Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

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."