Chapter 3561

After about an hour or so, several figures left through the back door. Victor saw they weren't carrying anything, so he said: "They just left like that? No one's dealing with the bodies?"

"It doesn't matter if the bodies are found." Shiler walked toward the rooftop door and said, "Anyway, they're confident they left no evidence. A few more corpses just mean more work for the police."

"Then why are we helping them clean up?"

"Of course, for Gotham University's reputation. They'll study a few years and leave, but we two still have to work here for a lifetime."

"Makes sense. Let's go."

Victor went to the car to get cleaning tools, then pushed a cart to the teaching building entrance. After entering through the main door, he could smell a faint scent of blood, proving something had indeed happened here.

Victor first went downstairs, flipped the circuit breaker up, restoring power inside the building.

They took the elevator to the fourth floor, where they had previously seen someone moving. As soon as the elevator doors opened, Victor coughed twice—the smell of blood in here was overwhelming.

A long trail of bloodstains ran down the corridor, along with many bloody footprints. The footprints were staggered, likely from the victims. Starting from the classroom near the elevator, they stretched all the way to the restroom at the end.

"Another unlucky fool who failed to escape." Victor said.

"Alright, let's try out the latest cleaning machine." Shiler looked at the box on the cart and said, "Hopefully it's as good as you said; otherwise, we might not finish by tomorrow morning."

"Don't worry, it's definitely better than you imagine." Victor confidently opened the box.

Shiler saw the machine was a cylindrical body over half a meter in diameter and about a meter tall, with four circular brush heads extending downward. After powering on, the brush heads simultaneously rotated and revolved.

The machine continuously sprayed cleaning fluid from its center, quickly scrubbing a patch of floor clean. However, the front posed a big challenge, as there were many dried and semi-dried blood plasmas, solid and liquid mixed together; if the cleaning power wasn't enough, it would easily turn into a mess.

Just as Shiler wondered how these brush heads would handle the situation ahead, the machine's top suddenly opened, and a drone flew out, spraying cleaning fluid in advance.

This cleaning agent had blood-dissolving properties, quickly liquefying the dried blood plasma. The four brush heads kept contracting inward, while the main body upward sucked, and soon most of the blood plasma was drawn into the machine.

"Still, it's not completely clean; a thin layer of red remains on the floor." Victor said, "At least three passes are needed to get it truly clean, but the advantage is it's fully automatic. Let's still go handle the bodies."

After saying that, he stepped over the area the machine had cleaned and walked into the restroom. Sure enough, he saw a body on the sink.

This guy's throat had been slit twice. The first cut seemed to have gone awry due to the victim's struggle, but the artery was severed, so blood spilled all over the floor; the second cut was the truly fatal one.

His trachea was completely blocked by blood, so even if he hadn't died immediately, he couldn't shout. Even after running to the restroom, he was finished off with another stab.

Victor and Shiler wrapped the body in plastic sheeting the same way, placed it on the elevator cart, wiped clean the bloodstains on the sink, and left the floor area to the cleaning machine.

Since this wasn't the first crime scene, when they arrived here, there wasn't much blood spray, none reached the walls, greatly reducing their workload.

The two then headed toward the classrooms—earlier on the rooftop, they'd seen activity in the first classroom, which was more likely the first crime scene.

Sure enough, blood was everywhere here, but only three bodies lay here, far fewer than they'd imagined.

The first classroom had a back door leading to the adjacent classroom; pushing open this door revealed two more bodies in the opposite classroom.

So in total, six were killed. But after Shiler carefully examined the bodies, he found something off: Lena wasn't here—that is, the witness and lead singer.

"If they thought I'd come tonight, they'd definitely have brought Lena here to confront me face to face."

"And if Lena isn't here, there are only two possibilities: either they left a backup, sending a few lackeys to test my attitude; or Lena was taken by the killer."

"The killer had nothing to do with Harley's affair, doesn't know Lena's special nature, and wouldn't treat this group differently. The chance they took Lena is low."

"So perhaps they did leave a backup. It seems they're not as foolish as imagined, or maybe someone's artificial intelligence helped them."

Victor also realized this issue. He was about to say something when a piercing siren wailed outside the window.

Victor quickly walked to the window, leaned against the wall, and peered out—dozens of police cars were speeding toward them, their lights illuminating the entire neighborhood's night, bathing the whole world in red and blue.

"Looks like some smart people—or smart robots—are among them." Shiler said calmly, "They threw out some bait, deliberately telling everyone their base, luring us into action, then sending Lena to the police station. With her testimony, police can't ignore it; they must immediately deploy forces. That way, we're caught in a urn."

"You don't look the least bit anxious." Victor said, "Don't tell me you already figured this out."

"No, otherwise I wouldn't have come." Shiler shook his head, "I'm not the type who knowingly jumps into a trap just to show off how capable I am. I never want to invite trouble."

"Then you must have a way."

"I've just seen much bigger scenes." Shiler also walked to the window, but unlike Victor, who used the window to conceal himself, he stood openly in front of the window glass.

"Although the timing isn't ideal, since you told me about your first time killing someone, I can also talk about mine."

"Before deciding to carry out my plan, I seriously studied one question—whether God truly exists."

"To find the answer to this question, I conducted a series of tests. Other things aren't worth mentioning; the most crucial was a priest's death."

"Do you think that if you could kill a priest, you'd prove God doesn't exist?"

"No, of course it's not that simple. If I could kill a priest, it wouldn't prove God doesn't exist; it could also be that he committed some sin, and God wanted him dead."

"Then how did you do it?"

"I buried his body in the backyard of the church."

"And then?"

"I buried it shallowly, covering it with just a thin layer of soil. Back then it was summer, and the corpse's rotting smell would definitely drift into the church. In other words, anyone entering the church to pray would discover the body."

"So did anyone go in?"

"No. For a full six months, until winter, when heavy snow covered the entire church. No one entered, and the body remained undiscovered."

"In that case, it seems there is no God."

"On the contrary, this proves God's existence." Shiler revealed a smile.

Shiler said while bending down to pick something up from the ground nearby. Victor saw it was an ice pick, with bloodstains on it—likely one of the weapons.

Shiler held the ice pick in his hand, playing with it, and also smeared some blood from the tip onto his hand, leaving several bloody handprints on the handle—clear enough to see fingerprints.

"What are you doing?" Victor asked, somewhat shocked. He didn't understand why Shiler would leave his fingerprints on the weapon—clearly he didn't kill the person, so wasn't this just adding suspicion to himself?

Shiler didn't answer, just tossed the ice pick out the window along the sill—it traced an ungraceful arc, but went straight through the downstairs drain opening and fell into the sewer.

"Except... God is on my side."

"Squat down on the spot! Hands up!!!"

A roar sounded in their ears. Police rushed in one after another, black gun barrels aimed at the two by the window.

Shiler and Victor were quickly handcuffed and shoved into a police car. The police car flashed its lights all the way to the Gotham Police Department.

Gordon, upon seeing the two people get out of the car, performed what could be called "splitting in place."

Upon hearing that witness girl say it was two professors, he had a bad feeling. Now the premonition came true—the heart he'd been holding in his throat finally died completely.

Gordon didn't say a word to the two of them, just waved his hand and had someone take them to the interrogation room.

The instant his foot stepped through the police station's front gate, the sky outside suddenly lit up. Immediately after, a thunderous rumble came from the horizon, as if heaven and earth were collapsing.

Gordon snapped his head around.

A torrential downpour arrived in an instant, with no warning, coming swiftly and fiercely, as if announcing something.

If there truly is a God in this world, Gordon thought, then He must always be on Shiler's side—no matter what traces the person who committed the bloodshed tonight left behind, they would all be washed away by the rain.

Shiler sat down in the interrogation room. Opposite him sat two officers, one of whom looked somewhat familiar, probably a veteran cop, while the other was younger.

After the routine questioning, the older officer glanced at the file and said: "About half an hour ago, a student from Gotham University reported to us, saying he witnessed a campus murder involving three people: two professors and one student."

"And he said he overheard your conspiracy to commit another murder in a certain classroom at Gotham University's old campus. There's less than half an hour left before the act—let us rush to reinforce immediately."

"Because you're suspected in the earlier disappearance of a student, we dispatched forces to investigate, and then we found you. Professor Rodriguez, do you have anything to say about this?"

Shiler smiled—not intentionally, just because the officer's words were amusing. Rather than explaining the cause and effect, it sounded more like shifting blame, similar to "It's not that we wanted to investigate you."

"I was just passing by." Shiler said.

"Passing by crime scenes all over the world?" Gordon's voice came from outside the door.

"Yeah, how unfortunate." Shiler said slowly, "We just wanted to return to the old campus to reminisce about the past, and we stumbled upon such a bloody case. I'm wondering, under your efforts, Commissioner Gordon, has Gotham's security situation also reverted to the past?"

Gordon was so enraged by his twisting of the facts that his head buzzed.

?? Gordon: O皿O

? (End of Chapter)