God Bless Gotham

"...Sal, like his partner, is a bit cunning. I remember the first time I met him, he was a green kid who had just arrived in Gotham. He was extorting cargo ship owners at the docks with a few people. Before long, he caught the eye of Lauren from the Red Light District. That red-haired guy took him around that neighborhood, and he quickly bought his first bar. That was over twenty years ago..."

Falcone sat in his chair, smoking a cigar and reminiscing. He said, "Sal won't let that Police Chief go. Even if he has to extract some information from him, he'll end up dead. You can name another condition, like if there's anyone else you want dead, or any other trouble you want resolved?"

"My trouble comes from Metropolis. I won't bother the Godfather."

Falcone slightly turned his eyeballs and glanced at him, saying, "The few guys I helped you deal with seem to have quite a background. Who have you gotten yourself involved with?"

Schiller looked up and said, "Your Excellency, Godfather, I think I might be the longest-living tutor for your son."

Falcone tapped the table with the end of his cigar and said, "If you work for me, I naturally won't let trouble find you. But you got yourself involved in those strange matters, and now you're hiding here..."

"Aren't you afraid I'll drag the Falcone family down?"

Falcone turned his chair back and said, "When has the Falcone family ever been on solid ground? From the day I arrived in Gotham, I knew we were all rotten timbers from a shipwreck, never to set foot on shore."

Then he sighed slightly.

"...But my son and I think differently."

Young Falcone, Evans Falcone, unlike the old Godfather, was full of passion, believing he could restore order to Gotham.

That's right, although he was the heir to the future crime family, he genuinely wanted to reorganize Gotham's order. It's just that this order was built on violence, not on truly creating a utopia.

To be honest, his idea was perhaps even more normal than Batman's. Absolute power brought absolute authority, and absolute authority controlled everyone. The only question was whether young Falcone had the ability.

After a while, the butler knocked on the door. Evans stood behind him. As he walked in and saw Schiller, he obviously froze for a moment, then turned back to the butler and whispered, "Do you remember me mentioning forgetting my homework, or not submitting my homework recently?"

The butler shook his head. Evans clearly breathed a sigh of relief. Schiller stood up and said, "Evans?"

"You know each other?" Falcone asked.

"Father, this is my university professor. I remember mentioning to you that I needed to write a psychology assignment."

Before Falcone could say anything, Evans said, "Sorry, Professor. If there are any issues with my recent assignments, it might be because I've been a bit busy lately and overlooked them. If you're not satisfied, I can rewrite them immediately."

Then he moved his lips and turned to Falcone, saying, "Father, the recent events in the East End district have kept me quite busy, perhaps neglecting my studies. I'm truly sorry that Professor Schiller came to visit you."

Schiller understood. Evans had misunderstood and thought he was there for a parent-teacher conference. In reality, Evans was terrified.

He had heard of Schiller's fearsome reputation: "wherever he goes, death follows," "a serial killer collector," scolding Bruce Wayne in class for not submitting homework and even issuing him a withdrawal notice...

Schiller, the homework-obsessed fanatic, was famous throughout Gotham University. No professor had ever demanded homework so strictly. No matter who it was, if they dared not submit their homework, they would surely receive a humiliating barrage of sarcasm in his class, even if you were Bruce Wayne, the chairman of the Gotham University board.

But Evans never expected that he would come to the Godfather of Gotham's largest crime family to demand homework!

Evans sighed inwardly, Is this professor crazy? No wonder he cursed Bruce Wayne like a drowned rat, and even the new Principal Sheldon avoids him.

As the heir to a crime family, Evans didn't believe those wild rumors at first. But now he truly did. Anyone who wasn't mentally unsound wouldn't come to the Godfather's place for a parent-teacher conference!

This wasn't entirely Schiller's fault for being so concerned about homework. His mindset hadn't shifted from his previous teaching style. You see, many students couldn't memorize the thick textbooks of psychology and often didn't get high scores on final exams. At that point, if they wanted to pass, they had to rely on their daily grades. But if they didn't even write their homework, they had no daily grades, and their pass rate would be terribly low.

If the pass rate was too low, his evaluations would be affected. Although Gotham University didn't have any reliable professor evaluation systems, and no one cared if students passed or failed, Schiller was used to it from his previous life. He felt that without even using 30% of his strength, the students at Gotham University, who had received a "happy education" since childhood, were already breaking down.

If you threw them into the university where Schiller taught in his previous life, just a short classroom essay could overwhelm them. You have to know, those students would write 20,000 words for a short essay and complete a long essay to the standard of publishing a book.

Therefore, he couldn't understand why someone couldn't even meet the word count for a short essay of less than 3,000 words. And for English essays, the word count was naturally less than Chinese essays. A standard 3,000-word essay would only be about 2,000 words. How could they not submit it all?

So after Schiller used various methods to relentlessly pursue homework, three-quarters of the people in his class finally submitted their assignments. This naturally included Evans, and he was even one of the better ones, basically submitting every assignment on time, meeting the word count, and the content was also quite good, even getting first place a couple of times.

Schiller felt that such good students deserved praise. They were all freshmen, so why not compare them to the good-for-nothing Bruce? For a 2,000-word essay, transition words could account for one-third, meaningless modifiers and descriptions could account for another third, and the rest was just "the" and "a." Others used two characters for the distance of a dash, but he could write a whole line. Even so, he had the nerve to ask Schiller to help him.

Falcone frowned slightly and said, "In that case, how has Evans been performing at school? Are there any problems with his homework? What about his exam scores?"

Evans took a deep breath. Schiller said, "In fact... he's very good. I also spoke with Anna, who teaches advanced mathematics. Evans is quite good at science subjects. At least I'm willing to offer him a spot in graduate studies. He also has some talent in psychology."

Evans breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing his son's performance, Falcone directly said, "From now on, Professor Schiller will be your tutor."

Evans shivered, a chill running down his spine, but he didn't dare question his father's decision, only saying, "Okay, Father."

Falcone placed his hands on the armrests of his chair and stood up. "It seems I need to go and deal with those troubles you brought from Metropolis."

Schiller shook his head and said, "This is a big problem. I don't think the price I've paid is worth you doing this."

Falcone said, "Becoming my son's tutor is indeed not enough. But if you become a friend of the Falcone family, we will resolve all troubles for our friends."

"Behind Metropolis lies a vast dark vortex that no one can imagine. I escaped from there, but I lost many things. Gotham's people don't need to get involved in Metropolis's affairs, do they?"

Falcone shook his head and took another puff of his cigar. "You don't know me well enough, sir. Forty years ago, I came to Gotham alone. Back then, no one had heard the name Falcone. Thirty years ago, I became the master of three streets. There was no Falcone family then..."

"I don't mean to brag about my achievements, but I have ruled Gotham for forty years, ruled this city that was once called hell."

Falcone pressed the end of his cigar against the table, smoke rising from between his fingers. He said, "So you just need to answer 'yes,' and all the troubles you've suffered will be gone."

Schiller looked at him. Falcone's expression was calmer than Schiller had imagined.

Schiller thought, this Falcone is clearly not a petty villain from Batman's early days in the comics. He is the undisputed Godfather of Gotham, the uncrowned king of Gotham City.

Gotham City was never peaceful even before Batman. This Godfather had ruled here for forty years. Such a person could not be as foolish and short-sighted as described in the comics.

Finally, Schiller stepped forward and kissed Falcone's right hand, saying, "...God bless Gotham, Godfather."

Schiller let the emphasis of the last word linger in his mouth. Falcone detected the subtle difference but didn't mind.

No matter how glorious his forty years had been, the Godfather was truly old, and the heir to the Falcone family was far from mature.

Falcone thought, perhaps the era of Gotham without a king was about to arrive.