Gotham's True Underclass

Time flew by.

Early the next morning, Bai Lang asked Ryan to search the police database for information on Mike.

Even with the righteous Gordon serving as commissioner, the information recorded in the police database remained pitifully scarce.

Ryan sat before the computer, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Yet the personnel records system still contained no trace of the person Bai Lang was looking for.

Staring at the screen, Ryan explained, "The data was collected years ago, and it hasn't been updated in a long time. There's no way to find information on the person you're looking for."

Bai Lang nodded. He had intended to leave, but on impulse, he asked, "Then how many people in Gotham become unemployed every year?"

Ryan continued searching the computer. Before long, the screen filled with densely packed photos of men and women.

"More than seven thousand, roughly," he said.

Bai Lang fell silent, committing the information to memory before turning and leaving the station.

He began to suspect that Mike might already be dead, but when he asked John, the man's face showed absolute conviction.

"He's definitely not dead. I can feel it—he's still alive. Please, Detective Bai Lang."

All Bai Lang could do was believe him.

But finding one person in a city of thirty million was no different from searching for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately, he had already thought of a way to find him.

Gotham nights were always damp and gloomy.

Amid the endless drizzle, several figures hurried down the road.

In the dark sky, a bat-shaped beam pierced through the clouds, illuminating the entire night.

Batman, Bruce Wayne, stood atop the highest point of Wayne Tower in his newly upgraded Anti-Batman Armor, looking down over all of Gotham.

Recently, Gotham had seemed calm and peaceful. The Second Generation Joker had apparently vanished, and the Court of Owls had made no further moves.

Because of him, Scarecrow had also been captured and returned to Arkham Asylum.

But during the battle on Arkham Island against those Talons, Black Mask Roman Sionis and Clayface Baso Carlo had escaped.

Even now, he had not found any trace of those dangerous individuals.

Then there was that fake Batman. He had only seen him in footage captured by surveillance cameras near the train station.

Nothing major had happened in Gotham. Everything... felt like the calm before the storm.

He had to ensure Gotham's safety.

Just as he prepared to leap from Wayne Tower, a message notification suddenly sounded in his ear.

Bruce Wayne frowned and activated the multifunction communicator in his helmet.

A text message from an unfamiliar contact address immediately appeared across his iris.

He could not help feeling puzzled.

Other than Gordon, no one knew this confidential number.

[I know you've been looking for me lately. Help me find someone, and I'll give you what you want.]

This was followed by an old photograph and an utterly ordinary name.

Looking at the photo he had received, Batman, Bruce Wayne, immediately contacted Alfred, who was far away in the Batcave.

"Alfred, help me find out where a man named Mike Benjamin is."

After receiving the message, Alfred immediately began searching the database collected by Wayne Tower for information on Mike.

Not long afterward, Bruce Wayne sent over the information he had found.

"He lives in the abandoned unfinished Building No. 3 on Park Street."

"Tell me, where are you?"

Another message came from the other side.

[Guess a riddle. If you get it right, I'll tell you where I am.]

"Riddler?" Batman, Bruce Wayne, immediately thought of that psychiatric patient who loved making people guess riddles.

Even he had to admit that the man was very intelligent, but unfortunately, he had put that intelligence to the wrong use.

Before he could reply, another message appeared before his eyes.

[I roll around in an alley, and I have several holes in me. What am I?]

"A boring riddle." Aside from being obscenely wealthy, Batman, Bruce Wayne, excelled most at deduction and strategy.

Something that could roll along the ground and had several holes was obviously a bowling ball.

In an instant, he sent back the answer he had come up with.

[Wrong answer. You guessed wrong!]

"Wrong?" Bruce Wayne stared at the message before him, his brow tightly furrowed.

"Isn't it a bowling ball or something?" He had no doubt about the answer he had come up with.

"It can roll and has several holes. What else could it be?"

His mind raced as he considered other possible answers.

But only a few seconds later, another message arrived.

[The correct answer is... the Wayne Couple.]

Batman Bruce Wayne stood silently atop Gotham's highest point, utterly motionless like a statue, allowing the cold rain to lash against him.

His fists clenched tightly, his eyes seemingly bloodshot as he stared fixedly at the answer before him.

Riddler, you'd better pray I never find you...

Since Riddler was looking for this person, then he would keep an eye on him until Riddler finally appeared, and then...

[Ability Points +2]

Bai Lang ignored the blue notification window before him.

He looked at the message Batman Bruce Wayne had sent and raised an eyebrow slightly.

"It's actually over on Park Street?"

He vaguely remembered that unfinished building. The Night Crow gang he had investigated last time had been in that very building.

After receiving the information, he returned to his residence.

John had just come back from outside, huddled uneasily in a corner beneath the blanket Bai Lang had given him.

Even though his body was already so cold that he had lost all feeling, he still refused to sleep in Bai Lang's bed.

Even at death's door, the old man was unwilling to trouble anyone any more than necessary.

"Sigh... Detective Bai Lang, do you think I can really see Mike one last time?"

He was somewhat discouraged. These past few days, he had carried the photograph through every street in Gotham, asking around.

But all he received were either contemptuous looks or angry curses.

He had long grown used to such things when he was young.

It was just that, after searching for so many days, he still had not found even the slightest trace of Mike.

It was as though his son had simply vanished into thin air.

Could he have gone to another city in the meantime?

John shook his head inwardly, rejecting that possibility.

He could sense that his son was here.

"..."

Bai Lang looked at him. The words that he had already found Mike rose to his throat, only to stop there.

He could tell that the old man before him still held beautiful hopes for his son.

But if Mike lived in that unfinished building, it meant he belonged to Gotham's underclass.

The true underclass—the kind without even a proper job.

He had looked into it when he asked Ryan to help investigate people.

During the economic downturn, more than seven thousand people in Gotham had lost their jobs last year.

And due to unemployment, disability, and all sorts of other reasons, as many as 5,689 people had joined various gangs just to survive.

It was a terrifying number, and that did not even include those who had joined several gangs at once.

If those with multiple gang affiliations were counted as well, the number would be even higher.

Many of them had once looked down on gangs, but for the sake of survival, they joined them.

Yet even so, only a little over twenty gangs in all of Gotham had fixed assets and could support some people.

More people were like Night Crow's gang, like a refugee camp, able only to snatch from the rich some of the things that had originally belonged to them.

Even so, they were still targeted by the police and dragged into battles between ambitious men and Batman, where they died.

Bruce Wayne's Wayne Enterprises did indeed provide aid every year to some homeless people and those whose parents had died.

But how much of that aid actually reached the people who truly needed it?

Just like the child welfare project that the Wayne Foundation had previously funded through Scarecrow.

But later, it was exposed that Scarecrow Jonathan Crane had embezzled all the funds to develop Fear Toxin.

He sighed inwardly and comforted the dejected John. "I've already found some leads. We'll be able to find Mike very soon."