hotmtlnovel Chapter 2891 When Night Falls (9)
Chapter 2891 When Night Falls (9)
Chapter 2891 When Night Falls (Part )
Dick turned his head away with some trembling. He gritted his teeth and argued, "This is just a self-protection measure. If I don't show up during the day, it will be too obvious..."
"Yes, I understand. What about afternoon tea?"
Dick couldn't answer, Batman still looked at him and said, "You can choose not to eat, it won't be too abrupt, because there is another person who didn't move anything."
"That doctor..." Dick gritted his teeth.
"What should you call him?"
"Dr. Schiller." Dick met Batman's gaze for the first time, and then said, "Without him, my plan will go smoothly..."
Batman just looked at him without saying anything.
In the end, Dick couldn't bear this kind of gaze. He took a deep breath, didn't loosen his hand holding Batman's arm, just turned his eyes away and said: "I have to admit that my mind has been affected to some extent. This is not an excuse to avoid it, but it is true."
"After my fangs were removed, I felt a little dizzy. I thought it was the aftereffects of the pain, but it seemed that was not the case. I felt like something was disconnected and I wasn't sure what it was."
"You can't change the subject by giving clues, Dick. Many times, I'm a detective, but more often, I'm a father."
Dick didn't seem to expect Batman to say such a thing. He looked up at Batman, but quickly looked away and said, "Are you going to accuse me of lying to you?"
“Shouldn’t this be blamed?”
Very good, a decisive blow. Although Batman doesn't know where Schiller got his understanding of Dick, at least based on his understanding of Dick, a sober Dick has normal views on justice, and he is 100% unable to deny it.
"So you just mind that I lied to you?"
Something is wrong, Batman suddenly realized, Dick chose to avoid the topic on this issue instead of clarifying the axiom first...something is wrong.
"I told you not to feel guilty." Schiller's slightly frivolous voice came from the headset, "You're not the only one who wants to manipulate something."
Batman suddenly became furious, but Schiller's reminder was like a bucket of cold water to extinguish his anger. "If all this is Dick's disguise, then we really can't blame him for taking some special measures."
"Answer my question first."
"Which question?"
"What's the difference?"
"I... lied to you." Dick chose to admit it.
Batman shook his head and said, "No, you obviously don't respect me enough."
"Before you left for Blüdhaven, you found me and told me what you thought. Then you proposed your plans for the future and asked for my opinion. In the end, you chose to leave."
"And what did you do today? You stood in the sun with a smug look on your face, eating food that vampires couldn't touch, and even more smugly thought to yourself that it was a good thing you were prepared, mocking me for using this method to test the inner traitor..."
Batman still had his hand on Dick's neck and said, "If you had treated me with the most basic respect, this wouldn't have turned out like this."
Batman couldn't say that what he repeated next didn't come from his heart.
"You chose to provoke me in this way, but you were surprised that I wanted to kill you. Do you still fantasize that you have the capital to be pardoned? No, you don't, Mr. Grayson. I said, you have reached the last level."
"You must be very upset as to why the punishment has evolved from 'turning around and walking away' to what it is today, but this is all your fault."
"You chose to be my enemy, but you couldn't see your own position clearly. You thought you were my son and thought I would treat you with the same tolerance as I would treat a child. You are too naive."
"Since you have chosen to betray me, you didn't act as quickly as possible, and even gave me time to prepare various temptations. You just indulged in the pleasure of keeping me in the dark. How foolish."
"Even though I attacked you, you still thought you could use your special place in my heart to make me feel pain and then let you go, instead of choosing to use your newfound power to kill you in one blow. How cowardly."
"Dick, the biggest difference is that the you who went to Blüdhaven made me proud, but the you now only makes me disappointed."
"So I will need you to prove your loyalty to me, because this is the only way you can regain your status. Strong and free, weak but loyal, you can only choose the latter."
Dick looked at him with wide eyes and said, "You said that as long as I don't think it's worth it, you can..."
"You didn't pay more for your stupidity. Otherwise, the best case scenario would be that you are soaked in some solution in the bat cave and become the raw material for my research on the antidote for the vampire virus."
"Are you threatening me again?!"
"You look less scared now, do you think you have a chance of winning? Or do you finally realize that you can't manipulate me?"
The moment Dick's eyes glowed red again, Batman grabbed his neck tightly. The cross necklace Dick wore on his neck was pressed into his palm until it cut the skin on the side of Dick's neck.
The flames started again and Dick let out a scream. His defense against the holy weapon seemed to only exist on the surface of his skin. Once it touched the inside, he would also be injured.
Schiller's judgment was correct. This was because the British holy weapon was particularly useful. Perhaps the neck was also the lifeline of the vampire. The damage caused by Batman's attack was even greater than the one Schiller had hit Dick from behind. Dick's entire neck was burning.
He struggled in pain, but Schiller said in the headset: "Although I think you should teach him a lesson, it's not good to be disfigured. Take him to the Batcave."
Batman didn't let go, so the cross remained pressed against the wound. He dragged Dick to the Batcave and threw him into prison.
"You don't have to be angry." Schiller advised, "From my observation, the vampire virus seems to partially distort a person's mind. Even though I pulled out his two teeth, it only made his hostility less obvious. But in fact, he has become much more vicious."
"How do we eradicate it?" Batman was not asking Schiller, but himself. Since the disappearance, he has begun investigating matters related to vampires, but still has no clue.
"You can't solve all this." Dick's weak voice came, and he said sarcastically: "You still want to hold afternoon tea again..."
"He has too little respect for you," Schiller said. "Although the virus has an impact, it may also be because you don't have enough dignity in your daily life. If it were me, I would not let him develop into what he is today..."
"Because I'm not a crazy person, I'm not going to let my children live in fear all the time."
"Obviously you can't leave him alone now."
"You said you could let me manipulate him, but you failed."
"It's still a long way to go." Schiller's tone remained calm. He said, "Look, hasn't this already revealed his true colors?"
Batman paused, and Schiller continued, "He will play your son in order to soften your heart. You can also play his father, but under the influence of the virus, he should not be soft-hearted."
"Then why did he fall into your trap?"
"This is the key to your victory over him. His love for you is engraved in his instincts, so he always behaves in a habitual manner. That's why I was able to use the necklace to set a trap and pull out his fangs."
"You have to do the same thing as I did. Use the love that the virus cannot affect and carve fear into him first. Only then can you truly tame him."
"I can't do this." Batman finally gave his answer. He said: "Fear is the most difficult scar to erase in the heart of a person. After everything is over, he will suffer for the rest of his life."
"Where is the love enough to go with it?"
"No." Batman said, "We can never make amends with each other. This is a sick relationship that only you crazy people like."
"What a shame." Schiller sighed: "So you plan to give up?"
"No, I just don't need your guidance anymore." Batman's tone was terrifyingly calm. He said, "In fact, I know how to manipulate Dick better than you do. I wanted to borrow your hand before, but I just wanted to escape."
"Are you sure you won't go out of line?"
"I'm much more cautious than you think." Batman seemed to have turned back into Batman again, speaking in a calm tone, always beating around the bush, answering every question but not answering it.
"Then I will wait for good news."
Schiller hung up the phone, knowing that his goal had been achieved. He had never intended to interfere in the relationship between the father and son. He just wanted Batman to realize that the biggest danger of the vampire virus is that it can distort people's minds.
But this is not to make Batman feel painful or embarrassed, but to inspire his greatest potential, or even let him temporarily let go of some moral constraints.
It is not wrong to say that Batman is a human supremacist, but his definition of human is not that extreme. Those with super powers are human, those who come back from the dead are human, and even those with different bloodlines can be human.
In Batman's view, the physical coding is not that important, so there may be a situation where there are humans among vampires. As long as they sincerely repent and identify themselves as human beings, Batman may treat them as humans.
This situation is most likely to occur in the Bat Family. If his children sincerely repent, although Batman will lock them up for fear that they will hurt others, he will not think of them as monsters in his heart. Naturally, he will not really judge them and then use the same methods to deal with criminals to deal with them.
But spiritual betrayal is unacceptable to Batman, especially for his children. Direct distortion of moral concepts is the most intolerable kind of depravity for Batman. Using evil means to deceive and refusing to repent is even more of a taboo.
Batman doesn't have much love, and almost all of it is given to his children. If anyone wants to use this to deal with him, they will definitely get Batman's thundering methods.
As long as Batman can overcome the hurdle in his heart and come up with methods to deal with criminals, these little birds in the Bat family will not be enough for him.
It's just that it's useless for others to tell him about this, he can only discover it himself. His love for children is too easy to confuse him. Schiller's actions against Dick are just to make Batman see the reality.
It turned out that Schiller's plan was successful, and Dick reappeared at the dinner table that evening.
Logically, Dick's attention should have been on the murderer who pulled out his two teeth, but the fact was that throughout the dinner, Dick's entire attention was fixed on Batman, and he kept stroking the cross around his neck.
Although the specific process is unknown, it is obvious that Batman succeeded. Dick's manipulation skills are far inferior to his.
"What did you do?" Schiller asked after dinner, looking at Dick's happy back.
"I made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
"Appreciate further details."
"He can come into the lab when the surgery is done."
"That's it?" Schiller looked at Batman.
"And I will tell everyone that the necklace is the most important holy relic and now belongs exclusively to him."
"You have no right to say that I'm a pervert." Schiller commented as he raised his glass.
Added a normal brain to the vampire.