Finding Harley Quinn

"Jason Wood, also known as Plant Master, is a thorough environmental terrorist. Compared to his actions, Ivy's (Poison Ivy) little gardening hobby of turning living people into trees is like Harley Quinn's diapers – deadly, yet harmless."

"..."

Chen Tao didn't notice Gordon's expression. His instincts as a huge American comic fan were activated, causing him to start spilling the beans on the two plant-based villains.

"The basic power of The Green is mainly divided into the [Council of Trees], representing trees, and the [May Queen], representing vines."

"But the instinct of vines is to attach and obey, so most of the time they follow the [Council of Trees]. The [May Queen] is often overlooked. But this absolutely doesn't mean they are powerless."

"You should know that the spokesperson chosen by the [Council of Trees] is Swamp Thing. Amateurs like Plant Master are just low-level agents making up the numbers."

"But Poison Ivy is different. She is the spokesperson for the [May Queen]. This means that in terms of the essence of power, she is on par with Swamp Thing, far above low-level agents like Plant Master—"

Gordon was stunned by the sudden flood of messy exposition. He opened his mouth, made a couple of "uhh" sounds like an idiot, and then said:

"Batman, your intel is really... I almost didn't understand you—"

"What? You don't understand such simple settings? I've explained it so clearly, only an idiot wouldn't get it."

Chen Tao grumbled, then took the stack of documents from Gordon's hand.

"Ha! I knew it!"

"To repay Mother Earth, Plant Master would never do anything useless. If he can't do it himself, he'll bring Poison Ivy along. It just so happens that Bane blew up Arkham Asylum, so they didn't even need to break her out."

Gordon interjected:

"There's something else I need to tell you. I don't think this detailed dossier could have been written by the incompetent people who gave it to me. But when I cross-referenced the content with the information we have, I found it was all true. In fact, many parts were investigated very meticulously, uncovering blind spots that even professionals missed.

Speaking of a field he was familiar with, Commissioner Gordon adjusted his glasses.

"But this information came too conveniently. Not only did it provide new evidence and clues, but the report used several methods to argue that only Batman could solve this serious problem. Even many of the points made, I was forced to admit he was correct—"

"I have to question the motive behind it." x2

Batman's simultaneous statement gave Gordon a sense of telepathic connection, reminiscent of the golden age when he, Batman, and Harvey Dent formed the "Trinity" and vowed to change Gotham.

Although all the achievements and beauty of that era shattered into dust with Harvey Dent's fall into Two-Face... Damn it, why am I thinking about this?

Gordon quickly pushed aside these middle-aged reflections and continued:

"And this information is too detailed. For example, character stances, attack order, even escape methods. It's as detailed as an accomplice."

"It might be an accomplice," Chen Tao replied. "This attack was meticulously planned and thoroughly thought out. I don't believe these two blockheads suddenly became so professional. If you'll excuse me, it reads more like an attack plan than an investigation report."

"Also, Plant Master is such a huge, living tree, and you guys didn't discover its existence before?"

"You have a scientist controlling such a terrifying bioweapon, and you only figured out his background after he was kidnapped for a few days?"

"Is the Gotham City Police Department's intelligence network really that bad?"

Chen Tao said, "Someone is deliberately blinding you, just to blow things up at the right time—"

Batman suddenly paused.

And then immediately—

"I get it," Gordon heard Batman say.

Oh? Time for some deduction? A glint appeared in Gordon's eyes.

No matter how many times, deducing cases with the world's greatest detective, Batman, is an ultimate pleasure.

Even as the Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, he was still a humble apprentice before a great detective like Batman.

Bring it 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 to "deduce":

"I get it! Bane isn't confident he can beat me, so they plan to activate other schemes to defeat me. But they need time, so they have to give me something to do, so I don't have time to relentlessly pursue them.

"This report must be from Bane's subordinate, [Cave Dweller]. Perhaps he helped plan this whole thing. And the motives of Plant Master and Poison Ivy are obvious. Using bioweapons? Too low-level. They captured the botanist alive, they must want to green the entire Earth!"

"I get it! Plant Master definitely wants to replicate Swamp Thing's birth process in everyone on Earth, and then turn everyone on the planet into walking trees. And his plan must have gone wrong, causing them to temporarily transform others, but they will soon turn into pus and blood—"

"That's why they need the scientist!"

"Obviously, they must be plotting their evil mission at Slaughter Swamp outside Gotham right now!"

"I see! I'm gradually understanding everything! No one understands villains better than I do!"

"?"

Gordon was a little bewildered, he opened his mouth, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Are we looking at the same document?

How did you reach that conclusion?

What's the basis? The reason?

"Obviously"?

The reason, of course, is that Chen Tao had read the original comics.

Looking at Plant Master's decades-long comic history, every appearance was "My Mother Earth!" followed by him getting frisky with the Earth, and then every time the results were more or less the same, followed by being beaten by Poison Ivy, beaten by Swamp Thing...

As long as it involved The Green, they would always drag out Plant Master, Jack Wood, for a beating. Anyway, he's a walking tree, so it's hard for him to die.

Once he saw this pattern of behavior enough times, he could almost recite it by heart.

However, Chen Tao quickly realized he couldn't explain why he knew so much.

So, he could only blurt out, "Human intuition is a trait that cannot be learned; it is also my most effective weapon."

Don't ask, just call it intuition.

Gordon listened, and couldn't help but feel a sense of awe. Is he finally done acting? I always said Batman's incredible deductions back then weren't something a normal person could come up with. I always thought it was magic, but you always lied to me and said it was deduction!

Chen Tao pondered for a while and realized this matter had great potential.

In fact, even if Bane hadn't found a way to stall him, he wouldn't have fought Bane right now. From Bane's perspective, Batman seemed both awesome and powerful, and now he had even revealed a transformation ability that their initial intelligence gathering had completely missed. His face screamed "invincible."

But only Chen Tao knew that he was currently a weakling. The green dinosaur might have some combat power, but Bane was a genuine Dou Ancestor master. After using Titan Venom, his maximum physical strength would exceed 90 tons. If he were willing to abandon his brain and intelligence, that number would become 120.

So, if Bane didn't want to fight Batman now, why would Chen Tao? Chen Tao hadn't even considered fighting Bane himself. If he could solve it with his wallet, why would he have to do it himself?

Bane planned to use Plant Master and Poison Ivy to slow him down, which was exactly what he wanted. A rare superpowered individual among Gotham's villains like Ivy, Poison Ivy, was naturally already on Chen Tao's list of allies.

As an avid comic fan, Chen Tao dared to say that he understood Poison Ivy better than the worms in Ivy's stomach. Bane's actions were practically handing him a helper.

But now came the problem.

Slaughter Swamp was so vast, where exactly were Poison Ivy and Plant Master?

This time, Chen Tao was truly stumped. He was just a comic reader, not Wei Banxian, who set up a stall at the crossroads of Gotham to tell fortunes.

His ability to predict the villains' general plans was already based on his vast comic reading experience; predicting more detailed points was impossible.

But Chen Tao knew someone who could. He muttered:

"I have a plan, I'm sure, I have a damn good plan!"

"We need Harley Quinn, the former Harley Quinn, Gotham City's villainous human GPS, a special bonus damage artifact against the Joker, Poison Ivy's best friend and super nemesis. Only she can find her!"

And he happened to know how to find Harley Quinn as well.