Chapter 4487

Brainiac was left speechless. In reality, he couldn't figure it out either. Shiler had left so aggressively, only to end up not taking the stage, but exiting it. Yet the situation hadn't improved in the slightest with his exit; instead, it had gotten worse. Currently, it looks like there are at least four or five lines of serial murder cases that need to be tracked. The murderers are all masters of concealment. Even with Brainiac's control over Cat Getan at at least 90%, they were still able to use that 10% gap to commit murder. Who could come here and not say it's a gathering of elites?

"I suggest you control Jonathan Crane first," Tim said. "His killing method has no new ideas. As long as you can detect the fear toxin components in the air, you can successfully charge him. Without him causing trouble on the side, we can focus on catching this copycat."

"I will control him," Brainiac said, "but I'm afraid he won't go to jail, because he really has a mental illness. At most, he'll be admitted for treatment."

"That's enough," Jenna said. "Just keep him from adding trouble lately. Otherwise, our workload will be too heavy."

Brainiac stopped talking, clearly setting out to capture Jonathan. Just as Tim and Jenna said, catching him wasn't actually troublesome. Jonathan wouldn't resist at all, because he knew Brainiac wouldn't do anything to him.

When Brainiac found Jonathan, he was still busy in his laboratory. As soon as the camera turned toward the direction of the lab bench, Brainiac froze. How could that corpse be here?

Lying on the lab bench was the very corpse that Jonathan had poisoned. And it should have been lying on the medical examiner's autopsy table.

"How did you steal the corpse?" Brainiac asked.

"I wasn't hiding from you; go look at the surveillance yourself," Jonathan said without even lifting his head. He was busy at the lab bench next to him, pouring things into various flasks.

Then, after a pause, he stretched out a hand and said, "Fine, I know you're busy. The familiar days are back, aren't they? Unless you can find someone completely immune to fear toxin, what can't I steal?"

Although Jonathan rarely explained a few things, Brainiac still checked for himself. Jonathan really hadn't been hiding from him. The method of taking down the police wasn't covered up either. He just threw a fear toxin bomb, and everyone went down. He then leisurely dragged the corpse back.

"What are you doing?" Brainiac asked.

This shows the benefit of a non-human ruler. Generally speaking, anyone facing an outlaw like Jonathan Crane would be burning with rage. Because this guy does it over and over again, neither admitting his mistakes nor repenting. It's clear that as long as he's alive, from the police to the courts, no one will have a moment of peace. His purpose for existing is to destroy social stability and harmony. Rulers with humanity and emotions cannot tolerate such people. But Brainiac can.

It's not that he can tolerate it. He just handles things according to rules and regulations without emotion. If a crime is committed, he arrests them; if they commit it again, he arrests them again. He judges as he should. He won't vent his anger due to personal emotions.

This time is the same. Although he is collecting evidence of Jonathan Crane's crimes and preparing to take compulsory treatment measures against him, he will still be concerned if Jonathan's behavior shows obvious abnormalities. He won't ignore him just because he dislikes him.

Jonathan's behavior of fiddling with the corpse was clearly abnormal. According to Shiler's theory, the artistry of the murders Jonathan Crane commits is mostly reflected in the poison. He is a master of chemistry. The chemicals he carefully concocts can easily affect a person's limbs and brain. He has always been proud of this and always puts extra effort into this aspect. And the effects of chemicals are mostly reflected in the process of death. Once they become corpses, there's nothing left to fiddle with.

Take this corpse, for example. The victim's skin presents a very rich blue-green color. Under normal circumstances, there isn't that much pigment in a human body. Even using dyes, it wouldn't necessarily be dyed so evenly. Not to mention the white spots on the surface of the skin; those dots are large and small, arranged regularly, and are extremely aesthetic. This is clearly Jonathan's design.

Such a corpse doesn't need to be arranged in any strange pose to express the theme he wants to express, even Brainiac can see that it should be related to the starry sky and the universe.

Since the design is already complete, there's no need for Jonathan to move the corpse again. Could it be that some parts of the corpse had problems, forcing him to rework it?

Brainiac thinks it's unlikely. In terms of chemistry, Jonathan can be called the pinnacle. Although he has been plagued by mental problems for the past decade or so and is a frequent visitor to prisons and psychiatric hospitals, he doesn't have the comfortable research environment that Victor does. But his academic level must have also developed to a point unimaginable to ordinary people. It's unlikely he would make a mistake while doing a case like this. So Brainiac chose to ask him directly.

"Good question," Jonathan replied. "Although none of you notified me at all, I still learned from a police officer that the one who killed my student, Pailuota, was a person who came back from the dead."

"Pailuota was torn into pieces, and there were no conditions for detailed testing, so it cannot be said for sure that this is the case. That's why I didn't formally notify anyone," Brainiac said.

"Precisely because of that, I have to do you a favor," Jonathan said. "Don't think I have no humanity; those who hang around Cat Getan have to value reciprocity. You are the best butler I have ever met. Life in the nature reserve was the most peaceful time I've ever had; I could focus on research without being bothered by those idiots. The students you picked for me are also not bad; their brains still turn occasionally. So, of course, I have to help you as much as I can."

"And the method is to commit another murder?"

"Don't you already have this guy's information? One of the rebels who caused the child kidnapping case last time, he was only released because of insufficient evidence. There's nothing to regret about his death." Jonathan started working around the lab bench again. "On the contrary, his death will be the best example."

"What?"

"Don't you want to know how people come back from the dead?"

"You know?"

"In fact, I don't know either, which is why I need to conduct research," Jonathan said. "Do you think he won't be resurrected?"

"If Pailuota was really resurrected, then that's only a single piece of evidence."

"Use your electronic brain," Jonathan picked up a test tube and shook it. "He even extinguished the sun; he went to such great lengths, just to use some harmless little tricks?"

"You mean..."

"He cut off the most important natural resource necessary for human survival—solar energy—with the goal of creating large-scale death events. And his goal in creating large-scale death events is to have enough corpses for resurrection. Resurrected corpses fighting against the living will create more corpses. Eventually, the Earth will be swallowed by living corpses."

"But we stopped all of this," Brainiac said. "The plan to isolate the Earth with dense ice is proceeding steadily, and the hope for success is great."

"Yes, precisely because you stopped this huge disaster, the corpses have become precious." Jonathan stopped his work, looked at the camera, and said, "Under your protection, deaths caused by accidents and mutual slaughter among humans have been reduced to a minimum. Even natural deaths have been greatly delayed due to timely rescue and improved medical standards. That is to say, the current global mortality rate is at the lowest point in human history."

"He wants to create a living-corpse-filled Earth; relying on the current tiny bit of natural deaths is clearly not enough. But the method of creating a large number of corpses through natural disasters doesn't work. What do you think he will do?"

"The key to a living-corpse disaster lies in the ability to infect," Brainiac analyzed. "The infection speed of zombies grows exponentially. One infects two, two infect four, four can infect sixteen. At this rate, it won't be long before they can form an invincible zombie army. However, I don't think human thermal weapons can't deal with living corpses..."

"Yes, you can even repel Darkseid, so naturally you don't have to worry about weapons. But what if they don't fight you head-on?" Jonathan changed his gloves and turned around to continue fiddling with the test tubes. "Did you find out Pailuota was dead?"

"No," Brainiac admitted. "It looked no different from a human."

"Precisely because you didn't find out, it led to Fen Ni's death. And if Fen Ni was also resurrected in a place you didn't discover, it would lead to the deaths of others, possibly even including me. And if I became a controlled living corpse, guess what would happen?"

Brainiac never thought he had such a thing as cold sweat before. But now he has to admit, he really is becoming more and more like a human. If he had a head, he would have a forehead full of cold sweat by now.

The fear toxin that Jonathan Crane possesses is something Brainiac has no way to crack or counter. Because this involves brain science, psychiatric pathology, and psychology. More than half of this is in Brainiac's knowledge blind spot. Yet this stuff can be mass-produced and deployed on a large scale.

And because its existence forms are diverse—it can become a liquid or a gas—it is simply impossible to guard against. Throwing it into any water system can make a whole bunch of people go crazy. And Jonathan can also control the symptoms of these people's madness, making their manifestations not all look like mental problems, but rather diverse.

If Jonathan Crane were controlled and started poisoning people quietly, he could create a massive army of living corpses overnight. And this is only targeting ordinary people. If he specifically targeted scientists or important figures from all walks of life, the speed at which living corpses infiltrate the Earth would be anything but slow. Superheroes might even fall victim to his schemes.

Thinking of this, Brainiac was both shocked and suspicious. Several cameras aimed at Jonathan, analyzing his behavioral patterns, seemingly trying to judge whether he had been controlled.

"Alright, stop staring at me," Jonathan said. "What I'm doing now is telling you that I'm on your side, Mr. Butler."

"Let's continue with the previous inference," Jonathan stared at the liquid in the test tube and said, "Large-scale natural disasters have been stopped, and the global mortality rate is too low. With the possibility of living-corpse infiltration still having hope of success, he won't give up easily. Instead, he will choose the next best thing: find a place that is relatively dangerous and has a relatively high mortality rate to deploy the living corpses."

"You mean Cat Getan?"

"It can only be Cat Getan," Jonathan put down the test tube, leaned his hands on the table, and looked at the camera. "Your arrival has indeed greatly improved the situation in Cat Getan. But this place has been sick for a long time. Compared to other cities, your control here is significantly insufficient."

Brainiac didn't refute, because he knew Jonathan was right. Cat Getan definitely has some issues. There are many things that Brainiac cannot understand or control.

"He will definitely choose Cat Getan as a breakthrough point," Jonathan said firmly. "And as long as murders occur frequently here after night falls, it just confirms his line of thinking. He will think he is right, and therefore won't consider other places. Do you understand?"

Brainiac seems to have really understood a little bit. To put it plainly, Cat Getan doesn't just have issues for him. It's the same for everyone. He can't control this place, and neither can the mastermind behind the scenes.

Cat Getan is like a big mud pit. Whoever falls in will get covered in filth. The lunatics pull the mastermind into the territory they are familiar with through murder and crime, and then defeat him with their own rich criminal experience.