I Think the East End Is Safer

After a rushed and bizarre five-minute interview, Ma Zhaodi officially became a member of the Red Dragon Restaurant.

"You'll come to the restaurant at ten every morning, change into your uniform, and start work on time. You can come earlier if you want. You can eat breakfast and lunch in the restaurant's staff cafeteria. You'll have a two-hour break starting at two in the afternoon. Normally, you'll be responsible for greeting customers, taking orders, serving dishes, and wiping tables. You'll get off work at ten at night. The hourly wage is twenty-five dollars, and you'll work five days a week."

"The restaurant occasionally runs into some unexpected situations. You don't need to do anything—just keep calm and try to reassure the customers. Don't let things get out of hand. Someone will come to deal with the problem soon."

A supervisor strolled around the restaurant with Ma Zhaodi, familiarizing him with its rooms inside and out. "Stay sharp. There's quite a lot you need to learn here. You have to be able to answer customers' questions about the menu. Even if they ask for something that isn't on the menu, do your best to satisfy them."

"Any request?"

"That depends on who the customer is. If the Roman or some other big shot comes here, you'd better do what they say even if they ask you to lick their shoes. But if some ignorant nouveau riche comes here throwing his weight around, you can put a bullet in him after he walks out—but remember, don't let the blood splatter onto the restaurant next door."

"It won't come to that."

Hearing that, the supervisor looked at the new employee, who was grinning sheepishly. "The boss told me to explain a few more things to you, so I'm explaining a few more things. Remember to practice your shooting. In Gotham, people without a beastly side can't survive."

With that, he took out a card and handed it to Ma Zhaodi. "Call this number. Our restaurant's employees get a fifty-percent discount when practicing shooting here. Of course, if you've got the guts or the connections, you can also find a cheaper way to practice shooting in the East End."

Wonderful. The basic employee benefit at a high-class Gotham restaurant was a discount on shooting practice. Ma Zhaodi accepted the card and silently grumbled.

"Also, after you get your first paycheck, find yourself some kind of transportation as soon as possible." He continued, "The boss wants me to tell you that if you hadn't joined the restaurant, riding that bus all day wouldn't exactly be dangerous. But now that you're a restaurant employee, you should change your mode of transportation as soon as possible."

Great. The second basic employee benefit is a taunting aura. Anyone who wants to attack the restaurant might attack themselves first.

"Can I get a month's wages in advance?"

The supervisor frowned. "You haven't lived here before? People here get paid every two weeks. The boss has authorized you to advance your first two base paychecks—that's four weeks, or five thousand dollars before taxes. You have your own account, right?"

"Yes."

"Once you finish your employment registration later, we'll transfer the money to you. It'll be after taxes, though—or you can take it in cash if you want. It's up to you."

Hell yeah. Thinking this, he decided that his stereotype of Gotham really was accurate. The place was dangerous, but it certainly wasn't poor.

In reality, because of the monopolies held by the financial conglomerates and the exploitation by the gangs, Gotham had an enormous wealth gap. The East End's poverty and violence were real, but so were the Diamond District's splendor and extravagance. Judging by Gotham's overall economic strength as a city, it could even be considered one of the leading cities in the United States.

And the four thousand or so dollars left after taxes weren't his entire income. As a restaurant server, his pay consisted of a base wage plus the tips customers left after their meals. Tips usually made up the bulk of a server's income, and because they were paid in cash, they didn't need to be taxed.

Aside from having to spend twelve hours at the restaurant every day, working ten of them, and facing the danger of walking home with his tips at ten o'clock at night, the job was practically perfect.

At least, it seemed that way for now.

Ma Zhaodi had also considered the fact that after Drake left, he might have nowhere to live. So he asked the supervisor whether he could stay at the restaurant at night.

The supervisor's expression was rather suggestive. He looked at Ma Zhaodi with an ambiguous smile and replied, "The restaurant does have a night scene, but you're not qualified to work there yet."

Clearly, the restaurant's nighttime customers were definitely the kind of people Ma Zhaodi didn't want to deal with, so he didn't ask any further.

Since work wouldn't begin until tomorrow, Drake simply took Ma Zhaodi away from the Red Dragon Restaurant. Their most urgent task was to get some kind of transportation or find a nearby place to rent. After all, they couldn't keep taking the bus from the East End to the Red Dragon.

Drake actually knew quite a bit about the rental situation near Audisburg. After all, this had originally been the site of Mr. Freeze's cooperation with the pharmaceutical company, and it was also where he had first settled after arriving in Gotham.

However, he had needed to take care of his wife, search for Dr. Victor, and make a living at the same time. The jobs he could find didn't pay very well, and without seeing Dr. Victor for a long time, the rent in Audisburg had quickly become difficult for him to afford.

Although he believed that, given Ma Zhaodi's current situation, he could easily rent a small house near the Red Dragon, with both safety and commuting taken care of, Ma Zhaodi wasn't interested.

He and Drake calculated the cost of living together. Americans were generally used to relying on loans and credit cards to get by, but Ma Zhaodi had no such habit. Renting a place here would use up most of the four thousand dollars, and he'd probably have to borrow money just to cover his daily expenses.

If money could be tolerated in the face of safety, then the abandoned Ferris wheel here, along with the pharmaceutical company that had screwed over Mr. Freeze, still made him uneasy. He even asked specifically about the chemical plant and confirmed that it had once been reported that someone had fallen into a chemical vat there.

On top of that, he knew there was a botanical garden here. He immediately sighed in admiration. Joker, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and the local crime bosses who might visit the Red Dragon for a meal—who knew whether Penguin or Falcone were here too? In any case, this place wasn't suitable for a long stay. Nothing happened on ordinary days, but whenever something did happen, it would definitely explode—and in a completely unsolvable way.

He had already checked. The system shop offered shooting skills and one-time save points for purchase. Those things might not prevent him from being instantly killed by tight-suited psychopaths or psychopaths who killed and set fires, but they should at least be enough to deal with ordinary people from the East End.

"Anyway, I thought it over carefully. The addicts, thugs, prostitutes, gangsters, and thieves in the East End are more in line with my preferred living environment." Ma Zhaodi waved firmly at Drake. "I'd rather die than live in Audisburg. Let's go."

Drake had no choice. Ma Zhaodi had already made up his mind, so he couldn't say anything more. Since it was still early, the two of them didn't wait for the bus and instead went to pick out a vehicle for Ma Zhaodi.