Su Ming gnced at Poison Ivy. She, too, seemed momentarily distracted by the realization of her own gender, lost in thought for a second. Not knowing what to think, he walked past her and sat down on the couch.

  The couch was a bit dirty, stained with dark red clumps and dried patches of spilled drinks. In the colored light, it almost looked like a nightclub. Sitting there, his bck-and-yellow armor didn’t quite match the ambiance.

  "Alright, let’s exchange some intel. How did the Trickster tell you to find Batgirl? Then I’ll share what I know."

  He looked at Harley, hoping to get some concrete information.

  Harley stared back, her eyes wide. No man had ever dared get this close to her. She was curious. But as soon as the question came, her expression shifted. She looked like she might start crying.

  "Sigh... Well, it’s a long story..."

  Harley agreed to his suggestion and immediately started talking, not even bothering to check if Su Ming wanted to hear it. She spoke in a tone full of bitterness about her retionship with the Trickster, and how years ago, when he first met Batgirl, he couldn’t get her off his mind.

  In her version of things, innocent, pure little Harley just wanted to have fun with them, but was always bullied by the bad Batgirl. And as for her so-called friend, the Trickster, he didn’t care at all. She even wanted to py with Batgirl alone and forget about Harley.

  It left Harley confused and hurt, but she was strong—so strong that she kept pushing through.

  …

  Su Ming realized that Harley had an agenda of her own. If he hadn’t read so many DC comics or watched the movies, he might’ve mistaken this for some fairy tale princess talking to him.

  Pure, beautiful, kind-hearted, strong, optimistic, and intelligent—according to her, she and the Trickster were the most perfect women in the world. And Batgirl? Well, she was just the “creepy girl hanging upside down from the roof.” Sneaky, always touching the Trickster inappropriately, and her eyes were always full of lust.

  In her stories, the actual useful information was almost zero. All Su Ming really learned was how this universe's Harley met the Trickster. Everything else was just Harley’s own version of events, colored by her personal feelings.

  She wasn’t just telling stories—she was probing, trying to find common ground, looking for pces where their views or perceptions overpped. She wanted to piece together a personality profile of him.

  Beneath Harley's chaotic exterior, she was no stranger to intelligence. Her dual identity as a psychiatrist and a mentally unstable patient gave her double the fun.

  "Alright, let me interrupt for a second. You can stop trying now. I'm from a parallel universe, the Grim Reaper, so my brain works much faster than normal. If you were trying to psychoanalyze me, you can give it a rest."

  Su Ming cut her off when he realized she was about to start another long tale about how she and the Trickster once toyed with the Penguin. The time had already slipped by, and these stories seemed endless.

  He stretched his stiff neck, then gnced behind him. He saw Cindy and Poison Ivy sitting on another couch, both sipping drinks, clearly enjoying the gossip.

  Well, it seemed that even in this world, women’s love for gossip was universal.

  "Oh, so you're from a parallel universe, huh?" Harley subtly changed the topic, abandoning her psychological game. "This is kind of boring... I thought you two were wearing matching outfits, like in a retionship."

  She mischievously extended her pinky, wiggling it in the air as if to imply something... that kind of retionship.

  "Parallel universe? You guys don’t seem too shocked. Was Cindy’s st invasion that big of a deal?"

  Su Ming didn’t engage with her. Either way, if he acknowledged or denied her statement, Harley would twist the conversation into something else. He wouldn’t get the answers he needed.

  "Yeah, we put on quite a show," Harley said with a light ugh, jumping up and spinning in the air, striking a mock-curtsy like a ballerina. "Even though the main action happened in Metropolis, the explosion’s firelight... tsk tsk, Gotham saw it all clearly. It was beautiful. I swear, I could almost hear the desperate screams of the residents."

  At that point, Cindy shrugged, as if to say, See? She’s a lunatic.

  Su Ming, unfazed, suddenly threw in a question: "Well, if you knew the world was going to end, would you be happy?"

  "Mm, yeah." Harley grinned, nodding enthusiastically, as if she’d just been praised by a teacher. "Why do you think we’re celebrating?"

  Su Ming smirked inwardly. It worked. He’d gotten the confirmation he needed—Harley knew the world was ending.

  "Wait, you invited me here to celebrate this?" Ivy suddenly stood up, looking at Harley with disbelief, as if she wanted to knock some sense into her. "You told me there was no one at home, you wanted me to come hang out, and now it’s because the world’s ending? If the Earth’s gone, what’s going to happen to my pnts?"

  Ivy raised her voice in frustration. Her own life might not matter, but her pnts definitely did. Harley, feeling guilty, quickly ran over and patted Ivy’s smooth back with a forced smile, as if trying to calm a cat.

  "Hey, it’s alright. We’re all going to die, and after that, we won’t even see the pnts die. So, no need to feel bad, right?"

  Clearly, this insane rambling didn’t comfort Ivy at all. Ivy just narrowed her eyes, gring at her.

  Su Ming then asked, "What about spaceships? You guys don’t have something like that? You could survive in space."

  In DC's multiverse, there were not only spaceships but also aliens. The Justice League’s space station was called the "Watchtower," located in geostationary orbit above Earth.

  The response he got was unanimous from the three women:

  "Spaceship? What’s that?" X3

  They all asked in different tones, but it was clear: none of them had any concept of such a thing.

  "Uhh… it’s a ship that can carry people past the atmosphere, you know, to live outside Earth," Su Ming tried to expin.

  Cindy and Ivy exchanged strange looks, while Harley’s eyes lit up, as if she'd found a kindred spirit. "I knew it! Ships can fly! Heh heh heh, I’m not crazy!"

  Being seen as a kindred spirit by someone who was clearly insane—what did that even mean?

  Apparently, in this Amazonian-ruled world, everything was still run on their own ancient beliefs. They trusted in the power of gods, and science? That was just a lie to fool the common folk.

  Earth was the center of the universe. Why would anyone want to leave? And as long as you trained hard enough, you could fly on your own.

  Could science give you immortality? Could science make you young forever? The things science couldn’t do, divine power could.

  So in this world, there were no pnes. If you wanted to fly... maybe a magic carpet would be the answer?

  For Su Ming, this was a painful realization. No wonder Earth-11 ended in a great tsunami—it was all part of Barbatos’ pn. He must have known there were no flight vehicles here, so he used the world as a catalyst to pull Lubris into darkness.

  Su Ming and the others were desperately trying to cut the fuse that was about to ignite the bomb, but so far, they had no leads. The key pyer, Blythe, had mysteriously disappeared, leaving their pns useless.

  “I can't just sit here and wait for the end,” Ivy muttered, frustration clear in her voice. “If Earth falls, the pnts won’t survive either. I have to do something.”

  She wasn’t lost in Harley's sweet words about embracing a "beautiful and warm death." Ivy had made up her mind to struggle, to fight back.

  “By the way, you said you're from a parallel world... is it possible to go back? Maybe take me and the pnts with you to hide out somewhere?”

  “That’s a nice thought, but I can't even get back myself,” Su Ming said bluntly. He’d have tried to convince Cindy to run if there was any chance. Earth’s destruction? He couldn’t care less. The real issue was that he was stuck on this sinking ship.

  Ivy’s hope was dashed. She fell silent, deep in thought, before turning to look at Harley. Harley, on the other hand, seemed indifferent, twirling her hair aimlessly as if the conversation didn’t concern her.

  “By the way, did the Trickster tell you how all this destruction happened?” Ivy asked.

  “Nope. But she seemed pretty serious about it, so it must be true.” Harley responded, her tone casual despite the gravity of the subject.

  It was unclear how Harley managed to interpret seriousness from the Trickster’s jumbled letters, but she knew Earth was doomed, though the details were a mystery to her.

  “Probably because of the war?” Ivy continued. “Those things deep in the ocean have been fighting the Amazon Council for ages.” She leaned against Harley, her tone suddenly drained. As the world’s most famous environmentalist, she found it hard to muster any real energy as she spoke, “This kind of war isn’t something we can stop. Using WMDs will ruin everything. The Trickster probably foresaw all of this.”

  Harley, however, seemed more focused on Ivy's hair. She absentmindedly picked a leaf from Ivy’s strands, trying it on her own head but failing miserably. No matter how she arranged it, it just didn’t work. It didn’t look like nature at all—more like a leaf had just fallen on her head.

  “Probably. Who cares, though? I’m actually curious about what death feels like. I want to try it out.”

  As the two began to mess around again, Su Ming shook his head.

  “Go ahead and py. We’re heading out. And just so you know, the world is ending because of a great flood.”

  He grabbed Cindy’s hand, casually snatched a bag of chips off the table, and made his way toward the exit. Maybe once they were sober tomorrow, they’d be able to handle the remains of the carnage downstairs with a little more seriousness.

  Cindy grabbed her helmet, still being pulled along, and could hear Harley and Ivy's muffled voices behind them.

  “A great flood? Is that the apocalypse?” Ivy asked.

  “Yeah, the one with Noah and the ark.” Harley replied zily.

  “It’s an ark, you dummy,” Ivy shot back.

  “I’m not dumb, I’ll bite you,” Harley retorted, sticking her tongue out.

  The two were back to their usual pyful bickering, completely uninterested in the impending doom. For Ivy, as long as there were still pnts around, even if she died, it wouldn't matter.

  Cindy sighed as she followed Su Ming down the hall, the music still bring loudly behind them. “So what now? We don’t have any clues left.”

  Su Ming tied a rope around a nearby pipe, tested its strength, and then climbed out of the window. The cold rain immediately hit him like ice, freezing his blood.

  The fshy, neon-lit atmosphere from before had been nothing more than a distraction, a way for Harley to hypnotize herself. The threat of death still hung over them like a dark cloud.

  The car was wrecked, so now, they had no choice but to walk and talk.

  “You mentioned you’ve been to the Batcave. What about Wayne Manor?” Su Ming asked, scanning their surroundings for any sign of transportation.

  “Of course. Not just her, her old butler is missing too.”

  “Do you think they were kidnapped?”

  “No, the security is still tight. All the rooms are neat, no signs of a struggle. She left on her own, and took the butler with her.”

  “Doesn’t she have a system in the Batcave to monitor all of Gotham? Did you try that?”

  “We would need her two eyeballs and one hand to activate the system.”

  They had walked quite a distance, almost out of the circus’s territory, but still had no solid leads. Then, Su Ming spotted something useful.

  It was a pile of unicycles, haphazardly stacked by the wall, their cold metal gleaming in the rain. This was likely circus property. The people who owned them were probably the ones Su Ming and Cindy had taken down earlier, not far from the scene.

  No matter which version of the Joker's gang you encountered, they always had a fir for the dramatic when killing people—like riding unicycles and shooting at crowds with apples on their heads.

  “You know how to ride one of these?” Su Ming asked, pulling two unicycles from the pile.

  Cindy took one and wobbled a little at first, but soon got the hang of it. With her superhuman physical abilities and bance, learning to ride a unicycle took only seconds.

  Su Ming quickly realized the same. Riding smoothly, he could even juggle small balls or apples while riding, if he had them.

  The unicycles moved quickly under their combined strength, nearly as fast as a car. The only downside was there were no windshields, so the rain hit them hard, soaking them to the bone.

  “You think it’s time to tell me where we’re heading?” Cindy asked, riding alongside him.

  “Uh, yeah. You’re right,” Su Ming replied, scanning the dark streets. “We’ve learned that Blythe took Alfred and ran, so clearly, he pnned on escaping with his family and friends. But there’s one person who definitely won’t be going with him.”

  “You mean…” Cindy nodded, the red eye on her mask glowing under the streetlights.

  Su Ming confirmed her guess, then pulled out his gun and waved it threateningly at the dark figure hiding in a nearby alley. “We’re going to find him now and make a big scene, force Batman to come out and save him.”

  “Heh, I like this pn. All the previous moves were too ‘small-time.’ Follow me.”