The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 175
"Father, you are here."

Schiller stood up from his seat, went up to meet him, and shook hands with the old priest. The old priest looked up at the theater and said with emotion: "I haven't been here for a long time. I didn't expect someone to invite me now." I'm here."

With that said, he followed Schiller and sat in the first row of seats closest to the stage. There was another person who was seated earlier, and that was the godfather Falcone who sat in the innermost seat.

He just turned his head and glanced at the priest and said, "Do you still remember? In our time, the lights here were brilliant, and my favorite opera at that time was "La Traviata."

"My favorite is St. Louis. At that time, both shows were so popular that there were so many seats here that you couldn't even buy tickets."

The three sat in the empty old theater, on the dilapidated stage, the thick dust turned the curtain into a blackened crimson, and the gold thread on it had lost that shining luster. Most of the light bulbs in the circle are also off.

"But I still like today's show better, what shall we call it?" Schiller turned his head to look at the two, Falcone was holding a cigar, while the fire was flickering, he exhaled a puff of smoke and said: "" How about Easter?"

"I think it's more appropriate to call it "The Clown's Soul"."

"Why? Clown? Do you mean the kind in the circus? Gotham City Hall did have a circus to perform, but that was a long time ago."

Schiller shook his head and didn't answer.

He said: "I invite you two to come here to hear your stories."

Falcone sighed, and the old godfather said, "Let Daniel explain to you."

Falcone and Schiller looked at the old priest sitting in the middle together.

The old priest smiled and said, "I used to be a member of the owl court, but that was a long time ago."

The voice of the old priest Daniel was full of nostalgia, and he said: ""I have said it before, when I came to this land, it was full of vitality, and I was kind to others, so I had some prestige among the gangsters, and many people were willing to sell it. I save face. "

"At this time, the group of little birds came to me. They were far from being as powerful as they are today. They told me that they were willing to share the secret of eternal life with me. I showed great interest and joined them."

The old priest leaned his back on the back of the chair. He raised his head slightly and looked towards the top of the stage, where the moonlight from the windows was extraordinarily bright. His voice passed through the falling moonlight and spread far away.

"At that time, they didn't have these killers, they were just a gathering of powerful people, but later, they discovered something very special in Gotham."

"It's 'wine,' right?"

"That's right, they discovered that there is a mysterious water source in the underground of Gotham. It smells like fine wine and makes people intoxicated. People who smell this smell have their wounds healed and even become younger. gone."

"Eternal life and immortality, what a beautiful word, no one can refuse such a temptation, so the Owl Court launched a plan to discover and decipher the secret of this water source, and use it, and then obtain true eternal life."

"It's called, Project Water."

"But at that time, the plan didn't go well. People who risked drinking this liquid were crazy. In the end, they had no choice but to crack it from the perspective of religion, so they came to me."

"I knew from the very beginning that they were just trying to use me, but that's okay, I wanted to use them too."

The old priest made a sign of the cross on his chest and said: "At that time, I felt that I followed the Lord's will and wanted His glory to save this land. If it cannot be done by ordinary methods, then another method can be used. The Lord will Forgive me."

"They used the group of European nobles to help me build a church on the ground of the water source. After that, the owl court killed them."

"The manor you live in now is what they left behind."

"So they didn't move away, but were killed?"

"That's right, the Court of Owls lied that they left, but in fact, no one who participated in the construction of the church could leave here alive. The Court of Owls will not expose the secret of eternal life to any risk."

"So, I stayed in the church and guarded there, watching Gotham people come and go, generation after generation die."

"You always miss the point." Falcone flicked his cigar and said, "This is not a church sermon."

"Don't say that, Godfather, today is Easter, let's be patient about it." Schiller made a gesture of please continue, and the old priest nodded to him with a smile.

"Later, I deciphered part of the secrets of fine wine and used it to obtain special abilities."

"So you noticed something different about me when I first went to church?""

The old priest shook his head and said, "Actually, my ability is not as powerful as you think. Maybe it was okay before, but now, I am old. If I am not in the church or standing on the top of the wine pool, I am a Old, ordinary people."

"But it was true at that time. When you first came to the church, I saw something different in a slightly drunk state, so I suggested to Falcone to ask him to find you to solve it. His son's problem."

Schiller squinted his eyes and looked at the stage. In his sight, the old curtain was slowly opened. The old priest stood in the center of the stage. Behind him was the crucifix of the cathedral, and at the bottom of his feet was a rippling wine pool.

He stood in the center of the church, and the fine wine floating in the air made him slightly drunk. In the hazy sight of the old godfather, when Schiller walked in, he just merged with the setting sun.

The golden sun's light scorched the eyes, and after the light disappeared, a round of sun's shadow was left behind Schiller, which was just the deepest black after the sunset.

Schiller smiled, lowered his head and said: "Actually, I have always been a little strange. How could His Excellency Falcone invite me, a dangerous person, to be your son's tutor? After all, anyone who sees my resume will not Would have liked me to touch their offspring."

"You mean you track down serial murderers? Even without Daniel's recommendation, I don't care about this kind of thing. It's common in Gotham. There are all kinds of lunatics here. I'd rather have a lunatic than a stupid one. "

"Let's talk about Evans. To be honest, when he came to me, I was a little worried about him, because I could clearly feel that something was wrong with him."

Falcone sighed and said, "I think you should have seen that he has two personalities."

"To be honest." Schiller looked at Father Daniel, and he said, "Before that, that is, before Evans came to me this time, I didn't realize that there was a second personality in him at all. How did you do it? of?"

"Because at that time, Alberto was indeed dead, and Evans was the only one. Of course, you wouldn't feel anything. The personality you felt later was the revived Alberto."

"" Do you think Alberto is No.1? As soon as the godfather finished asking this question, he replied by himself: "No, Evans is indeed No. 1, and he is my son." "

The godfather sighed again. He felt that he had sighed too much recently, but he still said: "When Evans was 6 years old, his mother passed away. I was immersed in the grief of losing a lover and neglected him. care."

"One night, he sneaked out to play by himself, and when he came back, he was no longer him."

"...by the Court of Owls?"

"How do you think the Court of Owls developed into what it is today?" Falcone asked rhetorically, "Is it just based on their cult theory? Not everyone agrees with that."

"This is how they lure the descendants of some upper-class people, wash away their personalities, erase their memories, and then build a more extreme personality that will eventually surrender to them."

"That's Alberto?"

"That's right, my child disappeared and became the minion of the owl, but I am different from those ignorant idiots. I will not mistake this change for the child's rebellious period."

"This is their common method. No parent will doubt that their children have been replaced. They will only think that the change in their children is due to their age."

The Court of Owls had one of the biggest holes, and Falcone took another puff on his cigar before saying, "They made a perfect personality, a perfect man who could be Godfather."

"I can understand what they want to do. They have prepared a perfect heir for me. As long as he takes over the position of Godfather, Falcone and the Twelve Family will be in their pocket. They are very confident , Alberto will satisfy me."

"But that's what made me very suspicious, because before that, Evans was more like his mother than me."

"Sounds a bit absurd, doesn't it?" The godfather moved his fingers and said, "At that time, I also thought I was crazy, and I would suspect that my own son had been replaced..."

"When he stabbed me with a knife, I finally lost hope."

"I am in great pain, but I can't find evidence. From a scientific point of view, I can't explain this matter, so I can only turn to faith."

Then, the voice of Father Daniel sounded: "When Carmine came to the church, I saw a lost father. When he told me about these pains, I didn't think it was a joke."

Daniel sighed, his tone was a little guilty, and he said: "The method of cleaning memory and replacing personality comes from the water source underground in the church. That is the method I found. In order to achieve my goal, I handed over this method to to the court."

"But after seeing Carmine, I knew. What I did was horribly wrong."

"Those so-called statements about joining the court in order to spread the glory of the Lord are just excuses for me to be tempted by eternal life."

"When a desperate father stood in front of me..." Daniel's voice began to tremble, and he said, "The father saw his son being crucified, bleeding all over the ground, and I became an accomplice , became Judas with the purse in his hand..."

"I know, it can't go on like this, I have to stop it."

"So you used the same method to wash away Alberto's personality and regain Evans' personality?"

"Fine wine has another use, which is resurrection. I didn't recover Evans' personality, but resurrected him."

"so……"

"Alberto has also been revived."

"Remember the water source plan I mentioned earlier?" Father Daniel turned to look at Schiller, and said, "This plan is more than that."

"Over the years, the Court of Owls has made a lot of people have very thin wine running in their blood by polluting drinking water or rainwater."

"Those heavy rains a few days ago woke them up."

"Why did they choose to start the water source plan at this time? Although some people did go crazy in that heavy rain, the number is far from enough to shake the city."

"They must have other plans."

"One more question, what happened to the funeral? If it's just a replacement personality, there's no need to make it so grand, right?"

"That was the idea I gave him. I know the Owl Court very well, and I know how they control the city. They have a special metal in their hands that can resist the effects of fine wine." Father Daniel said.

"I suggest that Carmine manipulated the transportation of their raw materials, so that the shipment could not arrive on time, and many people did not get effective umbrellas."

"Are you trying to outwit the court?"

"No, we know that the falsification of brotherhood can only be hidden from ordinary people, but not from the court of owls."

"I'm just warning them." Carmine said as he squeezed his cigar, "I know their little tricks, and I'm not afraid of killing people. If they insist on pressing forward, then we will be caught."

"If they dare to touch my son again, I will make Gotham an empty city."

In the godfather's tone, Schiller heard the ferocity of Gotham's underground king in that glorious era, and the determination of a father.

(End of this chapter)