Bruce Wayne's Big Hand

The homeless man on the bench was mentally ill; old Bruce only had to observe him for a minute to be certain. Even so, old Bruce walked over and sat down next to the man, listening to him ramble on about the hardships he had endured.

His descent into homelessness began when his house caught fire. The house was burned to ashes, the insurance company refused to pay out, and he had been sent to the hospital by ambulance due to injuries from the blaze.

With his house gone, he still had to continue paying his bank loans and property taxes. After three days in the hospital, he was saddled with a debt of 450,000, as the hospital had far too many incomprehensible charges.

He even had to pay the doctor for crying in front of him.

"Can you believe it! Calling an ambulance cost 6,000 bucks!"

Old Bruce remained silent.

He rarely visited hospitals, let alone called an ambulance; he was a doctor himself and could treat his own ailments at home.

"To pay off the debt, I worked three jobs a day, resting only four hours, and then what?"

"The debt just kept ballooning day by day!"

"I was only ever paying off the interest; it was all for nothing..."

The homeless man spoke with great sorrow, and old Bruce could only pat him on the shoulder.

"Being a homeless man in Gotham is much better now," the homeless man laughed.

"I can wake up whenever I want!"

"When I'm hungry, I go get free food, and when I'm cold, I can get socks and blankets."

"If I want some money, I just go sell some plasma."

"..."

"You aren't a Gotham local?" old Bruce asked.

"Of course not."

"If I were a local, how would I have ended up like this?"

"Most of the homeless people in Gotham come from other cities. I ran here from the West Coast."

"Listening to me say all this, are you thinking about becoming a homeless man too?" the homeless man asked, looking at the disheveled old Bruce.

"It's okay, you just need to set aside your insignificant pride," the homeless man began to share his experience.

"Is your wife about to divorce you, or are you sick?" the homeless man asked.

"Neither."

"Then you can't pay your loans?"

"I don't intend to become a homeless man," old Bruce said.

"Do you see that guy?" The homeless man on the bench pointed to a vagrant washing his face in the garden fountain.

"He became a homeless man because he couldn't pay off his student loans."

"I know the reason why everyone in this place is a homeless man."

"Batman..."

"Everyone comes to pay their respects to him."

"Is he dead, or is he just disappointed in this world?"

"Batman was born to fight crime," old Bruce said.

"Is that so?"

"You don't understand how chaotic Gotham was when I was young," old Bruce said. "You can be a homeless man in Gotham with peace of mind now only because you have Batman to thank."

"Back then, you might be a homeless man on the first day, but by the second day, you'd be recruited into a Gotham gang."

"Selling herbs used to be a crime that would land you in jail! Look at it now, it's all legal! It's become a legitimate business," the homeless man said to old Bruce.

"..."

"Go wander around Fifth Avenue and see for yourself!"

"It's full of people who look like zombies."

Old Bruce left.

He drove his car to Fifth Avenue to check on the situation.

Gotham now had fewer than two hundred criminal cases a year, which was a staggering statistic for a metropolis of ten million people. Gotham was already doing very well, so what was wrong?

Old Bruce drove around Fifth Avenue a few times. The tents pitched here were even more numerous than those in the city garden, and the owners of the tents were just as zombie-like as the man on the bench had described.

How was he supposed to handle this situation?

Old Bruce couldn't figure it out.

He needed to collect more information.

Gotham seemed to have fallen once again, yet the people were all law-abiding...

Old Bruce arrived at the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises and aggressively convened a board meeting.

He wanted to launch a new project.

"Bruce, you want to get into the internet?"

"There is no difficulty in it," Old Bruce said.

"I want to build a video platform that allows everyone to share their daily lives on this internet platform."

"They can even earn a little pocket money by uploading videos," Old Bruce said.

"The virtual economy of the internet is not a field Wayne Enterprises specializes in, Bruce. We are in the business of industry."

"But we have the technical foundation. This project is completely effortless for us; I am very clear on that," Old Bruce said.

"Fine. How much money are we planning to invest?"

"Ten billion," Old Bruce said.

"Are you crazy?"

"I am not crazy; I am simply demanding the fastest and best results."

"Wayne Enterprises is not as profitable as it used to be, Bruce," a board member reminded him.

"I will be involved in this project from start to finish." Old Bruce's attitude was unyielding, and in the end, the board approved this latest indulgence of his.

Three months later, Old Bruce's vision was realized. Wayne Enterprises launched an app abbreviated as , which reached tens of millions of downloads within three days.

Lu Bian often shared his daily life in the Chat Group using videos or photos, as did the other members. Old Bruce borrowed this method of sharing, and now that the project was completed and launched, he checked the feedback from Gotham netizens and found it quite positive.

The app's algorithm was not developed by Old Bruce and the programmers at Wayne Enterprises themselves; it also borrowed from the Evolutionary Algorithm provided by Shi Tianwu.

The Evolutionary Algorithm that Shi Tianwu uploaded to the Chat Group was a universal template that could be used simply by adjusting it according to one's own needs.

The app that Old Bruce created drew heavily from the functions of the Chat Group. Users could livestream, record and upload videos, take and share photos, chat and make friends, and even conduct online transactions using virtual currency. Wayne Enterprises owned its own bank, and the benefits of this were reflected in the online transactions.

"My God, has changed my life!! They actually sent me money!" A single mother posted a video on the app, sitting in her car, crying as she spoke.

"This is my lunch today, let me see yours." A high school student uploaded his video and received hundreds of replies within minutes, earning some pocket money in the process.

All kinds of videos blossomed on G. Some people earned a few cents from their videos, while some viral videos could earn thousands of dollars. The app launched by Wayne Enterprises swept across the entire internet like a tsunami.

Old Bruce's goal of collecting information was achieved, and at the same time, he had broken through people's information cocoons.

"Friends, welcome to today's 'Hobo Guide.' Today, I'm also being a hobo in Gotham!!" Old Bruce scrolled to a video of a hobo on a bench. "Yeah~! Got some food again~! Thank you, Master Wayne!!"