The Death Knell

There is an old saying in China that when someone is about to die, his words are good. Former Gotham bosses like Blockbuster are now like ordinary old people who are very easy to deal with.

So Su Ming felt that the main reason why he couldn't survive in Gotham was that he wasn't crazy enough.

Another old saying is that if you are not crazy, you cannot live. This is the standard portrayal of Gotham. If you are not crazy enough, you will not be liked by Batman. How can you live a prosperous life in his city?

In fact, in Su Ming's opinion, dying in Arkham Asylum is much better than dying in a corner like this where no one knows about it.

Arkham provides food and accommodation. Batman's sponsorship allows the patients there to enjoy a good standard of living. There are also single rooms to stay in. The neighbors are all talented and well-spoken. Mental patients like it very much. .

But again, everyone should have the right to choose.

Su Ming likes to have choices, and is willing to let other friendly people choose. Sometimes, he himself can even fight for human beings' right to choose.

People can choose to become vigilantes, or they can choose to retire from the life of villains. Su Ming could at most say a few words in his mind, but he never actually forced him to change his friends' choices.

Since the old man wants to die in this barren little city, let's grant his wish. He has eaten and seen everything when he was young, so maybe he has nothing more to ask for.

Orangutans usually don't have much money in their hands. Donna's uniform has no pockets so she can't hold any money. Shazam only has a few dollars of pocket money. Su Ming himself doesn't have Earth 0 bills and is too lazy to change them.

So this time Wally gave the money. He was fast and could go home to get it.

The price level in Blüdhaven is not high. Five hundred dollars is almost enough to rent a room with three meals a week. Anyway, Blockbuster just wants to find a place to take a shower and die cleanly in bed, so that's it. There is no need to stay in a star hotel.

Besides, there are no star-rated hotels in this city. Compared with Gotham, this place is like Tieling compared with the Magic City. Some high-consumption projects are not available locally.

"Huh? Let go, no, it's just a few hundred dollars, don't be so stingy."

The Flash handed over the money, and Su Ming, who was talking to the old man, reached out to take it, but when he pulled it, he didn't take it, so he looked back.

It turned out that Wally was holding on to the other half of the several hundred dollars with all his strength. The half of his face exposed under the mask was full of reluctance, and his mouth was trembling like a wave:

"It's not easy for me to make money, Deathstroke. I still have two children to raise. They will also go to school this year. Next time I need money, how about I go get Bobo's money?"

Another Flash, Barry is the type who has no money. Even though he is a physicist at the Star Laboratory and does forensic work at the Midtown Police Department, he has enough food and clothing, but he cannot squander it like the Bat or the Green Arrow. .

Wally is even poorer. He usually works as a car repair mechanic and occasionally works part-time as a reporter. He is the kind of paparazzi who secretly takes photos with his mobile phone when he sees some news, and then sells the photos to newspapers or websites.

It's not a good job for a superhero, especially being a reporter, which is a profession that even Superman can't do.

Clark has been working in this industry for almost twenty years, and he is still the lowest-level reporter. He works in a small cubicle in a large office with hundreds of colleagues every day.

If it weren't for Louise's father being a lieutenant general and her mother's family being wealthy, and Superman's character of being so serious that he doesn't benefit from others, I'm afraid he would have failed in his "big drift" and taken his wife and children back to his hometown to farm. Are you rich enough to afford a luxury apartment of more than 200 square meters in a big city?

Not to mention car repairs. If the car has a minor problem, repairing it will not make any money. If the car has a major problem, it will be sent to a 4S shop or returned to the factory.

In addition, Wally is too honest. When repairing other people's cars, you just do it slowly. What does it mean to repair someone else's car in three minutes?

Don't understand human nature.

He repaired the car so quickly and failed to complete it. Customers thought he was playing tricks on his car. His reputation was ruined. Who would come to his car repair shop?

Ranwen

So even though I only got less than a thousand dollars from Wally today, this is also his living expenses for a long time.

"Don't try to trick me, how can I have money?" Bobo shook his head repeatedly, with a look of caution on his monkey face: "The money in the bar belongs to the public account, I have no personal income, so don't talk nonsense. Otherwise, the tax bureau will think that I am evading personal income tax, which will be a big trouble."

"Okay, don't make a fuss. Superheroes shouldn't worry about money."

Su Ming took a few digs in his pocket, took out a bag of gold coins and slapped them into Wally's hand. He exchanged them for U.S. dollars at an exchange rate of several hundred times. Then he gave the money to the old man and started the first question. :

"Who is covering Blüdhaven now?"

"There are no vigilantes in this city, and we don't need that kind of lunatic. We have reliable police, normal police who are upright and honest. This city doesn't need a savior. It only needs to rely on ordinary people themselves."

The one-eyed old man took the money, twisted the lines of the special fabric with his fingers, and drank the small wine given to him by the death knell:

"As for the black side, there are 34 gangs in the city. Most of them run bars and loan sharks, but they are all small and insignificant. So if you ask who covers this city? I can only say that no one is. It belongs to all citizens.”

"Hey, that's right, old man. I think you have reconciled with yourself after leaving Gotham, and you have also developed collectivist ideas."

Su Ming, who was smoking a cigarette, smiled. He dragged the old man into the dusty cake shop, wiped a chair a few times, wiped it clean and invited people to sit down:

"Okay, that's the end of the pleasantries. Tell me about the New Shogi Club and the New Colony, and why they appear in the city?"

Just like the old man said before, in order to quickly let Deathstroke take these superheroes to finish their work and leave, he knew everything and said everything.

As a street vagrant, he is not an ordinary person. After all, he is a former Gotham boss, and he is still good at gathering information.

Even though he was so hungry that he lay dead in the alley every day, his mind was barely functioning, and he had no in-depth analysis of the acquired information, there was no problem with being a repeater.

I learned from Blockbuster that these two forces only landed last week.

Blüdhaven was once a small whaling village. It was upgraded to a town in 1868, more than a hundred years later than Gotham.

After becoming a town, whaling was also the town's main industry for a long time. It was not until 1905 that after petroleum products replaced the role of whale oil, the city gradually turned to conventional fishing.

The city's coastline is densely populated with ports, so the flow of people is complicated. Once upon a time, the smuggling business here was flourishing.

However, under the government's severe crackdown, smuggling, smuggling, drug trafficking and other businesses were destroyed, so the city became safer, but the economy also declined due to too strict supervision.

How much money can you make just by catching fish?

Without money, you can't retain talents, so now it's like a ghost town. The permanent population in the city is only about 200,000. Many houses near the suburbs are empty, and their owners have gone to nearby big cities to make a living. .

However, although there are few people, the number of ports left behind in the past is still there. The New Shogi Club and the New Colony seem to have taken a fancy to them. At this time, one group is in the Dread Gap in the east of the city, and the other is in Piccolo in the west of the city. Each beach occupied a pier area and seemed to be preparing for something.

The old man doesn't know more about it. Blockbuster is not the kind of person with super powers who can fly into the sky and escape from the earth. He is just an ordinary person and a remnant of Gotham's old family era. His era has long passed.