A heavy burlap sack was lifted up, with Poison Ivy and Peter both crawling into the carriage. As the sack was opened, yet another body was revealed.
No, not a corpse; Robin could faintly hear the third person's breathing. Apparently due to Poison Ivy not having night vision capability, they brought along an emergency flashlight to illuminate the darkness inside the carriage.
Under this light, Robin recognized the person who was tightly bound, mainly by the black mask on his face.
Why is Black Mask here? Wasn't he dead?
Black Mask's mouth was sealed with tape while his body was wrapped with electric wires. Judging from the bruises, he had been tied up for at least half a month. Even without seeing his eyes, Robin could sense his terror from his body language.
Robin never thought he would empathize with a super-villain. However, at this moment, he was somewhat terrified himself. Peter Parker had kidnapped Black Mask half a month earlier.
In fact, regarding Black Mask's death, Robin's investigation had been more thorough than Batman's. He had been preoccupied with this case, which had prevented him from meeting with Peter.
Robin always wanted to prove himself in front of Batman, to demonstrate that he could independently solve cases. Black Mask's death may not have been a big case, but he was a noted villain. Robin believed that if he could complete this investigation on his own, it would prove his capabilities to Batman.
However, Gordon obviously did not prioritize this case. Although everyone could see that Black Mask did not commit suicide by jumping from a building, he was rather pushed off, Gordon simply treated this as a vendetta case resulting from a mob power struggle.
So by the time Robin arrived at the scene, unlike in the past, Gordon did not wait for Batman to secure the scene. Instead, in order to prevent any retaliation from Black Mask's subordinates, he had the body moved early on.
At this crucial moment, the Riddler emerged, and Robin was assigned by Batman to join Peter in capturing the Riddler.
Batman's excuse at the time was, Peter had just arrived and was not familiar with the roads in Gotham, so Robin needed to help him find the Riddler hiding in the city's streets.
Without mentioning that Peter had the Sky-eye system and could find him by himself, wasn't the timing too coincidental?
By the time Robin wanted to go to the morgue to view Black Mask's body again, Gordon reluctantly stated that the corrupt cops inside the station had already disposed of the body.
When Robin discussed the Black Mask case with Gordon at that time, the information he received was that the corrupt police officers who were involved might be Penguin Man's men.
Robin also suspected Penguin Man, but the cunningness of the super villain surpassed his estimation. Neither the surveillance cameras nor the Sky-eye system could capture any image of Penguin Man entering or leaving Black Mask's hideout.
It now seemed that the one who had been entering and leaving Black Mask's hideout was not Penguin Man, but Peter Parker. This made sense.
This guy could wall-crawl, swing spider silk, and was enormously strong. Dodging a surveillance camera would be a breeze, right?
And one final question, what was the purpose of kidnapping Black Mask?
Then Peter, in a very cooperative manner, tore off the tape stuck to Black Mask's mouth and said to him, "Mr. Black Mask, if you do not want to be locked up for such a long time again, surrender the criminal evidence against Penguin Man to me. I need your help, please."
"You madman!!!" Black Mask screamed, "You goddamn, shameless, evil madman!!!"
"You might want to reconsider, Mr. Sionis. Think about the concentrated fear gas capsule in your lungs, capable of completely burning off your brain in 0.02 seconds…"
Black Mask jerked spasmodically in place, and after taking a deep breath, he said, "Damn Scarecrow, God damn, God damn…"
Peter half-knelt on the ground looking at Black Mask's face and said, "Penguin Man is planning to renege on his promise, and Professor Crane needs some help to show him the price of betrayal."
Black Mask gritted his teeth and said, "I can give you the evidence, but only after you release me."
"You know you're in no position to negotiate."
Black Mask took a deep sigh and said, "Tell Jonathan…I took the fall this time. He has a good student. Go to my safehouse on Rigel Street, find the tape in the second row of the bookshelf…"
Robin was completely stunned.
The character relationships revealed in the previous conversation were too complex. Even for him, he needed a moment to process.
Which means, this Peter Parker who suddenly appeared is in fact the student of Scarecrow Jonathan Crane.
Scarecrow must have been preparing his fear gas city annihilation plan for some time, so it's not impossible that he would have trained a student beforehand to infiltrate Batman's operations.
Several weeks ago, Peter Parker suddenly showed up by Batman's side. Perhaps he had helped him solve a case, or perhaps he had offered some other help, which allowed Batman to discover his talent and logically made him his assistant.
Then, under the guise of interning, Peter Parker started to familiarize himself with Gotham's landscape and the status quo of the city, while also setting his sights on Black Mask, Penguin Man's long-time adversary. He found a way to make Black Mask fake his own death and kidnap him.
And all of this was, in fact, to help Scarecrow perfect his plan. As long as Black Mask could provide evidence of Penguin Man's crimes, then Scarecrow could threaten Penguin Man into cooperating with him.
After Black Mask was kidnapped, Penguin Man could not be sure if Scarecrow had obtained the evidence. Therefore, he feigned cooperation and provided some assistance to Scarecrow.
Now that Penguin Man is becoming restless, Peter Parker went back to find the detained Black Mask again, wanting to get the real evidence.
Thinking of the two military trucks that had just appeared, Robin could confirm that the help Penguin Man offered to Scarecrow was to provide military vehicles and arms. This was the capital Scarecrow's team used to cause havoc in Gotham City.
Meanwhile, from their conversation, Peter mentioned that he had implanted a capsule of concentrated fear gas in Black Mask's body, and this had to be Scarecrow's handiwork.
And Peter Parker had been by Batman's side for several weeks now...Would Batman have been...?
Robin desperately tried to reach the communicator on his arm to warn Batman. This operation to destroy Gotham was far from simple.
There was a mastermind behind the scenes who had been setting up plans weeks in advance. He schemed behind the scenes, strategized every move, and spun a dark web, vowing to destroy Gotham City and the Batman family.
All sorts of clues swept like wind through Robin's mind. Just before he lost consciousness, he watched as the truck door closed once again, and silently pronounced the name of the terrifying mastermind in his mind -- "Super villain Scarecrow!"