Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 304 Buy, buy, buy

P.S.: Sorry for the late night.
"To be honest, if there really is a bad woman who wants to beat me to the ground and turn me into a bastard, then there is no need to rush to save me—unless she is not good-looking."

Ma Zhaodi couldn't help but complain about the silly cat in the store list: "One million for a silly cat—I didn't even realize it was this expensive in the game!"

[Dumb Cat with Built-in Cart: Once a day, it can bring any object from a near-death state back to a safe area, and it will always succeed, ignoring enemy interception.]

[Dumb Cat's built-in Honeybug Attraction Incense: When you are injured, it teleports a honeybug to restore a moderate fixed amount of health during battle, with no limit on the number of times, and an interval of half a minute. The Honeybug Attraction Incense has a proficiency feature. When the proficiency is maxed out, it can provide healing when you are hit by a fatal attack, restoring a certain amount of health.]

【Dumb Cat comes with a protective shield: it taunts the enemy and attracts their attention. It also has a proficiency trait; the higher the proficiency, the stronger its defensive capabilities and taunting ability.】

[Dumb Cat's innate cat food skill: It can cook you a couple of dishes when you're hungry. Depending on the ingredients, the cat food has attribute bonuses; the rarer the ingredients, the higher the bonus value.]

[The cat possesses innate combat skills: using cat weapons and armor to maneuver around enemies and launch attacks. Its attack power is relatively weak, but it will not truly die after being attacked; instead, it will enter an exhausted state, at which point it will completely conceal its presence and begin self-healing.]

Other cat items, armor, and skills need to be purchased separately.

"Alright, alright, no need to push anymore." Ma Zhaodi waved his hand: "It's all about mechanics and strength, it's already unbeatable in terms of practicality—even if I really went to the New World, the cats there couldn't possibly be this outrageous, what's the difference between a million-dollar Silly Cat and actually having one?"

Despite his complaints, Master Ma still needed to get the cat. After a busy day, he took a sip of wine and got back to work.

There's never enough work to do, and the busyness never ends.

At the Midtown Police Station, Joe was flipping through the files in his hand.

"There don't seem to be any particularly urgent cases lately."

With a snap, Joe slammed the file shut and turned to look at Eddie beside him. Eddie was holding a green dumpling in his hand and chewing on one, intently studying the file.

They didn't delay getting things done, but something seemed a bit strange.

“If Inspector Singh sees you eating this, you’ll get a scolding,” Joe warned. “And what is this thing? Dough?”

"Qingtuan is quite delicious," Eddie replied. "It has a slight herbal fragrance, is very soft and chewy, and tastes sweet."

He glanced at Joe, whose temper had improved considerably recently. His tired eyes were gradually regaining their sparkle, and his increasingly thin cheeks were becoming fuller again, giving him a sense of renewed energy.

The proactive reminders and exchanges just now were even the first relatively friendly interaction between the two.

“Don’t worry about Inspector Singh,” he said. “He seems to like these green rice dumplings too; in fact, there’s some on your table.”

"Oh? Who bought it?"

"Jimmy is of Chinese descent, so he really likes these kinds of snacks. He bought a lot of them and treated us to them."

Joe glanced at his table and, sure enough, there were qingtuan (green rice dumplings). He picked one up and put it in his mouth—just as Eddie had said, it was delicate, soft, and the dough had a bit of a chewy texture; the glutinous rice flour, mugwort juice, and red bean paste each played their part, and the overall flavor was not too sweet, but rather had a lingering fragrance.

"It feels like they've combined tea and cake into one dessert," Joe remarked instinctively. "But it's really strange; although it's not very sweet, it tastes inexplicably delicious."

He subconsciously recalled a food truck he had seen on the street when he entered. The owner of that food truck seemed to be Asian, but he didn't know if he was of Chinese descent. However, it was located very close to the police station, on the street opposite the station.

He wasn't thinking of buying anything at the time; instead, he wanted to go and give the other driver a ticket—not for any particular reason, but simply because he felt there were too many people next to the other driver's car, making the sidewalk too narrow, which he disliked. But now...
"Never mind, never mind." Qiao picked up another green rice dumpling and threw it into her mouth. "Having a food cart like this is not bad. I'll go and give them a warning when I get off work."

"I'll also buy a few qingtuan (green rice dumplings) while I'm at it."

With that thought in mind, Joe calmly flipped through documents at the police station until he got off work.

However, as we all know, plans never keep up with changes.

"dad."

Iris's voice suddenly came from behind. Upon hearing this voice, Joe and Eddie turned around at the same time, but Eddie's eyes lit up.

Joe didn't notice Eddie's unusual expression and simply asked, "Iris, what brings you here?"

"Yes, it's about Barry."

"Ah, about Barry."

Joe sighed. Ever since she handed Barry over to Dr. Wells, Iris's worries about Barry had grown day by day. She didn't object to the decision, but Star Labs and Wells had a bad reputation now, and they were a cutting-edge physics lab, not a specialized medical lab—this made Iris even more uneasy. After all, everyone has their own expertise. Could the best physicist really outperform hospital staff in medicine?

Although neither of them said it outright, Joe actually had this concern as well. Iris was a student who was about to graduate and had plenty of time. She often went to Star Labs to see Barry, while Joe didn't have as much time. He could usually only go there after get off work.

If you do the math, it's been a full three months since that accident. If Barry's condition hadn't seemed to be stabilizing, Joe's mental state wouldn't have improved so much.

"Dad, I want to go see Barry again today."

“Okay, I’ll go with you.” Joe replied, putting on his coat. “I haven’t seen him for two days. I wonder if he’s feeling any better.”

"Wells said there's a possibility he might wake up. Do you think that's true?"

"I don't know, but I hope it's true."

Joe patted Iris on the shoulder: "If you didn't believe him, you wouldn't be going to the lab to see Barry every day."

"Yes, I just hope Wells is right."

As Joe walked toward the police station entrance, Iris turned and exchanged a discreet glance with Eddie before following him out of the station.

"Huh? Where's the food cart by the door?"

After Joe walked out of the police station, the first thing he looked at was across the street, but the food truck he had seen that morning was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing the obvious disappointment on Joe's face, Iris asked curiously, "Dad, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing, it's nothing. Let's go see Barry."

(End of this chapter)