American comic book: After mastering resurrection, I became incredibly popular.

The three entered the subway and arrived at the underground workshop.

The underground laboratory has been renovated by Mr. Freeze again in the past few days, and it is much cleaner than before.

Wang Baixi told Mr. Freeze to deal with the Claw himself, while he went straight to one of the cryogenic chambers, where the person he was looking for that night was kept.

The interior of the cryogenic chamber was filled with a very faint condensation mist, through which Sebastian Clark's lean face could be seen.

Tim walked to the control panel and pressed the defrost button, and the frost on the inner wall of the freezer began to recede.

A few minutes later, Clark took a deep breath and opened his eyes, his chest heaving violently.

“Batman?” Clark’s voice was hoarse and weak. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a few questions for you, Sebastian. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have Mr. Freeze set your freezing temperature to absolute zero. Do you understand?” Wang Baixi stepped forward and said in a commanding tone.

Clark's lips twitched slightly.

Do you know Lincoln March?

“Lincoln March? Who’s that? I don’t know him,” Clark said, puzzled.

“Are you sure? He’s the COO of March Ventures, one of the candidates for mayor of Gotham City, and he’s connected to the Court of Owls,” Tim added.

"Is this one person or three people?"

Wang Baixi: "...Are you kidding me?"

Is Lincoln March really a good boy?

"Please, I really don't know them. Let alone the mayoral candidates, I don't even know the names of most of the council members." Clark's voice carried a hint of fear. "This is the court's confidentiality mechanism, intricate, rigorous and terrifying."

“Then let me ask you a different question,” Wang Baixi changed his tone, “Are you aware that Bruce Wayne has a brother?”

“Bruce Wayne’s brother?” Clark recalled. “The court did investigate this matter, and there are relevant records in the files, but I have no authority to access the specific contents. These are top-secret documents, and even members of the council have difficulty seeing the complete version.”

"Is that all?"

That's all.

Clark suddenly stopped there, staring at Wang Baixi's mask. A few seconds later, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Most of the upper echelons of the Court of Owls knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman.

"Wait, come to this, aren't you Bruce? Why are you using this term... Oh, no! You're not Batman. Your positioning is wrong, your voice is wrong... Oh, that voice isn't Bruce Wayne! Damn it, you're that Easterner!"

"Ah, you recognized me."

The fear on Clark's face vanished in an instant. "It really is you?"

He pounded on the inner wall of the cryogenic chamber with his fingers, which were restrained by the braces, while leaning forward as far as he could.

"Please, let me out! I'll do anything for you! I have money, I have fame, I'll give you all the connections I've built up over the years in court! Just let me out, I'll give you anything!"

"Come on, your attitude changed way too quickly," Wang Baixi said, exasperated. "Just because I'm not Batman, you think you can bribe me with money? Mr. Clark, is that the kind of person you think I am? Someone who would abandon all principles for money and fame?"

Clark's laughter echoed through the underground laboratory.

"Isn't that right? You're even teaming up with Mr. Freeze. Don't you know how many people this guy has harmed? You can sit at the same table as him, so what can't you do? The only difference between you and us is that you're still wearing that 'good guy's' skin!"

“Shut up, Sebastian,” Tim said coldly.

"You bunch of hypocrites! What are you pretending to be, gentlemen! You're responsible for defining evil, defining justice, defining health, defining disease, defining black, defining white, but all for your own selfish desires." Clark's roar was tinged with a dying despair.

He cursed for a full minute. He cursed everything from Wang Baixi's mysterious origins to Tim's young age, from Mr. Freeze's supposed defection to the light to Batman's hypocrisy, until finally his voice was completely hoarse.

Wang Baixi stood there in front of the cryogenic chamber, motionless.

Clark, exhausted from his tirade, hung his head and panted heavily. Tim noticed that Wang Baixi didn't speak immediately, nor did he end the conversation with his usual lighthearted quip.

“Victor,” Wang Baixi said calmly.

The man who had been frozen in time looked up from behind the lab bench.

"Freeze him back in, and lower the temperature by two degrees."

Before Clark could finish his last word, Mr. Freeze had already pulled the lever.

Large amounts of liquid nitrogen vapor gushed out from the inner wall of the freezer compartment.

Sebastian Clark's face froze, leaving only a twisted rage.

Wang Baixi turned around and walked to another experimental table. He took out a sealed bag from his belt, which contained spore powder and seed fragments that he, Zatana, and Cassandra had collected in the botanical garden.

He placed the sealed bag on the lab table and pushed it toward the person who had been cryogenically frozen.

"By the way, Victor, this is a new variety that Poison Ivy is cultivating. It has extremely strong environmental adaptability and neuro-hallucinogenic effects. Can you help me analyze its genetic structure?"

“I’m just a cryogenics scientist.” Mr. Freeze glanced down at the bag of seeds. “And aren’t you afraid that after I analyze something dangerous, I’ll come after you with Poison Ivy?”

Please, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze as villains? He could only think of that awful movie, Batman & Robin.

“I believe you won’t.” After saying this, Wang Baixi paused for a few seconds, then asked in a relatively casual but clearly thoughtful tone, “Speaking of which, Victor, have you ever considered that your current condition might be a form of illness?”

“Of course it’s a disease,” Mr. Freeze answered without hesitation. “A body temperature below zero requires a cryogenic suit to function normally, and no medical textbook would define this state as healthy. Why do you ask?”

Wang Baixi was somewhat moved by Clark's words. He pondered, "Killer Croc has been looking for someone who can cure his atavism. I resurrected him once, but that resurrection didn't cure his illness. So I'm starting to doubt myself. How exactly is an illness defined?"

"How did you revive him?" Mr. Freeze asked again.

"I cast the resurrection spell right in front of his corpse, except that when I cast the spell, I treated him as a 'non-human creature'."

“Maybe that’s the crux of the problem,” Mr. Freeze said. “If you resurrect him as a crocodile, then his atavistic traits are no longer a disease, but the most fundamental part of who he is.”

"So, you mean I personally prevented him from becoming a normal person?" Wang Baixi asked.

“I don’t understand magic. I’m just exploring the possibility of this from a scientific perspective. Of course, you can understand it that way.”

“But Killer Croc is still searching everywhere for someone to cure his illness,” Tim interjected. “If he finds out, I wonder what he’ll do.”

“That’s right,” Wang Baixi muttered to himself, “His illness may really have a chance of being cured, but I personally eliminated all possibilities.”

Mr. Freeze looked at Wang Baixi, a faint look of confusion flashing in his eyes.

“When did you become so soft-hearted, Wang Baixi? You put on his hood, so you should be as cold and ruthless as him.”

Do you think Batman is cold-blooded and ruthless?

"Isn't that right?" Mr. Freeze retorted.

“He’s much more emotional than you think. He chose not to kill not because he was cold-hearted, but precisely because he cared too much. He cared so much that he turned himself into a monster, unwilling to let any life slip through his fingers,” Wang Baixi said with a wry smile.

Even Tim chimed in, "Yes, he just can't let you discover his weaknesses. Because once you do, you'll see that he cares about people, and you'll use those people against him. So he chose silence and to bear it all alone."

Mr. Freeze remained silent for a long time. He glanced at the bag of spore samples. "Just like him, don't show your weaknesses to others. Do what Batman is supposed to do, Wong."

Tim and Wang Baixi glanced at each other and smiled simultaneously.

They entered the elevator, then drove the Batmobile out the back door of the workshop. Under the cover of night, the city scenery kept receding through the car window, but then Tim noticed something.

"Your Majesty, look!"

All my thoughts were interrupted at that moment.

The two looked up.

In the thick, inky night sky, a bright, bat-shaped beam of light pierced through the clouds, steadily illuminating the perpetual veil of mist above the city.

It's a bat lamp.

Chapter 105 The Scarecrow

Gordon stood on the edge of the rooftop, the night wind whipping the hem of his trench coat. Above him, the silhouette of a bat with outstretched wings was reflected in the city sky.

He waited and waited for the voice behind him to sound. When he did, he would know who it was without turning around.

Batman.

“Chief Gordon.” Wang Baixi emerged from the shadows, with Robin half a step behind on his right.

“Your voice…” Gordon sensed something was off.

"I have a cold," Wang Baixi quickly explained.

"You have a cold?"

"Yes, I caught a cold." Wang Baixi tried to lower his voice even further using nasal resonance. "Let's get down to business."

Gordon didn't press the matter. Years of working with the Cape Warrior had taught him one thing: what Batman wants you to know, you'll know sooner or later; what Batman doesn't want you to know, asking won't help.

He took out a few photos from the inside pocket of his trench coat and handed them over.

“The Metropolitan Police gave me a photo. It was taken three days ago on the rooftop of a building near the Metropolitan Botanical Garden. The person in the photo has their face completely wrapped in bandages and is standing on the rooftop, facing the direction of the Botanical Garden.”

The photo's resolution is not high enough, and some details become blurry when zoomed in.

“I gave this photo to the people in the department for cross-referencing,” Gordon continued, handing over two new photos. “The result was that this person, or rather, an individual who looks very similar to him, had also been in Gotham within the last 48 hours. The first photo was taken at the northern end of Crime Alley, and the second at the second floor of the coffee shop opposite the Powers Corporation headquarters. He stayed at both locations for at least 20 minutes, without speaking to anyone or making any threatening moves. He just stood there looking in a certain direction.”

"Who is this guy?"

"Nobody knows."

"Give me the photos. By the way, where was he last seen?" Wang Baixi took the photos and gave one of them to Robin.

“According to surveillance footage, he was last seen at 11 p.m. last night, near an abandoned veterinary clinic on the Upper East Side. Our patrol officers inadvertently captured his image while chasing a car thief. As for who it’s related to…” Gordon paused here, “that abandoned clinic used to belong to a friend of Jonathan Klein.”

"scarecrow?"

"Yes, a few days ago, he applied for medical parole due to health problems, but he escaped police control again. That clinic is very likely his hideout. If this bandaged man appears nearby, it may be related to the scarecrow."

Wang Baixi folded the photos and put them into the lining of his belt, then looked up at Gordon.

"We will follow up on this matter and investigate it further."

"Then I'll leave it to you."

After saying that, Gordon turned and walked toward the door leading to the stairwell, but when he got to the door, he habitually looked back.

Batman and Robin were still standing there, their capes billowing in the night wind.

"Wait, shouldn't you have already disappeared?"

You're playing Red Man, aren't you?