Chapter 3244: Bloodied New City (Part 4)

Cat Getan's night was exceptionally bleak and desolate. There wasn't a ghost of a soul on the streets, and the roads near Wei En Manor were even more so. The withered trees, having just shed their leaves, cast multiple shadows on the ground under the shifting light—which, surprisingly, counted as the most bustling sight on this street.

A black stretch limousine pulled up to the manor's main gate. Polished leather shoes stepped onto the fallen leaves, emitting a dry, crisp sound. A gaunt figure stood before the metal gate with its intricate Gothic patterns, possessing an aura of "one man guarding the pass, ten thousand unable to open it."

The manor no longer held the resplendent, brightly lit appearance of years past. Only two lamps were lit in the vast living room. Batman, having just finished a shower and drying his hair with a towel, stood within the light of one lamp, the water droplets on his hair reflecting the light from the other.

Ding-dong!

Upon hearing the doorbell, Batman felt as if he were in another lifetime. He seemed to see that aged figure standing at the door again, asking him in a slightly complaining tone, "Who on earth would visit at this hour?"

But no, that person was no longer there.

Batman wiped his hair haphazardly, tossed the towel aside, and pushed open the manor door himself. The cold wind in the courtyard made him shiver, but upon seeing who was standing at his door, he felt even colder.

Batman walked to the main gate and stared at the Pale Knight through the complex, patterned metal gate.

"Why have you come?"

The Pale Knight did not answer, merely observing Batman. It seemed he no longer wished to play the role of Bruce Wei En, or perhaps he no longer had the strength to continue the act.

Ever since his old butler, Alfred, died, he had become a true lonely ghost. At this moment, the Pale Knight truly began to doubt whether he should have refused Nightwing's request to join the anti-terrorism squad as Batman had wished. After all, the Joker had once taken his first child; he did not want to take a second.

Feeling a faint sense of guilt in his heart, the Pale Knight found it even harder to speak the words that followed. But thinking of what was happening at City Hall, he had to bite the bullet and speak.

"Batman, I need your help. I..."

"Does the omnipotent Pale Knight also need my help?" Batman asked, his words bordering on acerbic.

The Pale Knight did not care about his attitude; he simply said, "Then let me put it another way: Cat Getan needs your help."

Batman remained silent.

"Regarding the matter of me framing you because I didn't know your true identity, I have already apologized to you. I know that just because I apologize doesn't mean you have to forgive me, but for the sake of Cat Getan, you can at least give me a chance to talk to you."

The Pale Knight lowered his posture as much as possible. He knew that the current Batman could not handle any stimulation. Precisely because he himself had experienced the pain of a breakdown, he did not wish to inflict that pain upon anyone; it was the cruelest thing in the world.

He stepped forward, grabbed the bars of the gate, and continued, "I sought help from my friends, and they showed me hope for improving the current situation, but it requires your cooperation. It doesn't require you to make any sacrifices; we just..."

*Click. * The gate was opened. Batman said nothing, turning to walk into the manor. The Pale Knight stood outside the gate, watching his back, feeling only a sense of desolation in his heart.

If he could not lift up a bird to let it soar freely, he must never be one of the fingers that broke its wings. It was just a pity that when the bird was wailing in pain from losing its kin, he had already done exactly that, and he had been the one to strike the hardest.

But who among them hadn't once been full of expectations, wanting to be a pure hero?

The Pale Knight took a deep breath, put away the sentimentality in his heart, walked with long strides into the manor, and was immediately startled by the pitch-black environment.

He instinctively reached for the switch, but then remembered Schiller's warning: people with unstable mental states fear light stimulation. He really should pay more attention to such details.

The Pale Knight withdrew his hand, focusing his attention to let his eyes adapt to the dark environment as quickly as possible. He moved very cautiously to the side of the sofa and felt his way down to sit.

Batman picked up the towel again and began drying his hair. He sat silently on the opposite sofa, and after a long while, he spoke: "Harley is out of danger, but she needs to recuperate."

"Okay, I understand. I don't have time to see her for now... I didn't come to talk about that."

The Pale Knight paused. Not receiving a response from Batman, he wasn't sure if he was tacitly allowing him to speak first or just resisting communication. Out of caution, he spoke somewhat tactfully.

"What I am about to say might be quite shocking. It doesn't matter if you don't agree." The Pale Knight added in his heart, "If you don't agree, that man named Schiller will definitely find a way to make you agree."

"And from that moment on, I will pray that the whole matter has nothing to do with the nuclear power plant. Amen."

"In about two days, City Hall will face the largest strike in its history. All departments will shut down, the entire municipal system will fall into a state of stagnation, and in about two weeks, the Cat Getan City government will enter bankruptcy proceedings."

Watching Batman's visibly stiffened movements, the Pale Knight sighed in his heart. He had said that mental patients shouldn't be stimulated.

"What do you want to do?" After about a dozen seconds, Batman finally asked.

"This wasn't my idea." The Pale Knight tried his best to make it sound like he wasn't shirking responsibility. He said, "A friend of mine calls this 'starting a new stove'."

"I hope you aren't telling a cold joke about kitchens."

Batman's attitude was still not very good, but the Pale Knight understood him completely. If he had spent so much energy and invested so much money to save a city, only to be hated by over 80% of its people and sent to prison by them, he would have the same attitude when facing the culprit.

The Pale Knight shook his head slightly and said, "Whether City Hall operates smoothly has no direct correlation with whether I can successfully improve the situation in this city, but after City Hall shuts down, I need a sufficiently safe place to continue working."

"You can go rent a house."

"I'm sorry, but I can't afford it." The Pale Knight lowered his eyes and said, "You might not believe it, but after my investigation, I am the poorest person in the entire City Hall. I only have 2,100 dollars left in my account, which isn't enough to cover the rent for any house."

"You want me to provide you with a place to stay?"

"I know you have many secret bases, but I am not considering those places because they can serve a greater purpose, rather than being exposed in my hands."

"Then do you want to borrow money?"

"Whether I have 2,000 or 20 million in my hands is the same, because even 20 million wouldn't solve the problem, and 200 million might not either. You have some money in your hands, but whether that money remains yours depends on the actions I take next."

"What on earth do you want to do?" Batman was getting impatient.

The Pale Knight pursed his lips tightly. He had always been a person who disliked beating around the bush. The reason he had taken such a long detour was that what he really wanted to say was truly difficult to bring up.

"I hope to borrow Wei En Manor as my office for the time being." The Pale Knight decided that a quick pain was better than a long one.

"What?" Batman's expression clearly showed he suspected he had misheard.

But it didn't matter, the Pale Knight thought, because when he first heard this sentence, he also thought he had misheard.

He swallowed and said, "I hope to come to Wei En Manor to work."

Batman remained silent. He didn't even dry his hair anymore.

"Have you not been taking your medication on time lately?" Batman asked.

"I'm fine." The Pale Knight gave a bitter smile and said, "The only good news is that the Joker wouldn't say this to you."

Batman was speechless.

"Are you saying you've gone crazy in a new way?"

Now it was the Pale Knight's turn to be speechless.

"I am very sorry, but this is a part of our plan. I hope to turn Wei En Manor into my next office location."

"And what about me?"

"I don't mean to drive you away. You can stay too. I don't intend to hide anything from you, but if you really find it annoying, you can leave."

Batman fell silent again. The situation seemed to have entered a stage where not even half a joke could be made.

"Why do you think I would agree?" After a long silence, Batman finally asked, and he seemed to be just making conversation.

"Do you want to hear the truth?" The Pale Knight's fingers kept rubbing his knees. He knew he was trying very hard to make it look like he wasn't committing a home invasion.

Batman nodded.

"We aren't asking for your consent." The Pale Knight swallowed again and then said, "If you had checked the surveillance cameras installed at City Hall, you would have seen a person who looks almost exactly like you enter my office. That is Batman from another universe, now using the alias Nai Wei."

"So what? You think he can replace me?" Batman's tone became sharp. He said, "Is your purpose in framing me to swap in another Batman?"

"No." The Pale Knight rarely refrained from defending himself. He simply said, "I just can't stop him from saying crazy things with a face exactly like yours. You probably don't want to see yourself doing rap, do you?"

Batman's silence became eerie.

"I absolutely do not mean to threaten you, but he really is capable of doing it. Also, your advanced facial and fingerprint recognition systems can't stop him. He has already obtained a set of your Batsuit. If you don't want to see Batman and the lunatics in Arkham Asylum drinking and making merry on the news, you had better seriously consider my proposal."

Seeing Batman not responding, the Pale Knight had to say again, "In his universe, Alfred is still alive."

Batman's hand tightened instantly.

"Just as you imagined, the appearance and personality of the same people between our two universes are the same, only the Alfred in his universe is happier, not plagued by illness, not troubled by loneliness. Currently, his biggest worry is that the little princess of the Wei En family refuses to go to school properly."

Batman slowly closed his eyes, as if by doing so he could see the old butler from another world. The Pale Knight also began to feel sad, but he knew now was not the time to express grief.

"Looking at it among thousands of parallel universes, our Cat Getan is not special in any way. It is very ordinary and small, but it has also been pinned with high hopes by many people like us. Expectations have been betrayed for too long, to the point where everyone has given up the idea of fighting for it."

"It's just that I don't believe that if something isn't special enough, it must accept being ordinary, let alone colluding with evil. In any universe or by any logic, that is also wrong."

"Even if it is a death struggle, someone must do it. All the methods we could think of and all the things we could do have been done. Since the situation hasn't improved, we can only pin our hopes on this last, absurd path to bring about some change."

"If it doesn't work, then at least we are absurd heroes like Don Quixote—not orthodox lunatics like the Joker." ===== CHAPTER 3245 =====