Chapter 924: Shiller's Garden (Part 1)

The biggest advantage of Batman's gear is its superior quality. The same is true for his cape. If it were made from ordinary fabric, it would have been punctured by the rain canopy and torn into strips under the weight of a full-grown man, allowing Batman to descend.

However, it was rather unfortunate that Batman's cape was of incredibly high quality. It was impossible for the rain canopy's frame to penetrate such fabric, yet, anomalously, managed to hold onto the cape and the figure underneath it - Batman.

Of course, Batman had a way to get down. But in the battlefront of his mind, struggling free and the way he'd land seemed rather ungraceful. Right in front of him was Shiller, wearing an expression as if he was watching a spectacle.

Batman hanging mid-air sighed. The next second, he used his muscle power to sink down, taking advantage of the inertia, flipped to the top of the frame, and then jumped to the ground.

The next second, his boot was stuck in the plowed land. One half of his boot was in the mud, and the other half was caught by the uprooted plant system.

Batman was beginning to suspect if Aisha had once again told Shiller something terrible about him, hence the professor was awake in the middle of the night, setting up these traps and waiting for him.

Having laboriously pulled each foot out from the chaotically arranged garden, Batman was about to enter the manor when he saw Shiller walking over with a water gun. He had a bad premonition, and sure enough, Shiller pointed the water gun at him.

With a whoosh, a Batman dart cut through the air and struck the metal nozzle of the water gun, ensuring he wasn't attacked by a stream of water.

Shiller didn't hold onto the water gun but let it drop. The flow of water from the fallen gun cleaned the mud from Batman's boots.

Shiller turned and walked into the manor. Batman followed him. In the next second, he stepped on a pebble that had been blown over. After entering the reception room, he took a deep breath and looked towards the chaotic garden outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. He heard Shiller say,

"Look, this is what happens when you don't use the front door."

Just as Batman was about to speak, Shiller's butler Merkel walked over and said, "The gardeners are really stretched thin. Many people have already scheduled gardeners they know to come over and take care of their gardens when it rained this evening."

Shaking his head, Merkel said, "Big Foot Daddy told me that gardeners might not be able to handle our situation. The best solution is to rebuild the garden and transplant plants from local nurseries."

"What's wrong with your garden?" Batman asked Shiller.

"Do you have to hang on the canopy's frame a little longer to figure out what's wrong with it?" Shiller picked up his umbrella again, pushed open the door, walked under the eves, and looked over his entire garden.

Merkel stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows inside while Batman followed Shiller out. Shiller sighed as he looked at the mess in the garden.

The weak light from the garden lamps, made weaker through the rain haze, shone onto plants that had been thrashed by the storm. The shadow cast on the ground looked like a terrifying creature.

The pond surface was no longer calm. When the strong wind blew, water would spray out from the edge of the pond and when it splashed on the stacked stone slabs, it was as if waves were crashing against the shore.

The only thing that seemed relatively sturdy was a huge oak tree. The storm made its leaf shedding seem less orderly. Many leaves were blown off before they could naturally fall. They drifted into every corner of the garden, adding another burden to the other plants.

No matter how you looked at it, the problem with Shiller's garden was not something a few gardeners could solve—trimming shrubs. They needed to overhaul the entire garden, and before the renovation, they needed to redesign it.

After watching for a while, Shiller put away the umbrella and went back inside. He turned his head and asked Batman, "Gotham University does have an art program, right? Do you know any students majoring in environmental art design?"

"If you want to redesign the garden, I suggest you find Alfred. He knows several talented British garden designers." Batman spoke, "The gardens at Wayne Manor were designed by them."

"I know the gardens at Wayne Manor aren't damaged, you don't have to emphasize that to me." Shiller sat on the sofa and picked up his book again. He continued to read and speak, "We already have a garden designer from England, but his methods weren't very effective."

Shiller glanced at Merkel and said, "Any plants transplanted from other places have a low survival rate in Gotham. Those garden designers proposed designs that could accommodate nearly two hundred different kinds of European plants for each plant bed."

Shiller shook his head and said, "If you plan to continue using this method to enter my house, then you had better not recommend foreign designers to me, or I might end up hanging you with a garden spade during the short breaks when I'm guarding my garden all night long."

"I am here to discuss that very matter," Batman sat down on the opposite sofa and said, "After the rainstorm last time, many of Gotham's green landscapes have been damaged. I have been trying to increase Gotham's green space during the reconstruction phase, and I found that there were many difficulties."

"Gotham's green space wasn't high to begin with. If we take away the private gardens in the manor district, it's even less, so I wanted to expand the area of public green space. But Mayor Luo One said, Gothamites simply don't care about greenery."