The dust settled, and visibility returned.
A red Santa hat had been jammed onto Bane's head, making his angry square face look ridiculous.
Li Zu crouched on Bane's shoulder like an agile monkey.
However, judging by the way he rubbed his shoulder, Bane's punch had not completely missed without effect.
"Hiss~" He sucked in a breath of cold air. Blood still stained the corner of his mouth, but his smile was bright.
"Get down!" Bane raised his fist and reached for the "skinny monkey" on his shoulder. Green liquid seeped beneath his skin as his muscles and veins bulged explosively.
Li Zu sprang away, narrowly evading Bane's grasp. He grabbed the iron bar above with both hands, bent at the waist and swung hard. Like a dazzling Flying Graysons stage acrobat, he spun and flung himself into the air, then landed steadily in front of Joker.
"Wow~" Joker made no effort to hide his surprise. He held a pistol in his right hand, his grin stretching wide enough to pull the scars on his cheeks toward his ears. "What a surprise, Toyman~"
"You're just as surprising," Li Zu said meaningfully.
Joker had actually returned to Blackgate Penitentiary for Batman. Not only that, he had dragged Li Zu back into Blackgate Penitentiary to deal with Batman.
Should he call Joker a genuine mad dog, one who never considered consequences and only wanted things to become more fun? Or was Joker a mad strategist, leaving no stone unturned to defeat Batman?
In Li Zu's view, Blackgate Penitentiary was absolutely not the best place to destroy Gotham and Batman.
The city's most terrifying bastards were gathered here. All it took was opening a door for them. Once those bastards swarmed out, all anyone had to do was watch, and unexpected stories would naturally unfold.
Everything would become uncontrollable.
A pack of wolves freed from its cage would not spare the people who had raised them out of old affection.
On the contrary, their bites would become even more vicious.
And from the very beginning, Li Zu had not believed Bane was the one who had brought him here to deal with Batman. With Bane's personality, he would never have taken Li Zu seriously. Only Joker, that fellow who loved "jokes," would be more willing to drag Li Zu, who had intended to leave this game, back into the center of the vortex.
Dragging everyone into a pitch-black abyss was Joker's true pleasure, even if Li Zu found that pleasure full of sick amusement.
"Bane doesn't seem to like you~" Joker pointed at the enraged, roaring Bane below, as though he were watching a roaring lion through an iron cage.
Though Bane possessed a powerful, terrifying body, leaping onto a platform two stories high was still a bit of a stretch for him.
For the moment, Li Zu was still safe.
"What a pity. The kids like me~" Li Zu's voice sounded somewhat regretful.
"Warden Joseph, we meet again~"
Li Zu walked around Joker and approached the Black warden trapped nearby. He bent down, raised his right hand beside his face and waved it, flashing a strange grin. "I'm so glad you're still alive~"
"So that lunatic was the one who sent you in!" Joseph glared at Li Zu, his voice certain.
A man had appeared in Blackgate Penitentiary for no apparent reason. Combined with everything that had happened tonight, it was not hard to guess Li Zu's "real reason" for being here.
"Ha ha ha ha!! Batman, you've finally arrived!" Joker's laughter suddenly rang out, interrupting the small talk Li Zu had been about to start.
A black shadow flowed beneath the dim lights, trying to slip in without a sound.
"Roar!!" But Bane had already pounced.
Wrapped in IV tubes, Bane swung an even more swollen fist at Batman.
After the dust flew up.
Batman coughed blood and rolled repeatedly across the floor, only stopping when he crashed into the wall.
Everything before his eyes blurred, and ringing filled all his hearing.
His head spun~
Bang. A foot landed before Batman's eyes, slowly pulling his consciousness back.
"Now you have two choices~"
Joker's theatrical laughter echoed through the room. "Bane was very unwilling to accept losing to you before~, so this time, you have two choices. One, kill Bane. Two, let Bane kill you."
Batman's neck tightened as he was seized by the throat and slowly lifted into the air.
His eyes shifted away from Bane's savage, square face covered in bulging veins, following the voice until he found Joker above him.
He also saw Li Zu beside Joker.
Joker raised a third finger, let out two eerie chuckles, then continued, "2.1, I have an explosive detonator here connected to Bane's heart. Within five minutes, you must find a way to make Bane's heart rest for a while. In simpler terms, you have to kill him! Otherwise, the explosion will go off somewhere, and the ones who die will be... hmm~"
Joker scratched his chin and pondered. "The riotous bastard prisoners in Blackgate Penitentiary, and the police officers who have already snuck in."
"And there's 2.2!"
Joker raised his voice again. Clearly, his rotten ideas did not end there.
Bang!
A gunshot interrupted Joker.
Commissioner Gordon stood in the doorway, his gun aimed at Joker, while his eyes remained wary of Li Zu standing beside Warden Joseph.
"Hello~" Li Zu waved to Gordon in greeting.
"You bastard!" Gordon's expression shifted from surprise to anger.
"Neither of you move. If you do, I can't guarantee where the bullets will leave holes in you!" Gordon said as he held up his gun and slowly approached them.
Joker obediently raised both hands.
Li Zu also slowly raised his hands, though he was still holding a toy gun in his right hand.
When he lifted the toy gun over his head and aimed it in Gordon's direction, Joker began laughing maniacally.
"Don't move!"
Gordon instinctively sensed that something was wrong. Batman, who was being held aloft by the throat, was beginning to lose consciousness, yet he was also watching what was happening above.
Brrrt brrrt brrrt brrrt--!!
The toy gun spat rubber bullets, and the rubber rounds struck Gordon, making his body ache.
Anger made him ready to charge through this meaningless prank and put a bullet into that Asian bastard's face.
Pfft.
But the bullet holes blasting into the ground by his feet made Gordon calm down.
The toy gun that had been firing rubber bullets one second earlier transformed the next into a life-reaping weapon that unleashed a storm of metal rounds!
Flames burst from the muzzle.
Bullets blasted hole after hole into the ground beside Commissioner Gordon!
He shuffled backward, and after Li Zu emptied every bullet, he was miraculously unharmed.
"Oh dear, I think I missed~" Li Zu said with amusement in his voice.
Gordon, however, broke out in a cold sweat. If not for that bizarre body-outline shooting, there would surely have been nothing but a bloody corpse on the floor by now.
The other man's gun was empty. Gordon pulled himself together.
His chance had come!
"Don't move!" He rushed forward, kicked Joker away, and pressed his pistol to Li Zu's head.
Thank you to "Pen's Yours_You Write" for the 100 Qidian Coin tip.
(End of Chapter)
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