If Yang Ming pressed his right knee down just one centimeter farther, the future Dark Knight would bid Gotham farewell for good with a crushed windpipe.
Bruce did not sit back and wait to die. The muscles around his waist instantly tightened as he tried to use his astonishing core strength to force his way into a vicious rolling counterattack.
But none of it worked.
Yang Ming had his weight planted too firmly, and his technique was absurdly practiced.
Bruce discovered, to his despair, that every avenue of counterattack-whether his left hand reaching for Yang Ming's ankle or his knee poised to drive upward-had already been shut down at its point of leverage, at angles so bizarre they seemed to defy human biomechanics.
"Cough..."
Suffocation kept surging up from his throat. Bruce's vision darkened in waves, and the veins in his neck bulged with trapped blood.
Yet those eyes that sought to see through everything remained fixed on Yang Ming's face above him, with its heavy dark circles.
Why? That was Bruce's question.
Tonight was his first operation. He had not returned to Gotham in years; by all rights, no one should have known his movements.
How had this back-alley doctor, hiding in the slums and reeking of blood, seen through his identity at a glance?
Yang Ming looked down at the beast still struggling beneath him, his lips curling into a mocking smile.
"Can't figure it out?" Yang Ming's voice was quiet, but it carried with perfect clarity through the empty basement. "Did you think that all-black outfit of yours was discreet?"
He freed his left hand and pointed at the pile of shredded fabric soaking in bloody water nearby.
"A third-generation Kevlar ballistic-fiber prototype from Wayne Enterprises' military division. Scrapped three years ago because it cost too much and barely breathed. It never reached the market."
"The only people who could get their hands on it and turn it into a skintight suit to prance around in are senior insiders-and the rich young heir with unrestricted access."
Yang Ming paused, looking at Bruce as though he were an idiot.
"Then there's your build. Six foot two, close to two hundred pounds, all combat-trained muscle. Gotham has plenty of gang enforcers that size, but they can't afford fiber of that caliber. They certainly don't have the leisure to skip robbery and drug dealing in the middle of the night just to catch bullets from the Maloney Family in an East End alley."
"Add those pampered young master's hands of yours-heavily callused, but with impeccable bone structure-and..." Yang Ming sneered, easing his knee just enough to let Bruce draw a breath.
"Young Master Wayne, fresh from ten years of traveling the world, who made his grand return to Gotham the day before yesterday. Was that really such a difficult puzzle?"
The words left Bruce's head ringing.
Meticulously airtight logic. A ruthlessly perceptive eye.
The disguise he had been so proud of was nothing more than the emperor's new clothes before this man.
His first outing fighting street crime, which he had believed flawless, looked like a joke riddled with holes to someone else.
"Who the hell are you? The Gotham I know doesn't have anyone like you!" Bruce forced the words through his teeth, his voice rasping like sandpaper.
"I'm the man who saved your life."
Yang Ming abruptly withdrew his knee and stood.
Freed from the pressure, Bruce coughed violently, gulping down air thick with the smell of disinfectant.
Yang Ming ignored him and turned toward the wreckage of the operating table.
He rummaged through broken glass and scattered hemostats, pulled out a crumpled receipt, then fished a ballpoint pen with chipped paint from his white coat pocket.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
The pen raced across the cheap paper.
Yang Ming walked back to Bruce and unceremoniously slapped the sheet onto his bare, sweat-covered chest.
"One million dollars. Cash, or a transfer from an anonymous account?"
Bruce froze.
He glanced down at the scrap of paper on his chest, which read "Emergency medical treatment and hush money: 1,000,000 USD," then looked back up at Yang Ming.
That's it?
One moment he looked ready to kill me, displaying completely overwhelming combat skills, and now he's turned into a butcher haggling at a market?
Just how little does he think of Wayne Enterprises?
Bracing both hands against the floor, Bruce slowly sat up. He had a great many questions for Yang Ming, chief among them what he had used to restore him to perfect health so quickly.
It overturned every scrap of medical knowledge he had accumulated over more than a decade of traveling the world! Even water from the League of Assassins' Lazarus Pit could not heal a dying man's penetrating wounds to this extent in a mere few dozen minutes!
"What did you inject me with?" Bruce demanded abruptly, his eyes filled with intense suspicion and scrutiny.
"A monster serum? Alien technology? Some kind of military bioweapon experiment?"
Yang Ming was bending over, picking scattered scalpels off the floor and returning them to a tray. He did not even turn his head.
"Young Master Wayne, my clinic has two rules."
Yang Ming straightened and tossed the stainless-steel tray onto the table with a sharp clang.
"First, we discuss money, not medical science. Second, don't ask about my suppliers."
He turned, slid both hands into his trouser pockets, and looked down at Gotham's richest man sitting on the floor. His gaze turned cold and greedy again.
"One million buys your life, plus the secret that Gotham's richest man nearly got himself killed playing dress-up in the middle of the night. You're getting a bargain."
"Now pay up, or I'll take pictures of you stark naked and send them to the Gotham Gazette's front-page editors first thing tomorrow. I imagine they'd be happy to pay two million for a scoop like that."
Bruce fell silent.
He stared hard into Yang Ming's eyes, trying to find even the slightest flaw or trace of a lie in those bottomless black pupils.
There was none. Only pure hunger for dollars, and the confidence of a man utterly unafraid of the Wayne Family's furious retaliation.
Bruce knew this was absolutely not the time to investigate his secrets.
The combat skills he prided himself on would not last three exchanges against this man. His prized disguise had been exposed at a glance. Here in this cramped basement, he had no leverage whatsoever.
He drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressed his shock, and coldly recited a string of numbers.
"Swiss Bank. Anonymous account. The password is..."
Yang Ming raised an eyebrow and immediately dug an old laptop out of a drawer in the nearby table, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
Only the clacking of keys remained in the basement.
One minute later.
Ding.
A clear notification chimed. At the sight of the long string of zeros in the account balance on-screen, the coldness and menace on Yang Ming's face melted away instantly.
"You should've said so sooner! Young Master Wayne really is a man who gets things done! Just what I'd expect from the richest man in Gotham City."
Yang Ming's attitude did a complete about-face. He casually closed the laptop, his smile as radiant as a daisy in full bloom, with more than a hint of flattery.
He hurried to the metal cabinet in the corner, yanked open its door, and rummaged out a cheap but freshly washed gray secondhand tracksuit. Together with a pair of old sneakers, he eagerly offered it to Bruce.
"Here, here, young master. The floor's cold-get dressed. That outfit of yours is beyond saving. Make do with mine for now."
Bruce stared expressionlessly at the clothes being offered. He had never worn anything that cost less than five thousand dollars apiece, let alone bargain-bin clothing that reeked of cheap laundry powder.
But he had no choice.
He stood without a word and quickly put on the tracksuit. It was a little tight, the stretched fabric outlining his massive muscles.
Just then, Yang Ming came over again with a chipped mug bearing the words "I LOVE NY."
"Freshly made instant coffee. Nestlé. It can't compare to the freshly ground coffee at your manor, but it'll warm your stomach."
Bruce did not take the coffee.
He simply stood there and gave Yang Ming a long look, his gaze complicated, searching, and deeply wary.
This man had miraculous medical skills, fought like a killing machine, and reasoned with almost inhuman precision-yet acted like a petty hustler who would do anything for money.
When had Gotham acquired a monster like this?
Bruce's gaze swept over the battered address plate on the clinic wall, and he burned the address into his memory.
"I'll be back."
Leaving those words behind, Bruce turned toward the rusty iron door.
"You're welcome anytime! Remember to bring enough money!" Yang Ming waved behind him, then took a sip of coffee.
Bang.
The heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off the raging wind and rain outside.
The smile instantly vanished from Yang Ming's face, replaced by that same sickly exhaustion.
He rubbed the sore back of his neck and looked at the seven-figure balance on the computer screen, letting out a long, weary breath.
"One million... enough to live it up for a while."
He turned toward the door marked "Medical supplies," which everyone was strictly forbidden to approach. Behind it lay the blue vortex leading to the Marvel Universe.
"But now that this obsessive bat has his eye on me, I doubt I'll have much peace from here on out."