## Chapter 17: Searching for Harley Quinn
“Jason Wood, the Plant Master, a complete and utter eco-terrorist. Compared to his actions, Ivy’s little hobby of turning living people into trees is like Harley Quinn’s diapers – deadly, but ultimately harmless.”
“…”
Chen Tao didn’t notice Gordon’s expression, his instincts as a super comic book fan kicking in. He began to rattle off the backstory of the two plant-based villains.
“The basic power of the Green is divided into two main factions: the ‘Council of Trees’, representing trees, and the ‘May Queen’, representing vines.”
“But the instinct of vines is to cling and obey, so they mostly follow the ‘Council of Trees’. The ‘May Queen’ is often overlooked, but that doesn’t mean they lack power.”
“Remember, the spokesperson chosen by the ‘Council of Trees’ is the Swamp Thing. A low-grade agent like the Plant Master is just a filler.”
“But Poison Ivy is different. She’s the spokesperson for the ‘May Queen’, which means in terms of power essence, she’s on par with the Swamp Thing, superior to a low-level agent like the Plant Master—”
Gordon was overwhelmed by the sudden burst of convoluted settings. He opened his mouth, uttered two unintelligible “ahs”, and then said:
“Batman, your information is… I almost couldn’t understand you—”
“What? You can’t understand such simple settings? I made it so clear, only a fool wouldn’t get it.”
Chen Tao scoffed, then picked up the pile of documents in his hand.
“Ha! I knew it!”
“To repay Mother Earth, the Plant Master wouldn’t do anything useless. If he can’t do it himself, he’ll bring in Poison Ivy. It’s just right that Bane blew up Arkham Asylum, saving them the trouble of a prison break.”
Gordon interjected, “There’s one more thing I need to tell you. I think this detailed file doesn’t seem like something those incompetent fools who gave it to me could write. But I cross-checked the content with our own findings, and it turned out to be completely true, even going into very detailed investigations, uncovering blind spots that even professionals haven’t noticed.”
Gordon, speaking about his area of expertise, pushed up his glasses.
“But this information came too conveniently. Not only did it provide new evidence and clues, but the report used several methods to prove that only Batman can solve this serious problem. It even states many things that I’m forced to admit are correct—”
“I have to question the motivation.” x2
The simultaneous voice from Batman gave Gordon a sense of telepathy, as if they were back in the golden years when he and Batman, along with Harvey Dent, formed the Iron Triangle, vowing to change all of Gotham.
Although all the achievements and beauty shattered into dust with Harvey Dent’s descent into Two-Face… Damn, why did I think of that?
Gordon quickly dismissed these middle-aged musings and continued, “And this information is too detailed, like the characters’ postures, the attack sequence, even the escape route, detailed like a co-conspirator.”
“Maybe it is a co-conspirator,” Chen Tao replied. “This attack was meticulously planned, flawlessly executed. I don’t believe those two wooden heads would suddenly become so professional. Frankly, this looks more like an attack plan than an investigative report.”
“And, you guys didn’t even notice the existence of that huge living tree, the Plant Master?”
“A scientist who controls such a terrifying bioweapon, and you guys only figured out his background after he was tied up for a few days?”
“Is the Gotham City Police Department’s intelligence network really that bad?”
Chen Tao said, “Someone is deliberately misleading you, just to blow things up at the right time—”
Batman suddenly paused.
Then, immediately—
“I understand,” Gordon heard Batman say.
Oh? Is he starting to deduce? Gordon’s eyes flashed with a gleam.
No matter how many times, deducing cases with the world’s greatest detective, Batman, is an ultimate enjoyment.
Even though he was the Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, Gordon was still a humble apprentice in the presence of such a great detective.
Come on, Batman! Even though he was middle-aged, Gordon still felt a surge of excitement. His deductive soul was burning, craving a collision of intellectual sparks, a feast of deduction!
He heard Batman lower his head and begin his “deduction”:
“I understand! Bane isn’t confident in defeating me, so they’re planning to activate other plans to beat me. But they need time, so they need to give me something to do, so I won’t have time to keep chasing them down.”
“This report must have been made by Bane’s ‘Troglodytes’. Perhaps this whole thing was planned by him, and the Plant Master and Poison Ivy’s goal is obvious. Bioweapon? Too low-level. They captured the botanist alive, they must be trying to greenify the entire Earth!”
“I understand! The Plant Master must be trying to replicate the Swamp Thing’s birth process on everyone on Earth, then turn everyone on the entire planet into walking trees. But his plan must have gone wrong, resulting in a temporary transformation into others, but soon turning into pus and blood—”
“That’s why they need a scientist!”
“It’s obvious, they must be planning their evil mission at the Slaughter Swamp in the suburbs of Gotham!”
“I see! I’m gradually understanding everything! No one, knows, villains, better than me!”
“?”
Gordon was a little confused. He opened his mouth, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Are we looking at the same information?
How did you reach that conclusion?
What’s the basis? What’s the reason?
“It’s obvious?”
The reason, of course, is that Chen Tao had read the original comics.
Looking back at the Plant Master’s decades of comic book history, he always appeared with a “My Mother Earth!” and then started to get all mushy over the Earth. And every time he messed things up, it was pretty much the same thing, then he’d get beaten up by Poison Ivy, then beaten up by the Swamp Thing…
Any story involving the Green would always bring out Jack Wood to be beaten up, since he was a walking tree, it’s hard for him to die.
Once you see this pattern, it’s almost like you can recite it by heart.
But Chen Tao quickly realized he couldn’t explain why he knew so much.
So, he just mumbled, “Human intuition is a quality that cannot be mastered through learning. It’s also my most effective weapon.”
Don’t ask, just say it’s intuition.
Gordon listened, his heart filled with respect. Finally, you’re not pretending anymore? I always thought that Batman’s amazing deductions weren’t something a normal person could come up with. I always felt it was magic, but you always lied to me and said it was deduction!
Chen Tao pondered for a moment, realizing that this matter was quite intriguing.
Even if Bane didn’t try to stall him, he wouldn’t fight Bane now. From Bane’s perspective, Batman seemed both awesome and capable of fighting. Now, he’s even exposed his transformation abilities, which they hadn’t discovered during their initial intelligence gathering, his face was full of “invincible” written all over it.
But only Chen Tao knew that he was a weakling. The green dinosaur might have some fighting ability, but Bane was a true martial arts master. After using the Titan Toxin, his strength limit would exceed 90 tons. If he was willing to give up his brain and intelligence, this number would become 120.
So, Bane didn’t want to fight Batman now, and Chen Tao didn’t want to either. Chen Tao didn’t even think about fighting Bane personally, why should he go up against him when he could use money power?
Bane wanted to use the Plant Master and Poison Ivy to stall him, which was exactly what he wanted. Someone like Poison Ivy, a rare superpowered villain in Gotham, was naturally on Chen Tao’s list of allies.
As a passionate comic book fan, Chen Tao dared to say that he knew Ivy better than the worm in her stomach. Bane’s actions were basically sending him a helper.
But now the question was, where were Poison Ivy and the Plant Master in the vast Slaughter Swamp?
This time, Chen Tao was really stumped. He was just a comic book reader, not a fortune teller like Wayne the Half-Man who set up shop at a Gotham street corner.
He could speculate on the general behavior of villains based on his vast comic book reading, but predicting more detailed points was impossible.
But Chen Tao knew that there was someone who could know. He mumbled:
“I have a plan. I’m sure I have a damn good plan!”
“We need Harley Quinn, the former Joker’s girl, Gotham’s villain-shaped navigation system, a special damage multiplier against the Joker, Poison Ivy’s best friend and super nemesis. Only she can find her!”
And he just so happened to know how to find Harley Quinn.
(End of Chapter)
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