The biggest thing Bruce has learned recently is that there is only bad news and worse news in this world, and all bad things always come together.
Batman still chooses to go to the Joker first. Obviously, the big surprises of the crazy Joker are usually only surprises, not surprises, and they will be very shocking.
Sure enough, when Batman arrived, he found that the Joker had set a fire in the commercial street in the central area of Gotham. At this time, the crowd was screaming and running away, and more than a dozen cars that had been doused with gasoline were piled up in a pile. When the explosion
The flying debris shattered almost all the window glass, and thick smoke billowed out for a while.
Standing on the roof, Batman squinted his eyes to look for the target. At this moment, another thick black smoke rose in the distance. Batman turned his head and saw that it seemed to be the slums of the East Side.
At this moment, the siren of the fire truck sounded, and the firefighters arrived. They carried the water hose to put out the fire, cleaned up the remains of the explosives, and looked for the trapped people from the narrow gaps in the burned buildings.
Gotham's fire station is not very efficient, but after all, this is the most prosperous commercial street in the city center. Most of the shops here are owned by the Twelve Families. If there is a fire, they still have to come to rescue.
In Batman's judgment, the central commercial street is still a wide area, and it caught fire first and then exploded. When the smoke started to appear, most people ran out, so the rescue was not difficult.
But it was different in the slums. There were dense buildings and a lot of debris. Once a fire broke out, there would probably be heavy casualties. So after seeing the firefighters coming to the commercial street for rescue, Batman rushed towards the East Side.
The sequelae of excessive energy have not completely disappeared. Batman had a severe headache, so he did not notice that at the intersection at the end of the commercial street, the reporter who had just arrived happened to take a picture of his leaving back.
Fires in the East End slums were very troublesome. The houses here were too densely packed, and there were no fire protection measures or fire escapes. Many people were trapped in the fire. Batman spent a lot of effort to solve the problem here.
When he went to the police station, Gordon was already a little worried. When he saw Batman, it was like seeing a savior and said, "You are finally here!"
"What's going on?" Batman's voice was hoarse as if it had been burned by fire. Gordon wanted to say something, but seeing Batman's pale face visible to the naked eye, he hesitated. He said, "Your face looks so pale."
It’s too bad. Otherwise, why don’t you go back and take a rest first?”
"It's okay, tell me, what's going on?"
Gordon took a deep breath. He led Batman to the morgue, then pulled out a corpse from the morgue. After lifting the white cloth on the corpse, the face revealed made Batman feel a little familiar. It was ten years old.
The head of the Lawrence family of the two families.
Old Lawrence had white hair and was slightly fat. There were wounds on his limbs and chest. Batman squinted his eyes and observed, but his attention was a little distracted, so he only asked Gordon: "Scene
what does it look like?"
Gordon opened his mouth and paused, as if he didn't know how to describe it. He said: "This afternoon, little Lawrence called the police chief and said that his father was dead."
"When I arrived, Lawrence was dead in the study. He was lying flat on the ground, with his head facing the window, his arms spread out, and his whole body was in the shape of a cross. Long nails were nailed into his limbs, chest and head.
Wedge, the medical examiner determined that the cause of his death was a stab through the heart..."
"Where's the murder weapon?"
"It's in the evidence room. I can get it if you want it. In addition, the medical examiner told me that anesthetic drugs were detected in old Lawrence's body. He should have been anesthetized first and then crucified."
"Crucified..." Batman muttered to himself, but Gordon didn't hear it clearly. He said, "What? What cross?"
"This is a way of executing Christians, which is crucifixion, or crucifixion upside down."
"The first pope, St. Peter, one of Jesus' disciples, died in this way...Wait, Jesus? How many disciples of Jesus were there?...Twelve...Twelve families..."
Batman immediately said to Gordon: "Have your police chief contact the Twelve Families immediately. This may be a serial murder..."
As soon as he finished speaking, a young police officer ran down the stairs and said loudly to Gordon: "Chief, the younger brother of the Hawke brothers is dead. He..."
The young police officer swallowed his saliva, and then said: "His head was chopped off, and the chief has passed..."
Gordon covered his forehead and explained to Batman: "The Hawke family is also one of the twelve families. Their leaders are a pair of brothers. The elder brother is the big boss, and the younger brother helps him manage the family..."
Batman covered old Lawrence with a white cloth, and then said to Gordon: "Can we go to the scene this time?"
"Well, it's possible, but we have to wait. We have to stay away from the director, otherwise I can't explain why I want to take you in?... You know, the director is a little concerned about your existence..."
"Okay, I know." With that, Batman had already walked to the window and said to Gordon: "You won't be cleaning up the crime scene tonight, right? We gathered there at midnight, and now I have something else to do.
Things to do..."
After saying that, Batman disappeared. Gordon rubbed his temples and wrinkled his whole face. He asked the young police officer: "Are you a believer?"
"Ah, yes, what's wrong?"
"Do you know the story of Jesus and his twelve disciples? Can you tell it to me?"
The young police officer choked, and his expression was a little embarrassed. Gordon seemed to have expected it, and he said: "Okay, everyone here says they are a believer, but not many people know Jesus.
Not to mention the disciples, I’d better go back and read the Bible..."
Batman left, turned on the communicator on his wrist and asked, "How is it going over there?"
The little slick voice sounded over there, saying: "Fortunately, we are trapped in a basement. It seems to be an abandoned wine cellar. They haven't found it yet, but you'd better come here quickly, Jay."
Sen is injured..."
Hearing that Jason was injured, Batman frowned and said, "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I thought you didn't have a big problem there..."
The childish voice of Little Hua Tou continued to ring through the communicator: "Actually, the problem is really not big. He just has a sprain in his foot. We jumped from a very high place. He was the first to jump and his foot was stung by the debris underneath. Now
Can't move, but there's no danger of bleeding..."
"Tell me your address and I'll be there right now."
About twenty minutes later, in a basement not far from Green Street in the East District, Batman fixed Jason's ankle and asked them: "What's going on? I just asked you to investigate, how could you be hunted down?"
"
As if to distract from the pain in his ankle, Jason said: "At first, we really just wanted to investigate. A friend and I found a job selling cigarettes on Green Street. Everything went smoothly at first.
, we contacted the little boss in charge of this neighborhood and his boss, who are the ‘parents’ of these children...”
"That man is called 'Lame Dad' by the kids here. He lives in a shack at the end of the alley. You know, I'm pretty good at it. I'll climb on top of his shack at night and eavesdrop.
He talks..."
"That time, people who should be his superiors came here. I heard them mention the big boss. They said that the situation in the Twelve Families has been tense recently... or something, and then they said that the big boss wanted them
And seize the time to raise funds, in short these are the words..."
"But Lame Dad's boss was too vigilant. I just moved a little and he noticed someone on the roof. I had to run away quickly, but the boss looked like a formal gang member. He took his bodyguards and
Shotgun, luckily my target was small, they didn’t hit me..."
The little slicker continued: "Originally, I just met him at the intersection of the street, but those people were chasing him, so the two of us could only run into the alley. Fortunately, there was an abandoned wine cellar here, otherwise we would have died very quickly.
They will catch up."
Jason said angrily: "When I jumped down, I didn't see there were any wooden boards underneath, otherwise I wouldn't have been injured so easily."
When Batman fixed the splint on him, Jason bit his fist and refused to cry out. Batman glanced at him and said, "You've done a good job. Now let's go up. Don't come here anymore."
Jason wanted to help Little Slipper stand up, but Batman picked him up. Jason struggled and said, "Put me down! Damn it!"
But his feet were swollen, and when he moved his legs, his ankles hurt. He screamed in pain, bit his fist and stopped talking.
After arriving on the ground, Batman asked them: "Have the people who are chasing you seen what you look like?"
"I'm not sure, but they have flashlights, they should have seen Jason."
Batman carried Jason to the car, then put him in the back seat and said, "You go hide in my base for two days. There is everything there."
With that said, he ignored Jason's objections, started the car, and sent Jason and the little slicker to a temporary base in the southern suburbs.
Batman's base can be said to have everything, which was an eye-opener for the two children, especially Jason.
Originally, he was a little awkward being held by Batman like a child, but after seeing the advanced equipment and sufficient supplies, his eyes began to light up, and his initially reluctant attitude changed to excitement.
Look at this and touch that.
The little slick guy turned around and asked Batman: "Is our information useful?"
Batman nodded and said: "At least, I know that the big boss is not a street gangster. He is related to the Twelve Families, and may even be a member of the Twelve Families."
"Just now, two high-ranking members of the Lawrence family and the Hawke family were murdered one after another..."
"In addition, Jason said that he heard the boss urging them to raise funds for the big boss as soon as possible. The big boss may know something..."
At this point, Batman said to the two children: "Don't go out these days. It may be very unsafe outside."
After settling Jason and Slippery, Batman couldn't rest after returning to Wayne Manor. He dug out the Bible and the Gospels and began to search for stories about the Twelve Apostles.
If not many people know the story of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, then the story of Jesus and Judas is almost a household name, and Judas was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus.
Reading late into the night, Batman memorized all the information and dragged his extremely tired body upstairs to sleep.
After the darkness passed, when he opened his eyes again, he found that he was at the door of Wayne Manor again, and there were four familiar figures standing in the alley outside the door.