Despite the Batman's relationship with the police in this universe not being particularly tense, it was still unlikely he'd sit in Arkham's control room, watching surveillance footage with Gordon for an hour or two.

Therefore, while downloading the recordings, he chose to skim through the previous footage left by Brother Jue, fast-forwarding through it on the screen.

Unsurprisingly, when the scene of Feng Bujue gesturing at the surveillance camera flashed by, Batman asked Gordon to rewind the recording and slow it down… eventually freezing the frame on Brother Jue's smile.

"What does he mean by this?" Gordon muttered, watching the screen. "That gesture… is it a bird? Or an eagle? Is he implying something?"

"That's… a bat…" Batman replied in a deep voice, simultaneously removing his device from the computer's port (you can assume he has a bat-USB drive). It seemed the download was complete. "He's making that gesture at the camera, which means he's inviting me to join the game."

"Wait…" Gordon paused, doubtful. "How did he know you'd see this recording?"

"I would have seen it sooner or later," Batman replied, "because you're here…"

Gordon pondered the meaning of those words, and after a moment, he understood.

The "hand shadow" gesture was common in the "hand shadow" game, usually representing a bird or an eagle—something anyone could think of. Gordon's initial guess was based on this. Taking it further, "hand shadow" itself was a game that used light and shadow, a projection source, and a projected source to create illusory images.

Extending that thought, one would realize… Jack wasn't so much hinting at "bat" as he was hinting at the "Bat-Signal."

Assuming Batman hadn't come to Arkham at that moment, nor was he watching the recording with Gordon, it wouldn't change anything; because at least Gordon would definitely see the recording, and he would watch it repeatedly and analyze it… With Gordon's abilities, it was only a matter of time before he guessed the true meaning of the gesture. And once he understood, he would go to the police station's rooftop, turn on the Bat-Signal, and notify Batman.

In other words, when this "Jack" made the gesture at the camera, he had already considered…"This information is for Gordon"; logically speaking, the police should be the first to see this recording.

Of course, he had also considered the situation of "Batman seeing it directly" as it was now. In terms of outcome, there was no difference, and in terms of process, it simplified things… because Batman could definitely understand the meaning immediately.

"What is this guy trying to do…" Gordon, belatedly realizing this, became solemn. His experience and intuition told him… he had encountered an unusual and quite tricky criminal.

However, when Gordon asked that question and turned around, Batman, who had been standing behind him, had already vanished.

Only Gordon remained in the room, as if he were talking to himself.

"Hah…" Two seconds later, Gordon shrugged and sighed helplessly, complaining, "Compared to your entrance… this way of leaving is even more annoying…"

…

At the same moment, in Gotham's outskirts, inside a sewer.

Feng Bujue was holding an [Oxygen Snorkel] in his mouth, moving forward at a jogging pace.

When leaving the asylum, he and Kevin got into the same car and deliberately drove off in front of the recently released escapees.

Brother Jue had naturally calculated that… those escapees would be captured within half a day; and when those guys were caught, they would definitely be asked, "How did the people who let you go escape?" At that time, at least the vast majority of prisoners would answer in unison, "They drove away." If they were clear-headed and had good memories, they might even mention the car's color and license plate number.

In this way, the police's investigation would be directed towards the idea of "the suspect escaping by car."

But in reality… ten minutes after the car left the asylum, Feng Bujue got out in the middle of a road with no surveillance cameras; before getting out, he also gave Kevin the order to "continue driving towards Metropolis (there are road signs along the way)."

As for Brother Jue himself, he used [Treading the Void]'s levitation ability to run in the opposite direction without leaving any footprints. In less than ten minutes, he found the location he had recently seen on the road sign—a swampy area. As he expected… there was a sewer outlet with a diameter of over two meters here.

"Before long… the police should find that car, right?" Brother Jue, while running, wasn't idle. His current running speed was also carefully calculated—moving forward at this speed wouldn't cause too much physical exertion, and he would also have time to react to any sudden situations. Furthermore, he could spare a considerable amount of energy to think. "Kevin's existence time is 45 minutes. About half of that time had passed before he and I split up. I told him to drive as safely as possible, at a speed of at least sixty kilometers per hour. Considering that there are almost no traffic lights on the suburban roads… when Kevin disappears from the car, the car will have traveled at least twenty kilometers.

"Adding up the police's reaction speed, the time it takes to arrest the prisoners and extract information from them, and the time it takes for them to retrieve the traffic department's surveillance footage and send people to chase after them… even if their efficiency is worse than I expected, they should discover the already empty car within ten minutes at the latest…

"Since Kevin suddenly turned into white light and disappeared, no one will step on the brakes, so the car will gradually slow down and coast for a distance without anyone controlling the steering wheel or releasing the accelerator; many things could happen during this process… for example, the car might slowly drift and crash into a roadside utility pole or a tree, or it might just crash into an oncoming car, or even slide into a river…

"From this, many new hypotheses can be derived, such as the car being discovered and driven away by a passing vagrant, or someone seeing this abandoned car by the roadside and reporting it to the police… but in any case, sooner or later, the police will know that I am no longer in that car.

"At that time, they will shift their focus from 'escaping by car' and start thinking about other possibilities… As for how long it will take them to realize that I intend to enter the city through the sewers… that's harder to say. The bizarre doubt of 'there are no traces of the driver fleeing around the empty car' alone is enough for them to think about for a while.

"Well… according to this calculation, by the time they think of investigating the sewers, I will have already entered the city…"

Thinking of this, Feng Bujue's thoughts shifted: "However, there is also an extreme situation—what if 'Batman arrives at the scene in the first instance and participates in the investigation'… Does he have a chance to catch up to my footsteps?"

Brother Jue's worry was justified, after all, in this universe, Batman… or rather, Bruce Wayne's wife is serving as a consultant at Arkham.

Even excluding the assumption that "Batman is monitoring his wife's daily activities," given Batman's nature, he would at least be listening to the Gotham police's communications, right? So when he learns of the incident at the asylum through the police's communication network, he will inevitably rush to the scene in the first instance, both for public and private reasons, to first confirm whether his wife is safe.

In fact, Batman did exactly that… He arrived at Arkham earlier than the police; but when he activated his eye's heat detection system, threw out his grapple hook, and rushed into the asylum's main building from mid-air in a very cool manner… he found that the place was already deserted.

Just then, police sirens came, and the police arrived at the scene one after another; seeing this, Batman hid first, observing from the shadows.

Before long, the staff members in the underground shelter came out on their own because the interior of the shelter was also connected to several surveillance cameras, and the people inside saw the police arrive, so they opened the entrance and returned to the ground.

What happened afterward was as written in the previous text. Batman lurked in the dark for a while, waiting for the police to complete the preliminary information gathering before showing himself.

From the actual plot development, Batman failed to intervene in the investigation at an earlier point in time, as Brother Jue had estimated. He also didn't follow the route of the car to find Brother Jue's drop-off point; to be honest… even if he really stood at that drop-off point, he wouldn't be able to tell that a car had stopped here and that Brother Jue had run in the opposite direction.

Because… Feng Bujue hadn't left such traces in the first place.

The "world's greatest detective" also needs evidence to make further deductions. Only a cheating pseudo-detective can do the kind of thing where they "directly tell the whole truth without relying on logical order and then use evidence to disprove it."

"Hmm?" Just as Feng Bujue was pondering, suddenly, something entered his line of sight, causing him to halt his steps.

"What the heck?" The next second, he stopped beside a wall, staring at a section of the wall in front of him that was a different color from the surroundings.

In this dark sewer, even if someone had a searchlight, it would probably be difficult to notice this anomaly. However, Feng Bujue relied on a flashlight (which he carried in his backpack) to capture this detail…

Dong, dong…

Brother Jue lightly tapped the wall with the end of his flashlight, and he immediately realized that this wall of a different color was made of a material he couldn't identify at all; in a sewer made entirely of cement and bricks, this wall seemed even more suspicious.

"Hmm… the edges are irregular, there are cracks where it meets the surrounding walls, and…" Feng Bujue carefully observed the wall, unfolding his deductions in his mind, "this material has penetrated and filled these gaps…" In less than two seconds, he understood, "In other words… this wall wasn't here originally, but someone used a chemical compound that expands and solidifies quickly to seal this place…"

A smile appeared on Brother Jue's face: "Then the question arises… what is hidden behind this wall?"