"There have been three missing persons cases in Central City recently. The families of the missing persons gathered at the entrance of the Central City scenic spot to protest against the police's inaction, saying that insufficient police force is not an excuse..."
"The 'Bone-eating Devil' in Coast City is on the rampage again. A 26-year-old female teacher was found to have had her ribs removed from a wooden house in the suburbs. The police are conducting an all-out investigation and have yet to find any effective clues that can identify the suspect..."
"People, please don't panic. People, please don't panic. The Imperial City police force has been fully deployed to search for the 'Streetlight Killer'. The FBI Criminal Investigation Team in Pennsylvania has fully invested in this case..."
"The 'Skin Hunter' in California has been brought to justice. The seven skinning cases he committed can be called the most cruel and crazy cases in the criminal history of California. Next, our reporter will report the case process in detail for you..."
With a "click", one hand pressed the switch of the radio. Gordon withdrew his hand and pressed it on the corner of his eyebrow. He sighed helplessly and sighed: "What's going on? The whole world has started Gotham." melted?"
"Boss, the news in the past week has been really weird. Serial killers are being reported in every state. When I turned on the radio, I thought I had tuned to the wrong station. It was a local radio station in Gotham."
A young police officer sat at his desk, sorting out information, and shook his head. A female police officer next to him put down the phone in her hand and said with some surprise: "In the past week, there seem to be more people everywhere. There are quite a few serial killers, many areas don’t have enough police force, and some places call us and say we have experience and want to learn from it.”
"Where did this group of people come from?" the young male police officer asked in confusion: "And how could they commit crimes like crazy at the same time?"
Gordon's brows also frowned, and he said in a deep voice: "This is definitely not a coincidence. Judging from my many years of working in the industry, although there are many serial murders in various places every year, with such a concentrated time of occurrence, I This is the first time I’ve encountered it.”
The female police officer grinned and said: "Moreover, these serial killers are much crazier than before. In the past, they could do three or four cases, which can be regarded as a brilliant record. But this time, serial killers in several states are... A murderer, he would kill seven or eight people at every turn, and his methods were extremely cruel, as if he was afraid that others would not know how cruel they were."
Gordon sighed. Although he did not continue to speak, he had already made up his mind. He had to go to Batman and ask what was going on.
It was late at night, Gordon had finished all the work for the day, took the car keys, and planned to drive to Wayne Manor to find Bruce, but just as he was about to walk out the door, a dark figure appeared behind him.
"Batman, you scare me every time you come here." Gordon shook his head and turned to look at Batman standing in the shadows of the room.
What surprised Gordon was that Batman was in very bad condition. His body was covered with rainwater, his face was pale as if he had lost too much blood, and even his eyes looked a little hollow.
"Have you paid attention to the recent news?" Batman's low voice sounded. Before Gordon could answer, he said to himself: "Serial murders occur frequently in many places. The number of murderers and the number of crimes committed have increased in a short period of time." It increased more than ten times in just one week.”
"Of course I heard about it." Gordon walked back to his seat and sat down. He took out a few documents, threw them on the table and said, "I originally wanted to go to you and ask you if you knew about this. It seems you don’t know what’s going on.”
"This has something to do with Schiller," Batman said.
Hearing Schiller's name, Gordon's expression froze. He sighed with a complicated expression and said, "He has only been away for a week. I thought a year had passed."
After speaking, Gordon leaned forward, took a pen from the table, fiddled with it in his hand, and then said: "I know that Schiller is guilty. Even if murder is very common in this city, It just goes to show that this city is not normal and criminals must pay for their flouting of the law."
"But I don't think Schiller should be sent to a heavy-duty prison with such a long sentence. Batman, you don't want to know how prisoners are treated in that kind of prison."
"I know that you are all dissatisfied." Batman said: "You think that Schiller did not get a fair trial, and as his most valued student, I did not fight for justice for him."
Gordon shook his head slightly and said: "No one has the responsibility to fight for another person, but I am worried that the hatred for criminals may affect your standard of justice."
Gordon glanced at Batman again and saw that he was not in a good state, so he did not continue.
"Schiller is the leader of these serial killers. He is the founder of a mysterious club that provides a stage for these serial killers to show themselves... He is their shepherd."
When Batman finished speaking, Gordon's hands suddenly tightened. He looked back at Batman and said, "You mean, it was Schiller who drove these serial killers to commit crimes like crazy?"
"On the contrary." Batman stared into Gordon's eyes and said, "It is precisely because Schiller is gone that these serial killers will commit crimes like crazy."
Gordon was stunned for a moment. He was a little unresponsive for a moment, but soon Batman said: "Yesterday, Jonathan Crane, who is also a serial killer, found me and asked me if I knew the whereabouts of Schiller."
"When I told him that Schiller was in jail, he was very excited. Later he told me that once the serial killers think that the owner of the club will not show up again, they will start a spontaneous competition."
"When the sheep lose their shepherd, all the sheep want to be the leader." Batman's face was very serious, and his tone was still very low. He said: "Just yesterday, I learned that Schiller has been Something I’m doing.”
"What's going on?" Gordon asked.
"Schiller is saving the world."
"What????!"
Gordon stared at Batman with wide eyes, as if he didn't know him. He thought he heard him wrong. Just when he opened his mouth to ask again, Batman explained:
"Last night, after Jonathan left, I started investigating information about this mysterious club..."
As Batman spoke, the lights in Wayne Manor slowly turned on. Looking through the bright window, Bruce was meditating at the table in the study.
There were stacks of newspapers in front of him, with dates even going back two years. He spread each newspaper out on the table. After reading it and putting it away, he wrote down all the contents in his mind.
After about three hours of comparison and sorting, Bruce discovered that the so-called newspaper clues that Jonathan provided to him might have been a trick on him. There were no usable clues in these newspapers.
At this point in reasoning and investigation, even if Bruce didn't want to use it, he had to start using exhaustive methods.
Bruce searched his mind for keywords such as Schiller, newspapers, serial killers, and all the words derived from these words. This process took him about two hours.
Just when he was searching for words related to newspapers, Bruce suddenly had an idea. He thought of a keyword, which was "paper."
It just so happened that when Angela was reading Bruce's thesis in Wayne Manor, she printed out a copy. Bruce found the printed copy of his own psychology graduation thesis and began to recall the time when he wrote it.
Of course, during the period when he was writing his thesis, his most vivid memory was that he and Schiller were constantly tormenting each other, correcting some of the most minor flaws in the thesis.
Among them, the most troublesome thing for Bruce is the symbol.
English writing uses half-width symbols, but many delimiters must be followed by half-width spaces. Improper use of commas, delimiters, and connectors will change the semantic meaning. However, long and difficult sentences without delimiters are prone to language errors, and the use of symbols is also Important content of English grammar class.
Bruce's grammar is very good, but everyone who has written a paper knows that when you are confused when writing, it is good to remember the sentence divisions. It is normal to lose a space here and a separation there.
Regarding the issue of symbols alone, Schiller and Bruce had to fight for at least hundreds of rounds. Sometimes the symbols were changed, and after the content was changed in large sections, the new content and symbols had to be changed again. Sometimes the content was changed. Okay, because the sentence structure is not expressed properly, the symbols have to be changed again.
In the process, Bruce fully understood Schiller's habit of using symbols. If you read certain articles in newspapers or magazines based on Schiller's habit, it is obvious that some symbols are used incorrectly.
Ordinary regional daily newspapers and some less formal magazines do not have such strict requirements for submissions. They are completely different from the requirements for academic papers. It is normal to have errors in symbols. Not everyone has a Schiller following them. Later, ask them to use each symbol correctly.
But if you look at the connection between this symbol error and Schiller's club and the possible existence of serial murderers, then the symbol is likely to be an important clue.
After Bruce put all the newspapers and magazines together and compared them repeatedly, he found that the symbol errors in many articles were really regular.
These reports are not only about criminal cases, but also include some messy content, such as advertisements that can be paid for, gossip news, citizen complaints, nutrition science popularization, etc.
Bruce speculated that serial killers published articles with similar symbolic errors in newspapers or magazines to inform serial killers who also knew about the matter through the rules of symbolic errors.
Schiller may have issued different new codes by changing the rules of symbol errors to avoid the prying eyes of some interested people.
"Through deciphering the error patterns of symbols, I learned the content of their exchanges, and I discovered a fact that shocked me very much." In Gordon's office, Batman's tone trembled, and he continued:
"Schiller is not encouraging these serial killers, but controlling them, even preventing them from killing. He is saving ordinary people."
Gordon's eyes slowly widened as he listened to him. He said to Batman in an extremely ridiculous tone: "Do you know what you are talking about??! How can a club between serial killers stop them from killing people?" ??!”
"Sounds ridiculous, right?" Batman shook his head slightly.
"But the fact is that Schiller developed a series of standards for judging serial killers. Only serial killers who meet this standard can be called talented and tasteful serial killers."
"This standard includes but is not limited to, each serial murder case should have its own theme. Massacre without thought is rejected. If there are not enough ideas, it will not work. There is no soul if there is only cruelty and blood."
Batman turned the corners of his mouth downwards, pursed his lips tightly, and then said: "He created an academic circle of serial killers and set extremely strict standards for this circle."
"He used his cruel, ruthless but extremely self-consistent terror theories to require serial killers to treat every case seriously and carefully, requiring them to use a perfect serial murder case to prove their academic status. "
"In order to complete the perfect serial murder case he said, this group of murderers had to spend several years to think of a perfect theme, and another few years to find a perfect victim."
"Then it will take a few more years to formulate a perfect crime plan, and finally it will take a few more years to put this plan into action, and then spend all the rest of your life savoring this perfect serial murder case."
"Becoming the perfect serial killer in Schiller's eyes became their lifelong pursuit. He established a new society and shaped new rules for these madmen who were born with perversion, no sense of morality and shame, and made them I feel ashamed of my own indiscriminate killing."
Batman slowly closed his eyes, raised his head slightly, and his tone was slightly trembling. His pale face was precisely because the trap he originally imagined was deep enough, but there was an abyss deeper than that. .
"He used these serial killers' desire for recognition and perception to form chains that bound them and pulled them forward."
"He allowed the lunatics to shout unbridled in the silence that ordinary people could not see. While controlling them, he made them love him, chant his name, and sing praises for him."
"And his actions actually saved countless victims who should have died due to uncontrolled massacre..."
Batman lowered his head again. In front of his eyes was still the hazy and dreamy moonlight, and Schiller's deep voice. His voice and Schiller's voice gradually overlapped.
"He knew that after he left, these crazy people who had lost control would make me understand what he had done."
"It makes me understand even more that he is not destroying, but saving. He does better than me, saves more than me, and goes further on this road than me."
"I knew he was not a criminal but a true educator."
"He wants to use this to make me love him, respect him, walk on the path he wants to lead me, and willingly become his docile lamb."
hiss……
(End of chapter)
