Pride and Prejudice (Part 2)

Gordon and Batman left the underground of the small chapel, both of them somewhat silent. After all, the place they had just been in had buried dozens of lives within a single month.

Gotham was a dark city, but when that darkness was laid bare before people, only those with strong wills could digest the impact of such profound darkness.

Countless emotions surged within Batman and Gordon's hearts. For the newly arrived Batman, this first case—this seemingly boundless evil, this darkness without a glimmer of light—confronted him, and he suddenly realized that, as Schiller had said, he might indeed not be fully prepared yet.

Powerful force was merely a means to survive here, but to save this city, force alone was far from enough.

Thinking this, Batman turned a corner and saw Schiller standing on the second floor again, holding an umbrella. Below the balcony was the spot where the beggar had once stayed.

Batman felt a sense of absurdity again. How could this damned criminal, who had killed dozens of innocent lives, still dare to stand here? Why were there people in this world who could remain unmoved by living, breathing lives, even cruel enough to kill them without hesitation?

The depression in Batman's heart transformed into anger. Under Gordon's gaze, he leaped up along the street, jumping directly onto the two-meter-high balcony.

"Your judgment is coming, you damned murderer," Batman said.

"Did you find the evidence you were looking for?" Schiller asked.

"Of course, and it's enough to convict you."

Schiller suddenly laughed. In an extremely light tone, he said, "How ridiculous. You're still thinking about judging me. The Gotham City Police Department should really give you a Good Citizen Medal. You're a great cop."

"If only when your parents died, there had been such a great cop who found the evidence left by the killers and judged them, wouldn't that have been wonderful? That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"

"You don't trust the police, you don't trust the courts, yet you still go looking for evidence, trying to use the correctness of the law to judge me. Don't you think you're being contradictory?"

"You want to prove I broke the law, Batman. Your actions also break the law. If I'm to be judged, so are you. You're using criminal behavior to prove a criminal is a criminal, aren't you?"

Schiller raised his voice, speaking with measured cadence: "You think you have the ability to take revenge on criminals by your own means. But in the end, you're still an ordinary person tamed by this orderly society. You still talk about evidence, clamoring for judgment."

"If you can't let go of these things—these shackles that orderly society has placed on you, these concepts of law and judicial procedure in your mind—you'll never achieve the justice you want."

"Bruce..." Schiller looked into his eyes and said:

"The law is not justice. You are."

"Gotham's law didn't save your parents, just as it didn't save these dozens of missing people. If you still harbor any vain hopes for it, you'll never become the true Batman."

Schiller could clearly see Batman's arm trembling. The hand gripping the Batarang was covered in bulging veins, and even his whole body was shaking. Clearly, he was extremely angry.

Schiller's words struck too close to the bone. He exposed the greatest contradiction in the young Batman.

Gotham's law hadn't saved his parents, yet Batman, who claimed to seek revenge, was still bound by the framework of order. In the end, he was still following judicial justice.

"You want me to dispense my own justice?" Batman asked. Then he raised a gun and pointed it at Schiller's forehead.

Of course Batman had a gun. In Gotham City, without such firearms, you could hardly survive, let alone dispense justice.

Schiller remained calm. He said, "You still haven't answered my earlier question. Did you find the evidence you wanted? What was it?"

"By the crates under the small chapel, there were stains you left behind. Inside were soil and leaves—leaves from the North American Red Pine that only grows at Gotham University."

Schiller said, "What does that prove?"

"It proves you're the murderer," Batman said.

"Is that so? I appeared alone on the streets of Morsen District for no reason, with suspicious dress and behavior. And you found leaves from Gotham University at the crime scene, suggesting the killer might be someone from Gotham University. So I'm the killer. What rigorous reasoning," Schiller said.

Batman looked at his expression, devoid of any remorse or guilt, at his dismissive tone. His anger had truly reached its peak. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Gordon ran over and shouted, "Stop! Put the gun down!"

Batman was interrupted for a moment. Schiller threw a memory card onto the ground between them and said:

"Conclusive evidence? The killer went to Gotham University, and I'm a university professor. Truly conclusive."

"Yes, how you wish that when your parents died, there had been someone like you now, who would have cleanly shot the killer because the evidence was conclusive."

"Don't mention my parents..." Batman said, his voice trembling slightly. "You criminal."

"You thought of many similarities," Schiller said.

"But your anger made you overlook even more differences."

"For example, I've never had any educational background in chemistry or biology. For example, I've participated in countless serial murder investigations—my anti-forensic awareness wouldn't be so poor that I couldn't even clean up footprints. More importantly..."

Schiller looked at the memory card and said, "My evidence is far more conclusive than yours."

Because of Gordon's interruption, Batman's anger had subsided somewhat. After reason returned, he felt that even in this cold, damp weather, sweat had soaked through the shirt on his back.

Batman warily picked up the USB drive. He plugged it into the micro-computer on his arm, and a projection popped up.

By then, Gordon had taken a detour and run onto the balcony. He saw in the video a person in a plaid shirt sneakingly standing on someone's air conditioner unit, extending a hose into the window. The figures inside the room, who had been standing and sitting, collapsed one by one. The person jumped off the air conditioner, walked into the hallway, and after a while, dragged out two large boxes, loaded them onto a cart, and pushed them away. The figures in the room were all gone.

This was the inspiration Batman had given Schiller. Jonathan really lacked anti-forensic awareness. Schiller had stood in the hallway of the building across from him, camera in hand, filming, and he hadn't even noticed.

Then again, no one in Gotham would wander around in the dead of night, especially in a place like the Slums. One wrong move and you could lose your life.

Gordon suddenly shouted, "No wonder!"

"I remember when registering the addresses of the missing persons, it was indeed the lower-floor residents who suffered more. Almost all the victims had balconies..." Gordon said.

Then he looked at Batman and Schiller, and said angrily to Batman, "I really misjudged you. Were you about to shoot just now? Do you know you almost killed someone?!"

Batman silently stared at the projection on his arm. Anyone who wasn't blind could see that the killer's build in the video was nothing like Schiller's.

Schiller might not know martial arts or work out, but he was still tall—only a bit shorter than Batman and a bit thinner, but still close to six-foot-three. The person in the video was at most five-foot-seven and weighed no more than 130 pounds.

"Professor Jonathan is a nice guy. That's what you thought, right? Because he doesn't check homework, treats you well, and never fails you. But I'm different. I'm a troublesome professor who always finds fault with assignments, gives exams for no reason, and threatens all students with the possibility of failing."

"So of course I'm the murderer, and he's not. After all, how could such a cowardly, quiet, scrawny little man be a serial killer?"

"Don't say another word." Batman's voice trembled as he spoke.

He recalled the scene from that day facing the beggar, the corner of his eye still catching the stain the beggar had left against the wall, and that overwhelming guilt and shame engulfed him again.

Gordon's words only added fuel to the fire. He said, "I don't care what kind of freak you are, running around the city in a skintight suit causing trouble, but you nearly killed a good man. What grudge do you two have? If it's personal, settle it yourselves—don't interfere with police work."

"Aren't Gotham City's cops busy enough? You want to kill someone right in front of me? Are you hoping I'll throw you in jail to eat prison food right now?" Gordon said.

After several days of overtime, his temper was frayed. He said impatiently, "Freak in tights, hand over that USB drive now. I need to take it back for the records... Sir, please come with me. You seem to know who the killer is—we need leads..."

After a moment of silence, Batman silently extended his arm and handed the USB drive to Gordon.

He realized that this debut journey of his, so full of ambition, had been nothing but a hindrance. The criminal he'd assumed Schiller to be had actually been the one to help the most, providing the crucial evidence.

Schiller said nothing more, and Batman stood still, while outside on the street, the endless rain began to fall again.

Just as he was about to leave with Gordon, he heard Batman behind him say, "...I'm sorry, Professor."

Schiller's step faltered. He found it almost unbelievable. Did Batman just say what he thought he said???

Did he just apologize???

Schiller turned back in disbelief. Batman stood in the shadow cast by the building, the only beam of light striking his cowl, his lips pressed tightly together. Schiller found it utterly absurd.

He was Batman.

Because he was Batman.

And Batman was always right.

Batman never apologized to anyone.

Faced with everyone's doubts, he would only ever say, "Because I'm Batman."

In the Batman comics, Schiller had seen far too much of Batman's dark side—preparing Kryptonite to guard against Superman, devising countermeasures for every member of the Justice League. He seemed to trust no one, not even himself.

Admittedly, when the comic editors created this character, these dark facets made him all the more compelling. They also left a deeper impression on readers.

But this had also fostered a bias in Schiller toward Batman.

He believed Batman should be exactly like that—like in the comics. Batman never apologized because he never thought he was wrong; he believed those precautions against his allies were necessary.

This gave Schiller a prejudice. Batman wasn't incapable of apologizing—when he truly realized he was wrong, he still felt regret and guilt.

Schiller had indeed wanted to teach the young Batman some lessons—like not harboring prejudice, not judging by appearances, not letting anger cloud his judgment, and maintaining independent thought.

But Schiller suddenly realized he had no real right to lecture Batman about prejudice, because he himself held an indelible stereotype about the character. He wanted Bruce to become the Batman from the comics in his mind, and the sooner the better.

But now it seemed this story wasn't about a wise, learned professor and his young, reckless student. It was a classic tale of "Pride and Prejudice."

Batman, with absolute pride in his own deductions, believed Schiller must be the killer. When he harbored preconceived bias, coupled with evidence that happened to align with that bias, he nearly pulled the trigger on Schiller.

Yet Schiller also held a bias against Batman, believing he should be the seasoned, cautious, paranoid dark hero from the comics.

The two of them weren't exactly pot calling the kettle black, but they were certainly six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Now Batman seemed to have learned this lesson. He clearly recognized that he was neither omniscient nor omnipotent.

His deductions could also be trapped by bias, leading to grave errors, and his impulsiveness, under such arrogance, proved even more deadly.

He saw the wound on Schiller's neck—the one he'd left with a Batarang earlier. At the time, he'd assumed Schiller was a criminal and threatened him as such. Though he hadn't fired today, as Gordon said, the wound was deep and would likely leave a scar.

Batman felt guilt over this, and a deep, lingering fear.

He thought, the law's inability to rightly judge every criminal was no excuse for him to arrogantly judge others at will.

And when he couldn't guarantee he was one hundred percent right, any impulsive act of violence could leave an indelible scar on an innocent person—even a good one.

He was only grateful that the price paid by the innocent hadn't been their life.

Standing in the shadows, Batman resolved to forever prevent such a possibility. So he decided that, no matter how heinous the criminal he faced, he would never kill.

If any innocent person died by his hand, he would become a criminal worse than the one who killed his parents.

Because the killer of his parents might have acted for money or revenge—their destruction cost two lives.

But if Batman killed the innocent indiscriminately, this city would have no hope left.

In the comics, Batman's no-kill rule seemed to exist from the very beginning.

Schiller had never bothered to explore why. He thought the rule was often infuriating. Facing those detestable criminals—those madmen who broke out of jail again and again to cause trouble—why couldn't Batman just kill them? He'd thought this countless times while reading the comics.

But what he never expected was that, in this world, the young Batman had, precisely because of him—because of Schiller—firmly established his resolve not to kill criminals.

Because he was Batman. He was the city's only hope. If he were crushed by the guilt of killing an innocent, this city would be utterly beyond saving.

By a twist of fate, though Schiller had failed to help the young Batman build his own spiritual pillar, he had successfully completed one of Batman's defining traits: the no-kill rule.

Schiller would never have imagined that, in the days to come, he would countless times regret this meddling of his.

Once Batman had fully matured, Schiller would roar inwardly again and again: Why couldn't Batman just move his fingers and strangle those damned criminals, so they'd stop appearing before him time and again, shattering his peaceful life!!

And all of this stemmed from today's events—all his own doing.