Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 266 Silence of the Lambs

"Zombies don't feel pain, or rather, they don't feel anything."

Midnight dismissed Constantine's "human rights for the dead" argument, explaining, "What excites me is the roar of the crowd. Voodoo sorcerers can draw power from different sources, and these roars can become one of my powers, which is exactly what it takes to defeat evil spirits."

“And a little bit cunning,” Constantine added.

“Oh, I’ve always believed in your cunning, Constantine.” Midnight’s face wore a cold smile. “I spoke with your friend for a long time—you’re hypocritical and heartless.”

As midnight spoke these words, blood splattered onto Constantine's face from the stage, but he simply wiped the blood away expressionlessly and shrugged: "Nobody's perfect."

"If you can handle it, that's fine. Remember, if you can't bring yourself to do it, we're all doomed, and maybe the whole of New York will suffer too."

"Don't worry, buddy."

At this point, Constantine asked, "Where is Leicester?"

"Lambs should of course be kept in the pen."

Constantine knew what the midnight “pen” referred to; it was a small private prison used to house the resurrected corpses.

“Take me to see that guy,” he said. “I’ll go and calm him down.”

In the quiet corridor of the small prison, the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard.

Hearing the sound, the listless Gary Lester abruptly raised his head and looked outside the iron bars. He had been here for a long time since Constantine left, but he hadn't seen anyone come or heard any extra sounds—the deathly silence here was driving him almost crazy.

"Hey, buddy."

A moment later, Lester saw Constantine. His friend had suddenly appeared outside the railing and was greeting him. This made Lester, who had been extremely uneasy, feel like he had grasped a lifeline. He rushed to the railing and asked him, "John! Man, what's going on? Doesn't he have powder? Why didn't he give me any and why is he locking me up?"

"Uh, this one?"

"John, I'm so scared. I think he's going to kill me. Please, John, give me some medicine!"

Constantine was familiar with this state of his; the more he pleaded, the easier it was to deceive him.

“Don’t be afraid, buddy, you’ll be fine.” He reassured Lester and pulled his hand away from his clothes. “But you’ll have to stay down there for a while and can’t take drugs for now—remember what we came here for? We haven’t settled things with Morse yet.”

“It recognizes you, it wants you.” Constantine pointed to Old Man Midnight standing to the side: “All we need is for you to lure it closer, and then Midnight will take good care of it—and then, the matter will be resolved.”

"No, John, please, I can't stand that monster—you don't know what it can do! You don't understand how I feel!"

Constantine remembered the vegetarian he'd met on the street. He shook his head and replied, "No, I know, I know it perfectly well. But we have no other way, we have to deal with it—you let it go, remember? You're responsible for that."

Faced with his friend's accusations, Lester was speechless, but he still hesitated somewhat: "But..."

“Buddy, have I ever lied to you?” Constantine patiently persuaded, “You have to believe me, we’re friends, right?”

"Yes, John, of course I believe you."

Seeing Leicester gradually calm down, Constantine winked at him and gave him an OK sign: "Everything's under control, man. No need to worry, the plan is going smoothly—we'll be on our way home by this time tomorrow."

As the two men emerged from the pen, Midnight once again revealed that familiar, mocking smile to Constantine, a smile that was like a sharp carving knife, stabbing at the scars in Constantine's heart, drawing blood.

“That poor bastard told me you’ve been friends since childhood.” “Shut up, I’m annoyed.”

Constantine gave a cold reply, then ignored Midnight and took the elevator back to his room. Next door was Ma Zhaodi's room, but there was no sound from inside; he was probably already asleep.

Constantine, looking exhausted, took off his wet clothes, feeling sticky all over—he had been running for hours in the rain and was soaked to the bone.

Is there anything else that can really make you cry, Constantine?

The thought flashed through his mind for no apparent reason, but he quickly dismissed it.

I'm so tired, that's why I'm thinking so much. He silently told himself, I need to take a shower and then get some sleep.

But when he opened the bathroom door, he froze in place—an elderly nun was sitting on the toilet, holding a crucifix, staring intently at him.

He recognized the nun, Anne Maria.

"Jesus!" he cried, clutching his head, as he rushed out of the bathroom. "What terrible thing have I done to deserve this suffering!"

But when he opened the wardrobe to put on his clothes, he saw that there were two more inside.

Frank, Benjamin, he knew them just as well.

When Constantine saw a pair of feet sticking out from under the curtains, he finally couldn't take it anymore. The pressure that had been building up in recent days rushed to his head, threatening to explode his skull.

"enough!"

He abruptly pulled back the curtains and, sure enough, saw that familiar face below—it was Emma.

"What the hell?! What do you want?!" he roared. "Why the hell are you stuffing my room full of dead people?"

“They come every day, every single day! I had dead people following me in London, and I have them following me in New York! They haunt my room every day, do you guys even get paid?!”

However, the four pale faces remained expressionless, and four pairs of silent eyes stared quietly at Constantine.

"Speak the hell out of me! I'll let you speak!"

However, there was still no sound around them, and pairs of eyes were staring at Constantine as if he were an insect.

"What right do you have to look down on me! What do you want me to say? Evanti killed you all, so I'm sad—of course I'm sad, you know? It almost killed me too!"

He completely broke down, and he started hysterically yelling, "You all know the risks, we took a huge gamble, we placed the highest bet—and guess what? Gambling sometimes results in losses!"

“Like Leicester, he’s becoming a bargaining chip now—but do you think I don’t want to find another way!”

At this point, he gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "There is no other way! This is the only path we can take. This is the fate of warlocks—to solve problems with crooked, unethical, and evil methods. Don't expect a perfect ending. There is no best solution. This is not a fairy tale. We never had a choice!"

“I don’t even have the option not to do it, do you know what that means? If I don’t do it, New York is fucking dead.”

"I'm the victim!"

(End of this chapter)