Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

"Yes, but we rescued you, sir."

"But my money is all in the house..."

"If you're willing to pay $2000, we're willing to salvage your property right now."

Those who had nothing left fell silent.

"Well, sir, if you don't need the above services, we can take you to the hospital, and you will only have to pay $1000 for emergency and initial treatment."

He let out a very sarcastic laugh.

As mentioned before, the Joker broke the balance that had always existed, and the order that was previously understood collapsed again.

The rich are driving up prices for goods, charging exorbitant medical fees, not paying insurance, raising rents, and cutting staff. The real reason for Gotham's current situation—the gap between the rich and the poor—has become even more severe.

The greedy blood-sucking worms did not miss any opportunity and began to completely drain the pond of fish.

There is a saying: Capitalists are far more terrifying than robbers - robbers can only leave you with nothing, while capitalists can make you heavily in debt.

"...I don't need medical treatment, please put me down."

"Okay, the stretcher fee is $300, and the emergency fire service is $500, for a total of $800. Would you like to pay by cash or card?"

"The cash is in the second drawer of my room, go get it..."

"Well... there's also a $2000 property salvage fee, for a total of $2800."

"what!"

The victim looked at him sharply and hatefully: "I only have one thousand dollars, what do you mean! If I don't pay, I only need to pay eight hundred dollars, but if you pay, I will give you two thousand eight hundred dollars!"

"I'm going to go from owing you $800 to owing you $1,800?!"

The firefighter looked at him calmly. "We have a clear price. If you rush into the fire and save the property yourself, we don't charge you any fees. Of course, if you use our firefighting clothing and tools, you will need to pay $200. If you are unfortunately caught in the fire, you will need to pay another $800 for us to put out the fire again."

Look, this is Gotham.

The man with 40% burns on his body staggered to his feet from the stretcher and gave a desperate look to the silent fire brigade.

Then he was thrown into the sea of ​​fire.

This is Gotham.

In a Gotham like this, the Bat Family alone cannot maintain peace. In this area, ridiculous jokes happen all the time.

The crowd watched blankly for a while, then dispersed and went to repay their own loans with tired looks.

"Well, it looks like the person is dead." The firefighter sighed with regret and closed the notebook in his hand. "So... who called just now? Please come over and pay $800."

The embers of the fire were burning, illuminating the sky with a crimson glow. The residential building, which already had a very low occupancy rate, was completely silent except for the occasional collapse of a building.

"Oh... Looks like no one's here. Okay, let's apply for a subsidy from the government and Wayne." The firefighter smiled as he watched the flames completely extinguished. "A total of $2,800."

"Wayne Enterprises has cut its investment in firefighting by 30 percent and has declared it will withhold donations if this incident happens again."

In the afternoon, the car radio began broadcasting.

It seems that Batman has solved another problem quickly and accurately.

But unfortunately, Gotham's troubles go far beyond this:

Maybe we shouldn't expect Gotham to be saved

The Chief of Justice and the Knight of Light are dead, so what about the bat monster?

"Do we really need so-called superheroes?" such a statement is making the rounds.

Oracle Barbara, the daughter of the former chief of the Gotham Police Department, became a walking hotspot after Gordon's death. She was born with the favorability bonus of justice people. She used this advantage to move among the media to guide public opinion, but obviously, the results were very limited.

The Clown Killing Gang did not disappear after Jace was captured. Instead, it became more and more intense like a prairie fire.

Batgirl has to focus on this, but humans are powerless against the crowd, especially since the Joker Gang, compared to other forces dedicated to controlling a certain area, are more likely to organize, parade, and protest - this is legal, which makes them more inclusive and stable.

But this kind of stability is more like an anti-tank bomb. A slight movement cannot detonate it, but a strong stimulation is enough to blow up anything that dares to ride on it!

Gotham's catastrophic final madness brought a considerable burden to the surrounding cities, such as Metropolis and Blüdhaven. As the vigilante of Blüdhaven, Nightwing had to go back to maintain order after a brief appearance.

As for Red Robin… he's been researching the strange things that have been going on in Gotham lately.

There have always been a lot of strange things happening in Gotham, and strange things generally represent some death data. Death is not uncommon in Gotham, but these deaths themselves are not normal, and the only thing they have in common is - Batman.

The locations where the victims were killed are extremely close to Batman's patrol routes.

Red Robin didn't even have to guess that this was another superhero targeting Batman. He had this preconceived idea and did the same thing when investigating, but this idea didn't last long because soon the Red Hood came to find him.

"Xiaohong, look at something."

Red Hood took off his hood, revealing his unruly hair, which was slightly damp and compliant due to moisture. He scratched his hair, cursed meaninglessly, and handed Red Robin a USB flash drive.

"USB drive?" Red Robin was puzzled. "Is there anything you can't transfer?"

"Heh." Red Hood sneered, "You'd better have a separate receiver that has not been connected to the Batcomputer."

“…What’s this place?”

"Why don't you open it and take a look?"

The audio content is nothing special.

But the sound coming out of it was terrifying enough.

“Hahahahahahahahahaha——”

A faint laugh.

Extremely familiar.

The surveillance video showed that the time was not long ago, and the location was... one of Batman's patrol routes.

The intermittent laughter was familiar, its madness reminiscent of a clown, but the tone was unmistakable. It was...

batman.

Red Robin couldn't describe his feelings. He looked at Red Hood, opened his mouth, and closed it again.

"Batman?" The voice seemed to come from the resonance of the chest.

"Yes." Red Hood said indifferently, "It seems that the blood transfusion is useless... We need something else. Besides, I doubt it."

"His will has been affected, and this audio is a deliberate flaw... He wants us to catch him."

"...Okay, okay." Red Robin pinched the bridge of his nose: "Next, I will notify the Watchtower. Also, control the other four people infected with the Joker virus."

He chuckled, "Lucian and Batman are the only ones out of sight... there's still hope."

"I'm going to find Lucian." Red Hood came and left in a hurry, riding on a motorcycle, and the buzzing sound seemed to shatter the darkness.

But the evening wind in Gotham is slightly cool, and with a hint of moisture it makes it sticky. You can't feel any coolness while speeding through it. Even if you drive at maximum speed, it feels like you are wandering in a sticky swamp.

Chapter 10 I'm Coming to Kill You

Lucian felt that his surname should be Lu, his given name should be Xi'an, and he should be a Chinese.

Out of some unknown habit, he rang the doorbell of the house he broke into when he traveled through time - of course, he did not forget to put on a mask on the lower half of his face wrapped in gauze.

This behavior is very similar to visiting neighbors when moving into a new house.

"Boom boom boom——"

He knocked on the door regularly, slowly and patiently. After all, it was already seven o'clock in the evening and the person living here was a single woman.

You always have to give people time to find their guns.

"Who?"

A man opened the door.

He was tattooed, muscular, irritable, and impatient. He started by mocking, "Ha! You're a cosplay lunatic!"

No, cosplay madman?

The man looked at her carefully. He was tall and thin, and looked weak, but his face was ruddy and he was in good health. The caution of a Gotham man made him narrow his eyes slightly, and his tone softened. "Okay, what's the matter?"

Lucien took a step back and looked at the house number. After confirming it, he asked hesitantly, "...I remember a woman living here."

"That's my girlfriend, Julie. Are you looking for her?"

Girlfriend?

Lucien was stunned for a moment: "Didn't she say her boyfriend was dead?"

The man showed a ferocious expression, but quickly restrained it and replied in a restrained and unpleasant tone: "She has a delusion that I'm dead... I'm alive and well."

This was beyond Lucien's expectations. He originally wanted to come over and talk to Julie about the feeling of "imagining someone's existence", but now he saw that she was suffering from the symptom of "imagining someone's non-existence".

"Okay... then I'll return the things." Lucian took out a pack of cigarettes and a gun from his pocket and handed them to the man.

“This is…” The man took it, raising an eyebrow and waiting for explanation.

"Things are a bit complicated, and going into detail would easily affect your emotional lives... So, to put it simply, Julie lent me these two items, which helped me a lot. Now that I've finished using them, I'm returning them to their original owner."

"But don't you think that what you said would affect our relationship more?"

"When you asked me that, I knew it wouldn't affect your love life."

The man's eyes were complicated: "You are right."

After a few brief greetings, Lucien went upstairs and returned to his room.

The layout of this room is actually similar to Julie's room. Of course, it is also possible that the layout of the rooms in the entire building is similar.

Lucien pushed open the balcony door and took out another cigarette. He played with it in his hand without lighting it. The damp wind blew past, blowing his slightly long hair back, revealing his pale forehead.

The sensitive sense of smell suddenly caught a strange smell.

It seems like... the smell of blood?

A huge force suddenly threw Lucian to the ground.

"Grass!"

The balcony wasn't big, and the clutter had been cleared away before moving in, so he fell onto the concrete floor without any cushioning, and the mask covering half of his face was thrown aside.

The clown illusion stood in his original position, playing with the unlit cigarette with an indifferent attitude - of course, the real one had fallen downstairs because of this sudden accident.

Lucian saw through him a dark shadow looking down at him.