Chapter 1149 Professor (12)_1

Shiller strode into Jonathan's room, his face serious as he looked at Jonathan and said, "The nurse said, you've exhibited violent behavior again, even tending towards injuring people, what happened? Haven't we already subscribed you to the newspaper?"

Jonathan was pacing back and forth in the center of his room, looking extremely anxious. Shiller just took a step closer and he seemed a bit alert, but after he realized it was Shiller, he slightly relaxed again, then spoke: "I've had enough!!"

"A bumpkin from god knows where dares to challenge me?! Just wait, soon enough I'll let him know that his amateur skills mean nothing to me!"

"What's happened again?" Shiller looked at him and asked.

Jonathan was exasperated "Last night, a fool who called himself Professor V rang me up. He says he's the world's best chemist; that he'd prove to me that my path of chemical compounds is completely futile. He even called me a mediocre talent you'd find on every street!"

Shiller blanked for a moment before asking, "Professor V, who is he?"

"Who knows? He's never been in the newspapers and definitely hasn't handled any striking cases! That's why I call him a bumpkin. He's probably never seen a newspaper yet, dares to make such bold statements, it's ridiculous!"

"As you say, he's never been in the papers, why bother about him? Moreover, he only dared to make a phone call, didn't even show his face, he's just boasting."

Jonathan sneered: "Nowadays any Tom, Dick or Harry could call themselves 'Professor'! No, I need to see what gives him the audacity to be so arrogant? Give me a discharge certificate, I want to meet him!"

"No way, you're mentally unstable right now. If you go out and get triggered, it would ruin the reputation of the hospital."

"Alright, I knew it, you're just worried I would trouble Batman, aren't you?" Jonathan rolled his eyes and said: "Rest assured, he's not my target this time, I currently have no interest in him, but I must make that fool who dared to provoke me pay the price!"

Seeing Jonathan in a violent state, Shiller sighed, picked up the case record from the side and began writing. While writing, he instructed: "Looks like, if I don't discharge you, you'd just break out."

"However, we need to set some ground rules. I trust you won't poison the whole city in the course of settling a personal grudge? The water purification system in my office hasn't been installed yet..."

Jonathan scoffed disdainfully: "Who does he think he is, who is he to dictate the scale of my revenge?"

"Alright, alright, we all know that you're the best chemist." Shiller said nonchalantly. As he spoke, he tore off the piece of paper and handed it to Jonathan: "I heard, a bunch of guys who've been in the papers have entered Gotham, you better watch out."

Jonathan took the certificate Shiller provided, and while walking towards the door, he disdainfully said: "The ones who should worry are them."

After seeing off Jonathan, Shiller breathed a sigh of relief. He returned to his office, had barely sat down in the chair when a loud 'boom' was heard.

Shiller instinctively turned to look out the window only to see a massive mushroom cloud rising over Gotham's skyline, and judging by the direction, it seemed to be coming from Wayne Chemical Plant.

Less than a half-hour later, Gordon arrived at Arkham Mental Hospital, dragging a grinning Joker Jack along, who was tossed to the ground. He then said: "Thank the broccoli plant, the ground of the chemical plant was damaged, so they can't work. This lunatic didn't manage to blow up any workers, but he leveled the chemical plant."

Jack lay on the ground not getting up until Gordon left. Then he got up, grinning ear to ear, looking at Shiller, he said, "Do you know what? I've done a tremendous good deed!"

Before Shiller could ask anything, Jack started stamping his feet and cursing. From his scattered sentence fragments, Shiller finally understood what exactly had happened – and it all started with the broccoli invasion of Gotham.

The colossal broccoli growing in the city was sure to damage the ground. All the buildings were constructed on the ground, and after it got damaged, many became hazardous and had to be renovated.

But to renovate buildings, you need construction materials, and to have construction materials, you need heavy-duty trucks transporting them. In recent days, truck drivers had almost been worked to madness, practically working for several nights without sleep. Jack was no exception.

Ever since the last time, when his little bat had broken his heart, Jack decided to give him the cold treatment. He believed that without him, Batman would certainly feel very lonely, maybe even hiding in his blanket to cry.

And he, could thereby seize this opportunity to earn a ton of money. Eventually, when Batman visited the slum again, he could bury Batman with cash.

The thought of the forthcoming day filled Jack with enthusiasm, but then last night, while he was driving, he suddenly hit something.

As most people would know, truck drivers working the night shift almost never abide by the speed limits. Jack was quite outrageous in this respect – not only did he overload and over speed, but he also drove the heavy-duty truck as if it was a spaceship about to take off. The only difference between him and a rocket was that he didn't use a countdown.

Under such circumstances, hitting something was fatal. Jack's truck was already in a bad state, and to make matters worse, the thing he hit was surprisingly sturdy. It got trapped under the tire and immobilized the vehicle instantly.

Joker Jack got out of his truck, seething with rage. He had hit something, not quite a person, but a doll pieced together from human limbs. The human parts had little strength and had easily crumpled upon impact, but the connecting pieces were incredibly durable, distorting the hub of Jack's truck tires.

Joker Jack wasn't exactly known for his mild temperament or good manners. He was, quite simply, explosive.

Originally, his nighttime deliveries were urgent, pressed for time, and paid well. A broken vehicle meant not only unfulfilled deliveries, but potentially angering the Principal. The more Jack thought about it, the angrier he got.

He pulled the doll out from under the tire, pieced it together from the crushed flesh, and reexamined the welded parts of the doll's connectors.

Then, he determined that the production cycle of these terrifying dolls must be long. In other words, whoever created them must have a dedicated base to store all sorts of spared parts.

As dawn broke, Jack brought a tow truck to carry away his own vehicle. Upon returning to the driver base, he heard of multiple night truck drivers encountering similar dolls, resulting in at least seven or eight accidents overnight.

Following the locations described by the truck drivers, Jack inspected all the dolls and found a common characteristic - their decomposed limbs were nearly unusable.

Jack realized this might be some ritual. These doll creators intentionally left them on the road, taking advantage of speeding trucks to squash the dolls that no longer served much purpose, as casually as disposing of garbage.

Jack also found that the freshest organ on every doll was the brain, indicating that the dolls were conscious before they were torn apart.

But the connections on their legs had been dismantled, making it impossible for them to escape. They could only watch helplessly as a speeding truck hurtled towards them, before being engulfed by the tires and listening to the sound of their skulls being crushed.

Without a doubt, this was a sadistic game for the perpetrator. Jack could imagine the doll creators promising their creations they could reclaim their original bodies if they served them well, only for them to end up strung on the hub of a truck tire without leaving a trace after their whole lives had been exploited.

After analyzing the accident locations and all the body decays, Jack quickly deduced that the doll creator's base was none other than the famous Wayne Chemical Plant.

This made Jack even angrier. The audacity of someone using a building named after Wayne as a base was insufferable. Batman still owed him a hundred dollars, and even he didn't have a building named Wayne as his base!

"So, you took your bomb and turned Wayne Chemical Plant into a flatland?" Shiller looked at Jack and asked, while Jack gently rubbed his nose and irritably answered: "You should have seen my bombs. I collected them for ages. They were meant for my dear friend Batman."

"That fucking imbecile, absolute lunatic with no sense of gravity! Wasting all my valuable resources!" Jack started grumbling profanities again.

Shiller let out a faint sigh, asking: "Did you kill him?"

"How do I know?" Jack snorted, but immediately after, dusted off his hands and added: "Regardless of whether he's dead or not, his creations are definitely done for. But I guess this suffering must be beyond death for him."

Suddenly, Joker Jack calmed down again. Speaking slowly in a deep voice he said: "I know what kind of people these lunatics are. Pretentious artists in reality are no better than mediocre fools, blindly valuing their insignificant collections."

"They relish controlling the fate of others. After each piece of art is created, they specially allocate dramatic destinies for them - when to be born, when and how to die..."

"Artworks of similar kind are subjected to the same time and cause of death. They won't tolerate their delicately crafted works to remain incomplete without fulfilling their predestined fate."

"And now, a massive explosion has blown them all to bits. 'Boom' - half a lifetime of dedication gone down the drain!" A malicious grin spread across Jack's face as he continued in a low murmur.

"Dolls made from elegant female limbs and rugged dockworker limbs jumbled together, indistinguishable from one another... Just think about the sorrow of this sight. If their creator saw this scene, he would probably sob, hahaha!"

Shiller silently watched Joker Jack. It was evident that Jack was the kind of killer who loved torturing other serial killers viciously, aiming to kill not only their bodies but also their hearts.

Shiller arranged Jack to stay in the same ward where Jonathan had previously lived, a special supervision ward where doctors and nurses could arrive at the fastest speed in case of an emergency.

Later, Shiller moved on to tend to the unhealed citizens still plagued by madness. After a day's work, the atmosphere that night was particularly serene. Jack obediently took his medicine and went to bed early, and Shiller thought he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, less than two hours after he fell asleep, a loud 'bang' echoed from upstairs, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

Shiller groggily rose from his bed, pushed open the window and looked up. A large figure with a crocodile's head and tail had jumped onto the balcony, brandishing two butcher knives and growling inside.

"You goddamn bastard!!! You blew up the chemical plant! Cost me my job! I'm going to kill you!!!!!"