The mont they saw the gigantic broccoli, the trio stood there dumbfounded. Zatanna was the most puzzled by the current situation. She even ran towards the broccoli in disbelief.
This enormous broccoli was akin to the World Tree described in many literary works, with its sky-scraping height and lush leaves and branches. Up close, its massively thick stem would probably take hundreds of people to encompass.
Zatanna really couldn't fathom how to confirm if it was genuine broccoli or not. All she could do was lean in and take a whiff. Then she displayed a disgusted expression, coughed twice, backed up two steps and declared, "It's definitely broccoli. From childhood, whenever this stuff appeared on the dining table, my dad would try every trick in the book to get to eat it..."
The most severely injured Constantine also staggered over and said, "How should I describe this? It's within reasoning but beyond expectations. I once heard Shiller's friend Victor tell a story about a ti they were dining in a restaurant. Shiller stord into the kitchen and shot the broccoli..."
Zatanna raised an eyebrow in confusion and said, "Really? Although broccoli is hard to eat and I've disliked it since childhood, would soone really shoot a vegetable?"
Constantine shrugged and said, "You've been away from Gotham for too long."
Batman, after spending a mont recovering his strength, also stepped forward and looked up at the trunk of the broccoli.
In truth, he wasn't averse to eating broccoli. Batman doesn't finick over food. However, he was aware, that theoretically, so people might not dislike certain vegetables due to pickiness. The genes of the human race are fascinating, and have evolved to a point where eating certain vegetables would induce different taste sensations.
"Shiller once ntioned he was severely allergic to broccoli," said Batman. "I'm not sure if his allergy is psychological or physiological. If it's the latter, then this can explain it."
Zatanna, utterly drained, wanted to lean against sothing, but the impact from the colossal broccoli sowhat inhibited her. With the last of her strength, she distanced herself from the broccoli's trunk, sat on the ground, took a deep breath and said, "Are we really going to use a piece of broccoli to deal with the professor? We can't possibly throw broccoli at him, can we?"
Zatanna envisioned the scene and made a disgusted face. "Oh my goodness, I can't do this. It's way too an to throw broccoli at soone. My God, if anyone did that to , I'd go crazy!"
"Unfortunately, soone may have really done this before." Batman spoke, turning the attention of the other two towards him. He asked, "Do you guys rember the 'special counterasures' ntioned in the dical records?"
Batman pulled out the cookie box again, extracted the patient records and pointed at them. He said, "Look here. Every ti Shiller had an episode, it was ntioned in the dical records that specific asures were taken..."
"If Shiller's strength is truly 2~3 tis my own as Constantine suggests, then it's practically impossible for a normal person to subdue him without harming him. Yet, every ti they implented these specific asures, they would imdiately take him back to the observation room."
"Don't tell these "specific asures" are broccoli?" Constantine revealed an absurd expression, saying: "They wouldn't have actually encircled him with loads of broccoli to immobilize Shiller, right?"
"Hard to say." Batman imagined the scene and pursed his lips, as if trying to suppress any other expression.
"But not every personality of Shiller is afraid of broccoli. Initially, when Victor and Shiller were dining together, he did see Shiller eating broccoli. This implies that he may possess personalities that are not afraid of broccoli." Batman slightly furrowed his eyebrows as he explained.
"Hold on, if we are seeing the thing he's most afraid of in this answer room and he has other personalities that aren't afraid of broccoli, doesn't this an that we've been rotating in one of his personalities the whole ti?" Zatanna got up from the ground, frowning. "How is that possible? Haven't we been traversing and jumping through mories?"
"You haven't really been in the Tower of Thought, so you don't know its structure. There are many layers in the Tower of Thought, and to access between the layers, one must take the elevator. Without the permission of the elevator operator, it is impossible to cross layers." Batman had a clear understanding of this matter.
Zatanna was just about to open her mouth when a familiar voice suddenly echoed from above: "How did you get here?!"
"How did you get... Oh my God! Get out! Leave that room! How can you get so close to that broccoli?!!"
Upon hearing the familiar voice of Professor Shearer, Batman did not move away from the broccoli as instructed. Instead, he moved with lightning speed to the thick trunk of the broccoli and pressed his back against it.
As expected, the next second, Shearer's figure appeared in the room. Dressed in a suit and holding an umbrella, he looked at the three people standing next to the broccoli with a puzzled expression.
"How did you get here? The intruders I sensed in my room earlier... were you?!"
But Constantine was even more astonished than him. He said, "Shouldn't you be fighting with All Things Green right now? How are you here?!!"
Unexpectedly, Shearer's expression imdiately darkened. As they stood facing each other at a distance, ti began to rewind.
Like a movie being rewound, the figures of the three detectives stepped out of the room. They flew backward through the passageways they ca from, returned to three different mory spaces, and then retracted all the way back to the Spirit Realm.
At the ti they decided to delve into Shearer's soul, Shearer was indeed confronting All Things Green.
He stood in the center of the green chamber, in front of Pala, holding up his umbrella as he addressed All Things Green, "So it's you. I didn't expect that the first decent opponent I would encounter... would be the embodint of plants..."
"I guess you went through all this trouble to try and coerce Pala,"
"First, using the rainwater to poison Gotham, creating the illusion of mutant plants, then personally setting up the scenario in which her classmates abandon Pala, even wanting to use her as bait."
"From this incident, we see just how ugly human nature can be. The classmates who usually laugh and jest with her not only fail to help her in a critical mont, they even want to harm her. But the plant that are usually silent and reticent, would not harm her. When contrasted, who would a common college woman choose?"
"You wanted to exploit this contrast to break through Pala's psychological defenses and turn her into your willing agent. However, unforeseenly, she still didn't choose you, thus you had to fabricate mories within her mory space to deceive her into signing the pact."
A complex emotion of doubt ca from All Things Green after hearing these words. Apparently, the people in front of them were not a single consciousness, but a consolidation of many. At this mont, Shiller heard a female voice filled with doubt, "...What are you talking about?"
"All I can say is, you make excellent use of the human weaknesses. If Pala were just a typical college woman, you probably would have accomplished your goal a long ti ago."
"No," said All Things Green. "I ant, what you just said... That plan, what was it? What do you an I utilized the rainwater to infect humans and plants, and then what's that about creating so sort of event?"
"Your denial tactics are very juvenile." Shiller stared at the ivy in front of him. "Feigning ignorance is useless. You should pay more attention to the curse on you."
The responses from All Things Green grew increasingly confused. It wasn't pretending—it truly was confused. The fact was, it didn't plan any sche; it was rely passing by, hoping to gain an advantage.
All Things Green indeed set its sights on Pala early on, but Pala wasn't the only choice. There are many entities that together comprise All Things Green, such as the Tree Committee and The Queen of May, and this ti, The Queen of May, who oversees the vines, was the one eyeing Pala.
Even for The Queen of May, Pala wasn't the only choice. Their tactic in choosing agents broadly spread the net to catch as many fish as possible—cultivating multiple targets at once and then selecting the best agent among them.
The reason why The Queen of May was just passing by is that when the plants in Gotham city began to mutate, The Queen of May was the first to sense it.
The Queen of May originally just wanted to take a look and see what was going on, but then found out that one of the agents she had once chosen, was in danger.
She is not a human, she doesn't feel sympathy for humans, but she highly values Pala's potential and does not wish to lose a candidate for her agent. Therefore, she controlled the vines to save Pala, and at the sa ti, entered her psychological world, hoping to reach a pact with Pala.
Simply put, The Queen of May was there to take advantage of the situation. She had just co across Pala in a vulnerable state. After entering the psychic world, she found that Pala's potential was even better than she had expected, and instantly wanted to confirm the placent, but unexpectedly, she faced resistance from Pala.
The Queen of May does not really understand the human tactic of temptation, nor does she think a re human being can resist her will, which is why her approach seed more like kidnapping than recruiting.
From Shiller's perspective, however, all of this seed very much like a conspiracy. As he once said, he's not sure whether the other side is so despicable, but he is.
Shiller is accustod to take advantage of human weaknesses and set them up. So, as an observer, after seeing all the events playing out, he naturally suspected that All Things Green was the culprit.
Besides, if he were in the position of All Things Green and wanted to coerce Pala into becoming his spokesperson, what would he do?
For humans, trust and security are important emotional supports. If he wanted Pala to wholly lean towards the plant side, then he would need to first shatter her trust in her fellow humans, making her feel unsafe in human society.
Then, replace the feeling of safety she derives from her own kind—humans—with the ones that protected her—plants—in a mont of crisis.
From Shiller's perspective, the logic behind this setup is very clear. He would do the sa.
Also, the motivation was quite clear. Shiller knew that in the comics, All Things Green had once tried to make Poison Ivy Pala his new spokesperson, but that effort was rejected by Pala.
This fact proves two things: first, Pala indeed has the potential to beco the spokesperson for All Things Green, which values her highly.
Second, if the candidate refuses very firmly, then All Things Green cannot adopt too forceful a ans, and cannot simply take control of the other party.
Therefore, the motivation erges: it is certain that All Things Green set a trap because Pala consistently refused to beco its agent, thus using tainted rainwater and seemingly mutant plants to put Pala into danger and break her down psychologically.
In short, Shiller situated himself in the place of All Things Green and found it perfectly normal to plan out such a sche—one as intricate as stead dumplings served for vinegar.
But The Queen of May was bewildered. She was just passing by, hoping to seize a good deal. How did she beco the main culprit?
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