Chương 3328: Chapter 2470: The Strange and Mysterious Bat Family (13)

After Green Lantern Batman had made a series of actions that were almost tantamount to swindling, he finally stopped, and by that time, Joker's living room was a complete mess.

Just as Joker was about to pick up the chair he was sitting on to set him upright, he heard a loud knocking from outside the door. It was obvious that the downstairs neighbors had come calling because of the previous disturbance.

Joker took a gun from the cabinet beside him, went out the door, and had a friendly and cordial exchange with the neighbor, which ended with his own door getting sprayed with bullets, and the floor beneath the neighbor's feet riddled with bullet marks, thus smoothly resolving the issue.

However, as soon as he returned to the living room, the now lucid Green Lantern Batman started moving restlessly in place, causing the armrest of the chair to scratch a large section of the floor.

If he were facing a real Batman or Batman's Robin bird, Joker would've hummed and said, "Whose tab should I put this bill on, hmm? It wouldn't be that you happen to know some wealthy guy, would it?"

But as soon as Joker took a step towards Green Lantern Batman's direction, the latter let out a piercing shriek, until Joker heard the downstairs neighbors banging on the ceiling again.

Due to previous calamities, Joker's standard of living had plummeted, moving from the Gotham slum to the suburbs, to the kind of community that had long lost property management and had no water or electricity supply—everyone relied on their own abilities.

The advantage of such a community was almost no rent, but the downside was the extremely poor living conditions. Not only did everyone solve the energy problem on their own, but the floors were so thin that they were neither warm nor soundproof.

The caliber of residents living in the same building as Joker need not be mentioned. If he let Green Lantern Batman go on like this, there would only be two outcomes: either Joker would become the target of everyone in the building, enduring endless 'friendly and cordial exchanges' with his neighbors every day, or the landlord would simply kick him out. With the landlord in charge of managing and repairing the utilities gone, Joker couldn't stay in this building either.

Joker had no choice but to go over, cover his mouth, tie him up again with a rope, gag his mouth with a towel, seal it with tape, and then knock him out with an anesthetic spray.

In the end, he hauled a large washing machine box from the downstairs storage and successfully stuffed Green Lantern Batman into it; then he found a small trolley and pushed the box out of the building.

Joker decided to head for the Joker Gang's base.

Joker indeed had a gang, but most of the time the Joker Gang didn't act together with Joker, who didn't even care to bother with them unless they could serve as toys in his games with Batman.

Normally, these idiots had only that one role, but this time they had a rare opportunity to serve another purpose, which was to help Joker deal with an even bigger idiot.

Joker had wanted to simply kill this Batman who was more foolish than Joker himself, but after seeing the cross-section of the chopped-off finger and that ring, Joker had a guess.

In the New 52, Joker had noticed even before Batman that a dark power was continuously eroding various cosmoses. Batman wanted to use this as a breakthrough to figure out what Joker had noticed, but ultimately returned empty-handed.

Joker had been investigating this dark power for quite a long time. In his office at the Joker Gang's base, a whole wall of felt board was plastered with various photos.

Among them were Batman and Robin, supervillains, and some ordinary citizens whom nobody knew or cared about, as well as various buildings in Gotham.

Given that the Court of Owls was no secret, Joker naturally knew that the god they worshipped was the Dark Source, and his name was actually not important at all.

But Green Lantern Batman was an anomaly. He didn't seem to be directly corrupted by the power of darkness. Clearly, someone had set up a trap using the Lantern ring and turned him into what he was now.

When Joker saw the appearance of the muscles, skeleton, and blood vessels inside Green Lantern Batman, an endless rage and killing intent ignited within him.

The number-one fan of Batman wasn't Arkham Band, or rather it was Arkham Band, but it was the God Joker among Arkham Band.

Joker's philosophy had always been that Batman could be unlucky, could endure disasters that made him crazy and chaotic, he could even die, but he absolutely must not become boring.

Batman had always been Joker's ultimate toy; he spent his life looking for various ways to elicit more reactions from Batman. Persecuting Batman and observing his reactions was the greatest joy of Joker's life and his spiritual pillar.

So no matter what Batman went through or whatever reaction he had, Joker could accept it. There were only two things he couldn't stand: one was Batman not playing with him, and the other was Batman being unable to play.

Green Lantern Batman obviously fell into the latter category. You could say he's not entirely Batman; Joker couldn't be bothered with him if it were just some ordinary kid who grew up to be Bruce Wayne.

But Green Lantern Batman used the power of the Green Lantern Ring to kill the murderer of his parents, which proves that he is still trapped by their deaths. He remains the Batman obsessed with vengeance.

However, he trivialized Batman's core spirit, dispelling the inherent contradictions and conflicts within the character. Instead, he became a simplistic figure who would kill anyone he disfavored. This rendered everything dramatically inert and devoid of narrative. How could the Joker ever take pleasure in this?

To chalk it up to coincidence, that in the vast cosmos there would be such a "middle-school syndrome" case, the Joker might barely accept it. Out of sight, out of mind, he would think, knowing well that among countless universes, there were far too many boring Bruce Waynes for the Joker to waste his time on such matters.

But the issue is that Green Lantern Batman was sculpted by someone. He could have become a normal Batman, but someone altered his fate, transforming him into what he is now.

The Joker was like a starving ghost watching someone throw delicious cake into the trash. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to ruin such a great masterpiece as Batman in this manner. It was utterly unforgivable.

Many wonder why, given that Bruce Wayne is a formidable scientist, does his counterpart, the Joker, seem to lack any scientific research capabilities?

But in reality, the Joker is capable of conducting research, although his methods are usually unscientific and overly cruel, more akin to a completely insane madman tormenting and abusing life.

However, if viewed from another perspective, his actions are logical. For instance, now afraid to strap Green Lantern Batman to an operating table, he cuts open the skin of his hand and delves deeper, seemingly torturing Green Lantern Batman. In truth, the Joker is just searching for the origin of the Dark Power within him in the most straightforward manner.

And because the Joker actually doesn't understand scientific research, the methods he can conceive are the simplest. On the ring-bearing hand, there are only a few things to look at: bones, muscles, blood, and fasciae, just take them out one by one to see.

The cut-off finger, which was most severely contaminated, was of the utmost importance. But the Joker didn't understand any scientific analysis methods, so he simply threw it into the fire.

The ring didn't burn, but the whole finger blackened. Strangely, after the flames from the lit paper went out, a dark red stain remained on the ground.

After throwing other parts that the Joker had removed from Green Lantern Batman into the fire, similar stains appeared on the ground. The Joker realized that this substance must be important.

Then the Joker burned more, and Green Lantern Batman lost half of his hand from the ring finger to the base of his palm. Eventually, the Joker obtained a small canister of dark red blood.

This was definitely blood, the Joker surmised, but he didn't know whose it was. So he thought of the most straightforward and convenient method, which was to put it in the mailbox of Wayne Manor.

Batman also received this vial of blood, but he did not believe it came from the Joker, since in his subconscious he did not think the Joker was capable of chemical analysis and extraction. Without the necessary equipment, Batman assumed this might be a warning from someone behind the scenes.

But who is Batman? He wasn't going to be intimidated by such threats. He turned and threw the blood into an analyzer. Even so, he harbored no expectation of getting a result, as the mysterious blood he had obtained from Batwoman previously yielded no results.

However, after passing the blood to Batman, the Joker made a new discovery born from an accident.

After deeming Green Lantern Batman no longer of use, the Joker was ready to heartlessly abandon him. With the Joker's level of cruelty, abandonment certainly didn't mean returning him to where he came from; the Joker intended to kill him outright.

The process couldn't have been simpler. The Joker didn't plan any elaborate death for him, just to walk over and slit his throat with a knife.

Fed up with the meaninglessness of such executions, the Joker acted on instinct, not thinking it through, just as a worker does before making a big blunder. At that moment, with one arm around Green Lantern Batman's neck, he prepared to swing his knife.

Who would have known Green Lantern Batman, who had inhaled a large amount of anesthetic, could still break free from his grip and bite his arm?

The Joker screamed in pain, trying to pull his arm back, but Green Lantern Batman bit down hard and didn't let go until he tore off a chunk of the Joker's flesh.

While clenching his bleeding arm, the Joker looked at Green Lantern Batman with the same gaze one might give a dead man. His blood was poisonous, and ordinary people who got the Joker's blood would become extremely mad. A large injection could potentially create another Joker. Even the most willful couldn't resist such physical contamination, especially Batman, who was particularly susceptible.

But to everyone's surprise, Green Lantern Batman seemed unharmed; the Joker was certain that the guy must have swallowed at least two big gulps of his blood. Not only did he not go mad, but he also seemed more lucid than before, and now even the anesthetic drug was ineffective on him.

This immediately led the Joker to think of that vial of blood. If Green Lantern Batman was completely immune to the contamination of the Joker's blood, could it be that his blood had already been contaminated by the same virus?

That is to say, Green Lantern Batman's veins already carried the Joker virus, and that mysterious blood was a mixture of Batman and the Joker's blood.

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