Chapter 44: Interrogation

For a second, Ma Zhaodi's voice made the supervisor think of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings—a sneaky, hunchbacked monster in a dark corner, going crazy over the spellbinding One Ring.

"Precious! My precious!"
"My salary! My precious salary!"

It was an exact match.

"You've already got your fucking One Ring!" The supervisor, already nearly driven out of his mind by the damn chandelier and Batman, completely lost his composure and yelled incoherently, "You already got it at the beginning of the month, dammit! It's a fucking salary, not a ring—and I'm a fucking idiot too!"

Ma Zhaodi was certain that if there were any light source in the room right now, the supervisor's face would be completely red.

However, having no light source wasn't entirely a bad thing, because the supervisor currently sounded like he really wanted to shoot him, and perhaps wanted to shoot himself as well.

Batman didn't understand what these two were bickering about; he simply and calmly dropped the restaurant employees who had drawn their guns one by one. Finally, two minutes later, all the armed staff members in the restaurant were down. Only the supervisor had escaped a beating for the moment because he was too entangled with Ma Zhaodi to draw his weapon.

"Say it! Hurry up and say it!" Watching Batman disappear into the darkness, Ma Zhaodi felt alarm bells ringing wildly in his heart as he frantically shook the supervisor's body. "Say it, say those lines!"

"Stop blocking me from shooting! You fu—"

The supervisor's words were cut off abruptly. A tall, grim, black figure appeared silently beside the two of them, reached out and grabbed the gun in the supervisor's hand, and slammed him straight down onto the floor.

"No—"

Ma Zhaodi let out a desperate cry from the bottom of his heart. At that moment, he finally understood the supervisor's feelings—it was the sensation of watching a huge sum of money slip away right from under one's fingertips.

Of course, he was also concerned for the supervisor's safety, but since Batman didn't kill people anyway, the man definitely wouldn't die; at most, he would just suffer a little bit.

As for himself, however, his situation was far more tragic. Setting aside whether Batman might break his bones, he had worked his fingers to the bone for a whole month, finally surviving his shifts just in time to collect his pay, only for his employer to fucking vanish into thin air.

To Ma Zhaodi, this was simply the most despair-inducing event he had encountered all day.

"The day before Halloween, someone carved an ugly pumpkin in this restaurant. Where is he?"

***

Retract the previous statement; that previous incident was actually the second most despair-inducing thing Ma Zhaodi had encountered today.

A cold, low voice rang out. Batman completely ignored Ma Zhaodi, who was already prone on the floor next to him. This fellow hadn't drawn a gun at all; the very second the supervisor was subdued, he had dropped to the ground with his hands covering his head. Not a shred of rebellious intent could be seen on him, only an overwhelming desire to survive.

Yet the instant he heard Batman's words, Ma Zhaodi's vision went dark, and he immediately began rummaging through the system store for rapid health regeneration items.

"Goddamn it, I knew Batman was the biggest psycho in Gotham. He can even dig up details like this—I only spent half an hour carving that thing in the shop."

Hearing Batman's question, the pinned supervisor was stunned for a moment, and then he burst into loud, unrestrained laughter while pinned to the floor, rocking back and forth.

"Hahahaha—just for that?" he mocked between laughs, "Ha, the midnight nightmare of Gotham is just this? Hahaha, cough, cough, investigating a murder case and tracking down some idiot who carved an ugly pumpkin?"

"What's wrong with not knowing how to carve a pumpkin? Did an ugly pumpkin eat your rice?"

Ma Zhaodi couldn't help raising his head to retort, "There was clearly a strong artistic vibe to the pumpkin I carved! You're simply the one lacking an eye for art, alright?"

At that moment, the gazes of both the supervisor and Batman shifted over simultaneously. The supervisor's look carried the distinct flavor of gazing at an absolute fool, while Batman casually set him aside onto the floor.

"So, you carved that pumpkin?"

A rhetorical question. Would Batman have taken action without first verifying the identity of everyone in the restaurant? He merely hadn't gotten around to confirming whether Ma Zhaodi was truly just an innocent bystander newly arrived in Gotham.

Ma Zhaodi's heart hammered wildly against his ribs. Only when facing that massive black bat directly could one truly comprehend how terrifying the opponent's pressure was. In a mere two minutes, he had brought over a dozen Falcone mobsters holding guns to their knees, leaving them completely immobile. Even with the cover of tonight's thunderstorms, it was more than enough to demonstrate just how formidable he was.

Muay Thai, boxing, taekwondo, judo, ninjutsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu... he mastered all 127 martial arts in the world. Degrees in criminology, law, biology, physics, advanced chemistry, and medicine represented merely the tip of the iceberg of his vast knowledge. Rigorous physical training begun at age eleven, specific dietary regimens, and biofeedback training pushed his body to the absolute peak of normal human physical limits. Tactical genius, interrogation master, the embodiment of fear—these were only a few of his titles.

Batman could almost be described, in a sense, as the perfect human being. Only someone like this could rely on mere flesh and blood to bring Gotham's underworld bosses, assassins, criminals, and those who used ice, fire, schemes, manipulation, magic, mutation, the undead, or whatever else to their knees, before hauling them back to prison or Arkham Asylum.

And now, such a figure was standing right before his eyes. Although he was not yet as sharp and terrifying as he would become in his later years, extracting secrets from Ma Zhaodi's mouth would still be effortless.

"BOOM!"

Another thunderclap exploded outside the window, tearing through the night sky. The lightning illuminated the interior, casting Batman's cold, solemn shadow over Ma Zhaodi and plunging him entirely into darkness.

***

"It's... I carved it. Carving a pumpkin on Halloween isn't illegal—"

"But murder is illegal, and the pumpkin left at the crime scene is equally ugly."

"What do you mean by 'equally ugly'? The locals in Gotham are really lacking in basic manners."

Muttering thus, Ma Zhaodi fished a small pumpkin lantern out of his pocket. The facial features carved onto it were practically neck-and-neck in ugliness with the pumpkin discovered at the scene of Johnny Viti's death.

Yet if one were to ask Batman to judge, the one right before him did indeed seem somewhat more hideous.

"Where did you go after heading out on Halloween night?"

"On the streets, hanging out with the Halloween costume crowds."

Batman's eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a look of dissatisfaction.

Seeing that things were taking a turn for the worse, Ma Zhaodi immediately pleaded for mercy, "Don't hit me, don't hit me! I went to the Diamond District, wearing the pumpkin mask I carved."

"And where is your mask now?"

"Left at home, didn't have time to eat it yet."

"The fire at the factory, did you see it?"

Hearing this question, Ma Zhaodi's heart tightened.