Chapter 1132: The Professor (4) (Patreon)

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In the U.S., names like "Harry", "Henry", "Harley" etc. are very common pronunciations, used for both males and females. With some minor variations in pronunciation, they sound quite similar.

If an advertisement billboard fell on the street, injuring ten people, one of them would likely be named Harry or have a relative named Harry.

So when Schiller heard this name, he didn't react at first, but the next second, he heard Gordon's voice downstairs: "Miss Quinn, what happened to you?! You're covered in blood!"

Schiller frowned slightly and quickly left the hospital room where the corpse was, following the staircase downstairs. To be honest, he was somewhat interested in the infamous Joker Girl, after all, Harley Quinn was one of the more well-known psychologists in the Marvel comics world.

In the comics, before becoming the Joker Girl, Harley Quinn worked at Arkham Asylum as a rather excellent psychologist.

However, Schiller recalled that the comics didn't provide a very detailed description of Harley's work as a psychologist. It only mentioned that she was a female scholar with excellent grades and decent professional skills, otherwise she wouldn't have been responsible for the Joker's treatment.

Wayne Hospital could be considered the best hospital in Gotham, so it wasn't surprising that the scholarly Harley Quinn would work there.

Schiller passed through the somewhat chaotic crowd downstairs and entered the room where the shouting came from. He expected to see a lady in a white coat and glasses with a quiet demeanor. Instead, he found a 14 or 15-year-old girl standing in the center of the room.

This white girl was covered in blood from head to toe, so her facial features were obscured. But judging solely by her physique, she was clearly not an adult, nor was she particularly strong for her age—she had a rather small and frail build.

In stark contrast, she was holding a large iron shovel taller than herself, its head also covered in blood. There was a large bloodstain on the floor, along with a trail of bloody footprints, and the smell of fresh blood permeated the entire room.

At first, Schiller was surprised. If this girl was indeed Harley Quinn, wasn't she supposed to be around the same age as Robin?

But then again, it made sense. In the more mainstream comics, characters like Batman, the Joker, and Lex Luthor were portrayed as older, while Superman was relatively younger, and characters like the Flash were even younger.

Joker Girl's age was never explicitly stated, but based on the details of her personal life, she was clearly much younger than Batman, with perhaps a 15 to 20-year age difference judging from her appearance in the comics.

Batman was already 23 years old this year, while this young Harley didn't seem much older than Dick—around ten years younger than Batman, give or take.

By this time, the head nurse had brought a basin of clean water and two towels, and two adult female nurses were fussily helping Harley wipe the blood off her face. Gordon stood by, his voice full of remorse.

"I should never have agreed to let her work at the hospital when she said she wanted to. At the children's vaccination training, she was the most dexterous worker, and I thought Wayne Hospital would be the safest place, so I let her come here..."

"Miss Quinn has performed very well," the head nurse said as she wiped Harley's hair. "She can prepare medicines, start IVs, and even check prescriptions. She's the best among the group of children you brought."

Standing aside, Schiller examined the nearby environment. The room wasn't large, with five or six people making it quite crowded. Judging from the cabinets and piles of items, it appeared to be a supply room.

Schiller turned his head and stared at a mark on the wall, which was likely where the large shovel used to be kept—its wooden handle had left a black imprint on the pristine white wall from lack of movement over time.

Facing the bloody towel being wiped across her face, Harley vigorously shook her head to escape the nurse's grasp and set down one end of the shovel.

Then, she used one hand to push her blood-soaked hair back. "Believe me," she said with a high-pitched, slightly raspy voice, "I gave that bastard a good beating. He'll definitely lose a leg, if not die from blood loss!"

Her tone was cold and laced with a malicious laugh that sent a chill down one's spine.

Gordon covered his eyes, his face contorting. He bent down and placed his hands on Harley's shoulders. "Miss Quinn, I've told you before, you can't be so violent..."

"Even towards a murderer?" Harley looked into Gordon's eyes. "If the police don't use force against murderers, how do you plan to stop crime?"

Gordon opened his mouth but seemed at a loss for words to refute her statement. After a moment, he stared at Harley's face as if remembering something. "A murderer? You saw a murderer?...Wait, how did you know he was a murderer?"

Harley, annoyed by the nurse's attempts to wipe her face, tossed aside the heavy shovel and snatched the towel from the nurse's hand, roughly wiping her own face and smearing the blood like a little wildcat.

She exhaled, blowing the hair from her face, and crossed her arms. "That idiot came to the hospital three times in the past two weeks, always taking the same route. Did he think I wouldn't notice?"

"Not to mention his expressions and movements—it was like he had 'I'm going to do something bad here' written all over him..."

"Let me guess," Harley raised her hands, "he was probably planning to lie on the third-floor awning, knock on the window to lure someone over, and then stab them." She rolled her eyes. "How stupid and boring!"

Gordon's eyes widened in shock, but Harley shrugged. "Don't look at me like that. I knew what he was up to the second time he came, so I waited here and gave him a beating."

"You knew what he was going to do...why didn't you tell the police or the head nurse?"

"You'd all think I was crazy." Harley shrugged nonchalantly. "Before my parents were murdered, I told them that my uncle had his eye on their assets and planned to run them over with his car, then go to my school, kill me, and take everything."

"I even told them where he planned to do it, but they didn't believe me, and they got themselves killed."

"Luckily, that idiot uncle of mine didn't even notice the knife I planted behind his driver's seat, and his blood made the windshield completely opaque."

The atmosphere in the room instantly fell silent, or rather, froze over.

In Gotham, murders and being murdered were actually quite common occurrences, but those were usually feuds and vendettas between adults. It was rare for adults to kill children. For a frail young girl to describe how she killed an adult in front of so many people was even more shocking.  

Gordon sighed deeply. In fact, he had heard this story before. Harley Quinn was one of the "kind-hearted girls" he had taken in.

Perhaps some still remembered that fateful stormy night in Gotham when several buildings collapsed on Broken Basket Street. It wasn't an isolated incident—many old neighborhoods were destroyed by the typhoon, including Harley's home.

The disaster was severe on her street. As Gordon led the police in the rescue efforts, they immediately encountered a young girl sitting amid the rubble, eating bread beside two corpses crushed to death—not by the collapsing buildings, but by a baseball bat studded with long nails that had shattered their skulls.

According to the local gang, the two victims were drifters—people who didn't belong to any gang or follow any rules, stealing and mugging wherever they could find an opportunity. They were the lowest of the street rats.

When the girl saw Gordon arrive, she dusted off her bottom, stood up, and without waiting for Gordon to ask, she rattled off a long story: she had sensed the impending typhoon and fled beforehand. Those two rats had tried to kidnap her in the chaos, but she had beaten them to death.

Then, this young girl nonchalantly led a group of police officers in the rescue efforts, pointing out how many people were buried under each house, which rooms they were likely in when the collapse occurred, and who was worth saving or already dead. She seemed to know everything.

Gordon was amazed—even in the bizarre talent pool of Gotham, such a situation was extremely rare.

Later, he heard that her parents had died, and her uncle, attempting to seize their assets, had been killed by her. All the other relatives and wolves trying to claim the inheritance had been dealt with by her through various means.

This underage, frail young girl had single-handedly defended a sizable inheritance amid the chaos of Gotham—a near miracle.

Appreciating her talents and hoping to keep Harley from going down the wrong path, Gordon had tried to enroll her in school. However, ordinary schools couldn't accommodate such a student, so he first sent Harley to a technical training school at Gotham University.

Later, when the Insanity Virus outbreak occurred and citizens were mobilized, Batman developed an antidote that required individual injections. With medical resources strained and nurses in short supply, Gordon had asked every female acquaintance of appropriate age to become "kind-hearted nurses," including Harley.

Harley seemed content to go with the flow. In less than two days, she had mastered intravenous injections. Quickly bored with the training class full of little brats, she had Gordon send her to work at Wayne Hospital.

Harley insisted she was already 16, but Gordon suspected she might have just turned 14, or even 13. Regardless, she was younger than all the intern nurses at Wayne Hospital, yet she outperformed everyone.

The head nurse adored this young girl, whose fiery temper suited her perfectly. Now that Harley had gotten herself covered in blood, the head nurse was furious.

She gathered the bloody towels, tossing them into the basin with a loud "thwap!" In an instant, everyone in the room froze as the diminutive head nurse spoke coldly:

"This is a hospital for treating illnesses. Everyone who comes here should be seeking treatment, not plotting murders! This killer has been here so many times—is he afraid the crowded hospital isn't cramped enough?"

"He even climbed onto the awning, spilling blood everywhere without laying down any protection? Only the surgeons can match his lack of sanitation!"

"Um, excuse me, ma'am..." Gordon interrupted the ranting head nurse. "Shouldn't we ask about the killer's situation first? Harley! Harley! Did you see the killer's face? What did he look like?"

"I saw it, but I didn't recognize him," Harley shook her head slightly. "Blond hair, brown eyes, wearing a rather silly mask. Muscular build but clumsy movements."

"A mask? What kind of mask?" A voice came from the crowd.

Instinctively, Harley turned towards the source of the voice. Upon seeing Schiller, she froze for two seconds.

The diminutive figure darted behind Gordon, baring her teeth at Schiller like a startled cat.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 1133: Professor (Five)