rich people are killed, it will be fine."

"But there will always be rich people in this world. If you kill one, someone will replace him. Whether it is his child or a stranger, or simply a poor person, it doesn't matter at all."

"What matters is that this new person and the previous one are no different, equally selfish, and only know how to collect money for themselves. The people who killed this person, the people who killed the later people, are all like this. Wealth will always flow at the top of the pyramid. No matter how many people have changed in the period, it is still like this."

"This is because they have no thought." Bruce said: "Without higher things supporting them, without ideological innovation, endless killing and changing people is meaningless. Without a great person nurtured by a truly great thought standing on the side of the majority and rebuilding the distribution system for them, wealth will still not circulate."

"Yes, the Cat Getan you are in succeeded because the batch of people who replaced them, that is, your father, friends, teacher, and you, happened to be people who valued ideals more than interests. They are fearless idealists, and I am the same."

"Although I believe that things are done by people, you must also admit that there are factors of luck. If it weren't for the right time and the right people, miracles would never happen."

"It's obviously impossible here." Schiller turned to look out the car window and said: "There are not so many idealists here, and even the Pale Knight is not clear-headed and firm enough."

The atmosphere in the car fell silent.

"Let's talk about what you did when you first came here." Schiller turned the ring on his hand with his other hand, and the gray mist hummed in his brain.

Bruce also looked out the car window and said: "That is nothing compared to the difficulties we are facing now. The only thing that is more interesting is that this can be considered the Pale Knight's own fault."

"Oh?"

"That woman named Maria, who almost caused a disaster, was actually a substitute cultivated by the Pale Knight when he was the Joker."

"Substitute?"

"That's right. Maria thought she was Harley Quinn, but in fact she was a bank clerk. After being taken home by the Joker, she was driven crazy and sank into madness, thinking she was the Joker's only lover."

"What about Harley?"

"She is the real Harley Quinn, but she loves the Joker who hasn't gone crazy, that is, the Pale Knight. The medicine that made the Joker return to normal was also developed by her. I met her once before. She is a very strong and smart woman."

"This is quite interesting." Schiller evaluated: "What about her now?"

Bruce sighed and said: "Life is hanging by a thread."