Chapter Forty-Eight: The Fake Original

The results of the Iceberg Restaurant can only be described as nothing. Jason was a little discouraged, but Bruce seemed to get used to it. On the way back to the city, Bruce seemed to be thinking about something, silent all the way, and Jason's little head was full of all kinds of imagination.

Penguin Man, Jason knew nothing more about him, and it was only after coming to Bruce that he began to get to know the big guy a little.

There are countless legends about these bigwigs in the lower society of Gotham, but the Penguin is the least one. He's not known for his brutality like Black Mask, he's not as unusual as Poison Ivy, and he bears no resemblance to the mad clown, and the Penguin is rumored to be an invisible man at the bottom of Gotham.

Jason once thought that the penguin man was a guy who liked to dress up as a penguin, don't you think Catwoman just likes to dress up like a cat? But her personality is also quite cat-like.

Jason had always wondered why a criminal liked to dress up as a penguin. Wouldn't it be more courageous to change to a bald eagle?

After Jason first saw the Penguin on Bruce's computer, he finally learned that the Penguin Man was called the Penguin Man solely because of his short and fat stature, the way he walked, and the hooked nose on his face that resembled a bird's beak.

Jason once asked Bruce why other criminals like to nickname themselves for traits that reflect their strengths, such as Riddler, Poison Ivy, or Freezer, while Penguins call themselves by their flaws.

From Bruce's mouth, Jason learned that the man with the surname of one of the four major families of Gotham was no better or worse than himself when he was a child, at least Jason's birth would not make others have any unrealistic expectations of him.

He was born with the family's high expectations, but his almost deformed body made him a family shame.

Jason was initially sympathetic to the penguins, but those fledgling sympathies vanished as soon as he saw the penguins' criminal record.

"I can understand that he went to get back from the people who bullied him, but why did he bully those weak people like him?"

Jason expressed incomprehension of the penguin's behavior of listing everyone as the target of revenge, and even more incomprehensible about the penguin's behavior of oppressing the weak.

"Well, little wings, although I can't understand that guy anymore, I can't understand your doubling back behavior either"

Dick's eyes twitched as he retorted to the point of Jason's words.

"Of course you have to take it back after being beaten."

Jason's answer was so bold that Dick couldn't continue the conversation.

Jason was playing various small theaters in his head when he wondered about the unfamiliar environment outside the window.

"Batman, this is not the way back."

"Let's go somewhere first"

Then there was silence all the way, and Jason suddenly felt that he could understand why Dick's chatter had run away from home.

The Batmobile drove to the vicinity of an ordinary-looking apartment building, hid the car, and went to the bottom of one of the ordinary-looking apartment buildings with Jason.

"What are you doing here?"

Bruce didn't answer Jason's question, and walked over to a small separate door and scanned what looked like a walkie-talkie with the supercomputer on his wrist for a while, before hearing the door lock click slightly.

After walking in, Jason realized why this ordinary-looking small iron door was locked with such a high-tech lock.

It is one of the warehouses used by the police to temporarily store smuggled goods, and the small room is full of various goods. Jason tiptoed down a small box from a stack of boxes and opened it to find it full of jewelry.

"Robin, don't move"

Batman's voice came from the front, and Jason put the box in his hand back to its original position after covering it, and hurriedly followed.

In the dark, the two men slowly searched for something in the room full of goods, and finally Bruce stopped in front of the pile of goods in the innermost part of the room.

When he opened the cargo box, the contents of which Jason had seen, were the things smuggled by the penguin people in the bat computer, and the parchment was so tattered that it looked like it would crumble into ashes at the slightest touch. Jason couldn't understand why anyone would like to collect things from the grave.

Bruce reached out and took the parchment roll out of the box and analyzed it with the computer on his wrist, but Jason was surprised by the results - the parchment was fake.

"Fake?"

Jason looked at the worn-out scroll in disbelief.

"Yes, it's fake, it's an artificially made effect"

Bruce went on to analyze something else, and the conclusion was the same.

“..... So, isn't there one more crime of the penguin people for counterfeiting antique fraud? ”

"No, when I was caught by the police, it was indeed the real thing"

Bruce was convinced of that.

"Huh?"

Jason was confused.

"Someone in the police is working with the penguins"

“... Did you replace the real thing with a fake? ”

"Right"

The corruption of Gotham is simply a deep-rooted and unshakable existence, regardless of the profession, place and work environment.

"Did we come all the way here to confirm that these things have been replaced with fake ones?"

"Things are fake, but content is not"

With Bruce's knowledge of the Penguin people, he is bound to make a perfect copy of the real thing. And his purpose was the contents of this parchment scroll.

After scanning all the contents of the parchment scroll with the scanner on his wrist, and scanning all the carvings on the clay statue of the woman's bust, he left the place with Jason.

Back in the Batcave, Bruce immediately began to use the bat computer to parse the scanned content.

Jason sat on the sidelines, watching the patterns that were originally still engraved on the sculpture gradually unfold on the computer, and the original individual patterns gradually combined into a whole, although there were still gaps, but this picture looked very like...

"This looks like a constellation chart"

Jason spoke his mind.

"That's right, astronomy in ancient Egypt was very developed"

The computer is still processing the patterns on the surface of the pottery sculpture, and as the patterns are more and more clearly interpreted, an astronomical map from ancient times is more and more clearly presented in front of Jason.

Looking at this astronomical map from the ancient period, Jason thought of the power gem from outer space again.

"Bruce, do you think that Holy Heart has anything to do with this astronomical map?"

Jason's words made Bruce fluster, but soon his answer reached Jason's ears:

"That's what we're looking for right now"