Chapter 1 The Misfortune of Being a Villain

These days, being a villain is just… miserable. And the villains in *Batman* are particularly tragic.

First of all, disfigurement is normal. Several are born deformed, not to mention those who fall into chemical vats.

Secondly, childhood trauma is a must. Being ridiculed by peers, being withdrawn, being discriminated against, being thrown into prison at the age of seven... all are acceptable. Someone like Batman, who lost his parents in a street robbery and grew up to take revenge on society, is just being sensitive. No wonder Bane wants to beat him up.

Also, career or love, one of them has to be ruined. True love dies tragically nine times out of ten; ending up as a vegetable is something to be grateful for. A legitimate career is absolutely impossible; what with being a prosecutor, restaurant owner, business elite… if they don't come out to rebel against society, life is unbearable.

Compared to these people, is the death of a family elder or the illness of a friend even worth mentioning? At most, that kind of thing would get you into the Top 40 on *American Idol*. After all, who has a family where no one gets sick, has accidents, or dies for decades? Those are monsters!

And what's most incomprehensible is that these villains, whose lives are like a bad joke, mostly have high cultural or academic accomplishments. Professorships are commonplace; there are plenty of "xeno-ologists" with the potential to win Nobel Prizes. If you're just a lab assistant, you'd be embarrassed to say hello to your cellmates in Arkham Asylum.

Mr. Freeze is a major villain born with many of the above characteristics.

His real name is Victor Fries, a cryogenics expert. His beloved wife suffers from a severe degenerative disease that cannot be cured with the medical technology of the time. Therefore, he froze his wife to suspend her life, while dedicating himself to researching a cure for her.

Later, the company that funded his research pulled the plug on his laboratory, causing an accident that turned him into a cold-blooded being, whose body temperature must be kept at zero degrees at all times. Thus, he donned a specially designed protective suit and began to engage in extreme behavior, becoming a super-criminal.

On this day, this fellow was debugging some equipment that only he could understand in a factory called Northern Wastelands when, unexpectedly, two uninvited guests arrived outside the factory building.

Mr. Freeze had been a villain for more than a day or two. He had installed surveillance cameras in hidden places around the factory. If the police discovered his location and prepared to come in for an arrest, he could prepare in advance.

But this time, he saw a scene that puzzled him greatly. First, a guy who looked somewhat similar to the Joker appeared out of nowhere and started casing the place. Then, a Passerby A came along, and after a few words, the Passerby A stabbed himself. Then came a superhero-level fight. Passerby A controlled blood monsters to fight, while the fake Joker relied on superb skills and glowing playing cards.

At this point, Mr. Freeze had already gone to get the most powerful freezing pulse gun because he felt that if the fighting continued like this, he might be affected…

"Help! Professor Fries!" Feng Bujue shouted for help while searching for Mr. Freeze's whereabouts in the factory.

Actually, it wasn't difficult to find him. The largest factory building on the first floor was empty, and the conditions on the upper floors could be confirmed at a glance. Only the corridor door on the top floor was locked.

Feng Bujue had also considered escaping elsewhere, but he thought again that although escaping back to the city might temporarily stop Zhaoying Wang from chasing him, it would be tantamount to giving up the resource of Mr. Freeze. Judging from the current situation, even the guy ranked nineteenth was so powerful. If he couldn't get help from certain people or things in the script, he would definitely lose.

Also... Feng Bujue was always concerned about how Zhaoying Wang found him. In such a big city like Gotham, the other party could lock onto his coordinates and track him from a long distance. He must be relying on some kind of skill or equipment, or... a summoning. If he ignored this matter and escaped back to the city, the situation would simply revert to one where the enemy was in the open and he was in the dark.

Under some unknown surveillance, Feng Bujue couldn't implement any strategy at all. No matter what he wanted to do, it was likely to be easily disrupted or his achievements plundered.

Therefore, Feng Bujue had made up his mind to deal with the opponent Zhaoying Wang here.

So, he used the backup plan of the third set of strategies…

"Professor Fries!" Feng Bujue used a pipe wrench to break the lock on the door and rushed into Mr. Freeze's laboratory. "Help!"

Rumble, rumble—

As he spoke, the sound of a monster moving came from behind him. At this time, the blood stone demon had chased to the third floor of the factory and was approaching this place. The speed of this stone demon's pursuit was actually not slow, but because of its large size, it would be delayed when passing through doors and going upstairs, which allowed Feng Bujue to open a distance.

"Don't move, kid." Mr. Freeze pointed the gun at Feng Bujue and said, "Who are you?"

"Huff—" Feng Bujue took a deep breath and then spoke at a high speed like a machine gun, "I am Feng Bujue, a traveler from the future. I have a medicine on me that can cure your wife, and this medicine can also cure you. But at this moment, there is a monster approaching twenty feet tall and weighing about a ton behind me. The man controlling the monster suffers from severe delusions. He believes that he is higher than this universe's dimension, regards human life as worthless, and will do anything to kill me. Once I die, no one will be able to get the medicine, so please save me! Professor!"

Roar—

The blood stone demon appeared behind Feng Bujue at this moment and let out a roar. Zhaoying Wang followed closely behind.

Mr. Freeze only had one weakness in his life, and that was his wife. Although he didn't completely believe Feng Bujue's words, when faced with a strange monster rushing into his laboratory, Mr. Freeze was obviously more willing to believe and help a human who was trying to negotiate with him.

"Get down." Mr. Freeze said "coldly."

The maximum power freezing pulse gun was not a joke. A thick beam of white light burst out, and the already low temperature around it dropped sharply again.

Zhaoying Wang was obviously caught off guard by this situation, but the only thing he could do was to hide behind the blood stone demon. Unfortunately, it was to no avail.

This freezing pulse gun could freeze a large swimming pool in ten seconds, and the combined volume of Zhaoying Wang and the blood stone demon was less than half a room. After being hit head-on by the freezing pulse for a few seconds, they were sealed in a thick layer of ice, like flies in amber, unable to move.

"Hoo..." Feng Bujue, who was lying on the floor, raised his head and looked back. More than joy, he felt more relief in his heart: Fortunately, I met them before I came in to sneak attack Mr. Freeze. Now it seems that I underestimated the strength of the villains in this script…

"Kid." Accompanied by the sound of the pulse gun recharging, Mr. Freeze turned the muzzle and aimed it at Feng Bujue, sneering, "I heard you have medicine that can cure my wife?"

"Yes, and I'm happy to give it to you." Feng Bujue smiled obsequiously, "Shooting me into an ice cube... will only complicate things."

"Hmph..." Mr. Freeze put down the gun, "If you really have that kind of medicine, prove it to me."

"No problem." Feng Bujue got up quickly and straightened his clothes. For the sake of safety, before reaching into his bag to take something out, he greeted him first, "I'm going to take something out of a dimensional pocket now. I don't want to pull out a gun and shoot you, so..."

"Bullets can't penetrate my armor." Mr. Freeze interrupted, "Hurry up and do what you want to do."

"Okay... okay." Feng Bujue nodded and put his hand into his bag. In Mr. Freeze's eyes, this guy was just putting his hand into the inside pocket of his coat.

What Feng Bujue wanted to take out was naturally the ***-500, but he would never be stupid enough to take out the whole bottle. He secretly unscrewed the lid in his arms, took out a piece, held it in his palm, and then opened his palm in front of Mr. Freeze and said, "This is it."

"As far as I can see, this is no different from aspirin." Mr. Freeze replied.

"Understood... understood..." Feng Bujue said, "But... if you want to see the effect, you have to find a test subject first."

"You're very suitable." Mr. Freeze looked at Feng Bujue and said.

"I guessed that..." Feng Bujue muttered in a low voice. He stretched out a hand, "Okay, Professor, use ice to inflict some permanent damage on this hand of mine."

Mr. Freeze glanced at him, seemingly surprised, "Oh? Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course." While Feng Bujue was answering, he glanced back at Zhaoying Wang and the blood stone demon at the door, "By the way, how long does it usually take for people frozen by the pulse gun to die?"

"Much faster than you think." Mr. Freeze said, taking out a freezing pulse pistol from his waist. This one was obviously less powerful, and far from the big guy on his hand, "This is not the same as crawling into your own refrigerator. This is cell death caused by severe extracellular freezing. Of course... examples like them being sealed in huge ice blocks usually die from suffocation."

"That is to say... three to five minutes will... ah!" Feng Bujue's hand was hit by a pulse and wrapped in a layer of frost.

"Your injury is different from theirs. I used a special frequency." Mr. Freeze's tone was still as calm as an ancient well, "Your cytoplasm will rapidly suffer irreversible serious damage. In one minute, even if this forearm is amputated, you won't feel anything."

"Then let's wait a minute." Feng Bujue replied calmly, as if he wasn't the one who had been shot.

"Heh... you remind me of another madman." Mr. Freeze laughed.

"Ah... I know him." Feng Bujue put on a grinning face and imitated in a morbid tone, "People who dress up as bats are crazy~"