Chapter 1 Gotham at Night

Even the "City of Light," Gotham, will eventually have its night.

Whenever darkness descends, the gloomy sky and howling north wind... always remind some people of a time long past.

In the not-so-distant past, this place was still a city of sin rife with corruption.

Back then, officials fraternized with gangsters, and the police were the protectors of criminals… The whole of Gotham was like a grim and cold concrete jungle, and at night, the streets were filled with low or mournful roars… as if they would never end.

But all of that is in the past… at least, on the surface, it seems that way.

…

Late, 7:30 PM, Gotham "East End."

Three years ago, the East End was a terrible place, you could even say… the worst place in all of Gotham.

If you think the thugs in front of Robinson Park are bad, it's because you haven't seen the half-begging, half-robbing junkies in front of Finger Memorial Hall; if you think those junkies are already terrible, it's because you haven't seen the homeless lying around like stranded dead fish in front of Sprang Aid Station.

However, compared to the situation in the East End, all these people can be considered to be "doing okay."

Back in the day, the East End was a red-light district that even corrupt police officers were reluctant to set foot in. The streets were full of bruised and swollen prostitutes (for these women, being beaten by pimps was commonplace) and even child prostitutes; fierce and crazy thugs dared to commit crimes in broad daylight, while the people around them would turn a blind eye and ignore them as if they hadn't seen anything.

Even today, three years later, with the above situations somewhat contained, this is still one of the districts with the highest crime rate in Gotham.

Cheap bars, cheap hotels, cheap apartments, cheap shops… everything here is cheap; and it is this "cheapness" that allows those at the bottom of Gotham to survive.

But "survival" and "life" are different, and poverty is a very easy breeding ground for crime, a timeless truth.

Therefore, this "cheap" place has logically become Gotham's last gray area.

…

"Hah… this is the air of the slums…" Stepping into this place, Feng BuJue consciously took a deep breath of the turbid air and looked up at the neon-lit streets, and said with some emotion, "Although it doesn't smell good, it makes people feel at ease…"

Of course, he knew that to find clues about those "super villains," he had to come to the East End.

However, he didn't come straight here as soon as he entered Gotham City… Before coming to the East End, Feng BuJue went to two other places.

The first place was a research institute owned by a pharmaceutical company on the edge of the city.

It wasn't far from the sewer exit that Brother Jue passed through when entering the city, he basically just went in on the way.

As someone who knew the various plots of the DC universe quite well, Feng BuJue certainly knew that Mister Freeze worked at this company; villains who have had legitimate jobs like this are actually very easy to find...

Infiltrating such a private enterprise facility wasn't difficult, in Brother Jue's eyes it was as easy as reaching into his pocket… He found a janitor's jumpsuit in the tool room and put it on, mixed into the office area, and before long, he found the person he was looking for in the break room on the second floor—the cryogenics expert Victor Fries.

After talking with him and several of his colleagues, Feng BuJue quickly learned the following information—the Fries of this universe clearly didn't become a cold-blooded being due to a lab accident, and his wife didn't die; although his wife still had a serious degenerative disease as Brother Jue knew, it just so happened that… shortly after her illness was diagnosed, the Wayne Group's research and development department developed a special drug that could cure the disease, so Fries' wife was saved, and his family and work are now very stable.

After collecting this information, Feng BuJue's hidden mission progress reached 3/10, indicating that Mister Freeze's whereabouts had been clarified.

Then, he went to the second place… Gotham University.

If infiltrating a private enterprise facility was as easy as reaching into his pocket, then getting into a university was like picking his nose; he spent twenty minutes and found one of his targets on campus—Pamela Lillian Isley, or Poison Ivy as he knew her.

The Pamela of this universe was not chosen as an experimental subject by botanist Jason Wood, because that Jason Wood died in a fire several years ago, and his research data was burned along with him.

In other words, the person who should have used Pamela was already dead, and the plant toxins that caused Pamela to mutate were never invented.

In the library, Feng BuJue pretended to be a student and chatted with Pamela for a while, and got the above information, and he was also naturally mistaken for an unskilled pick-up artist who was just making conversation.

Brother Jue ended the conversation before the other party's attitude gradually turned cold and the atmosphere became awkward, and with his mission progress already at 4/10, he went to another target who was also at Gotham University—Jonathan Crane, AKA… Scarecrow.

Feng BuJue was also quite curious about why Scarecrow hadn't turned evil, because this character basically went to extremes because of the various bullying he suffered during his student days… rather than because of a sudden event he experienced after becoming an adult.

As a result, after chatting with this psychology professor at Gotham University in the cafeteria for more than half an hour, Brother Jue finally indirectly got the answer—those boys who bullied Jonathan back then, and the girls who rejected and ridiculed him… all encountered a mountain disaster during a class reunion trip many years later, and when the police found their bodies, many of them had been eaten by wild animals in the mountains, leaving only their clothes.

And our Jonathan… or rather, this gentleman who should have been Scarecrow, because he lived like hell during his student days, had no feelings for these classmates, and didn't go to that gathering at all… thus luckily escaping the disaster.

After that incident, Jonathan's disposition changed a lot, as if some kind of knot in his heart had been untied… of course, it could also be said to be a mentality of "great revenge, God has eyes."

In any case, that's roughly why Scarecrow didn't turn evil… after finding out about this, Feng BuJue's mission progress was updated to 5/10.

…

When he left Gotham University, it was already dusk, and Brother Jue felt that the time was about right, so he headed to his third stop—the East End.

"Hey! Are you blind?" Just as Feng BuJue was standing on the road, stopping to look around, suddenly, someone bumped him hard with their shoulder and preemptively said this.

Brother Jue was very familiar with this routine… anyway, it was either a staged accident or looking for trouble.

Feng BuJue might not be polite to ordinary people, let alone someone who obviously wanted to cause trouble… you can imagine his attitude.

"Huh?" The next second, Brother Jue's delinquent teenager voice went online, he turned his head, squinted at the person who had just passed by him, and continued, "Are you talking to me?"

"Nonsense!" That was a bald man, who was actually bare-chested in the cold weather, with a lot of tattoos on his torso, and almost no good skin could be found below his neck, "Not only are you blind… you're fucking deaf too?"

The moment he finished speaking, he was kicked in the crotch.

Then, he instinctively covered his crotch and knelt down…

"Huh? What did you say? I still can't hear you…" Feng BuJue's nut-cracker kick was really extremely sudden, and after kicking, he put on an indifferent look, speaking in a tone like a deaf old man, "... Say it again, louder."

"You… you this…" The bald man wanted to curse, but the intense pain in his balls only allowed him to squeeze out sporadic words, he also wanted to stand up and hit someone, but before the pain in his crotch subsided… he would probably have to maintain this kneeling posture with his legs together for a while.

"Come find me when you can speak fluently." Feng BuJue looked down at the other party with condescending eyes, shrugged, casually left these words, and then turned and left.

He knew that this hooligan would definitely come after him to take revenge in a while, and might even call some accomplices… and this was exactly what he was looking forward to.