Chapter 2544: The Battle for the Cape (65)

This series of processes may sound easy, but this was all Harley Quinn's personal effort.

Although she entered with her memory intact, Harley Quinn had never attended a police academy. She was a psychologist, and even after turning bad, she was merely involved in street fights; what did she know about criminal investigation?

After enrolling in the police academy, Harley Quinn was up at the crack of dawn, working tirelessly, without sleep, studying assiduously.

Not to mention that the police academy curriculum was comprehensive: in addition to investigation, she also had to participate in combat training, physical endurance, chasing, and other subjects.

Men and women who have received the same level of training do have certain differences in body type and physical strength. Harley Quinn wasn't particularly strong-built, and she had to graduate as the top student from the best police academy. The difficulty of this task was imaginable.

One could only say that Universe Batman must have sighed in his heart after watching the footage, lamenting that it's a pity Harley Quinn was a bit older. Wait, there must be a universe where Harley Quinn is young, right?

The subsequent series of manipulations were even more astounding; to protect Bruce amid the tumultuous sea, Officer Gail pulled out all the stops.

To find out how the businessman maneuvered, she sat in front of a mirror, applied heavy makeup, wore a long dress, and danced into the businessman's arms to the beat of a waltz, getting drunk and taken into his car, then seducing and drugging him till he fainted in bed, only to strangle him to death after confirming the identity of his informant.

To deal with a judge planning to tamper with evidence, she went from the district attorney's office to the farmers market, from villas to the trading mansion, gathering countless evidences of bribery. She ultimately realized that Gotham's legal system was an intertwined web of corruption, and exposing it wouldn't prove anything, so she took matters into her own hands and killed them all.

That colleague was even more outrageous. This colleague was an informant for a businessman, but because he always liked Officer Gail and accidentally stumbled upon what she was doing, he already considered giving up.

This colleague also didn't know that Bruce was the one who paralyzed Gordon. He thought this group had first harmed a family, swallowed their wealth, and then sought to harm the child. After all, he was just a foreigner doing his job for money, feeling some pangs of conscience, coupled with his affection for the female officer; he had planned on confessing to Gail.

As it happened, he walked in on Gail killing someone, and the two even had an intense exchange about "whether you have become the person you hate the most". In the end, Gail, who was beyond caring, still ended up killing him.

In the end, Gail was about to confess everything to Bruce but stopped at the door and did not enter. When tasked by Gordon to reinvestigate that year's case, she discovered that Bruce was the one who had acted.

Therefore, she lost all hope and didn't run away when the bomb exploded; instead, she ended her life in an exceedingly heroic manner.

Of course, Harley Quinn knew all along that it was Bruce's doing, but to make her own motives and actions seem justified, she had to pretend not to know. Because only by treating Bruce as an innocent victim could she relentlessly eliminate those perpetrators.

Assuming Gail knew the truth and felt Bruce wasn't a good person, directly giving up on protecting him, how could Bruce possibly grow up in such a situation with nothing to his name and surrounded by enemies?

Harley Quinn was obviously repulsed; she pinched her nose and said, "I don't know how your crime skills can be so poor. I, an outstanding graduate of the police academy, had to struggle and create accidents at crime scenes, facing all kinds of unintentional evidence, just to forcibly ignore those blatantly obvious clues and ensure that my own settings wouldn't collapse. Have you never properly covered up your own crimes?!"

She hit the nail on the head, Shiller thought. The Laughing Bat had never committed traditional crimes. His only criminal methods were to swoop in from nowhere, disrupt everything, and then vanish as suddenly as he appeared.

Motive, method, and gains didn't matter; as for destroying evidence and eliminating clues, he was sorry, but Wei Yixiao had never stooped so low to take such matters seriously. Who was worth his time to hide clues from?

The screenwriter had slapped him with all kinds of ridiculous settings, arranged high-level conspiracies for him, but never arranged a logically tight traditional perfect crime for him, probably knowing that someone of his background was unlikely to commit to such detailed work.

So, rushing into an alley to shoot someone twice and then run away was already quite a feat for him to accomplish, including the victim, everyone had decisive evidence to prove he did it.

Harley Quinn was burning the midnight oil creating accidents and destroying evidence, following behind Bruce cleaning up after him, and she twisted the narrative as if someone with ill intentions was trying to frame him, giving her sufficient reason to protect him and help him grow up.

When it came to growing up, Penguin Man had even more to say. He took off his sunglasses, sat down on the chair with a heavy heart, and even Universe Batman could tell from his expression before he spoke that he was about to recount a tale of injustice.

But in the end, Penguin Man didn't say a word. Instead, Shiller changed the film reel, and Penguin Man's figure appeared on the screen.

All the bosses of the shops where Bruce had worked from childhood to adulthood were the Penguin Man. The heads of all the schools he attended were also the Penguin Man. Even the head of the large hospital that Gordon had re-investigated and the family doctor who made house calls were all the Penguin Man.

Penguin Man sighed deeply, "You are an orphan who, given the chance, could inherit a fortune and kick a group of vested interests off their pedestals, and he is a good policeman who has stood by the police department for so many years without taking money, diligently uncovering the truth of various cases."

"I just want to ask you one question," the Penguin Man said earnestly, "on what grounds do you think you two could survive this long relying solely on each other, without any outsider's help?!"

Facing the genuine inquiry from Penguin Man, the Laughing bat stood there in silence, not saying a word.

The role that Penguin Man played was even more preposterous. Having watched the play of the Laughing bat, he could roughly figure out what the script was about. It boiled down to Bruce needing to turn both himself and Gordon into helpless invalids.

Yes, ordinary people doing this might just mean a bit more hustle and bustle, but the question is, are they ordinary people?

Penguin Man burst into laughter the moment he figured out the plot of the script.

If you claim you are truly a child born to an ordinary family, even in slums, the most you would face are some debt collectors, thieves wanting to take advantage, and mob members involved in turf wars.

To put it bluntly, slums are just a mess of weaklings preying on each other. If anyone had a bit of ability, why would they still be there? Even if they had enemies, how capable could they be?

But where was Bruce born? Wayne Enterprises is a well-known local enterprise, and his business rivals are old foxes in the business world, at least in Gotham City they are capitalists who cover the sky with one hand.

They already hated the Wayne family enough to kill Mr. and Mrs. Wayne, so would they really be so kind as to let an orphan off the hook?

This notion that giving up all one's inheritance and leaving with nothing could lead to an ordinary and peaceful life, Penguin Man really struggled to describe whether it was too naïve or too stupid.

But the fool planned to do just that, and they wanted to see how foolish he could be. Now, here they were, with Penguin Man nearly collapsing from exhaustion in this Dreamworld.

Most of the performers used their real-world identities, like Harvey who was originally a lawyer, and Harley Quinn who was a psychology student. If we're talking about backgrounds, then Penguin Man could be considered the lowest.

The Cobblepot family he belonged to were once famous, but had fallen on hard times, and this happened during his father's generation. By the time he inherited, all that was left was an empty house and a mountain of debt.

Which means he started from a negative point, and the job he had to do was much more than the one he's doing now as the mob boss, not to mention the extremely limited time.

Gordon was shot before he came, so those enemies definitely wouldn't wait for Bruce to grow up before making their move, meaning he had at most a few years to strive for a career that could protect Bruce and ensure he grows up safely.

If it is said that Two-Face challenges the bottom line of America's legal system, and Harley Quinn breaks through the limits of the public security system, then Penguin Man is practically an encyclopedia of American petty crimes.

It is impossible to gain so much in so short a time through normal means. So, what else could he do but take shortcuts?

In those few years, Penguin Man was just like that lawless rogue Zhang San, breaking every law, whether he was allowed to or not. If there was no law, he'd create one just to break it.

Under such pressure, Penguin Man's criminal career reached new heights. Not only in the variety of crimes committed but the depths of those crimes as well, using fraud as a foundation and bribery as his main tool, he rapidly hit the market with a combination of judicial interference and election manipulation, becoming the Gotham Godfather who dominated both the underworld and the lawful world within a few short years.

Even to the point where the other villains in Gotham all sighed in admiration; achieving market crime of such a degree could also be considered a form of art.

Penguin Man wasn't included in their group before because they found him too vulgar, but that didn't wrong him—the vulgarity of his crimes was about money which is not vulgar, but in the end, he didn't manage to secure any money!

Every member of the Batman Family had to beat up Penguin Man when they first appeared, and virtually everyone got involved in thwarting his schemes. This just goes to show that he wasn't very good at classic crime. After many years in Gotham, his highest achievement was being mayor, and even that position wasn't very steady.

Therefore, the Arkham inmates didn't look down on Penguin Man because he was involved in traditional mob crime, but because he didn't even play that game very well. Not to mention creating any variations, he struggled to maintain his own existence.

But under such tremendous pressure, Penguin Man lived up to expectations and broke through his limitations, integrating various traditional crime patterns within just a few years, setting new highs for classic mob crimes that he had never achieved before.

The only problem was that even as the Gotham Godfather, he still had to go around buying up elementary schools and hospitals, as well as small shops in poor neighborhoods, chasing after Bruce like a kindergarten teacher, insistent on saving them both.

While such a comparison may seem a bit impolite, the busy Penguin Man, as seen in the frame, genuinely resembles a penguin mother tirelessly chasing her mischievous child.