Chapter 1662: No Time to Face Death (25)_1

The Joker called the cops.

Yes, he scrambled over the couch, ran to the side of the phone table, and dialed the Gotham Police Department on an old, worn-out telephone.

When Gordon arrived at the Joker's home, Spider-Man had one hand on a knife and the other on the Joker. The experienced chief, shocked, widened his eyes and yelled at Spider-Man.

"Spider-Man, what are you doing? Are you planning to kill him?!"

Seeing a circle of policemen pointing guns at him at the door, Spider-Man immediately let go, raised his hands, and said to them, "Hey, you've got it all wrong. I saw that he hadn't shaved his stubble in a while and couldn't find a razor anywhere, so I had to make do with this knife."

Barely able to hold himself together, the Joker scrambled up from the ground and rushed toward the farthest wall. He slammed into it, and turned around with both hands tightly against the wall, then pointed at Spider-Man, "Get him out of here!!!!"

Gordon put down his gun, glanced at the Joker, then at Spider-Man, then back at the Joker. He sighed deeply and then said to Spider-Man, "Whatever you were trying to do, bursting into someone's house with a knife is wrong."

"But I didn't burst into his house with a knife. I found it in the kitchen..."

"Enough, listen, Spider-Man. Have you discussed this with Batman?"

Spider-Man put the knife on the nearby tea table, followed Gordon out the door, and said, "No, I did not discuss it with him, but I think he might have guessed it."

Gordon looked back at Spider-Man, but on the monitor screen in the Batcave, it looked like Gordon was looking into the camera.

Gordon led Spider-Man outside and said, "Listen, kid, I know you're probably furious about the things the Joker has done. But without evidence, we can't arrest him."

"Similarly, you can't assume he's a criminal and threaten him with a weapon when he's not committing a crime. I believe Batman has explained this to you. Promise me, you won't let anger cloud your judgement, okay?"

Gordon was calm, clearly having anticipated this situation. Almost every new recruit to the Batman family has had a similar experience.

After spending some time with Batman, the Robins would start to think, "Maybe I could do better than Batman." Some young police officers in Gotham think the same way.

But the Robins' reckless attempts to apprehend offenders didn't result in anything. First and foremost, their brazen intrusion into the villains' headquarters often landed them in traps. And even if they were martially skilled, villains could still call the cops without evidence.

Gordon had lost count of how many times he'd had to stop the Robins from beating up Penguin Man in the Iceberg Restaurant. The looks the Robins would give him then made him feel painful, as if he had become a guard dog serving these criminals.

But it's not like that. Does Gordon not know that Penguin Man is up to no good? Does he not know about the countless unlawful dealings within the Iceberg restaurant? Doesn't he know that even if Penguin Man got badly beaten up, he had it coming?

But if he didn't adhere to the little order that remained, Penguin Man wouldn't either. The result would be that illegal transactions would no longer be confined to the Iceberg Restaurant, they would appear in every venue that corrupt officials could reach and in the homes of Gotham's lower-class citizens.

By then, even Batman couldn't possibly go door-to-door to investigate, or save every proletariat caught up in the ruling class's grip.

Gotham at this point is a thoroughly poisoned and corrupted city. The few conscientious people left are striving to clear the rubble and remove the pests, not to restore its health, but to prevent it from dying, to keep it alive, it must live on.

So in a sense, both Gordon and Batman are accomplices to the darkness of Gotham because they chose not to destroy Gotham. Instead, they're doing their best to maintain the status quo, slowing its decline.

Both of them have long recognized this and are indifferent to all related criticisms. This is also the main reason for the disagreements between Batman and his Robins.

The Robins often ask Batman two questions: "Why not save them more persistently?" and "If you can't save them, why not destroy it?" Batman never responds.

The messes that the Robins often create: Bursting into the villain's home, giving them a beating and letting the police clean up; recklessly stepping into the villain's traps, sacrificing police officers to rescue them. Gordon never complains.

Because both of them know full well that you can't, and shouldn't, tell a group of youngsters to see reality with sober eyes, accept the dark status quo, and struggle to survive.

This isn't what children should be thinking about. The almost utopian ideals of salvation in their minds are the most precious things to the human race and shouldn't be brutally destroyed, at least not by the hands of those close to them.

So, all the smart and sober people in this city silently refuse to respond to any of the numerous questions from these inquisitive birds. They remain silent, forever silent, just like Batman, just like Gotham.

In Gordon's view, Spider-Man's break-in at the Joker's house was just another fruitless and reckless attempt by these brave birds. So he didn't say much else, only patted Spider-Man on the shoulder and then left.

Two days later, the Joker stormed into the Gotham Police Department to surrender.

Before the police could question him, he confessed all his crimes in painstaking detail, leaving nothing out.

"Chief Gordon, you have to believe me, I really wanted to help him." Spider-Man was nearly in tears, complaining to Gordon outside the police station, while holding onto his arm.

"The other day I visited his home and noticed that his living conditions suggested he was in dire financial straits. I thought his poverty was due to his inability to find steady work, so when he went out that day, I followed him."

"I have a Spider-Sense that can detect danger, so I knew he wasn't aware of me. I thought he was going to commit a robbery, kidnapping, or maybe even a bank heist. But he ended up working as a laborer at a chemical dye factory, where his job was to dump their unfit waste water."

"Of course, the work itself wasn't exactly legal, but he was honestly trying hard. Since dumping waste water was done secretly, he couldn't use the factory's large truck and had to use a small van to haul it to the sea, then dump it by hand."

"On such a hot day, he kept at it for five or six hours and made three or four trips. He seemed to have skimmed off some dangerous chemicals, but in the end, his employer even docked his wages..."

As Spider-Man narrated, Batman, sans his bat suit, and appearing as Bruce Wayne in the Batcave's monitoring room, was reminded of the events that took place two days ago with a look of utter despair on his face.

The factory was shrouded in darkness save for a small security room shone brightly. Two figures were arguing at the door, and one of them, a somewhat chubby man, was yelling.

"This job was supposed to be twenty bucks to begin with! Take it or leave it! You really think that messing up your face and applying some lipstick to imitate the terrorist Joker would scare me?!"

"Let me tell you, even if the real Joker were to show up, I'd still blow his brains out with a shotgun! Only that sissy Batman would put on an endless show with him. Don't fucking expect to intimidate me!"

"Take your money and get lost. Don't come back. I can't stand you bloodsucking leeches who only think about money. Scram, scram, scram!"

Two wilted banknotes floated down. The Joker, dressed in a somewhat wrinkled short-sleeved outfit, bent down to pick up the money, rubbed his nose and flicked the banknotes with his fingers.

When he turned around to leave, a figure was perched atop the factory building in the night backdrop of Gotham. It was Spider-Man, who had followed the Joker to this place.

With an unusually grave expression on his face, Spider-Man watched the unfolding scene, directing his glare more at the arrogant security guard and thus missing the sly grin that appeared at the corner of the Joker's mouth as he turned away.

If Batman was considered the world's greatest detective, then the Joker would be the world's best at manipulating emotions. He excelled in exploiting every emotion of every individual.

Many believed that the Joker was especially adept at stimulating the dark side within people. Yet, he was also exceedingly skilled at exploiting the goodness in their hearts. He understood that a righteous heart inflamed with anger but misdirected could be more harmful than any form of evil.

The manipulation began the moment he first met Spider-Man.

The Joker was merely a pitiful character suffering from mental illness. Aside from opposing Batman, he had to work hard, cook meals, and even endure hunger if discount groceries were absent from the supermarket. He was nothing more than a poor, helpless individual forced into crime by circumstances - the first step to gaining empathy and eliciting sympathy.

Aside from resisting Batman, he also complied with societal norms, working dutifully only to be oppressed. What wrong had this marginalized poverty-stricken individual done? It must surely have been due to societal injustice! - the second step to expunge his insane and brutal criminal history.

The Joker was well aware that Batman's innocent Robins, like all heroes in this world, strongly advocated for seeking justice without bias. Even if the offender were oppressed, he ought to be curtailed.

If it were any of Batman's Robins before, they would have certainly jumped off from the building and punched the security guard by now. After knocking the guard out, they would have looked down upon the Joker and said, "Even though you're a lunatic and criminal, I won't ignore any injustice you face. Because I am a hero."

The Joker would only laugh manically in his heart.

Indeed, this abusive security guard often deducted wages from the laborers hired to dispose of the waste water. But without him, even these exhausting and low-paying jobs wouldn't land in the hands of the weakest who could only work part-time. The person-in-charge would just contract it out to his own relatives.

"They will hate the heroes," Joker thought amidst his wild laughter. With such ease, he turned good and evil upside down, manipulated emotions, and no one could stop him, not even Batman. Because this was human nature.

But Spider-Man didn't jump down. From hundreds of meters away, Joker could sense the burning rage inside the young man.

But Spider-Man didn't jump down. He didn't punch that security guard; he merely squatted quietly on the roof of the building, observing this farce.

It didn't matter, Joker thought. The intelligence of the Robins was their own misfortune. Soon this innocent bird would realize that Batman and the Joker were not as he expected.