Chapter 435: Metropolis Mysteries (16)

"Crack!" The gun in Lex's hand was knocked flying; the tip of the umbrella pressed against his brow. He stepped back two paces, raised both hands, and looked at Xilei, who had just struck.

Selina rolled, caught the pistol Xilei had knocked away, raised it, yet for a moment did not know whom to aim at.

Selina was certainly on Bruce's side, but the one who had clashed with Bruce earlier was Xilei; logically, she should have aimed the gun at Xilei.

Yet Xilei was also a Gothamite, and moreover Bruce's teacher; the two had only quarreled verbally and had not fought. Lex, however, had fired at Bruce, so she turned and aimed at Lex instead.

But Lex, having lost his pistol, was merely a youth with no strength to bind a chicken; in terms of threat, Xilei was greater. Selina stood there hesitating for a long while, the muzzle wavering back and forth. Finally, Bruce stepped forward and pressed Selina's arm down.

Now, everyone present was somewhat bewildered. In their view, Lex's behavior had no logic at all. He was a Metropolis native, had not participated in Cat Getan's loves and hates, and even if he had seen Bruce before, he held no grudge against him. Why on earth had he fired?

Moreover, his earlier attack on Benjamin made him look like a madman ready to strike anyone at any moment. Lex had just begun to speak when Xilei thrust the umbrella forward, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Step back."

His vigilance toward Lex was extremely high, for he knew clearly in his heart that in the comics, Lex's intellect was exceedingly high, one of the few brilliant minds in the entire DC world. Such people were the hardest to deal with; one could never know whether some deeper meaning lay hidden behind certain of their actions.

"Professor, I..."

"Silence." Xilei cut him off very decisively. The best way to deal with such a clever person was to neither listen, nor see, nor feel, giving him no opportunity to bewitch hearts.

At this moment, Bruce also stepped forward and said, "Professor Xilei, I merely wish to ask..."

"You as well." Xilei's hand did not move; instead, he turned his head and looked at Bruce, saying.

Having spoken, he slowly lowered the umbrella, then turned. Before leaving, he glanced back at Benjamin, who lay on the ground not yet dead, and Lionel, who was already thoroughly dead. As he walked toward the door, he said:

"Please clean this place up. I am going back to sleep."

Having spoken, he departed, leaving only Lex and Bruce staring at each other. Lex sighed deeply and said, "Very well, it seems he truly has amnesia."

Bruce heard many inexplicable emotions in that remark. He looked at Lex and said, "How do you know?"

"Why should I tell you?"

Clearly, Lex was very dissatisfied with Bruce. He muttered curses under his breath while walking to Lionel's corpse, grabbed his arm, and with great effort dragged him into the washroom.

After emerging from the washroom, he said, "You bring that annoying agent over too. I will go downstairs to the warehouse to find some tools."

"What do you intend to do?" Bruce asked, watching his movements.

"I intend to clean this place up. Otherwise, do you want these two corpses to lie here all night until other agents discover them?"

As Lex walked toward the door, he muttered under his breath, "The drainage system of this old manor must be very poor. Handling two people at once might clog it completely..."

Bruce did not drag Benjamin away; instead, he turned him over and began pressing the philtrum beneath his nose. Seeing Bruce's actions, Lex hurried forward and said, "What are you doing? What if you wake him?"

"I intend to wake him." Bruce replied without raising his head. He said, "I must extract useful intelligence from him. Moreover, he is the chief responsible officer dispatched by the Central Intelligence Agency to Metropolis to investigate the spy case. He cannot die."

Lex stood behind him, watching his actions, spread his hands, and said, "Very well, do as you please."

Having spoken, he turned to leave. Bruce continued his hand movements but added, "I am sorry, Mr. Luthor, but you cannot leave either. Until I obtain the intelligence I seek, you had best remain here."

Lex did not wish to listen at all. He did not stop his steps, but soon heard the "click" of a dry trigger pull. Selina pointed her gun at his head. Lex turned around and scoffed with a "Tsk."

"Do you know? Speaking even one more word to you fools who only know how to wield guns is a waste of my life."

"Wei En, the Wei En Enterprises you possess is merely an estate inherited from your parents, whereas the entire Luthor Corporation is powerful only because of my decisions."

"What? Being closer to that professor makes you feel you are his favored disciple?"

"Perhaps he also complains privately that you are a fool. Only because he has no better candidate does he favor you. However, very soon he will know that you and I are of the same kind."

As Lex walked back, he mocked Bruce: "Disguised as a playboy, outwardly indulging in wine and women, yet privately governing the enterprises under your name with diligence and resolve, making you feel you are a genius condescending to pose as an ordinary person."

"But you are in fact an ordinary person. Before a true genius, you are good for nothing..."

Bruce rose from before Benjamin, stepped over Benjamin's body, came before Lex, looked into his eyes, and said, "That professor taught me many things, but the most important among them was..."

Bruce deliberately drew out the tone. Just as Lex concentrated, wanting to hear what followed, "Bang!" Lex was knocked to the ground by Bruce's fist. Bruce looked down at him and said, "Words may be powerful, but sometimes a fist is not a bad method for solving problems."

Lex lay on the ground, showing no intention to move. Red hair covered his eyes, hiding the deep mockery in them. Bruce looked at his face and suddenly said, "What is the tenth digit after the decimal point of the square root of 39?"

"Three." Lex answered almost without thinking.

"And the square root of 235?"

"Seven."

Lex rose from the ground, wiped the blood beneath his nose, bared his teeth, looked at Bruce, and asked, "What is the fifteenth digit after the decimal point of the square root of 659?"

"One." Bruce answered immediately.

Their question-and-answer exchange had no pause at all. Selina, the bystander, had not yet grasped what was happening when a string after string of mathematical formulas poured from their mouths.

Although Selina could not understand at all the content of their mutual questioning, this did not prevent her from seeing that these two seemed to be locked in a contest.

She looked down at the pistol in her hand, helplessly pursed her lips, turned, walked to the nearby sofa, sat down, and murmured to herself, "Ha, men's competitiveness."

Speaking thus, she glanced over there again and muttered, "How long will they stand there? Half an hour should be the limit, right?"

Two hours later, Selina, groggy and hazy, climbed up from the table, shook her numb arm vigorously, and looked out the window at the still-unceasing blizzard and the pitch-black sky.

She squinted, glanced at the clock hanging on the nearby wall; it was already six in the morning.

Selina covered her forehead with her hand, then turned. As expected, Bruce and Lex were still standing in the center of the room.

Oh, no. Now the two of them were no longer standing; they had moved a chair, moved a table, and the table was piled high with various draft papers.

Selina extended her hand, rubbed her temples vigorously, rose from the sofa like a zombie, stretched hard, and then yawned.

She glanced at the two men over there, turned her head back, and walked expressionless toward the door of the reception room. Bruce and Lex paid her no attention whatsoever, not even caring about the gun she had left on the table.

Selina reached the corridor. At this moment, the corridor was very quiet.

For some reason, although Benjamin had vanished all night, no agents had come looking. Or perhaps agents had come but were dealt with jointly by Bruce and Lex. Selina saw not a single agent in the corridor, so she began to go downstairs.

Arriving at the banquet hall, walking further to the side, turning a corner, she reached the warehouse area behind the manor. Selina found the monitoring room here, but she actually did not intend to find the monitoring room; she merely wanted to find a telephone.

Fortunately, the monitoring room also had a telephone that could contact the guest rooms. Selina picked up the phone, dialed a number, and on the other end came Xilei's drowsy voice.

"Professor?... Ah, no! Don't be angry!... Oh, very well, I know; when I don't sleep well, I get angry too. But there is indeed a trouble here that may require you to resolve it..."

"But... but it could be a very big trouble. Won't you listen first before..."

Just as she said this, Selina looked at the phone in her hand. On the other end came the busy tone after the call was hung up. Selina pressed her lips together, then finally said in a low voice, "Forget it. It probably won't amount to anything major, right?"

Having spoken, she went up the stairs, preparing to return to her room to sleep.

Selina was of very orthodox Cat Getan lower-class origin, had received no professional education. Schooling and learning were matters entirely beyond her reach. She could read and read newspapers, which already surpassed many lower-class people in Cat Getan. One cannot expect someone who has never attended school to understand complex mathematics and physics knowledge.

"Point Guard Here"

At the same time, Selina is a talent-based player; her IQ is actually not very high, and she relies mostly on instinct, so she cannot understand what kind of spark would ignite when two evenly matched super-geniuses meet.

At this moment, Shiler is sleeping in the guest room; the service phone for the room still rests beside his hand, and from his furrowed brow, it is clear he had only just fallen back asleep after being woken by Selina's call.

In the Hall of Thought, Shiler is painting the ceiling of a new room atop Gao Ta; as he brushes the walls, he hears Ymja's voice: "No, not orange—it's ugly!"

"My beautiful scales are made of ink-green and silver; I can accept only blue and purple. Warm colors here are completely out of harmony."

"Don't you know the principle of complementary colors?" Shiler says as he paints. "Besides, your ink-green doesn't match the overall decor of my Hall of Thought."

"No! Stop painting! This orange is too bright—I hate such vivid colors!"

"Ink-green and silver are too old-fashioned… oh, I forgot—you're already an old snake. How long have you lived? Three thousand years? Five thousand? I shouldn't question your taste—in your era, maybe this was even fashionable…"

"I'm not old!"

"When Odin cast me onto Earth, I was still a baby snake—I've been in slumber ever since; that time doesn't count!"

Ymja begins shouting, and Shiler taps the wall with his paintbrush: "Just talk, don't move around—this room is almost done, I—"

As he speaks, Shiler feels the floor beneath him tremble. He raises his voice in annoyance: "Ymja…"

At that moment, a massive serpent head looms over him; Ymja's huge vertical pupils glow faintly, wisps of hazy white mist drifting beside his cheeks. He says: "It's not me—it's your dream waking up…"

Shiler drops his paintbrush to the floor. "I hope to God I find out who's disturbing my sleep again…"

"Boom! Boom! Crash!" The floor shakes violently. Shiler jolts awake—and realizes this is no illusion from his dream; the floor truly trembled.

He sits up on the bed, picks up his umbrella, and steps out the door—then hears screams from the corridor:

"The reception room has exploded!"

"Quick, put out the fire! Quick, put out the fire!"