Chapter 108 The Battle of Living Hell (Part 1) (Patreon)

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In the morning, sunlight shone into the bedroom of Wayne Manor. Bruce sat up from the bed, and Alfred stood outside the door. Bruce asked him, "What time is it now?"

"It's nine o'clock, sir," Alfred replied.

Bruce was a bit surprised. He walked to the window, opened the curtains, and looked outside. He realized that it was already very bright outside. Since he returned to Gotham, it was the first time he had woken up so late.

However, his butler Alfred seemed very happy. When Bruce went downstairs to have breakfast, Alfred stood by with a smiling face.

"Alfred, what's going on? Why do you look so happy?" Bruce asked.

"Because you seem very happy lately, sir," Alfred replied.

Bruce was momentarily stunned. Was he really happy? He touched his face and tried to recall his recent behavior pattern. Due to Schiller's brilliant internship program at Gotham University, Bruce had been very busy lately. During the day, he had to work with other students to control traffic, and at night, he had to run between the hospital and the prison, arranging the relocation of gang members from one place to another.

He suddenly realized that he had been spending more time being Bruce than being Batman lately. In the past, he would conceal his true nature while at Wayne Manor. He rarely smiled and was rather quiet. Although he was close to Alfred, he rarely showed any emotional fluctuations.

Recently, however, because he had been Bruce for too long, his behavior pattern had become increasingly like that of the playboy persona he had been pretending to be. He no longer had a constant stern expression and occasionally joked around with Alfred. This raised a warning sign in his heart. Since returning to Gotham, he had never slept naturally until nine o'clock, which was an indication that he was relaxing his vigilance.

From a psychological perspective, this is actually normal. A person becomes who they are largely because of how they see themselves. Bruce is only 18 years old, just started college. When he throws himself into playing the role of a cheerful and sociable billionaire, he cannot clearly find the boundary between this kind of fake identity and his own personality.

After another busy day, Bruce came back to his Bedroom's bathroom, turned on the tap, and washed his face with cold water. The curtains next to him were gently swaying in the evening breeze. The cold color of the Light above his head created dark shadow that gathered at his feet.

Bruce put his hands on the vanity, looked at himself in the mirror, and saw a pair of blue eyes. But the Light from top to bottom shrouded his eyes in Brow shadows.

"Who am I?" he asked.

"Who am I?"

"Who am I?"

His voice echoed in the empty room, bouncing off the wall and returning to his ears. It was as if another him was asking him this question and he vaguely heard an answer but at the same time, heard nothing.

Echo couldn't give him an answer, and Bruce was very clear about this.

He reached out his hand to wipe off the fog on the glass, trying to see his eyes clearly but in the end he didn't. He let his entire face and eyes be shrouded in the fog on the surface of the mirror, and then he stood up straight and looked at himself in the mirror like Overlook.

"I am Batman."

"I am Batman."

The corners of his mouth gradually turned down. He wasn't wearing a face mask, but when the Shadow crawled onto his face, his entire face seemed to be covered by a black Mask.

The Shadow covering his blue eyes became denser and denser. In the end, only his low voice echoed in the empty Manor, saying: "I am Batman..."

Bruce walked out of the bathroom and into the dark bedroom. He didn't turn on the light but just opened the door and continued walking through the dark hallway. When he stood by the staircase, he saw Alfred standing downstairs wiping the old telephone with a piece of felt.

Since Bruce came back, he invented a new mobile communication device for himself, a mobile phone. He never used that old-fashioned rotary dial telephone again.

But Alfred cherished that telephone very much. Bruce had never seen a speck of dust on it. Today was no exception, but what was different was that Bruce heard Alfred humming. It sounded like a jazz tune from another era, filled with the spirit of the Gold Coast when immigrants first discovered it, just like the joyful and lively mood of that time.

Bruce looked at Alfred's back, closed his eyes in pain, and clenched the hand holding the railing. The old wooden railing made a soft noise. Alfred turned around and saw Bruce standing at the top of the staircase. Before he could ask anything, Bruce fled back to his room as if he was escaping.

When he closed the door, he was gasping for breath as if the distance he had just run was more exhausting than running thousands of meters.

He felt a violent emotion churning in his heart, as if something was constantly stimulating his emotional system in his brain.

Bruce had not felt such intense emotions for a long, long time. After the gunshot on a certain dark night, half of Bruce's emotional world disappeared. All the happy, happy and moving emotions had been gone for a long time.

But when he saw Alfred so happy, Bruce didn't know how to describe his own feelings. This problem had troubled him for a long time.

Restless, Bruce couldn't sleep in bed. A inexplicable impulse was affecting him. He had no other choice but to put on his Batman costume and leave Wayne Manor.

This was the first time Batman left wearing this outfit not to take down criminals, but simply to escape feelings he didn't want to accept.

Therefore, after leaving Wayne Manor, he almost aimlessly roamed over Gotham. Bruce had never hoped, as he did now, that he could run into a criminal and bring him to justice, sending him to prison... or maybe today it should be a mental hospital.

Thinking of this, Batman covered his forehead in discomfort. What was he thinking? Stay sober! You're not Bruce right now! Don't worry about those back-and-forth things about hospitals and prisons!

But Batman still couldn't control himself. He felt this pressure was more terrifying than anything else when he thought that the number of people in prison would exceed 28% again tomorrow and the vacancy rate in the hospital room was less than 15%.

But damn it, in this city where you could encounter three robberies just by walking two steps out the door, Batman spent half an hour wandering and hadn't encountered a single criminal.

Now the streets near the central roundabout of the city can be called brightly lit. There are night markets over a kilometer long on the four major thoroughfares that stretch out from the roundabout, lit up all night.

Most of the people who come here are people who work the night shift, not just truck drivers who transport goods at night, but also dock workers, warehouse guards, security guards, and so on. This group of people are the most active citizens of Gotham.

Batman stood at the top of a high-rise building. He knew very well that if he jumped down wearing this outfit, he would be shot twice before he even hit the ground. Besides, there were obviously no crimes happening here in the city center. It was clear that Gotham didn't need Batman here. He could only leave and go further away.

Gotham's central roundabout and main transportation hub are not everything. In areas where light cannot reach, there are even darker neighborhoods. Following his dark instincts, Batman came to the darkest area of Gotham.

This is the East District of Gotham, which has always been synonymous with chaos. The gangs here are extremely complex and chaotic, but the chaos in the East District is also graded.

Among them, the most terrifying place is called "Living Hell". It is the westernmost block of the East District, the farthest away from the pier, and the most crowded, densely populated, gloomy, and poor place.

Living Hell is often called "Gotham in Gotham" by Gothamites. All residential buildings here are crowded together, buildings and alleys are so narrow that an adult cannot even stretch his arms out, and there is almost no place to step on in such dark and narrow alleyways where a lot of junk is piled up.

Batman fell from the rooftop and walked into the first alley of Living Hell. Looking up from the ground, he realized that there was only a very narrow gap left in the sky above his head, and the densely packed wires and antennas above covered most of his field of vision, like a big net hanging over his head.

Moving forward in this alley was very difficult, even for Batman. There was almost no light here, except for a faint light coming from a few high windows. After almost tripping over a garbage bag a few times, Batman finally opened his flashlight.

But even so, walking here was still very difficult. After walking only a few steps in an alley, Batman found a twisted staircase circling into a dark hallway.

He climbed the creaking stairs and when he emerged from the hallway, he found himself on another flat ground. Moving forward, he realized it was the rooftop of a building, with another dark alley below him.

Batman found a ladder on the rooftop that led to the other side. Even with Batman's skill, he had to be cautious crossing this kind of ladder.

Standing on the ladder and looking down, it was like an endless abyss of layered windows, wires, and garbage bags. All the chaotic and complex things were intertwined, like a hell spreading down layer by layer.

After crossing the ladder to the other side, he saw a mountain of garbage bags piled up on a corner of the rooftop. Walking to that side, he found another high-rise building stacked layer by layer. There was a small door on the side that required bending down to pass through. After walking in, Batman finally entered the building in Living Hell.

The situation here was worse than outside, with almost no light. The hallways were so narrow that Batman had to lower his head and tighten his arms to crawl up the stairs, or he couldn't make it.

Batman felt that calling this kind of passage a staircase was inaccurate. It was more like an intestine. It was so appropriate to call this place Living Hell.

The narrow, dark, and cramped hallways were like an intestinal organ in a living body. After climbing two floors, Batman finally saw another small door next to him.

After going out through this door, the corridor in front of him finally became a little wider, but the door was still tightly closed. There were various signboards hanging in the hallway, such as Deli, etc.

Batman suddenly realized with surprise that there seemed to be an ecosystem in Living Hell. Walking down the corridor, he found a total of six small doors leading to the other complex passages. According to Batman's estimate, the structures of these six passages should correspond to the entrances of six directions of the building, just like when he came.

"This is bizarre and wonderful," thought Batman.

This city was like a microcosm of Gotham, worthy of the title "Gotham within Gotham."

He was surprised to find that not only were there various living facilities here, but the electricity, water, and communication systems were also self-contained. Thick water pipes extended forward into the dark corridors like blood vessels, and messy electric wires hung overhead like dense nerves.

Countless posters and advertisements were posted beside each doorway, and there were even mailboxes in front of many doors.

It was the first time Batman had seen this side of Gotham. After all, he didn't have the Batmobile before, and his scope of crime-fighting was basically centered on Wayne Tower, spreading outwards for a short distance. Most of the robbers were also within this range. After all, that was the most prosperous commercial street in Gotham.

But now, he was in the midst of Living Hell and saw another side of Gotham that was unknown to the public, or rather, the reality under Gotham's prosperous surface.

However, it was strange that this place was dark, cramped, terrifying, and bizarre, but with a complete ecosystem. It exuded a different kind of vitality and charm, even a fascinating beauty.

Batman thought he might be going crazy. He even felt that this real and chaotic scenery was the ultimate answer to this city.

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Next Chapter >>Chapter 109 The Battle of the Living Hell (Part 2)