If it weren't for Gray Mist being so professional, Shiller would have doubted the accuracy of the analysis result. How could this possibly be the ingredient of pale knight's dicine?
The radiation emitted by this substance could even directly cause cancer patients. How could the pale knight have consud it for so long and still be fine?
Then Shiller imdiately realized that Harley Quinn must know sothing, because she was the one who developed this drug.
He visited the hospital where Harley was.
The pregnant Harley was slightly showing now, lying in the hospital bed drinking milk. When Shiller visited, she didn't show surprise, but instead, she had an expression of expectation.
"Do you want to ask about Joker and Nepier?"
Shiller withdrew his query and nodded; he indeed wanted to know what was going on with the pale knight.
Harley rummaged through the drawer of the bedside table and handed Shiller a playing card, then said, "I promised him that I would never give up on him. And I kept my promise."
"A very touching love story, madam, I admire your persistence and courage. But I really want to know what exactly is going on."
"Won't you take a closer look?"
Only then did Shiller look at the playing card, which was battered and the handwriting on it was sloppy. It didn't seem like it was written by the pale knight.
While working at the city hall office, Shiller had seen docunts approved by the pale knight. His handwriting was very beautiful, obviously practiced calligraphy.
Despite the playing card carrying so traces of the pale knight's handwriting style, it was clearly not as neat; the letters were distorted, and it took effort to discern what was written.
Shiller imdiately realized what Harley was hinting at.
If this playing card was written by Nepier before he beca ntally ill, he would have written it earnestly, and not on such a casual playing card—it should have at least been a love letter, since it was a promise written to his loved one.
But the sloppy nature of this card was certainly not his style, which can only an that this might have been written after his illness onset.
However, after Nepier beca ill, he turned into Joker, and Joker wouldn't possibly tell Harley Quinn not to give up on him, which made the existence of this playing card quite strange.
For this, Shiller believed there was only one explanation: the pale knight has always been present, just that he couldn't wrestle bodily control from Joker, so he couldn't appear often.
It was him who was always seeking help from Leha, and Harley managed to develop the dicine that suppressed Joker.
"Do you know Jason?" Shiller asked, "He said that during his abduction by Joker, you helped him."
"Yes, I secretly switched so torture instrunts and gave him so painkillers to help him endure."
"And then you sent him away?"
Harley nodded and said, "Yes. Even though Joker originally did not intend to kill him, he just threw him carelessly in an alley. He would not have survived that way. I managed to send him to Brude Haven."
"So you weren't crazy from start to finish?"
Harley shook her head and said, "No. After Nepier went mad, I was indeed infected by Joker's madness. But Nepier awakened . To save him, I always pretended to be as crazy as him to gain Joker's trust."
"And it was also you who helped the pale knight lock up Penguin Man, right?"
Harley did not deny, she said, "Yes. I have a reliable friend in Brude Haven."
Shiller did not continue to ask, as he could see Harley was not keen on talking. He just silently noted this information, prepared to investigate further later.
"Actually, I ca to ask you about the dication."
"dication?" Harley slightly furrowed her brow.
"Yes, how did you develop that dicine? Do you know the specific ingredients?"
Harley showed a slightly embarrassed expression and said, "Actually, I don't understand pharmacology at all. But I had ample opportunities to experint."
Then she told Shiller how she developed the dicine, which essentially was using the Exhaustion thod.
Harley went into the pharmaceutical storage room of Arkham Psychiatric Hospital, took all the psychiatric dications and fed them to Joker, who seed not at all worried about being cured. Just to see Harley's disappointed face again and again, he ate them.
And just like that, Harley identified a few dications that seed effective, and with Batman's help, she made Joker consu a large amount all at once, and it surprisingly worked.
However, when Shiller asked for the exact nas of the dications, Harley couldn't recall. It was evident that she really didn't understand pharmacology and couldn't rember the complex nas of the dications.
To understand this matter, Shiller went to Arkham Asylum again. It was fortunate that the cara in the drug storage room was working. He sifted through nurous surveillance images and found the footage from when Harley Quinn raided the drug supplies.
At that ti, Harley Quinn was still dressed in her extravagant Harley Quinn costu, but she didn't act like a real madwoman — her movents were brisk, and she was careful not to touch anything else.
However, within this footage, Shiller noticed sothing odd. Harley Quinn casually took two containers from the bottom of a shelf against the wall, not knowing what was inside. They didn't look entirely like modern dications, but she didn't look closely and just put them in a box and took them away.
Shiller personally went to the drug storage room and found that there was still one can left, which was placed at the very bottom of a shelf at the edge of the room. Upon opening it, the contents looked sowhat like soil.
No wonder Gray mist hadn't detected this when scanning the storage room; it just looked like soil, totally unlike any dication.
But when Shiller poured out the soil, he realized that it was darker than the usual soil found in Gotham, indeed resembling the substance they found in their equipnt processed into a special powder form.
Just as Shiller pondered what was special about this substance, he suddenly rembered the map of Arkham Asylum.
He returned to his upstairs office, picked up a sample copy of the Trap Book, and scrutinized the map on the last page.
If he rembered correctly, in the comics, it was in the underground cells of Arkham Asylum where the Joker discovered the remains of General Arkham and the truth of those years.
That is to say, General Arkham was buried here. But according to the truth, there was another person buried here. That was Edmond Wayne, who was killed by Bakar.
There were two skeletons in the basent prison, one of General Arkham and one of Edmond Wayne. Edmond Wayne's skeleton was buried deeper, while General Arkham's body was on the ground.
It didn't make sense. Edmond killed General Arkham, which ans General Arkham died first, Edmond later. How could Edmond be buried deeper than General Arkham?
Could it be that after Bakar killed Edmond, he first dug up General Arkham's body from the surface, buried Edmond deeper, and then returned General Arkham to his original place?
Stacked burial isn't common in Arica, so why would Bakar do such a thing? Surely it wasn't to expect these sworn enemies to continue their strife in Hell?
When Shiller watched it back then, he too was puzzled but assud the scriptwriter sacrificed so logic to maintain suspense. Thinking about it now, the problem was too significant.
Shiller took the map and a flashlight and personally went down to the underground cells. He then discovered that there were quite a few cells in there, and based on the comic storyboard, he couldn't tell which specific cell it was.
After searching around for a long ti, he finally found so spider traces and a horse hair in the most cornered cell and successfully located General Arkham's leg bone depicted in the comic.
He didn't need professional equipnt to tell that this was indeed General Arkham's bone. Then using Gray mist to scan the ground, he indeed found a more intact skeleton. Judging from the body type, it was Edmond Wayne.
If nothing else unexpected, this guy's soul should have ended up in Eitregan's hands. But his physical body appearing here was utterly unreasonable.
In that era, this place wasn't a prison, it was far from the center of Gotham Village and later Gotham City, definitely a place where not even birds would poop. Bakar wouldn't have possibly fought a duel with Edmond here.
So, who brought Edmond's skeleton here and then buried it?
Although it was unbelievable, after eliminating all other possibilities, only one remained — General Arkham.
General Arkham must have brought Edmond's body here, buried it, and then died here himself.
Shiller stood in the center of the cell, envisioning a tall man continuously digging a grave. A body lay at his feet, none other than Edmond Wayne.
After a while, he tossed the body into the grave and filled it with earth. He then sat in the cell, leaning quietly against the wall, becoming a pile of dry bones as ti passed.
Later, the constructors of Arkham Asylum discovered the unnad skeleton, but seeing its ancient appearance, they didn't care, just dug a shallow pit, threw it in, and built over the floor with bricks.
In Shiller's mory, this absurd speculation increasingly made sense.
Because it was Edmond Wayne who killed General Arkham, Bakar wasn't involved. So, whether General Arkham was dead or not was known only by Edmond.
Moreover, judging by Edmond's subsequent actions, he had uncovered the conspiracy of the Order Sect. Did he figure it out on his own? Or did soone tell him?
Shiller suspected that General Arkham's so-called corruption and decay were just a disguise. He might have already sensed the Order Sect's sches against Gotham Village, and during the duel sought by Edmond Wayne, revealed the truth to him.
This led Edmond Wayne to completely terminate his cooperation with the Order Sect, going against them with the East India Company. He then made a deal with the demon Eitregan to construct the dam and flood Gotham Village, all to prevent the prophecy from coming true.
But why, why did Edmond choose to let General Arkham bring his body here? What was so special about Arkham Asylum?
"I think I know," said Gray mist, "Follow ."
The gray fog slowly sank towards the floor, moving past Edmond's grave and continuing downward.
Soon, a vast dark hole appeared in front of Shiller. Inside the pit, he saw countless black crystals, just like the special material in the equipnt, densely clinging to the soil, spreading outward from the center.
It was a massive teor crater.
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