141-145

Chapter 141: Tacticians Have Dirty Hearts 

Inside the cylindrical chamber with ice-blue transparent walls, everything about the woman was completely frozen in time. 

Bathed in the light, the pure, crystal-clear liquid within the chamber was utterly free of impurities. Through it, you could clearly see the woman inside, dressed in a long formal gown. Her eyes were tightly closed, her expression peaceful, and her beautiful hair floated gently as she stood quietly in this special crystal coffin. Every strand of hair, every eyelash, every subtle line of her skin was perfectly visible. If you weren't considering that she was still alive, "lifelike" would undoubtedly be a very fitting description. 

She didn't blink, didn't make a sound, had no breath, no heartbeat. All vital signs had vanished from her body. In this world of low temperature, her life had been put on pause by one person. 

A hand gently stroked the cryogenic chamber. The man, clad in special armor, gazed at this sleeping beauty, looking at her features, at her graceful long gown. Suddenly, the days and nights from years ago flashed before his eyes—how she often pulled him to dance, her beautiful golden hair and red dress swaying freely, so vibrant, so full of life. 

Thinking back, their first meeting was also on the ice. She was one of the rising sports stars at that university, while he was an introverted bookworm.  

"Hey, you haven't learned to skate before, have you?" 

"Uh, yeah." 

"Great, uh, I mean, I can teach you." 

That day was the first time he'd ever tried skating, and also the first time he met a girl he liked. He probably fell a few times—he couldn't quite remember, and it didn't really matter, because she never cared how many times he fell. 

Growing up, his life had been filled with his father's control, his mother's arguments, teachers' scolding, and classmates' bullying. It felt like he rarely encountered anything "warm." Only Nora made him feel warmth for the first time, and even now, she was still the only light in his life. 

It was also hard for him to figure out how his childhood quirk of freezing small animals into ice specimens developed. Was it because of his father's stubborn, almost pathological need for control, or was it because he was just born a psychologically twisted freak, or maybe both? 

He just felt that death was the only terrifying end, and freezing things could make them last forever. Freezing life to a standstill made him feel stable and secure. 

Regardless, he had originally been ready to spend his life with Nora, but all of that was destroyed. Destroyed by the sudden cancer, destroyed by the inhuman GothCorp. 

Maybe, also destroyed by his own helplessness. 

In the dead of night, Victor would occasionally think of the three companies that had rejected him: WayneTech, S.T.A.R. Labs, and LexCorp. If any of those three companies had hired him, would things have ended up like this? Would he have become the way he is now? 

He stroked his wife's face through the cryogenic chamber. His own face was reflected on the smooth surface, overlapping with his wife's features. 

The man stared at the face reflected on the chamber. His smooth, bald face had no hair, no eyebrows, and no beard, only a pair of round red goggles. The strangest thing was the bizarre armor he was wearing, which fit snugly and encased his entire body. A large transparent dome covered his head like a helmet, allowing him to maintain normal vision. 

Looking through this helmet, you could see a terrifying, visible chill inside the armor. In fact, the temperature inside the entire suit was maintained at a stable zero degrees Celsius. A normal person wearing this armor would only have one outcome: freezing to death inside this low-temperature iron coffin. 

But the low-temperature armor, deadly enough for an ordinary person, now served as the life support system he depended on to survive. If he were in a normal room temperature environment, Mr. Freeze would quickly die. 

This was also the masterpiece of that accident. 

Just as his thoughts drifted deeper, he suddenly heard a voice. 

"Victor Fries." He heard someone call his name. This hadn't happened in a long time, because he'd been reading newspapers and watching the news on TV; he knew how everyone saw him now. 

The supervillain, Mr. Freeze. That was the impression everyone in Gotham City had of him now. His real name had been forgotten. 

"Mr. Victor, I know you might be in your feelings right now, but I've been standing here for quite a while. Even if you're not gonna be polite, could you at least offer a seat?" 

"Who?" 

Victor turned his head in surprise, seeing an ordinary, unremarkable man standing silently behind him. 

Who was this guy? Had he met him before? How did he sneak in? 

He realized he couldn't answer these questions just by thinking, so he grabbed the massive freeze gun hanging from his body and aimed it directly at the man in front of him. 

Cody reacted quickly. Seeing Mr. Freeze reach for his gun immediately, he quickly raised his hands ahead of time, using his sharp reflexes and unusual speed, and shouted that line. 

"Maybe I can save Nora!" 

That one sentence made Mr. Freeze momentarily abandon the idea of pulling the trigger. 

"Who are you? How did you get in? Why are you looking for me? What makes you think you can save my wife?" 

"My name is Cody. I came in through the front door. I want to make a deal with you. I can't guarantee anything about your wife, but there's a lot of hope." 

"This warehouse clearly has my alarms and surveillance systems. There's no way you could have come through the front door." 

"I hacked those systems." 

He's a hacker – Victor immediately realized. 

"Why should I believe you?" 

"Isn't me coming alone enough to show I'm serious?" Cody countered. "You just robbed a bank this morning. If I had bad intentions toward you, or wanted to threaten you, couldn't I have just called the cops?" 

Victor immediately understood. "I left traces when I robbed the bank... Next time, I won't make the same mistake." 

"If your wife gets better, you won't need to rob anyone again – actually, I suggest you give the money back this time." 

"You haven't proven you can save her yet – and back then, I searched for all the leading doctors and notable figures in the global medical field, and they all said they couldn't do anything. You're not even one of them." 

"Before Victor Fries became famous, which of them – WayneTech, S.T.A.R. Labs, LexCorp – would have thought he could become a genius cryogenics expert who developed groundbreaking research results?" 

Hearing Cody's words, Victor's expression softened. 

There was no way around it; he really lacked affection his whole life. Cody's words were genuinely quite validating for him. 

He finally lowered the gun in his hand, which brought relief to two people. 

One was Cody right in front of him, and the other was Batman, ready to attack from the rafters at any moment. 

Chapter 142: Is Medicine Really So Inconvenient? 

Once the tension eased a little, Cody finally had a moment to take in their surroundings. 

Intricate, large-scale cryogenic machinery took up a significant portion of the abandoned factory floor. Wires were neatly bundled to one side, keeping things from looking messy. The low hum of the equipment was subtle, making it unlikely to draw the attention of passersby. The icy blue liquid occasionally flowing through the pipes seemed to be an extremely compressed liquid freezing gas, circulating to maintain Nora's frozen state. 

Without a doubt, a significant chunk of the large sums Victor had stolen in his numerous heists was likely used to build and maintain this massive machine that ran continuously, twenty-four hours a day – his wife's life support system. 

The remaining portion had probably been spent on visiting countless famous doctors. Considering the cost of healthcare in the U.S., it made perfect sense that Mr. Freeze had robbed banks multiple times. His heist this morning was likely because he was running low on cash again. 

A legitimate bank robber who isn't on the most wanted list, Cody thought, a grin spreading across his face before he caught himself, finding the expression a bit unsettling, and reined it in. 

Mr. Freeze casually re-holstered the gun. Its barrel, shimmering with icy blue light, was visually striking, somewhat similar in color to the two thin, flexible tubes extending from the tank on his back. 

Looking closer, the tubes were actually transparent, also containing liquid freezing gas which flowed directly into his suit. After being processed by the suit, the gas would warm up to around zero degrees Celsius, providing the cooling effect inside the armor. 

"The cryogenic containment unit you built for your wife is beautiful." 

"A crystal coffin, no matter how beautiful, is still just a coffin." When the subject came up, his expression darkened. "I just want her to recover, but I don't have much money. By the time I figure out how to get it, she might not have much time left." 

"Robbing banks isn't the right way. Maybe it would have been better to leave her with Goth Corp back then? Those guys said they were going to keep working on the cryogenic therapy research project. They should have gotten plenty of investment, and there's no way they would have let Nora die." 

Hearing this, a clear expression of disdain, disgust, and indignation appeared on Mr. Freeze's face. 

"They didn't want to continue the research at all, and they certainly weren't capable of perfecting the project without me. In fact, after I'd been with Goth Corp for just three months, I realized they were just an empty shell with no substance." 

He answered, regret for his past decisions filling his heart. 

His wife's condition worsened after he joined Goth Corp. Forced into a corner, Victor could only place Nora in the cryogenic chamber, suspending her life while waiting for the medical community to develop an effective treatment. 

"Victor, after I fall asleep, will you still stay by my side?" 

"I'll never let you go for as long as I live." 

Back then, he had gently kissed his wife goodbye, tears in his eyes as he sealed her into the cryogenic chamber. 

However, just one month later, the project was forcefully shut down. 

"Victor, this cryogenic therapy research is simply too expensive." The boss, who had always spoken to him kindly, was named Boyle. He was the one who had smoothly tricked Victor into joining this virtually inactive company. But now, looking at the financial reports, his face had completely changed. His brows were tightly furrowed, and his tone was low. "It's not just me; no company that wants to make a profit would keep it around." 

"But, Boyle, this isn't what we agreed on. You said the company would give me the appropriate budget, you said you believed in me and supported this project. That's why I agreed to hand my research over to the company." 

"Victor, you're an adult now. In the adult world, only contracts in black and white matter." Boyle shook his head dismissively. "And my contract with you only states that this research will belong to Goth Corp upon completion. It doesn't say I'm obligated to help you complete the project. You haven't finished it; instead, you wasted the company's initial funds. That's already made me very angry. I advise you to just listen, cut your losses, and it'll be better for everyone." 

Victor's eyes were bloodshot. Wearing his glasses and a cheap suit, he nearly knelt down before Boyle, desperately explaining, "It will have huge returns later! This project will be incredibly valuable in the future! Please! My wife's life depends on it!" 

"Alright, alright, Victor, you're just a useless bookworm. Save yourself and your wife some dignity – Security! Security! Get him out of here! That woman is already dead, no need to be careful. A few of you, go move the equipment." 

"No! Don't touch my equipment!" 

In the chaos, Victor instinctively grabbed a gun from a security guard. He clutched it tightly like a drowning man grasping a lifeline, waving it at the approaching people, looking like a desperate, hysterical maniac backed into a corner. 

Then, someone came up to wrestle the gun away; then, the two began to scuffle; and then, the gun went off. 

The machine containing the freezing gas was hit by a bullet. A wave of cold and solid ice quickly swept through the entire lab. The security guards and Boyle, seeing things go south, immediately fled. 

The helpless Victor hugged Nora's cryogenic chamber tightly in the cold, like a fragile treasure. This was his promise to his wife. 

"Victor, after I fall asleep, will you still stay by my side?" 

"I'll never let you go for as long as I live." 

The cold air spread rapidly. Large chunks of solid ice surrounded, engulfed, and froze everything in the lab, and then encroached outside the open doorway. In just ten minutes, the entire floor where the lab was located became an ice cave. 

In the epicenter of the cold wave, Victor initially felt extreme cold, then was frozen stiff. Just as he was about to lose consciousness, his body seemed to feel warmth again. 

Was it Nora? Did she hug me? 

Carrying this question, he fell into a deep sleep. Before collapsing, all he could see was Nora's freezing chamber slipping from his frozen hands and rolling far, far away – his body was too stiff to hold her anymore. 

Just like that, Victor was buried within the dense, solid ice. 

"So, when you woke up, you were like this?" 

"When I woke up, I just found I wasn't afraid of low temperatures anymore," Victor replied. "But I only realized later that I had completely turned into a cold-blooded creature, utterly unable to survive at normal temperatures." 

Cody thought for a moment. "Maybe you could go to Antarctica?" 

"Places that are hard to reach are too lonely, and besides, I still need to cure Nora." 

Hearing this, Cody nodded. "In that case, we need to thaw her out first. My treatment is quick; it should only take about two or three minutes." 

At this, Victor frowned, giving him a look of disbelief. 

"Why are you looking at me like that? I didn't say I was a conventional doctor," Cody said, taking out two candies, one white and one red. "Does not understanding medicine mean one cannot save people? Is medicine truly such an inconvenient thing?" 

Chapter 143: Prove You're Not Sick 

Mr. Freeze had no idea what Cody was talking about—it sounded like nonsense—but he looked really confident, didn't bring any backup or weapons, and didn't seem like a lunatic. 

So, for once, he decided to trust him and temporarily stopped the cryogenic machine. 

As the liquid freezing gas inside the chamber was drained, Nora lay quietly in the sleep chamber, which had been tilted flat. She didn't wake up right away. 

"I'm asking again, are you sure?" 

"Better hurry up. It'll be night soon if we delay any longer, and the nocturnal creatures will start coming out—you probably wouldn't like that." 

Mr. Freeze paused, didn't answer, just opened the chamber door. 

The chamber door opened, and the lingering cold air inside spilled out. The white gas settled onto the floor, and a fine layer of frost immediately formed on the ground. 

Cody watched Nora lying in the chamber. After the door opened, he could hear her heartbeat gradually returning and saw her skin regaining its color. It looked like Victor's cryogenic treatment was pretty impressive; she barely needed any time to adapt from thawing to recovery. 

Moments later, Nora's eyelids fluttered slightly. Victor instinctively reached for her hand, then gently released it. 

Ever since he woke up from the ice, built his suit and freeze gun, rescued Nora from GothCorp's hands just before she was about to be sold off with the project, and even until now, he had never dared to thaw his wife. 

Was it because he didn't want to waste the little life she had left, or was he not ready to face her? 

Victor didn't know either. He just held his wife's hand blankly. Ultimately, his love for her won out, preventing him from backing down. 

The sleeping beauty in the crystal coffin finally regained consciousness. The first thing she felt was a hand holding hers, but the hand had no warmth, so naturally there was no real touch sensation. If she had to describe it, it felt cold, like someone wearing a glove and holding her hand. 

Who was it? The grip was gentle, but who could it be? 

With that question in her mind, she opened her eyes and saw Victor standing beside her. 

Slightly blueish, unlike human skin, disturbing-looking round red goggles, wearing a strange suit of armor, a helmet like a glass dome—the person in front of her was almost unrecognizable. If it weren't for his familiar face, Nora would have immediately pulled her hand away. 

"Victor, is that you?" 

Nora whispered her lover's name in disbelief. His appearance had changed so, so much; she almost couldn't recognize him. He used to like wearing casual shirts, wearing black-rimmed glasses, standing by her bed, coaxing her to sleep, rambling on about the progress of the cryogenic treatment project, about any new miracle drugs he'd heard about, about any improvements in her pathology report, about what their future would look like after she was cured. 

How did he end up like this? 

"Nora..." 

She heard the voice coming from inside the helmet dome. Although a bit muffled, it was indeed her husband's voice. 

"Victor, how did you become like this?" 

As she asked, she struggled to sit up, but couldn't manage to exert any strength. The long period of severe illness and being bedridden had affected her body to some extent. If she wanted to stand up now, she would need time to re-adapt to her muscles and bones. 

"Nora, I... A lot has happened recently. I'll explain it to you slowly." 

Fries deflected the conversation. Nora couldn't read his thoughts, but Cody, standing nearby, knew exactly what was going on. So he stepped forward a couple of paces, drawing Nora's attention. 

"Mrs. Nora Fries, I know you just thawed out and have a lot you want to say to Victor, but given your condition is critical—anyway, how about we focus on getting you cured first?" 

Cody said this, and casually held out the white milk candy and the red fruit candy in his hand to her. "Here, this one's milk flavored, and this one's strawberry flavored." 

Victor, standing nearby, focused his gaze back on the candies in his hand. Although Cody had mentioned beforehand that he'd use these two "medicines" to treat her, he still couldn't believe these two things that looked exactly like candy would be a miracle cure for his wife's cancer. He couldn't believe he actually planned to use this to treat Nora. 

Nora looked at the two candies in front of her. At this moment, she was completely bewildered. She turned her head to look at Victor nearby, saw him nod at her, and then looked back at Cody. 

"Who are you? A doctor Victor hired for me?" 

"You could say that." 

"With these two milk candies?" 

"Whether they can cure anything or not, eating candy always makes people a little happier." 

That was true enough. 

Nora couldn't figure out what was going on with this strange man, but she trusted Victor. Even though he had become a bit strange now, he was still the husband she deeply loved. 

"Can I have the strawberry one? I don't really like milk..." 

Cody smiled kindly at her. "No problem." 

Then, while Nora was opening her mouth, he tossed both candies in. 

You think this is the Matrix? And you get to pick one? 

"Mrs. Nora, don't spit them out. You can't be picky when taking medicine." 

Nora had two candies stuffed in her mouth and was just about to protest when she suddenly felt a strange sensation run through her body. 

It was a surge of vitality, a healthy, vibrant, long-lost feeling of strength. 

Victor, standing nearby, watched his wife, dumbfounded, as she ate the two candies. Then her hands suddenly shot up, bracing against the sides of the cryogenic chamber. With a little effort, she directly jumped out and stood on the ground. 

Her face completely regained its color, her body felt incredibly light, and her previously somewhat weak voice and listless spirit were now completely healthy. This made Victor, who had self-taught himself quite a bit about this type of cancer, once again doubt the knowledge in his brain. 

"I know you're surprised, but hold off on being too surprised for a second." Cody shook his head at this point. "Mrs. Nora's physical condition isn't as good as you might think. She's only regained her vitality, but she hasn't fully recovered her health." 

The system panel didn't show the odd job as completed; the mission was still listed as "in progress." It seemed "cancer," or rather, "Mr. Freeze's wife's cancer," couldn't be easily cured by just relying on the Horn of Abundance or MC Milk. 

"What do I need to do?" Victor grabbed Cody's hand. A radiance he'd never had before shone in his eyes. At this moment, he felt completely reborn. "Anything! Anything you want! I'll make it happen! Whatever it takes!" 

"Hmm, the price might be a little steep..." 

Cody said this, then walked over to Nora again. He found "Fast Life Recovery" in the store and chose to use it. 

[Prompt: Target is relatively special. Fast Life Recovery requires increased point investment, otherwise, complete cure is not possible.] 

"How many asset points?" 

[One hundred thousand points.] 

Cody checked his status bar. These past few days working in the prison, he was responsible for the inmates' meals and discipline. Wayne was very generous; these jobs combined had given him about 200,000 dollars, and his asset points were probably around 260,000. 

"Go ahead and use it," he thought. "Hope the cold resistance boost is worth the price this time." 

Chapter 144: Seriously, Aren't You Going to See a Therapist? 

In the abandoned factory in Gotham City, Victor and Nora sat on the large cryogenic machine that had stopped running. At this moment, the beautiful crystal coffin had lost its original purpose. For the couple, perhaps its only value now was as a slightly cold seat. 

Cody hadn't seen Victor offer him a chair or anything until now, so he simply followed suit and sat on the machine as well. 

Nora was flipping through a notebook filled with clippings from Gotham newspapers from the past while she was frozen. Perhaps anticipating a potential court case down the line, Mr. Freeze had documented everything: his entry into the company, freezing Nora, the boss's blaming him, the lab accident, and even the company's subsequent attempts to cash in on Nora and the freezing technology, finally culminating in his revenge and rescuing his wife. 

He had carefully cut out all the news articles and pasted them into the notebook, interleaving them with his own written additions. 

"Victor, you've been through so much..." 

Nora turned page after page, taking in everything that had happened during her time frozen. Finally, she set the notebook down. She hadn't realized she had been frozen for so long, nor had she expected so many changes to have happened to Victor. Looking at him now, dressed in that suit of armor, there was no trace of the gentle scholar she once knew; he looked more like a monstrous criminal. 

With a hint of heartache, she gently caressed Victor's helmet. At this moment, she couldn't even touch his face, but the gesture caused him to instinctively flinch back. 

"I'm a monster, Nora." He lowered his head, his voice low and filled with despair and frustration. "I became a criminal. I broke into GothCorp with a freeze gun. I killed people, I robbed banks, and now I'm wanted... On top of that, I turned into a cold-blooded animal. I can't take off this armor, I can't live at normal temperatures, my heart is icy cold—I can't even kiss your face right now." 

"Victor, we can go together, leave here, go to another country," Nora replied. "I don't care what you've become. We can start a new life." 

"Hmm, no, sorry, but with all due respect, you guys can't exactly start a 'new life' just yet." 

This abrupt interruption broke the intimate moment between the couple. Victor and Nora stared at Cody in surprise. 

Cody had been idly messing with his phone moments before and they hadn't expected him to suddenly speak up. 

"It's not like I'm trying to break you guys up or anything, but we just had an agreement, right? A fair trade – I help you out, you help me out." 

Hearing this, Mr. Freeze immediately nodded. "Naturally. Whatever it is, I will do my utmost to help you." 

"You have to go to jail." 

As these words left his mouth, both of their expressions froze in stunned silence. 

"You get what I mean, right? Jail. Like, legitimately turn yourself in, legitimately go to court and stand trial, legitimately go to prison and do your time. Stay in there." 

"I know, but... why?" 

They looked at Cody, perplexed. There was no obvious benefit to him doing this. Why would he risk this, specifically coming here to treat a dangerous supervillain's wife? Just to send him to the slammer? 

"Like I said, the price might be a little steep," Cody shrugged. "While District Attorney Harvey will try his best to defend you, applying for a reduced sentence based on your surrender, good plea, and GothCorp's misdeeds, you'll still have to serve time. Considering almost the entire GothCorp top brass is wiped out, your sentence will probably be somewhere around ten to twenty years, minimum." 

"But that's not my whole requirement. My full requirement is 'enter Wayne Prison as an inmate and help manage the prisoners'." 

"It's Wayne Enterprises' private prison, but at least the inmates are treated like people. It's filled with members of the Falcone or Maroni families, among other prisoners. Because there are a lot of problems in there, we need someone who can keep things under control to help manage it. You're one of the best choices. You'll get correctional officer privileges, you can bring your freeze gun in with you, and you can freeze the troublemakers into ice cubes if you want." 

Mr. Freeze immediately began to ponder. Of course, he knew about Wayne Prison. The news of the two mob bosses battling it out in the Gotham City courthouse had been all over the place for a while, and Wayne Enterprises converting large amounts of their unused buildings into prisons was also common knowledge. He just hadn't expected Cody to be here recruiting for the prison. 

"Victor..." Nora, hearing this, instinctively looked at her husband, noticing that his face didn't seem to show anger or revulsion. 

"I'm not afraid to go to court and face judgment. I've known for a long time that I've done a lot of wrong things. If it weren't for Nora, I wouldn't have held on this long. I probably would have turned myself in a long time ago." 

Victor's tone carried a sense of relief, reflecting his current mood. He gently hugged Nora beside him. "I'm sorry, Nora. I just cured you, and now we have to be apart again." 

Nora's eyes were almost filled with tears. It was clear she was very reluctant to be separated from Victor, whom she deeply loved. 

Seeing that things were settled, Cody nodded and jumped down from the machine. 

"The cryogenic therapy, the research into freezing humans – that's your work. How you handle it is up to you. You two have one more night to spend together – remember to turn yourselves in tomorrow." 

Mr. Freeze nodded. 

Cody thought for a moment, then used his Rapid Life Recovery ability on Victor. He didn't get the prompt to increase points, but rather a message saying "Treatment is only effective for 24 hours." This was similar to when he first met Grundy in the sewers. 

Is it because Mr. Freeze is one of the fundamental elements of this universe and can't be fundamentally changed, or is it because I don't have enough points to completely cure him? Cody wasn't sure, but he still took out a candy and handed it to him. "Eat this. Your condition is pretty unique, I can't cure it completely, but I can make you a normal human for a day." 

He didn't linger to hear Mr. Freeze's profuse thanks. After completing the treatment and negotiation, he turned and left the factory. Looking at the sky, it wasn't dark yet. 

"Doesn't make sense," he muttered to himself. "It's been half an hour, and no one's waiting outside for me. Harvey, Gordon, nobody came. Means they're pretty confident about this negotiation... Dammit, Batman must have already gotten here!" 

Just then, a familiar low voice indeed echoed from the corner. 

"Your two candies can't be used to cure disease, at least not cancer. I tested them." 

"Of course, you tested them. I'm not blind," Cody rolled his eyes. "I've given you so many candies, and you're still crazy." 

"What did you use to cure Nora Fries and Victor Fries?" 

"Don't you know?" 

"Drake's wife, one of your housemates when you first came to Gotham... Her recovery was almost identical to Nora's – a story, a story about Santa Claus. But I don't believe in stories." 

"You even figured out what the story was." Cody sighed. "Seriously, aren't you going to see a therapist? Oh, right, when you went in, did you also plant a tracker on him?" 

There was no reply. Seeing that Cody had changed the subject, Batman once again disappeared into the night. 

Chapter 145: A Game That Can't End in a Draw 

Hiring Mr. Freeze went smoothly. Just as everyone predicted, Victor Fries is a man of his word – or perhaps more accurately, he wouldn't let down the person who saved his wife's life. He'd do anything for Nora. 

This actually saved Batman some trouble; the wiretaps and trackers he'd placed on the pair weren't needed. 

In other words, often villains only need to kidnap Nora to get Mr. Freeze to do their bidding. Cody made sure to mention this to Gordon, Harvey, and Bruce, urging them to pay close attention to Nora's safety. 

And the facts proved that Victor wasn't just a bookworm. With the freeze gun in hand and armored up, he could instantly transform back into the Mr. Freeze who swept through GothCorp. 

"From now on, I will take the place of the previous prison administrator and become one of the new guards. Our rules won't be any different." 

The man's voice traveled through the cowl to the loudspeaker and into everyone's ears, calm and level, without a hint of fluctuation. "Keep following the rules of Wayne Penitentiary as usual, and your lives won't change." 

At this moment, Victor stood on the stage, while the prisoners stood below. Hundreds of eyes were fixed on the new guard on the stage. For the first few seconds, they didn't understand the meaning of his words. A few seconds later, their expressions gradually turned strange, shifting from confusion to surprise, then from surprise to secret delight, and finally from secret delight to ecstasy. 

"The Jinx... is gone?" 

"Someone new is replacing him?" 

"We survived? That despicable guy is gone?!" 

"Holy cow! Wayne Penitentiary didn't explode! Wayne Penitentiary survived a whole month!" 

"Wayne is awesome!" 

There was an uproar from top to bottom. Everyone's face showed the relief of surviving a disaster and irrepressible joy. Every day Cody was in the prison, everyone was on edge, even while locked up, no different from being given a suspended death sentence. 

But today, that guy was actually gone. 

The area below instantly turned into a sea of rejoicing. Victor didn't immediately stop the prisoners' commotion. He had done some homework before taking the job and knew how much psychological trauma Cody had inflicted on the two major gangs. The cheers at this moment were a release of emotions that had been pent up for a month. 

After a minute, he spoke again: "Everyone, stop the commotion immediately. It needs to be quiet in the prison. No more noise." 

However, his voice clearly overpowered the group of prisoners, yet they seemed not to hear him and continued to cheer. Victor's gaze swept across them, and he immediately noticed a few ringleaders whose eyes flickered, subtly observing him. 

Trouble ahead, he thought. They saw a new guard taking over and wanted to see how easy he would be to mess with. 

Although a month had passed, these troublemakers still hadn't fully submitted to the prison rules. 

"I said, quiet." 

The crowd still didn't quiet down, not until a few seconds later when the terrified shouts of several prisoners broke the celebratory atmosphere. 

"Harlick! Harlick!" 

"My God, Harlick turned into ice!" 

"It's Mr. Freeze! He's Mr. Freeze!" 

The crowd quickly fell silent. Everyone's gaze turned towards the direction of the sudden terrified shouts in the center of the area. Harlick, the biggest troublemaker, was now covered in a thin shell of ice crystals, frozen in a pose with his arms raised and mouth open in a shout, transformed into a crystal-clear ice sculpture. 

Was he dead? Nobody knew, but everyone instinctively distanced themselves from that ice sculpture. 

"I think broken bones are the best textbook, and you still haven't learned your lesson." 

Victor's voice rang out at the appropriate moment. This time, his tone was still without any fluctuation, but now, that flat voice became the sound of cold, ruthless wind in everyone's eyes. His armor and freeze gun also began to radiate a chilling killing intent. 

"You're smart. Nobody's touching that ice sculpture. My ice doesn't just affect the surface. If that ice sculpture is broken, that guy... what's his name?" 

He thought for a moment: "Hmm, it doesn't matter. Whatever his name is, if anyone tries to break that ice sculpture open, they'll find that the person inside shattered into ice fragments along with the layer of ice on the surface, all mixed together – so I advise you to just leave it there until it thaws naturally." 

Seeing that all the prisoners had reined in their arrogant demeanor from before, Victor hung his freeze gun back on his hip, a stiff, terrifying smile appearing on his face. It certainly wasn't pleasant to look at, causing the numerous prisoners to collectively shiver again. 

"Now, we're properly acquainted." 

At this moment, Cody, who was in a good mood and had some free time, was about to go out and look for some odd jobs when he received a call from Commissioner Gordon. 

"What? Falcone wants to call a truce again? Can't he hold out a little longer?" 

"Oh, Luigi's having a tough time too... Sigh, that's the extent of Maroni's old man? He's not much either then." 

Since it wasn't his own money being lost, he was just making purely sarcastic remarks. In reality, the conflict between Maroni and Falcone had severely weakened both sides. 

"This can't go on... At least our families' final showdown can't happen now." 

In his apartment, the Roman lit a cigarette irritably. At this moment, neither Sofia nor Carla Viti were by his side. In fact, most of the family's senior members had been sent away. 

He hadn't expected Luigi's will to be so firm, and his evidence so complete. However, Carla and Sofia weren't really unexpected; he had deliberately sent those two away. 

Sofia had developed feelings for Sal Maroni, so he naturally couldn't trust his daughter anymore. In reality, he had always treated Sofia as his right-hand woman rather than a daughter, and he wasn't even sure if Sofia truly saw him as a father. 

After all, after his younger son died, she was the one with the most hope of inheriting the Falcone family. 

And as for Carla, there was even less to say. He was completely certain that his sister would seize every opportunity to usurp his power, and even this city. From the day she arrived, this ambition had never been hidden. 

Although he had cleared out internal threats through this power struggle and tacitly cooperated with Wayne and Maroni to cut off the external gangs' reach, one thing made him increasingly uneasy: the Wayne Group's recent actions were getting bigger and bigger. It was less like running a prison and more like running a vast talent factory. 

The sharp old fox sensed the problem, even sniffing out a hint of danger. Even if a behemoth tried hard to appear harmless, its very existence couldn't be ignored. 

I need to talk to Luigi, he thought. We can't keep fighting. 

"Ding-a-ling –" At that moment, the phone on the table rang. 

Falcone looked at the caller ID, his heart pounding. It was a call from an unexpected number. 

It was Alberto calling.