Chapter 958

After Shi Ler boarded the Federal Investigation Bureau’s vehicle, the interior fell silent; his face was grim, his breathing rapid and labored. The escort agent beside him could no longer hold back and asked, “What’s wrong? Do you need medication?”

“I’m experiencing severe stress reactions—you must immediately provide me with sufficient sedatives, or I cannot guarantee I’ll live to see your superiors…” Shi Ler gasped out.

The driver made no hesitation; he immediately picked up the communicator and said, “Send someone to the hospital for a full dose of sedatives.”

After speaking, he turned to observe Shi Ler’s symptoms and added, “Strong sedatives—targeting mania and neural hyperexcitability…”

“Thank you. You’re even more professional than my students,” Shi Ler said, tilting his head back against the seat cushion.

The agents’ attitude was surprisingly courteous; a female agent in the front passenger seat said, “Hold on a little longer. We must take you to our temporary base before we can administer medication.”

Shi Ler had closed his eyes, suppressing neural hyperexcitement with gray mist, but since the reaction was psychogenic, as long as the stimulus persisted, the hyperexcitement would not cease—manifesting as hyperventilation, limb tremors, elevated blood pressure, and more.

As Shi Ler leaned pale and limp against the seatback, the female agent in the front passenger seat whispered to the driver, “Scott, under these conditions, could we put a hood over his head? It might cause him to stop breathing. If he goes into shock, we have no rescue equipment…”

She glanced outside the window and added, “The streets are flooded with broccoli. We can’t even drive fast—if he really collapses, we won’t be able to get him to the hospital.”

“The car has monitoring equipment. Track his heart rate and blood pressure. If the reaction is truly severe, don’t bother with the hood—he won’t have the energy to care where he’s being taken anyway,” Scott replied.

“But… what if he’s faking?” the female agent turned back to look at Shi Ler. “He’s a top psychologist—he might be hypnotizing himself to produce these symptoms…”

“But we can’t gamble,” Scott said, steering around a broccoli and slowly turning a corner. “Whether his claimed identity is real or not, we’ve already reported him. We must deliver him safely to Washington. Any mishap en route is our responsibility.”

“He can die—but not in our hands. From the moment he revealed his identity, our mission became ensuring his safety by any means necessary.”

“Fine, you’re the expert. Whatever,” the female agent glanced left and right. “No way forward. We’ll find another route here.”

The vehicle slowed to a stop. The female agent in the front passenger seat exited first to scout the surroundings. After a moment, she returned and knocked on the window. “Get out. Follow me.”

After the left-side escort agent exited, the right-side agent also moved to get out—but Shi Ler remained seated, motionless.

The agent glanced back at him, then told the female agent, “No—he’s lost mobility. We need to drive the vehicle as close as possible to the outpost. If he faints halfway, it’ll be extremely dangerous.”

The female agent slammed her fist against the window. “Fine. I’ll direct you to reverse into that alley. There’s an entrance there.”

Scott returned to the driver’s seat. Under the female agent’s guidance, the vehicle reversed into the alley. In a daze, Shi Ler felt himself being dragged from the car. Through the haze, he saw a sewer entrance before him.

Even as his consciousness blurred from pain, he spoke: “I never imagined your base would be in the sewers. This isn’t the era when you called spies ‘moles,’ is it? Sewer vermin?”

The female agent slammed her fist against the wall. “He’s this weak and still insults us?! Are all psychologists like this? Even when he’s dying, his mouth won’t shut?!”

“Calm down, Laurenta,” the driver said coldly. “I hope he talks this much during interrogation.” He opened the sewer hatch, and the group descended.

Just two minutes after they left, a dark figure appeared atop the alley’s wall.

When Batman landed, he noticed nothing unusual in the alley—every trace had been cleaned, just like every other dark alley in Gotham: grim, narrow, with a broken-down car parked in the center.

But the tracker attached to Shi Ler’s raincoat had pinpointed this location. Only after leaping from the car roof did Batman realize something was wrong—the alley was too clean.

Everyone knew that in Gotham, few had any sense of public decency. Most people didn’t care if they crushed roadside flowers and plants while driving or walking, let alone bothered to wipe away muddy footprints.

Yet here, there were no footprints from entering or exiting the vehicle. The grass and moss on the ground showed no signs of disturbance. This wasn’t the work of those burly truck drivers.

Batman had often heard bar owners describe Gotham’s truckers as rolling steamrollers—wherever they went, they left chaos behind. Having lived in the slums, Batman knew they were right: expecting cleanliness from them was absurd.

Yet here, though a half-new pickup truck sat parked, there were no signs of cargo loading, no footprints, no vomit from drunkenness, no phlegm, not even a cigarette butt. Everything was suspicious.

The alley offered no hiding spots. The most conspicuous feature was the sewer manhole cover. Batman approached and found no damage to the moss along its edge—but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been moved.

Batman himself knew at least three ways to move bricks or manhole covers without disturbing moss or grass.

Realizing the cover might be compromised, he didn’t rush to lift it. Instead, he lowered a night-vision surveillance device, tied to a line, through the ventilation grate.

Pulling a screen from his belt, Batman saw what he expected: the sewer was filled with dense ice—no space for walking.

He narrowed his eyes, pivoting the camera left and right. In the darkness and ice, he spotted a tiny, hidden red light.

He zoomed in. Behind the ice, he saw what appeared to be an electrical room—some device there was flashing red.

Gotham’s sewer system was vast and complex. When the floodwaters surged, not every chamber was breached immediately. Some later-built, higher-quality utility rooms had only minor seepage—the ice was thin enough to allow shelter.

The only question: how did they get in? Batman frowned, thinking.

The electrical room lay behind thick, dense ice. Batman didn’t believe they could break through such ice—and even if they could, they couldn’t restore it to its original state.

Confirming no immediate danger below, Batman retracted the surveillance device, lifted the manhole cover, and jumped down.

When floodwaters surged into this passage, they had frozen in wave-like patterns. Beneath the manhole cover, a small space remained—just enough for Batman to fit.

Only after descending did he realize: not only was there space above the ice, but also a narrow crevice beside it, next to the electrical room. At the moment the water surged and froze, no water had reached there—so no ice formed.

Sliding into the narrow crevice, he reached the bottom—and found a hole had been dug.

The wall beside the electrical room’s door had been excavated, revealing a diagonal shaft just wide enough for one person to pass. Concealed by the ice, the hole was invisible from the sewer entrance.

Examining the nearby support structures, Batman realized this tunnel hadn’t been dug in a day or two. Had the Federal Investigation Bureau gone this far to control Gotham?

Batman switched on his flashlight and stepped inside. But the deeper he went, the more uneasy he felt. Gotham’s subsoil wasn’t this stable. To dig a tunnel this long, they’d need wooden or metal supports.

Yet this passage was perfectly intact—no supports at all, yet no collapse. Batman touched the tunnel walls. They were completely dry—even non-porous.

In a city rich in groundwater, where rain fell frequently and drainage was abysmal, this was nearly impossible.

Batman immediately grew wary. He knew—even with his own engineering capabilities—he couldn’t construct a tunnel this deep, this long, without supports or waterproofing. The Federal Investigation Bureau couldn’t either.

Continuing down the passage, he reached another sewer entrance. Thick ice still covered it—but again, a crevice led downward into another tunnel.

As Batman vanished into the dark passage, Shi Ler’s vision suddenly flooded with light. The agents had led him through twisting corridors for an unknown time, finally bringing him into a room with illumination.

He was seated in a chair at the room’s center. He looked up at the agents and said, “When will my medication arrive? I hope you move quickly—if I recover soon, you can fly me out. Otherwise…”

Shi Ler shook his head, weakly continuing, “You’ve dug so many tunnels beneath Gotham because you can’t attack from above. That means you know how dangerous this city is.”

“I must warn you—trying to extract me from this city may bring you great danger… cough… I hope you’ll trust me on this journey. Only I can get you out. Otherwise… cough… cough…”

“Go get him medicine,” the female agent said. “He’s delirious… Listen, Rodriguez, we do intend to remove you from here—this location isn’t suitable for interrogation.”

“But how we leave, and where we go, is our decision alone. You’re a prisoner now.”

“You’d better take deep breaths and calm your symptoms. Your heart rate is at critical levels.” The female agent stepped forward, checked Shi Ler’s pupils, then glanced at the heart rate monitor on his wrist. She shook her head.

She stepped back two paces and told the two nearby agents, “Call again. Push the med team. And prepare antihypertensives and heart stabilizers. We can’t let him die here…”

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Continuous, thunderous explosions and tremors erupted nearby. Everyone staggered. Shi Ler’s chair was thrown onto the floor.

“What’s happening?!”

“What’s making that noise?!”

One agent shouted, “It sounds like demolition blasts—someone’s blowing up the sewers!”

Shi Ler rose from the floor, knelt to regain strength, then gritted his teeth: “Get me out now. If this collapses, we’re all trapped. Don’t tell me you dug your rat hole without an emergency exit…”

Laurenta finally snapped to attention. “Oh, right! Help him up. Use the back exit. Move!”

As the agents tried to drag Shi Ler toward the back exit, he broke free, staggered against the wall, and pointed at the center of the room, eyes closed: “Light a fire… build a big fire… now!”

“What are you doing?! Get out of here!”

Laurenta shouted, looking up at the ceiling. “This place is collapsing!”

"Lauren was desperately shouting, looking up at the ceiling: 'It's going to collapse!'"

Laurenta and several agents rushed forward. They couldn’t move him. She had no choice—she tore apart a wooden chair, sprinkled igniting powder, and lit a fire.

Amid thick smoke, Shi Ler coughed violently—but he swiftly stripped off his raincoat, removed his watch, and took off every accessory except his tie, tossing them all into the flames.

When Batman arrived through the blast-created passage, he found Shi Ler gone—and the tracking signal had vanished entirely.

Lauren and several agents stepped forward, found they couldn’t budge Shiler at all, and had no choice but to dismantle the wooden chair and ignite a fire with igniting powder.

Amid thick smoke, Shiler coughed violently, but he still swiftly removed his raincoat, took off his watch, and stripped off every accessory except his tie, throwing them all into the fire.

When Batman arrived at the room through the passage created by the explosion, he found Shiler was not there, and the signal tracking Shiler’s location had vanished completely.