Chapter 1 The Bar in the East District

A bar, in the East District.

In the dim light and swirling smoke, a group of men and women, lost in drunken revelry, sought pleasure.

The sound system here might have had a problem; the noisy chatter almost drowned out the music. In a way, this was a good thing, because the bar owner’s terrible taste in music was hard to compliment.

And the smell here was even worse than on the street...

The vomit stains and other filth on the floor had never been cleaned. Bottle after bottle of fake alcohol went down the throats of the male patrons, and then that nauseating smell of liquor would seep out of every pore of their bodies.

As for the female patrons... or rather, some of the women who “worked” here, their cheap perfume mixed with body odor was another disgusting experience altogether.

In such an environment, a man in a purple long suit, completely out of place, sat quietly at the bar.

He possessed an ancient elegance, refusing to blend into the low atmosphere around him. His gaze was calm and sharp, as if it could tear through all the tangible or intangible turbidity that stood before his eyes.

He ordered a tonic water and watched the bartender pour the ordinary drink from a can into a glass and push it toward him.

The pouring process tripled the price of the drink.

Of course, no one would object; like those who went to the lobby of a five-star hotel for breakfast, they paid five times the price for orange juice that could be bought in a supermarket, but they didn’t feel it was a waste.

That was how this society had always operated. Money was just a weight used to measure people’s desires and abilities. As long as the parties involved felt that the "price" and the "gain" were equal, there was no such thing as "waste."

"Your suit is interesting. Did your wife make it for you?" Feng Bujue asked, looking at the bartender with a calm gaze as he took the drink, a "casual" question.

This was actually a question he already knew the answer to. From the stitches and sewing techniques of the suit, Brother Jue could tell that it wasn’t made by a professional tailor. But the person who made it had still done their best with a passion and care that money couldn’t buy.

"Y-yes... sir," the bartender stammered. His expression and tone were also different from ordinary people, as if he had some kind of intellectual disability.

"Does she like green?" Brother Jue continued to ask.

"N-no... it’s b-because... the b-boss requires me to wear... this when I work," the bartender replied.

Listening to him speak was torture, anyone would think.

"Oh~" Feng Bujue nodded, paused, and then said, "So... the 'Riddle Bartender' on that old poster outside the bar is you?"

"N-no... at l-least not a-anymore..." the bartender replied. "A few years a-ago, the boss let... let me go on stage... and try a f-few shows... but... but it didn't work out."

"Ho~" Brother Jue pretended not to care, maintaining the feeling of "casual conversation." "...Now I understand what those question marks mean."

The "question marks" he was referring to were the black question mark symbols sewn onto the bartender's green suit.

"By the way," Feng Bujue said a few seconds later, "can you give me a riddle now?"

A hint of displeasure appeared on the bartender's face. From the beginning, he felt that the man in front of him was deliberately teasing him. "I don't th-think so, sir," he said, emphasizing his tone to show his displeasure.

"Woah~ don't get angry, buddy." Seeing that the situation had changed, Feng Bujue also adjusted his attitude accordingly. In an instant, he changed his expression, raised his eyebrows slightly, and said, "I didn't mean to make fun of you. Look... it's my first time here... so I wanted to chat with the bartender and get to know him. If I offended you, then I apologize."

As he spoke, he took out a small bill from his jacket pocket and slowly pushed it toward the bartender under his finger.

"Hmm..."

Under the double effect of these words and actions, the bartender's attitude changed as expected... He quickly looked around, pretended to wipe the bar with a rag, and then pocketed the money.

"...Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

Feng Bujue hadn't spent too much to open the other party's mouth.

As he had guessed, the bartender in front of him was the "Riddler"—the Riddler who possessed a genius-level intelligence and was possibly one of the smartest people in the DC Universe.

However, in this script, he was just Edward Nygma, an ordinary bartender. For a few brief weekends, he had performed a few shows in this East District bar under the stage name "Riddle Bartender," but because he stammered, he almost always left the stage in humiliation and boos.

After Brother Jue handed over a second, slightly larger bill, Edward revealed more... According to him, he used to be a smart person, even so smart that people were jealous. He had a decent job and a high income... But all of this had disappeared with the arrival of a terrible disease.

A few years ago, Edward suddenly contracted a rare bacterial meningitis. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, the disease didn't take his life, but... it affected part of the function of his left brain. Although the sequelae weren't enough to turn him into an "idiot," it caused irreversible damage to his logical thinking, especially the functions related to language.

The strange thing was... although his logical analysis ability had become worse than that of ordinary people, his reaction and thinking ability were still top-notch only when he encountered problems related to riddles.

…………

When he walked out of the bar, the night had deepened.

As soon as he came to the street, Brother Jue felt something – a gaze.

As someone deeply accomplished in the field of counter-tracking, Feng Bujue could almost instinctively know when he was under surveillance.

Besides... the person watching him was just a thug, after all, and his actions were very unprofessional. Brother Jue only made a few turns to clearly probe the other party's intentions.

At this time, Feng Bujue’s mission progress had become 610. After finding out the whereabouts of four more supervillains, he would be able to complete the hidden mission.

He was looking forward to running into a few violent gangs in the East District and finding a few characters who should have become supervillains from among them... This was naturally also the reason why he had angered the bald man earlier.

Therefore, Brother Jue had no intention of getting rid of the stalker. He pretended not to know anything and silently walked toward the dark alley.

More than ten minutes later, he could determine by hearing that he was basically surrounded. At this time, he quickened his pace, putting on an appearance of "just discovering that he was being followed," and rushed into a dead end.

Then, a familiar face appeared. The bald man who had been kicked down by Brother Jue not long ago, with about a dozen guys who didn't look like good people in their dress, blocked Feng Bujue in an alley.

"Look who it is..." The bald man walked forward with a smug look on his face, looking at Brother Jue as if he were a small animal forced into a desperate situation.

"Your memory is very bad..." Feng Bujue's expression was very calm, and the lethality of his words was beyond the other party's reach. "...Aren't I the one who gave your eggs a kick and made you kneel on the ground more than an hour ago? You forgot so quickly, do you have a problem with your intelligence?"

As soon as these words came out, several thugs around the bald man were amused, but they didn't dare to laugh out loud. They could only hold back their laughter and turn their faces away, or make strange "ku chi" sounds and then cover them up with coughs.

The bald man was so angry at Brother Jue that he was trembling all over, and all the blood in his body rushed to his head, making everything above his neck turn red.

"I'm going to kill you!" the bald man said, taking out a switchblade from the back pocket of his pants. "Kill you! Do you hear me? I'm going to chop you into eight pieces!"

"Before you do anything, I have some questions that I hope you can answer..." Feng Bujue didn't feel intimidated at all, and continued with an indifferent attitude, "...What kind of onion are you? And... what gang or organization do you people belong to? Or are you just randomly gathered together?"

Brother Jue deeply understood the communication mode of "speaking human language to people and ghost language to ghosts." He knew very well that in the realm of crime, except for a few exceptions, the people at the bottom wanted their names to be widely known, while the people at the top wanted to keep a low profile.

So, when facing these thugs, he chose this wording.

"What? Are you also on the road?" The bald man was indeed hooked. "Want to scare me with the name of your boss or gang? Hehe... don't dream!" he said loudly. "You want my name? You can... I will engrave my name on your corpse - Mister Zsasz! I think the police coroner will like it... Oh, of course, they have to sew your corpse back together into one piece to see my name clearly!"

"Huh?" Upon hearing this, Feng Bujue's expression did change. He thought to himself, "This guy is Zsasz?" He quickly looked the other up and down again. "Hmm... his appearance and style do look a bit like it, but the Zsasz I know should be covered in knife marks (in the setting, Zsasz is a cold-blooded serial killer, whose characteristic is to make a cut on himself every time he kills someone, and then constantly show off those dense knife marks with his upper body bare), not tattoos..."

"Sounds like... you're quite experienced in killing and dismembering people?" Feng Bujue didn't think too much and quickly continued to ask.

"That's none of your business, kid..." But Zsasz didn't seem to want to say anything more. He waved his hand at the surrounding accomplices, signaling everyone to attack together, and he himself also walked over with a knife.

It could be seen that after being "tricked" by Brother Jue once, Zsasz had become much more cautious.

Unfortunately, it was all in vain.

One minute... That was the amount of time it took Feng Bujue to knock down all the thugs, including Zsasz.

Brother Jue didn't even use skills or equipment... After a few simple moves, "Zero Hour Calculation" collected enough data. Next, Feng Bujue knocked these people down with just the most basic physical skills.

In the end, in a hand-to-hand combat, facing an opponent whose physical fitness was several times higher than ordinary people and who could predict all the enemy's movements, it would be useless for Zsasz to call a hundred more people.

"Alright, the exercise time is over, now we enter the question time." After confirming that the dozen or so people in front of him couldn't stand up in a short time, Feng Bujue walked to Zsasz and said to the thug who was lying on the ground, "Mr. Zsasz, please answer my question just now... Have you ever killed anyone before?"

"Pfft—" Zsasz didn't answer, but spat a mouthful of blood-stained saliva at Brother Jue, who was condescending.

Feng Bujue easily dodged the wad of blood and walked past Zsasz with light steps. "Ah... it seems Mr. Zsasz is not willing to cooperate." He glanced at the others groaning on the ground and continued, "Is there anyone else who can answer me?"

No one responded to him...

"Hmm... is that so..." Brother Jue said, reaching into his pocket and taking out [Beru's Everyday Knife]. "Then I can only take some measures..." He turned back to Zsasz and suddenly bent down and grabbed Zsasz's right foot.

"Uh... what do you want to do? Bastard!" Zsasz gasped and cursed loudly, but he was unable to get up or break free from the other party's grip.

"I once consulted a friend who is a doctor on how to cause permanent damage to a person's Achilles tendon..." Feng Bujue continued in a very relaxed tone, "...But I never had the opportunity to experiment on a living person. Today seems like a good opportunity."

As he spoke, he had already taken off Zsasz's shoe.

"Of course, as a rigorous person, I can't build my intimidation on this experiment that may not be successful." After a two-second pause, Brother Jue continued, "I also know a sure way to cause a lifelong disability to a person's ability to walk... that is, to cut off all his toes and part of his heel..." He shrugged and made eye contact with Zsasz with a fanatical look. "To be on the safe side, I'll do both."

"Okay! I'll say... I'll tell you everything you want to know!" Seeing this, Zsasz seemed to have given in and intended to answer Brother Jue's question.

"No, you don't have a chance anymore." Unexpectedly, Feng Bujue ignored him and struck with lightning speed...

The sharp blade of the legendary weapon quickly slashed across Zsasz's foot. His Achilles tendon was instantly severed, and his five toes and a large piece of flesh from his heel were detached from his foot in the blink of an eye...

Because the knife was fast, the pain was somewhat delayed... Just as Zsasz was about to scream in horror, Feng Bujue took a step forward and kicked the bald man's head with all his might, knocking him unconscious.

"Hehe... hahahaha..." Then, Brother Jue let out a strange laugh and once again scanned the thugs on the ground.

At this moment... without exception, those people's faces revealed the expression he had hoped for.

…………

Late, 8:50 PM.

Feng Bujue left the East District with a hidden mission progress of 710.

He was lucky enough to easily hail a taxi in the East District at this time.

Now, he was going to a place that was completely opposite to the East District—the Twin Towers in downtown Gotham City (Note: This landmark has been mentioned many times in comics such as "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," but it appears less frequently in comics and derivative works after 9/11).

In the previous interrogation of the group of thugs, Brother Jue had already learned the reason why Zsasz didn't have knife marks on his body... The truth was simple, he actually did have knife marks on his body, but only one.

It turned out that in this universe, this supervillain who should have become a "serial killer" had only killed one person, and then he was caught by Batman... Moreover, at Batman's request, this guy was locked up in the highest security prison and kept in solitary confinement.

So, Zsasz, who in the comics "can write and fight" and "can easily escape from prison," had served more than ten years in prison and was only recently paroled for "good behavior."

Of course, his "good" behavior... was undoubtedly put on after confirming that he couldn't escape from prison. Judging from the fact that he immediately mixed into the East District and started a team after being released from prison, he was still that Zsasz.

This was also why, in that alley, Feng Bujue didn't give Zsasz a chance to speak when Zsasz "gave in."

Brother Jue knew... this character's IQ was not low, he was just underestimating the abilities of this "interdimensional traveler," which was why he was being controlled. If he had really let Zsasz speak at that time, the guy would most likely have lied, which would have interfered with Brother Jue's completion of the mission.

"Speaking of... Zsasz and Killer Croc have a significant common point—they both belong to the type of characters who 'cannot be prevented from turning evil.'" Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, Feng Bujue was still thinking about the various clues in the script. He just whispered to himself in a nonchalant manner, "Killer Croc has no choice due to physiological reasons; while Zsasz is the kind of character who is set to be 'born evil'... Even though he grew up in a comfortable and normal family environment, he still became a cold-blooded killer when he grew up, and there was no sudden trigger."

"Logically speaking, since it's such a villain... he should be 'permanently dealt with' just like Killer Croc."

"But why... is Killer Croc dead, but Zsasz is still alive?"

"Because he's just a 'second-tier villain,' his character is relatively pale after removing the scars, and he doesn't even have a catchy villain nickname... so keeping him around won't be a big deal?"

"Anyway, as soon as he takes any action, you can go and take care of him at any time and send him back to prison..."

"That's... what you're thinking, right?"

His voice gradually became louder in the last few sentences.

The soft murmur gradually turned into a conversational tone.

And in the environment of a taxi, there was obviously only one person who could be the object of Feng Bujue's conversation, and that was the driver in the driver's seat...