Chapter 2118: Superman's Gotham Adventure (Nine) _1

Among the many villains in Gotham, Poison Ivy can't exactly be called the most idealistic.

Most of Poison Ivy's motives for crime are defensive. For example, if someone harms a plant, she'll go kill that person. If someone wants to kill all plants, she might even help Batman save Gotham.

But among the good guys, Poison Ivy is certainly no hero. She seems indifferent to everything except plants. She wouldn't rescue anyone dying before her, just calmly walking away - no need for a second blow - could even consider it as highly principled.

You could say Poison Ivy neither wants to destroy Gotham nor save it, a rare drifter in this chaotic city of Gotham.

But this time, even Gotham has to exclaim, "It's a curse to have you!".

Upon testing, it was discovered that a certain component in the plant toxin produced by Poison Ivy caused a mutation, driving Gotham's citizens utterly crazy.

At this point, Poison Ivy should step up to reverse the situation, but the biggest problem is that even she doesn't know what component went wrong, let alone how to reverse the situation.

This leads us back to the age-old debate between science and theology. Poison Ivy is a botanist, but her ability to control plants comes from All Things Green.

Obviously, All Things Green wouldn't have her complete four years of college, five years of Pope simulation, then pass the written and oral exams before being assigned.

This industry is not so competitive, Poison Ivy has a basic understanding of the power of All Things Green, but not the reason why it works.

Since Poison Ivy doesn't know which component went wrong, she doesn't dare to make random modifications. If she fails to modify it correctly, destroying Gotham would certainly offend the supercriminals, and saving Gotham would definitely offend Batman.

Wait, is there something wrong?

Poison Ivy also considered asking All Things Green to come over and see what's going on, and perhaps solve the problem. But All Things Green hung up halfway through the call and never answered again.

So Poison Ivy could only tackle the issue herself. Of course, she was not entirely on her own. Despite being a botanist and a toxicologist, some of the more professional chemical analyses had to be conducted by a professional chemist.

Poison Ivy found Peter, and Peter agreed to help her.

Some might ask, wasn't Peter busy looking for Riddler's trophies?

In fact, Peter had found more than 100 trophies created by Riddler in just a month. Well-prepared indeed.

Within a month, Peter had found more than 200 trophies, and he observed a steady increase in the number of trophies. The rate at which trophies were being placed was higher than the rate at which he could find them.

Of course, it wasn't because Peter was so frustrated that he had caught the Riddler prematurely and ran out of trophies to find.

It was mainly because Peter had encountered more than one occasion where Gotham citizens believed that the trophies left by Riddler were cursed objects of the Indians, prepared to wage war against the demon clad in robes and magic wands. As a result, they ended up fighting with the newly minted pirate warriors claiming the trophies were markers for pirate treasure.

Such actions were severely jeopardizing public security. Arrests were warranted, even a second's delay would be disrespectful to Peter's good neighbor reputation in Gotham.

After giving up his trophy hunt, Peter decided to hang out in Gotham and write his own travelogue. His theoretical test was not full marks, so he had to strive in this additional subject.

But he found out that the mental state of Gotham's residents was worrisome. After being pulled over by three different traffic police in a week and hearing the power games of Stump Kingdom and Tooth Kingdom for four consecutive seasons, Peter felt that art was not the right path. It would be better to study how to save Gotham.

The main reason was that he'd been holed up in Marvel's lab for so long. The one time he finally got to play superhero, he found himself explaining Batman's plans before the villains Instead.

Since then, Spider-Man, known for his talkative nature, hadn't yammered on to a single Gothamite, not even a passerby on Gotham Street. He was no longer in the lab, and his head was buzzing.

So why was Scarecrow in the lab?

Because it's not just the superheroes whose heads are buzzing.

Unfortunately, Batman's new team of Robins were also drugged. Their extraordinary verbosity was not a natural disaster, but a man-made one.

The mysterious ingredient in the plant toxin seemed to affect their mindset, causing them to go on the offensive and start giving supercriminals choices.

It would be fine if they were engaging supercriminals with profound questions about humanity, but the methods of fighting crime conceived by brains affected by the mysterious toxin were irrelevant to human affairs.

Even Scarecrow had no idea how they'd dreamt up such lousy ideas like throwing crocodiles into sewers to dispute territory with Killer Croc or barging into Penguin Man's strip club to dance, causing unemployment among the other strippers.

In short, most of Gotham's villains are now hiding, albeit grudgingly. They grumbled in private, but no one dared to show their faces, cloaked under human skin.

And, like Scarecrow, most criminals did harbor some resentment.

Before, the delinquents in Arkham Asylum had it all. Their days were spent on philosophy and art, and nothing else. Now, did the Gotham criminal world turn beggar?!

In short, most supercriminals who could be locked up in Arkham Asylum had their own artistic pursuits. Those who sought wealth were at the bottom of the food chain. No wonder it's commonly said that a superhero's resume is incomplete without having beaten up Penguin Man because all Penguin Man does is search for money.

Although Penguin Man is somewhat involved in true crime, being a legacy of the last gangster era, he may not be a full flag member but still a third-level one. The Gotham hooligans are really nothing but beggars on the street.

But ever since the mysterious ingredient in the plant toxin turned everyone's brain into mush, it completely opened the crime path for everyone.

Now Gotham is indeed the Gotham Grand Stage, where if you have a dream, you can come; it can be described as a major transformation from Gotham's criminal world's nine-rank system to an examination system.

In the past, whether being mad was tasteful or not was determined by genes, and effort could only elevate the floor, not break the ceiling. But now, the genetic lock no longer exists, who is more creative in madness relies entirely on their works.

Let me put it this way, Joker died at a good time. If he were still alive now, he would certainly be rolled over by these hardcore toughs.

The era of sober madness and questioning humanity has passed. It's the age of action. What skill does it take to kill a cop? When I commit a crime, the police should kneel and beg me not to kill. That's the true taste of Gotham.

Facts have proved that a system based on bloodline will eventually be overthrown. Given the large enough base number and the enlightenment of basic crime education, Gotham's criminal world is destined to enjoy an unparalleled population dividend.

Once they transform from passive consumers into proactive producers, there's no way that even Chicago, which enjoys the advantage of being ahead, or Miami, known for sophisticated crime, could beat Gotham in the advantage of the crime industry.

This is good news for Gotham's lower class, but it's not good news for old madmen like Scarecrow who have a majority of the crime data.

Creating art in the crime world is our privilege. You, a street beggar trying to compete with us? We must fix him!

Scarecrow used his expertise to join the antidote research team. The three of them, each with their own ideas but surprisingly similar goals, found that there was absolutely no way to research the antidote.

As mentioned before, the plant toxin is actually a product of mysticism, it does not contain any elements that can be extracted and analysed scientifically. Trying to create serum based on these data is unrealistic.

So we have to mention a therapy used for the rescue of poisoning patients -- hemodialysis.

Simply put, it is an establishment of extracorporeal blood circulation. When the body's toxin filtering function is ineffective or slow, other means are used to filter the toxins out of the blood.

After researching for quite a while, they couldn't figure out which component in the plant toxin had opened the channel for Gothamites. It seemed that there was no hope of figuring it out, so they unanimously decided to find a way to extract the plant toxin.

However, it's not realistic to bring so many Gothamites in for hemodialysis. They conducted further research on plant toxins and found a known chemical component that can act as a carrier of plant toxins, extracting them from the blood and then excreting them from the body.

This component is methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, commonly known as MADA.

The problem now is that this material is a kind of hallucinogen, usually used as a drug. Even though the whole city of Gotham is already insane, mass distribution of drugs into the city still seems a bit too advanced.

Batman will never agree and Gothamites would never consent to take it.

Peter then precisely provided a solution: first, don't tell Batman, second, mix it into orange juice so no one discovers it. As long as they're not caught, it's a huge success.

Also, this hallucinogen could cause drug addiction and could even be fatal in high concentration - quite practical issues that need careful consideration.

However, he soon found out that though the plant toxin's composition is vague, its properties are quite magical. The plant toxin that combines with MADA retains its hallucinogenic properties, but the addictiveness is slight and there's no risk of overdosing to death.

Even with a slight addictiveness, Peter was worried, but clearly, the two locals understand Gotham better. Scarecrow offered his explanation.

"Don't think all Gothamites are illiterate. In fact, even the lowest junkies in Gotham could talk about chemistry and pharmacology. Otherwise, with so many cities having poor public order, why only us became legendary?"

"This means that the vast majority of people who would use it understand well enough about the promoting effect of orange juice on MADA absorption. This leads to people who would buy orange juice knowing what this thing is at a glance."

"This slight addiction has no effect on them. They've used it for half their life, would they miss one more use?"

Poison Ivy then raised doubt, "What about those who are not drug users? They'll never buy it and never be cured, right?"

"What about them? Those who live in Gotham and never smoke, drink or take drugs. Those who work out for three hours a day, what kind of trouble are they going to cause? At worst, they would knock their head on the garbage cans at their own doorstep."

Scarecrow knew his target audience very well. Those people with no bad habits, even if they had a talent for crime, would not be inclined toward it.

The real worry is the old hands at the lower end of crime suddenly igniting high-level talent. By then, he, a professionally trained man, would really be out of a job, just like the birds in Robin's gang.

Peter and Poison Ivy thought for a while and agreed. Anyway, situations were already bad, and it was better to save some.

So they came up with this orange juice containing a large amount of MADA and found a way to distribute it to various drug dealers to sell.

But at this moment, Gotham's eternal entertainer -- Harley Quinn of the Joker's -- was not having it.

The Joker was dead, Batman was becoming president, and she was almost bored to death; she relied on the people of Gotham to create interesting events for her. If you cure them all, where would she get her entertainment?

This time, Harley Quinn sincerely stood on the side of the lower class of Gotham. She didn't agree with their ways of going mad, but she vowed to safeguard their freedom to be mad.