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0.83% Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics / Chapter 36: Chapter 27 Mob Conspiracy_1

章節 36: Chapter 27 Mob Conspiracy_1

The Maroni mob family was also located in Gotham's East District, where the gangs were much more rampant compared to the West District, where Gotham University was located.

Simply put, it was because that region was the least economically developed in Gotham. Compared with the slums of the West District, it was a veritable haven of simplicity and honesty.

The internal competition within the local gangs was intense. For the tiny Gutter Gang, comprised of only around a hundred members, their ambition to take control over a nightclub seemed virtually impossible.

The Maroni mob family owned a restaurant, two bars, a dance hall, and a strip club – practically making it the largest gang in the region.

The Maroni Family and the Red Crow Gang had a long history of beef. Their territories intersected in places, and scuffles often broke out at a local bar situated on their cross-border. Turns out, both of them wanted to seize control of this crucial transport hub, but neither succeeded in the end.

That bar, consequently, became a no-man's-land in the East District, also the place where information traveled fastest.

Sal had his chops in order to establish a foothold in Gotham, especially in the dangerous and chaotic East District.

The Red Crow Gang's plot to steal production lines couldn't escape his notice. In the underground of a Maroni-controlled bar closest to the no-man's-land, Maroni lit a cigar and told his henchmen, "I learned from our old friend, Police Chief Victor. It seems like that Redhead kid is gearing up for something."

His underling replied, "Indeed, they've apparently stolen a lot of heavy machines from the south or the southwest. I heard from a kid who lost a bet that their Boss intends to manufacture some sort of chemical substance, said to have mind control capabilities."

Squinting his eyes, Sal said, "I dined with Victor the other day. He mentioned a case involving a chemical PhD, who was supposedly a high-profile professor at Gotham University. Could this be related?"

His henchman said, "The Redhead has two bodyguard informants in his mistress's vicinity. Lately, he's been hot and heavy with her. We can dig out some leads via her."

Sal, fiddling with his lighter, said, "For every piece of meat they devour, we lose one. But now it seems like they not only want to split the meat, but also swallow us in one gulps. Let's see who's got the upper hand."

Maroni's suspicion couldn't have been more accurate. He effortlessly got his hands on the entire operation plan of the Red Crow Gang. While the leader of the Red Crow Gang was cunning, he was relatively young, and Maroni had figured him out.

Meanwhile, Shiller's role was instrumental. He performed the most crucial task, obtaining the formula for the fear gas from the Red Crow Gang and inadvertently letting one of Maroni's informants find it.

Maroni's connection with the Police Chief suggested that he was much more sophisticated than the leader of the Red Crow Gang, with a wider network too. Shortly, he found a reliable chemist to analyze this formula, the conclusion being that a large-scale biochemical weapon with potent effects could be created.

After obtaining such conclusion, Maroni, of course, would not let the Red Crow Gang's plan succeed. Otherwise, once they obtained this crucial weapon, there would be no hope for the Maroni Family.

The primary step was to resolutely prevent the Red Crow Gang's informant from bailing out Jonathan through the police station.

On another dark night, Gordon was leaving work as usual. His immediate boss, Rantalos, was you seriously blind to him and would never assign him anything important. Gordon's role in the police force was now somewhat of a clerical one, he was never even selected for field patrol anymore.

He was able, therefore, to finish early. His boss was ahead of him, heading for a booze-up.

As soon as Gordon stepped outside, he saw his boss cross a turning, and a speeding car rammed into him. His boss was flung a dozen meters away right at the entrance of the police station.

Gordon didn't wait, running back into the police station to shout for help, but before the ambulance could arrive, Rantalos had stopped breathing.

Rantalos was normally a cautious old cop, but recently, with the Red Crow Gang's desperate need to free Jonathan, they had offered him too many benefits. His greedy became insatiable, he even fancied marrying the boss of the Red Crew Gang's little sister, which made him too anxious and completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched by the gang's nemesis.

Everything happened in an instant. Before Gordon could react, he was automatically raised to his boss's position.

Of course, that was also due to Maroni's machinations. In order to hinder his opponents, one would naturally want to pick the least favored candidate. The rift between Gordon and Rantalos was so apparent, with almost all the cops in the station having heard about it, Maroni naturally selected Gordon as his man.

Of course, obstructing his opponent was just the first step, Maroni also intended to manufacture this crucial weapon himself.

He proved to be bolder than the Red Crow Gang by directly bribing the manager of the Wayne Chemical Plant, sneaking a nitrate production line for illicit manufacture of the gas.

He even planned to manufacture it directly at the Wayne Chemical Plant to avoid unnecessary attention.

However, the same problem persisted. Large-scale production of the fear gas required more extensive separation machines and other high-end equipment. While Maroni was richer than the Red Crow Gang, he was still unsure whether to make such a hefty investment.

So, he still sought out that chemist, asking him to manually replicate some fear gas. The person he enlisted was far more adept than those from the Red Crow Gang, and although they couldn't completely replicate the fear gas, they were already able to restore 80% of it. While they still could not condense it, its effect was nonetheless sensational.

Seeing this effectiveness, Maroni started contemplating making a significant investment. After all, if he could just spray someone with this gas and drive them insane, who in the entire East District would be his rival? Once he took over the whole East District, tens of millions of dollars in revenue would be mere chump change.

As such, Maroni hurriedly purchased a batch of necessary equipment from other states, which cost him a few million dollars and lots of favors, and hired a group of chemists at a high salary to work for him.

Due to the large-scale production, it naturally couldn't be done in the Wayne Chemical Plant anymore. Since Maroni didn't have any chemical factories on his turf, he instigated a fire and, at the cost of over thirty of his men, seized a small chemical plant from the Red Crow Gang.

At this point, Bruce finally discovered that his family's chemical plant had been stolen. He finally realized that the mob had begun to manufacture this poisonous gas.

Meanwhile, Gordon received a clue from an anonymous informant, claiming to have seen a car with the plate number ending in 676 frequently lingering near the Wayne Chemical Plant.

Gordon and Bruce quickly got on the same page; Batman and the detective were back in action. They quickly located the car and caught hold of the Red Crow Gang members.

Overnight, Batman raided the Red Crow Gang, who, though much stronger than the Gutter Gang with hundreds of members, had no criminal masterminds among them -- just ordinary gang members. Batman was fighting at the frontline, and Gordon was making arrests at the rear. Over two hundred gangsters were arrested in one night.

The leader of the Red Crow Gang was fuming. Even though they stole the production line from Wayne Chemical Plant, they hadn't yet produced a single bit of fear gas when both the production line and the chemical plant were seized by the Maroni Family.

With the Red Crow Gang leader incensed at his arrest, he pointed a finger at Sal Maroni. Batman then shifted his focus to the Maroni Gang.

However, Maroni was far more cunning and cautious than the leader of the Red Crow Gang. The entire chemical plant was heavily guarded, with all members on high alert, leaving Batman struggling to find an opportune moment to strike.

Maroni, knowing that he was being watched, started seeking help from his backup - Police Chief Victor.

Firstly, Victor internally annulled the filed theft case of Wayne Chemical Plant, hoping to sweep this matter under the rug. Under Maroni's orders, he then continued to interfere with Jonathan's court hearings, attempting to get Jonathan to work in Maroni's chemical plant by exonerating him unjustly.

Meanwhile, Shiller added fuel to the fire in this tense standoff situation.

Shiller maneuvered Police Chief Victor into acquiring a bottle of fear toxin concentrate developed by Jonathan from the evidence room. Maroni, after obtaining this concentrate, better understood Jonathan's importance and thus continuously pressurized Victor to bail Jonathan out as quickly as possible.

Before Victor could make a move, someone else approached him.

Just as Batman expected, this person was the chancellor of Gotham University.

Although Victor was the police chief, his ties with Gotham's political scene weren't strong, unlike the chancellor of Gotham University, who was acquainted with many jury members and state members.

Everyone knew that he had close ties with the Red Crow Gang and had been bought over by them. But now, the Red Crow Gang had fallen and the Chancellor of Gotham University was in desperate need of a new protective figure.

If you didn't have the shelter of a major mafia in Gotham, you could hardly move an inch.

The chancellor of Gotham University didn't mind switching his allegiance to the Maroni Family. Upon finding out that they were also interested in pursuing the production of fear gas, he confidently proposed to Victor:

"...That girl is not cautious enough, she brags about being Bruce Wayne's date everywhere. I kidnapped her when she came to me. If we can influence the heir to the Wayne Family, helping Jonathan escape from his sentence by leveraging his power will be a piece of cake."

"With just a woman?" Victor asked, "Little Wayne isn't a fool; he dallies around every day, but just a date, how can that possibly make him willingly work for us..."

"We don't need him to be willing," the chancellor said.

"Are you planning to kidnap Little Wayne? No, that risk is too large..." Victor said. "We might not be able to control him."

The entire Wayne Family held half of Gotham City's economic power. If a plan against Bruce failed, the retaliation they would face would be formidable.

The chancellor said, "Actually, I've already come up with a method. We can kidnap Little Wayne without necessarily needing to control him, we can replace him instead..."


next chapter

章節 37: Chapter 28 The Villain is Stupid to Death_1

Victor and the Dean of Gotham University were plotting against Bruce, but Batman was likewise thinking about how to deal with them.

Throughout these days of trials, Batman has come to understand many things, such as finding answers to each question asked by Shiller.

Now he has admitted that he is not the same as the police, he is not a representative of absolute justice. In fact, he is no different from those criminals because they all don't abide by the laws. The resolve of Batman is very clear - to uphold his own justice, without caring about legal justice.

Therefore, he is no longer awkward and brash in his approach in handling Christine's disappearance case.

Once Batman figured this out, no one could match his wisdom and execution ability.

First of all, he targeted the Dean of Gotham University. Compared to Victor, a veteran cop who has been mixed with the police for many years, the dean of Gotham University was also very cautious, but he has not been to the police academy, nor has he received professional anti-investigation training. Also, from a physical perspective, he is just an ordinary person, hence much easier to deal with.

One night, Batman sneaked directly into the Dean's house. Although he did not find the location where Christine was kidnapped, he discovered several inconspicuous call records on the Dean's landline phone.

He speculated that the dean would not kidnap Christine himself, there must be accomplices or subordinates, and it would be safest to contact them via landline, because not everyone has the means to decode the landline call records. Ordinary people cannot check what numbers have been dialed on this kind of old-fashioned landline.

Bruce resumed his identity as a student and made a special trip to the dean's office, with a legitimate reason. He had clearly done his homework, but Shiller still deducted his homework scores, so he planned to complain to the Dean.

During the process of interacting with the Dean, Batman used professional equipment to collect samples of the Dean's voice and then used a voice changer to dial an unknown number.

Batman's wordings were also very clever. He didn't ask anything, he just said something very ambiguous: "How is the person doing now?"

The person on the other end did not seem to be very cautious either. Without thinking, he replied: "Sir, we have not touched her as per your request, but this beautiful girl is just too tempting for my men…"

"If anything happens to her, you guys are finished." Batman said.

"Of course, of course. I'll keep them in check."

As soon as the person on the other end spoke, Batman knew that they were just a few mobsters. All of Gotham's mobs behaved in the same way, and Batman couldn't be more familiar with them.

Just after hanging up the phone, Batman pin-pointed the location of these mobsters. Although Batman's current equipment was not very sophisticated, the Wayne family had so many satellites in the sky that it would not be difficult to trace a cellphone signal.

After locating the place, Christine was indeed not in danger, because the dean did not intend to use her to threaten Wayne, but to threaten her to become an informant. Naturally, he couldn't hurt her, otherwise, how could she go out with Bruce?

Christine was saved by Batman. Even though she hadn't suffered physical harm, she was greatly frightened. After Batman sent her to the hospital, Christine agreed to testify in court that the Dean kidnapped her.

On the other hand, Victor wasn't doing so well. In front of old hands like Victor, righteous upstarts like Gordon were the most difficult to deal with. After all, Victor couldn't possibly yell inside the police station that the way Gordon upholds justice is wrong, he still had to pretend to be righteous.

Gordon knew very well what kind of man Victor was, but he still had to play along, stall Victor's time, and prevent him from finding time to destroy evidence for Jonathan or tamper with the files.

Gordon had firmly protected everything related to the Jonathan case. This case was broken by him in the first place. Victor could hardly guarantee that after destroying the evidence in the police station, Gordon would not have saved any evidence. This rookie, though reckless and difficult to handle, did have some abilities.

As for Maroni, he was even more unlucky. To increase the cost of Maroni's sinking, Shiller disrupted operations at the chemical plant every now and then. He did not make any big moves; today he would remove some parts from the machinery, tomorrow he would block the drainage pipe. These minor incidents would be seen as accidental occurrences but were extremely disruptive.

Some parts needed for the machinery could only be purchased from the original factory. Maroni had to spend a lot of effort to buy them. For those that the original factory did not supply, he had to spend even more money to buy from others.

All in all, nearly 1 million dollars were poured into it without making a splash.

Maroni believed these issues arose because he was too slow in bailing Jonathan. He thought these workers were unprofessional, and only Jonathan could handle it, so he put pressure on Victor.

With that pressure, Victor had no choice but to seek out the Dean again, but the Dean found out that the kidnapped Christine was missing. The entire plan was halted before it could even start.

Moreover, Victor was anxiously thinking of executing the plan, so when the police chief and the dean discovered their key person was gone, under great pressure, they had no choice but to take risky measures and planned to kidnap Bruce directly.

On the day Shiller accepted Bruce's invitation to dinner at Wayne Manor, Bruce finished his class and went straight to find Shiller. They got in a car together and planned to go directly back to Wayne Manor.

Gotham University is a considerable distance from Wayne Manor. Although it's not as far as the East District diagonally across the city, it still takes at least half an hour to drive there.

If there's one upside to Gotham, it's that the traffic isn't as bad as in New York. The roads here are straight and wide, allowing for unfettered acceleration.

In a show of sincerity, Bruce didn't send a chauffeur to pick them up; instead, he drove a car himself.

Perhaps with a subtle desire to show off, the car he drove wasn't a bulky, safety-first type of vehicle, but a flashy blue Lamborghini.

Just as Bruce was accelerating to 140 mph, suddenly, several masked men rushed out from a corner, pointing their dark gun barrels at the car. Bruce's immediate reaction was to swerve the steering wheel.

He might not have been afraid, but the professor sitting in the passenger seat hadn't been trained for this. Bruce shouted, "Professor, get down!!"

Shiller calmly stated, "I'm pretty sure your Butler ordered this car with bulletproof glass and tires."

Then he suggested, "If you want to determine who's behind this, you can pretend to lose control of the vehicle and knock yourself out. Maybe you'd gather some clues that way."

Bruce could tell that these men were here to kidnap him, otherwise they wouldn't be aiming all their shots at the lower part of the car.

Bruce hesitated, if it was just him, he wouldn't have second thoughts about this plan, but he saw Shiller as an ordinary person. If he were kidnapped, the kidnappers definitely wouldn't kill him, but he couldn't say the same for Shiller.

Shiller said, "I think you don't need to worry about me. I won't gamble with my life."

In the end, Bruce came to a stop. He swerved the steering wheel hard making the car spin around on the road several times before the back end hit a lamppost, mimicking a brake failure. Then he slumped his head on the steering wheel, pretending to be unconscious, with Shiller doing the same.

The kidnappers, to their credit, didn't go straight for the kill when they saw that Bruce wasn't the only one in the car. They prudently brought both of them along, covering their heads with bags and handcuffing them.

The car drove for a while, and they seemed to have arrived in a slum area. Bruce and Shiller were escorted out of the car and brought to a room.

When their hoods were taken off, both Shiller and Bruce put on an act of surprise. But then, Shiller was truly shocked when the school's headmaster walked out openly.

He really didn't expect that the mastermind would dare to walk out so brazenly, not even wearing a mask, and dressed in his work suit. Shiller was speechless.

Even if you don't know that Bruce is Batman, you're hiding 99 steps of your wrongdoing, and you're going to blunder at the last one?

If you shake Bruce right now and two pounds of hidden cameras don't fall off him, then he must have let his guard down!

Of course, just like in the movies, the rotund headmaster started to talk extensively about his evil plan.

He said that he had long prepared a substitute for Bruce, so that after kidnapping Bruce, the replacement could instantly take his place. Also, he initially intended to kidnap Christine to put pressure on Bruce, but he never imagined that defeating Bruce would be so easy, only requiring a few gunmen.

As he blabbered on, he confessed all his misdeeds.

After committing every mistake a villain in a movie could commit, Shiller lost patience and flatly said, "Bruce, take action."

Bruce immediately sprang to his feet. The handcuffs hadn't restrained him at all, and within two seconds, he'd grabbed hold of the headmaster and slipped the handcuffs onto his wrists.

The gunmen waiting outside the door rushed in, only to be defeated one by one by Bruce. By the time Commissioner Gordon arrived, the headmaster was still trying to use his connections with Victor, but Gordon said, "Sorry, but your friend the commissioner was caught red-handed sneaking into the evidence room to destroy evidence and was arrested last night. Although the surveillance cameras were broken, Harvey planted another camera while pretending to clean up, and that caught everything clearly, buddy."

Bruce said, "It seems they're desperate, we have one more person to deal with next."

Shiller pulled out a file from his briefcase and said, "As per our earlier plan, I've obtained detailed maps and personnel deployment of that chemical factory. I believe our certain caped crusader can begin his operation now."


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