## Chapter 16: Plant Crisis
The communication came from the Ventriloquist. He brought Chen Tao bad news: Deathstroke was threatening to leave the team and go back to his “retirement home”—Chen Tao just felt tired.
He once again realized deeply that reality wasn’t a video game, there was no such ridiculous setting as “recruiting soldiers to see their loyalty.”
The guys he recruited were all troublesome, each one more bizarre than the last.
Gordon stood beside Chen Tao for a while, noticing that Batman didn’t leave to answer the phone like he usually did. So he consciously walked away and stood off to the side.
Chen Tao asked the Ventriloquist to hand the phone to Deathstroke. Then he took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and switched his voice to Deathstroke’s own:
“OK, OK, even if you don’t want the money, you should at least protect your own life and reunite with your daughter. I respect your choice, bless your life, but I still have some things to say.”
“Are you satisfied with this?”
Deathstroke on the other end of the phone looked a bit strange. The other party was persuading him with his own voice, which was inexplicably creepy.
“Listen, Lawton, I investigated you. Your daughter’s foster parents are just an ordinary family, right? They’re not capable of giving your daughter a good education.”
“Your daughter is still in elementary school, she will be in the community, in the worst public middle school, surrounded by delinquents who dye their hair, smoke, have tattoos, and fight. Next, she’ll go to the worst high school—if your daughter doesn’t go bad, that is. Then what?”
“One day she’ll get pregnant by some redneck scum? Then she’ll become a single mother, huh? Working as a cashier in a supermarket, gaining weight, her skin slackening. Is that the life you planned for your daughter?”
“Shut up! You bastard!”
Deathstroke’s anger was easily provoked. He shouldn’t have been such a hot-headed idiot, but anyone, when it came to family, could not remain calm.
“Ah—yes—right—his old man is the notorious Deathstroke, a killer wanted by over 10 countries. Zoe’s only difference from other girls in the slums is that her badass old man will shoot through the necks of anyone who gets close to her, and he has some savings from being a mercenary all these years. But what good is that?”
“No matter how much money you have, the real upper echelons of those elite schools won’t open their doors to Zoe. What’s more, if you want to launder your black money, they’ll directly evaporate half of it.”
“You can launder your money, but what about your identity? Where do you want to take Zoe to live? The Sahara Desert or the East African Great Rift Valley?”
“My dear mercenary, you wouldn’t want your daughter to be unable to receive a good education, would you?”
“Enough, stop talking!”
Deathstroke’s voice had an odd staccato rhythm, as if he was biting his tongue to prevent the sound of his heart from jumping out of his mouth.
“I can get you a letter of introduction from Gotham’s top school, from Bruce Wayne or Jim Gordon.”
“I can turn the $200 million I owe you into Zoe’s legal income through financial operations.”
“I can plan a perfect life for Zoe.”
“…”
Silence.
Deathstroke on the other end of the phone sighed. He hadn’t expected that he would change his mind and surrender in just a few minutes after making a decision.
He didn’t ask if the other party could help him launder his identity. He knew that even if they could, they wouldn’t do it for him.
The other party needed a capable fighter, not a mercenary always thinking about retiring.
“Okay, I understand. I’ll help you…”
“What did you call me?”
“Boss.”
The matter was settled.
Providing facts, laying out the chips, completing the transaction.
To be honest, Chen Tao didn’t even bother thinking about whether the other party was deliberately raising the price, because it was pointless.
Once Bane was dealt with, his cooperation with these mercenaries would immediately end. They’d settle the score, fulfill their promises, then go their separate ways and never see each other again.
At least for now, he could completely control Deathstroke, that was enough.
What’s more, the National Guard had been deployed. Could Bane really single-handedly destroy an entire army?
Thinking optimistically, maybe Batman wouldn’t even have to make a move.
Chen Tao closed the communication, turned to Gordon, and prepared to discuss how to deal with Bane. He still held the key—wait, the other party seemed to be on the phone too.
Jim Gordon turned his head, wiped the sweat oozing from the creases on his forehead, and smeared it over his salt-and-pepper brown hair.
His expression was extremely serious.
“Give me a moment, Batman.”
He said.
He hurriedly left the rooftop from the stairwell, and a few minutes later, Commissioner Gordon came back with a file folder and handed a document to Chen Tao:
“You look at this first, I’ll do the talking. Three days ago, Star Labs was attacked, and a man was kidnapped, Harold Goldblum, a chemistry professor, a leader in the chemical research department of GothCorp, a biological warfare weapons expert, a top intellect in biology, botany, and toxicology…”
He took out a photo for Chen Tao to see. It was an old man with white hair and a bald head, looking very intelligent.
Chen Tao’s heart skipped a beat when he saw it.
“This was originally a serious matter, but at the time, Firefly had just set fire to Elmer Pier.”
Chen Tao followed him, “And that maniac Firefly watched the pier turn into a torch while experiencing a climax, then…”
Chen Tao paused, suddenly realizing that in the original timeline, Batman arrived at the scene immediately and beat Firefly into a sorry state, sending him fleeing.
But at that time, he had just arrived, and he was still trying to activate the “Alfred Protocol” with toilet paper from the Batcave. So…
“Firefly and the young men who arrived had a fierce conflict.”
(The young men Gordon referred to were the police officers under his command)
“Besides Firefly, there was also Almond Brain, the Cannibal, Two-Face…”
Gordon rattled off a string of names like reciting a menu, then continued, “Bane released too many people from Arkham Asylum. Because of that, Poison Ivy’s matter was delayed.”
“But just 10 minutes ago, I just received a report, the forensics department used technical means to repair the damaged surveillance, and we suddenly found that Poison Ivy wasn’t alone in robbing Star Labs…”
Chen Tao took the photo from Gordon. It showed a terrifying tree-like creature standing beside Poison Ivy, Pamela Isley.
“Then we found out that Professor Goldblum had just developed a large-scale biological weapon for GothCorp. If Poison Ivy and this inhuman monster plan to replicate this weapon and then use it in the city…”
Chen Tao looked at the photo carefully.
“I know him. This guy is Plant Master, Jason Wood,” he said with certainty: “He replicated the accident that created the Swamp Thing, Alec Holland, and turned himself into a walking plant, becoming a low-level representative of the magical power ‘Greenification.'”
“Greenification, what the hell is that?”
“An elemental essence, representing plants. It’s called the three basic forces along with ‘Red of Life,’ representing flesh-and-blood animals, and ‘Corpse Rot Black,’ representing decay and death.”
“Okay, wait,” Gordon said, “You just said magic, right?”
“I don’t know why what we’re discussing suddenly jumped from cop movie to superhero magic melee.”
(End of Chapter)
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