Chapter 3289: Blood-Stained New City (Part 49)

In Batman's eyes, everything seemed to have suddenly hit the fast-forward button.

No one was waiting for him to investigate carefully, prepare countless backup plans, and then strategically push them forward to keep everything firmly under his control, as they usually did.

Clark wrote the article exceptionally fast, and it took shape in just one night. But he did not publish the article through the editor-in-chief of the *Daily Planet* because he did not want to implicate ordinary people.

The reports from the previous period had made him famous, so he also had his own personal page. Although he didn't have many followers yet, his followers were all experts at spreading news who were active on various public opinion platforms all year round. Even smaller newspapers couldn't compare to their influence.

Once the article was out, the world was in an uproar.

Some might think that everyone already knew Cat Getan was rotten, so why hold any unrealistic expectations for it? Why be surprised that such a rotten thing happened?

In fact, the ones who were truly shocked from the bottom of their hearts were not ordinary people, but the upper class of the entire world.

Ordinary people talked about it with relish, like watching a show. But talking about it and having a laugh was the end of it. They came seeking the elements of blood and violence, and left after satisfying their curiosity.

But the upper class truly felt shocked.

This involved a question: since the upper class dared to do all sorts of rotten things, why would they be afraid of exposure?

Or rather, since they were already so powerful, why bother bowing to social moral standards?

Couldn't they just admit: I am evil, I am cruel, I am just not a decent person?

Looking back at history, there was also a very interesting phenomenon. Tyrants of any country or region would try their best to avoid being called a tyrant, and would even kill more people for the sake of it.

So why couldn't they just admit they were tyrants?

Theoretically, they were already at the top of the human pyramid; if they admitted it, what could anyone do?

Not only did they not admit it, they even had to be full of benevolence and morality. Whether it was slaughtering the innocent or treating human life like grass, they had to have a "justifiable" reason. If they really couldn't find an excuse, they would make one up even if it was gibberish.

Why was this?

In reality, it wasn't that they were stupid or doing useless work; it was precisely because they were too smart.

They understood that maintaining morality was actually maintaining their own rule. And the collapse of social morality meant that the day their rule collapsed was not far off.

The upper class did not believe in any theory of being "chosen by heaven." They understood better than anyone how powerful those ordinary people, who seemed to be trampled under their feet, truly were.

What constrained ordinary people, besides the laws they established, was social morality. Law maintained the upper limit, and morality maintained the lower limit.

The destructive power generated by a tyrant ignoring morality might be 100, while the destructive power generated by an ordinary person ignoring morality might be 1. The gap seemed large, but the gap in numbers was even larger.

A tyrant did one bad thing a day, causing 100 damage. But among ten thousand ordinary people, even if only one-tenth of them did evil, the damage caused would be a hundred times his.

Although they could guide most of the damage to fall on ordinary people through various means, under the massive base number, even if one-thousandth of the damage fell on the rulers, it would be a devastating disaster.

Therefore, rulers must maintain social morality. Even if everything they did did not conform to moral standards, they had to find ways to cover it up, desperately find excuses for themselves, and even if they couldn't find any, they had to put on an attitude.

Otherwise, once people had the idea that "if the Emperor can do it, so can I," your death would certainly be beyond your imagination.

Clark's article shocked the upper class because they felt that Cat Getan's upper class must be crazy. How could they do evil so straightforwardly and obviously? Wasn't this digging their own graves?

Even if you wanted to run a gambling ring, couldn't you just play within your own circle? Even if you wanted to bet on the lives of ordinary people, why did you have to tell ordinary people? Even if it wasn't intentional, this was too careless.

Moreover, it was one thing for the news to leak out, but they even printed those evil, perverted ideas into books, as if they were afraid others wouldn't know how cruel they were. Wasn't their brain broken?

How many people were in the upper class, and how many people were in the entire city of Cat Getan? If those ordinary people knew that you wanted to use these cruel traps on them, they would make you understand what true cruelty was.

The upper class also had an unwritten rule: don't play with idiots.

You can be evil, but you cannot be stupid. If you are stupid, you had better hide well. Once exposed, no one would be kind enough to remind or help you. They would only want to wait for you to stop breathing so they could come and take a bite of meat.

This was true on a personal level, and it was also true on the level of cities and regions.

Resources were limited; if people in one place took them all, then people in another place would have none. And if people in a certain place took a little less, other places could naturally take a little more.

Cat Getan was considered the wealthiest city on the East Coast. If Cat Getan's conglomerates had an accident, the first to benefit would be Metropolis, then other cities on the East Coast, then other states, and possibly even other countries.

It would be one thing if Cat Getan's rich people weren't stupid, but since they had made such a big joke of themselves, when else would they wait to kick them while they were down?

Thus, the article written by a reporter who was only slightly famous was quickly forwarded by major newspapers in Metropolis, then by newspapers in other cities on the East Coast, followed by federal news, international news...

How to describe the popularity of this news? It could only be said that it was already a bit late for Clark to start preparing his tuxedo for the Pulitzer Prize ceremony.

At the same time the news became popular, the GTO led by Gordon took action.

His arrangements were tight, and his efficiency was not bad, but he was truly short-handed. The Pale Knight's estimate was conservative; they were not just arresting a few hundred people. There were hundreds of masterminds, at least thousands of important accomplices, and if ordinary accomplices were counted, the number was higher than all the law enforcement officers in Cat Getan combined. How could they possibly arrest them all?

No one had ever thought that such a big commotion would be caused by one or two people. Mainly, no one had imagined that someone would be so bold as to create an epic international news story just by saying something casually and making something up.

With the atmosphere built up to this point, no one would think that this gambling ring was someone's whim. Most people felt that this gambling ring had existed for many years and had only been exposed recently.

Many people even linked the gambling ring case to the deaths or disappearances of certain well-known figures, feeling that they must have been forced to participate in this round of the death gambling ring and then died miserably in it.

Later, it became that all the rich people in the world had participated. Those celebrities who committed suicide for no reason might have all bet their own lives away.

This kind of talk was very popular and spread very widely, because people just loved to watch this kind of thing.

Gordon's surprise arrest operation could be declared a complete failure one hour after it started.

The biggest problem was the lack of manpower, but secondly, the enemies were also very cunning. In addition to the secret rooms and tunnels already built in the villas, they had helicopters, sports cars, scapegoats, and even professional makeup artists and escape artists, and a series of professional consultants.

This night of arrests made Gordon truly see the firm determination and perfect preparations that rich people had in order to have the life to spend their money.

Not many of the real masterminds were caught, and even the lackeys they valued under them had all run away. The core team basically only suffered minor skin wounds.

As soon as the sky brightened, looking at the report results sent by his subordinates, Gordon's legs went soft.

He had never had this feeling when fighting with even the most ferocious and cunning criminals.

Gordon asked himself, he had been tired and in pain, but he had never been afraid. But looking at the hazy ray of light on Cat Getan's horizon, he found himself trembling uncontrollably.

As a policeman who had always been fighting on the front line, he understood better than anyone what terrible consequences the failure of tonight's operation would bring.

Still the same saying, political games are either the west wind prevailing over the east wind, or the east wind prevailing over the west wind. Once a war begins, it will not stop easily until one side is left with nothing.

To use a simple metaphor, in the process of a fight, once one side pulls out a knife, they must make the other side lose the ability to resist as quickly as possible, otherwise, the one who dies is yourself.

This is because if everyone uses their fists, then everyone knows they won't die, and venting their anger is about enough.

But once blood is seen, and you know the other side is aiming to kill you, then if you don't strike to kill, aren't you handing your life over to the other side?

Once it reaches a critical moment of life and death, the power humans can erupt with is extremely terrifying. Therefore, either don't pull a knife, or if you do, you must make a quick decision and cut the weeds and dig up the roots.

But Gordon hadn't achieved either of those two words. Not only did he fail to defeat the enemy in one move, he almost completely failed.

Then next, what he and the ordinary people of Cat Getan would face was the other side's storm-like retaliation. You die or I die, a fight to the death.

Gordon had no time to think about why Batman had been as quiet as dead throughout the process. Just calming the fear in his heart took all his strength.

He wasn't afraid of dying himself, and he wasn't even afraid of the police dying. But he knew that the cruelest means of retaliation would not be used on him. The upper class wanted no one to ever dare to have such thoughts again.

They wanted to extinguish the hope of ordinary people.

Gordon's hand holding the phone was trembling, but he didn't even know who to call. After hesitating for a long time, he dialed an unexpected number.

"Hello? Dean Rodriguez?"

"It's me." Schiller's tone was as calm as ever. For some reason, Gordon's violent heartbeat seemed to calm down along with it.

"Something happened in our city. Those who invested in crime might take some action next." Gordon tried hard to cover up his restless mood and said with feigned composure, "I hope you can stick to your post and do your job well."

"I don't quite understand what you mean, Commissioner. Is there something I'm not doing well?"

"No, it's not that. It's just that your predecessor... Toke gave some people a misconception, making them feel they could release criminals at will and use them to incite riots. I think you won't continue this misconception, right?"

"Of course I won't, Commissioner." There was a hint of a smile in Schiller's tone. Gordon's heart tightened again.

After hanging up the phone, Schiller added a sentence in his heart: "Yes, of course I won't. Super-criminals can't achieve the effect I want."

Then he walked to the panel with the emergency restriction buttons—and pressed every single button on it.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3290 =====