amaotonovel Chapter 3262 Bloody New City (1)
Chapter 3262 Bloody New City (1)
Chapter 3262 Bloody New City (XI)
"It's a tough decision," Schiller said. "On one hand, there's the issue of air pollution control in the X15 area, which he believes he should be responsible for. On the other hand, there's the issue of the ownership of GTO, which may have a major impact on the Wayne Group. What should Batman choose?"
"You...sound like the Joker," was all Bruce could say.
"No, I'm much kinder than the Joker," Schiller said. "The Joker wants Batman to feel guilty, but I just want Batman to feel poor."
"That's clearly not 'kinder'?" Bruce said.
"But it's not my fault," Schiller said. "If the Batman of this universe had not been indulging in the sadness of Alfred's death all day, but had fought back against those who wanted to take advantage of the situation as soon as possible, he wouldn't be so poor."
Bruce was speechless.
"I feel this pain very deeply," he said. "Reforming Gotham is like having 10 paper shredders in front of you, and each one is eating money at a crazy speed. All you can do is slow down the power of one machine, but you can't stop any of them at all."
"Even if you still have the same machine that produces money, the speed of production is far less than the consumption, so you are making choices every minute and every second, and each choice is the lesser of two evils, either sacrificing money or sacrificing reputation."
"This prolonged sense of loss can have a serious impact on people's mental health," Schiller said. "It can make people avoid making choices, and even make people not want to be responsible for anything anymore."
"I just need a longer vacation to forget about this," Bruce said.
"I didn't say what you did was wrong. You didn't want to work, but I didn't force you to do it." Schiller looked out the window and said, "I just hope that this kind of pain can replace Batman's pain of losing his loved ones."
"Fight fire with fire?"
"It's more like focusing on the present." Schiller continued, "The pain of the past will never be as great as the pain of the present. If you lose ten dollars on the road, you will feel very sad, but if you still have a ten thousand dollar loan to pay after returning home, you will not care about the ten dollars."
"Because even if you had the ten dollars, you couldn't pay off the ten thousand dollar loan, just like Batman would still have to face this choice even if Alfred was still alive."
"You planned all this long ago." Bruce stared at Schiller's profile and said, "You persuaded James to sell the GTO while talking to reporters about effective pollution control plans, just to drive Batman into a dead end."
Schiller nodded slightly, and Bruce saw a kind of calm cruelty in his expression, as if he was fiddling with everyone like playing with building blocks.
"But you are wrong about one thing," Schiller said. "This is far from being a dead end."
The convoy stopped at the gate of Wayne Manor, and the bright beams of the trucks' high beams caught the attention of both the Pale Knight and Batman.
Batman came out first. His first concern was safety. After all, with so many cars suddenly arriving in the early morning, it seemed impossible that there would be no problems.
But when he saw the moving company's logo printed on the car, he was confused.
The Pale Knight then came out. What he was worried about was not that someone was going to assassinate Batman, but something even scarier than that. He was afraid that Schiller was coming.
His premonition was very accurate. When he saw Schiller and Bruce get out of the car, he knew that this was destined to be an extremely long night. If possible, it would be best for someone to assassinate Batman now, so that they could talk about everything tomorrow.
But alas, no one can escape Schiller.
Schiller walked forward, ignoring the metal gate's obstruction, and reached his hand directly through the gap in the metal railings, shook hands with Batman and said, "Let's go in and talk."
"Where to go?"
"Your estate."
"Who are you? Why are you entering my manor? And what are these things?"
"It's a bit complicated, isn't it? That's why I said let's go inside and talk about it."
Batman didn't know whether he should look at the man in front of him as if he were a psychopath, which was a little rude, but he probably did nothing wrong.
The Pale Knight came up and said, "Schiller, why are you here at this time? What's in the car?"
Schiller looked down at his watch and said, "There are still about two hours until dawn. If you don't let me in, people jogging in the morning will notice the existence of these cars. Believe me, that's not what you want."
"…Why? What did you put in there?"
"Don't worry, there's nothing contraband, just some furniture. Can you let me in now?"
Batman looked at the cars with some fear. He was indeed worried that there might be some dangerous items inside. However, it seemed that this guy knew the Pale Knight. If the Pale Knight wanted to carry out a bomb attack, he would not wait until now.
"Well, it looks like you guys don't plan to talk."
Schiller's patience was surprisingly short. He directly told the team owner: "You guys unload the stuff."
"Where is it unloaded?"
"Just at the entrance of the manor."
The movers began to move things onto the ground.
"Wait!" Batman called them to a halt, then said, "You can't put things on my private land."
"Then let's put it farther away." Schiller said, "The lawn next to it shouldn't be within the scope of the manor, right? It's fine to put it there."
Batman looked at the things unloaded from the car and saw that they were indeed some furniture. He was even more confused, so he could only look at the Pale Knight and say, "What good things have you done again?"
"Believe me, I didn't do this." The Pale Knight first defended himself, and then silently said in his heart, "But it was obviously aimed at you."
"Wait a minute, what is that?" Batman suddenly found something unusual. He stared at the things in the hands of two of the porters and said, "Isn't that the municipal bulletin board? The one installed on the right side of the lobby of the municipal building... Why is it here?"
The Pale Knight also noticed something unusual, but he could only say to Batman: "Why don't you let them in first?"
Batman pursed his lips. The Pale Knight had never thought that one day he would see two emotions of confusion and grievance intertwined in this man at the same time, as if to say, "Who are they? Why should I let them in?"
"Mr. Wayne, I must remind you that at dawn tomorrow, all employees of the municipal building will go to the street in front of the building to protest. Then they will find that the building has been emptied from the inside out, and the same goes for the reporters who follow the protest."
"They will definitely investigate who emptied the building and where the things in the building went. If you don't take some measures, such as asking them to move their things in and pay for the moving expenses, reporters will immediately take pictures of the things that were moved out of the building appearing in front of Wayne Manor."
Batman and the Pale Knight both widened their eyes.
Before Batman could say anything, the Pale Knight quickly opened the door and shouted outside: "Don't move over there! Come here! Come here quickly! Move in!!!"
Half an hour later, Batman, with a face darker than the bottom of a pot, paid the moving and decoration company.
"I need an explanation." Batman said to Schiller who was sitting on the sofa and drinking tea leisurely.
"And I hope you can help me find a reliable second-hand goods trading company." Schiller replied.
Bruce discovered that the arrogant will basically answer every question from others, while the greedy will almost never answer any question from others. If they can avoid answering, they will not answer. Not only will they not answer, but they will also make conditions as soon as they open their mouths, giving people a feeling of powerlessness as if they are talking to a deaf person.
Batman is clearly powerless.
He was thinking about what had happened to him that day.
His lifelong enemy, the Joker, suddenly came to his house and asked to work from home with him. He called his adopted son, but the other party seemed to be unable to understand his situation at all.
He saw a good policy on TV and wanted to implement it, but his previously omnipotent president brought an even more explosive news: his old friend who was as stubborn as a rock, after accepting the Joker's plan, wanted to sell the team used to improve public security.
However, due to lack of money, I have no way to solve these two problems at the same time.
At 4:00 in the morning, a bunch of moving company trucks suddenly arrived and without saying a word, they unloaded all the soft furnishings of the municipal office building into the yard of his manor, even putting a chair on the fountain at the door. Not only did he have to pay for it, the other party also asked him to find a reliable second-hand trading company.
Batman once suspected that he had hallucinations because he had suffered too much mental stimulation due to Alfred's death. Perhaps it was not the person in front of him who should explain it to him, but his psychiatrist.
"What on earth is going on?" The Pale Knight obviously didn't think this was an illusion. He pointed the finger at Schiller and said, "I asked you to pack your things, but I just want to pack my own things."
"You are the mayor, the whole city belongs to you. If possible, I would be happy to pack up the entire Gotham and send it to China."
"Don't change the subject, tell me what's going on!"
“I tore down almost everything in the municipal building, that’s all.”
"Of course I know, I've seen it, after all, there are more than 60 toilets outside on the lawn, I just want to know why you do this."
"I said, I want him to help me find a reliable second-hand trading company."
"You want to sell these things?"
"Yes, these are all good stuff. Although the second-hand price will be discounted, they can still be sold for a lot of money. You are in great need of money right now, aren't you?"
"I..." The Pale Knight was speechless for a long time.
"Well, if you don't understand, let me put it another way. I need you to host a special auction to sell the items removed from these municipal buildings. The funds raised will be used to solve the pollution problem in District X15."
This even surprised Bruce. Schiller was indeed very good at overturning his previous statements, or in other words, quickly coming up with another benefit of his previous plan.
"You are poor." Schiller looked into the Pale Knight's eyes and said, "Since you are already so poor, why don't you let others know how poor you are?"
The Pale Knight paused and said, "You mean..."
"If you say you are poor and want to cut benefits for civil servants, some people will be unhappy. But if you are so poor that you have to sell everything in the municipal building to raise funds for pollution, who dares to accuse you of cutting benefits?"
"Is this a political stunt?" Bruce asked.
"You can interpret it that way, but I prefer to say it's a simple and effective way to cry poor."
"But the things in the municipal building are not mine." The Pale Knight remained sober and said, "I didn't buy them and install them there, so I have no right to take them away."
"But while you are in office, you will enjoy the benefits of these things." Schiller pointed out, "Now that you give up these benefits, it means that you want to stand with the poor. Sometimes all they want is an attitude."
"Isn't this too exaggerated?" The Pale Knight hesitated. He said, "It's too dramatic. The traces of showmanship are too obvious."
"It's obvious." Schiller nodded and said, "Poor people are not stupid. They know that no matter how poor you are, you would not tear down the municipal building and turn it into a rough house. You are only doing this for show."
"so……"
“So I asked you to find a reliable second-hand company to appraise all these things, and then we will sell them to poor people at one-third of the price on the second-hand market.”
The Pale Knight was still thinking, but Bruce had already snapped his fingers and said, "You are a genius!"