Ambush

The heavy rain showed no sign of stopping, and the clouds above them grew even denser. Surrounded by so many fallen corpses, Su Ming felt something he couldn't put into words.

It was like excitement, yet also like the relief of breaking free from restraints. He wanted to talk to Cindy and share the thrill, but she was more focused on the mission and didn't respond to his jokes.

Just as Joker had once said, all it took for a person—or a city—to descend into chaos and madness was a gentle push from behind.

He had pushed Harley and Two-Face. Now, Su Ming was the one being pushed.

After the frenzied slaughter, he felt incredible. It was like downing an ice-cold beer in the sweltering heat of summer; every cell in his body cheered from the inside out.

He turned to look at the countless mangled corpses behind him, their eyes still open in death, while Cindy paid no attention to his unusual state and searched for the building's entrance.

The building Harley was in was just as absurdly styled. The door that had faced the street turned out to be painted on with paint; in reality, it was a solid wall of heavy red brick.

"Fine. No door. We'll have to climb the wall."

Cindy took a rope and grappling hook from her belt. She had only come to talk to Harley, so she hadn't wanted to make things too serious. Breaking in through a window hardly looked like paying a visit.

Su Ming came back to himself and studied the building. Experience immediately told him that Harley was not alone inside.

"Then let's go. Be careful—you never know what a madman's home might contain."

They threw their grappling hooks at the same time, securing them firmly to the roof. Their powerful upper bodies carried them rapidly upward.

No one knew what this building had once been used for. The windows on the first and second floors had all been boarded up, leaving only a shoddy platform on the third floor that resembled a lookout post. This was probably where the Circus lunatics usually gunned down passersby—or shot at one another.

With a flip of his hand, he landed steadily on it. The rain made everything noisy, and his landing footsteps made no sound at all.

Cindy arrived at the same time. Their black-and-yellow masks met each other's gaze, and they gave slight nods.

Crash!

Su Ming kicked in the window beside him. The sheer force sent the entire frame and its glass flying inward. The two entered one after the other, guns raised as they watched their surroundings.

"Clear."

Su Ming rolled his shoulders. There were lights in the building, so everything was plainly visible.

They looked as though they were in a shabby college dormitory: a long hallway lined with small rooms, all their doors shut. The floor was covered in dust and garbage. God knew how long it had been since anyone cleaned the place. Rainwater dripped from Su Ming and Cindy, quickly forming little muddy puddles.

"Do these lunatics never bathe?"

Cindy shook her head, clearly displeased with the smell. Her helmet had a Gas Mask function, but it didn't block odors.

The helmets worn by Masked Men were custom-made. Smell was one of the five senses essential to combat, and this specialized gas-filtering technology was more expensive and precise than ordinary products outside.

Su Ming could smell it too. It was somewhat like spoiled swill, but he was more concerned with the stairway leading upward not far away.

"Forget that. Let's go upstairs and find Harley."

"Wait. There's a trap."

Cindy raised her chin, signaling him to look. At the corner of the stairs was a faintly gleaming fishing line.

He walked over and lifted the garbage at the other end of the line. It was connected to a grenade.

The grenade looked custom-made. Its body was entirely red rather than the usual military green, and a huge smiling face had been painted on it in white. One look told him it was the Joker Gang's handiwork.

Yes, this was one of those lunatics' games: competing to maim themselves, or competing to kill others. Before them was the famous routine of "laughing wildly after blowing up a friend with a Joke Bomb," easily one of their favorites.

Whenever Joker watched this show—watched them slaughter one another amid absolute chaos—he would always let out a neurotic laugh and marvel at his own greatness.

"Damn it! Take cover!"

Su Ming reacted immediately. When you pulled a prank, naturally you had to hide nearby and watch your victim make a fool of themselves.

Since there was a grenade here that was considered a prank, the Circus freaks had to be close.

Sure enough, the moment his words fell, a continuous stream of freaks poured from the rooms on both sides of the hall. These lunatics with their twisted makeup shrieked with laughter, arms spread wide as they skipped and bounded toward the two of them.

Of course, Cindy and Su Ming didn't take it as a friendly welcome. The moment they rushed out, dense gunfire and Explosives came flying at them as well.

Su Ming took cover around the stairwell corner, while Cindy leaped back out through the window and hid on the wooden platform built Outside the Wall.

Then came a chain of explosions. He felt as though he had been locked inside a popcorn pot, deafening noise battering his eardrums.

The powerful blast swept through everything around the detonation point. The scorching wind was so fierce that he had to grip the stair railing tightly to keep from being blown away. He could even see bomb fragments—shards still bearing exaggerated white painted smiles—scrape across his shoulder armor in a trail of sparks before flying off.

The Circus people continued to close in. The explosions had killed some of their own as well, but they didn't care in the slightest. Instead, they laughed even more joyfully.

They were like cars, or some other kind of internal combustion engine, except their fuel was blood.

Someone else's blood, or their own. What drove them was the chariot called madness.

Su Ming shook his head. Pebbles and garbage thrown by the blast still clung to his helmet. The hallway was now packed with cackling clowns, rushing toward him in all manner of twisted, exaggerated motions.

"About forty of them. Light firearms and melee weapons. It looks like they've used up their Explosives for now." He poked his head out for a glance. The battlefield appeared in his mind like a photograph—every enemy's position, direction of movement, speed, and equipment fixed in his memory. At almost the same instant, a plan formed.

He pulled a Smoke Bomb from his uniform and threw it with a flick of his wrist. At the same time, he vaulted out from cover right behind it.

The smoke blocked everything. White haze filled the area, and only the hallway lights cast a jumble of black shadows. The Joker Gang Members immediately descended into chaos.

They couldn't see the walls, much less the people beside them. As they collided and tripped over one another, bizarre cries and curses rang out.

This was Su Ming's chance. He swiftly pulled the shotgun from his back and charged into the smoke as well.

Cindy was outside the window behind him, so everyone in the smoke besides himself was an enemy.

Having put his reservations aside, he no longer hesitated. Amid dull gunfire, bursts of flame stained the pale smoke red.

"Not bad. Forty-two people in six seconds. As expected of me from another world."

Cindy jumped in through the window and sat on the sill, striking a pose as though checking the time. In truth, she didn't need a watch; Super Brain could precisely track the passing of every second.

Su Ming was reloading his shotgun. Compared to before, he looked far bloodier now. Chunks of viscera and blood had sprayed all over him. That was simply the result of close-quarters combat.

Corpses lay everywhere. Not one of the lunatics had survived. Their heads had either burst apart, or their guts had been blown out. In such a confined space, the shotgun had been devastating; one pull of the trigger sent several people flying backward.

"If you had time to count over there, you could've fired earlier and helped me out." Su Ming slung the gun over his back again, bent down, and picked up a brightly colored scrap of cloth to wipe the blood from himself.

"They were just minor grunts. If both of us acted, it would be a waste of manpower." Cindy spoke without a shred of sincerity as she headed upstairs alone.

"Then at least toss me a cigarette afterward, or ask how I'm doing."

Su Ming followed helplessly. This was the first time he had ever bathed in human blood, and yet he felt incomparably pleased. He wanted to ask whether she had felt this way before.

"Fine. We're teammates now, after all. Men really are such trouble. How are you?"

Cindy actually pulled out a cigar and tossed it to him, asking in a tone like she was humoring a child.

"I'm great, thanks!" Su Ming caught the cigar irritably and stuffed it into his cigarette case. Cindy seemed to be somewhat sexist. "Other than having someone else's brains poured down my neck and my chest feeling all sticky, I'm great."

Cindy made a mocking sound without looking back. "You're just like other men—so vain and obsessed with cleanliness. I thought your world was a patriarchal society."

Su Ming shrugged. This wasn't a matter of cleanliness, was it?

"It is a patriarchal society, but not everyone has a habit of taking blood baths. Still, I've found that I like the sight of flesh and blood flying everywhere. What about you?"

Cindy kept her gun raised as she continued upstairs. The fourth floor was strangely quiet. While Su Ming had been busy in the Crossfire, she had actually been watching the fourth floor, guarding against enemies coming down from above and ambushing him from behind.

"We're the same person from different worlds. I don't need to explain Parallel World theory to you again, do I? There may be slight differences in the details, but whatever you like, I like too."

Cindy didn't understand why her other self would ask such a question. To her, liking warm blood and liking to watch others die was no big deal. In Gotham, that was simply how everyone lived.

"How do you deal with that bloodlust?" Su Ming could accept killing, but he didn't want to kill for the sake of killing.

If he killed without reason or restraint, then he would become a Beast rather than a human.

"When we meet Harley later, you can ask her. She was a famous psychologist in Gotham City, before she went crazy, anyway." Cindy kept her head raised and slowly sidestepped up the stairs. The fourth floor had roughly the same layout. "As for me, compared to red blood, I prefer green things."

As she spoke, she extended a hand and rubbed her thumb and index finger together in front of Su Ming.

Fine. In psychology, this was called displacement. She had shifted her craving for blood onto money. That was probably why Deathstroke in every Parallel World chose to become a Mercenary and assassin.

That line of work let them taste blood while making money fast. Two birds with one stone.

Su Ming had come to find Harley for information about Batman, not to see a doctor. Besides, if Harley treated him, he would probably only become crazier.

"I'll pass. I'll be fine after getting some rest at dawn. Fourth floor clear."

Su Ming followed her into the fourth-floor hallway. The rooms on both sides were empty, but Joker emblems were painted everywhere: pale smiling faces with X's instead of eyes. The walls were splashed with colorful paint, making the place look like a demon's lair.

The small rooms mostly held piles of junk, nothing useful. It was all "prank" equipment—TNT, "laughing gas," Automatic Rifles, and the like—along with a pile of red rockets resembling oversized firecrackers.

"Harley's upstairs. The music is directly above us." Cindy pointed overhead.

"That's strange. We made enough noise to tear down the building, but she hasn't reacted at all. It sounds like she's still dancing?" Su Ming tilted his head to listen. He could still hear the rhythmic stamping of high-heeled boots.

Cindy neither agreed nor disagreed. Life in Gotham had taught her one thing: never try to figure out what a madman was thinking.

Gotham, a place of outstanding people and spirits, had produced quite a few talents: Ventriloquist, Doctor Hugo, Zsasz, Professor Pyg, Mime, Prankster, Lady Egg, and so on. Every last one of them was crazy or mentally ill.

Then she suddenly realized that more than half of the lengthy list in her mind were her regular clients. No wonder some of her previous jobs had been inexplicable from start to finish.

Honestly, though she had accepted Mick's claim earlier, she didn't think Harley would know any crucial information. Harley was more like a close-up audience member for Jester's magic tricks than the person performing them.

If Cindy had to choose, she would rather seek out Talia of the League of Assassins. That woman's relationship with Batwoman was bizarre, and she was more likely to know Bliss's whereabouts. Even if Talia didn't know, she had the entire League of Assassins at her disposal. At the very least, they were experts at gathering intelligence.

"Let's go up. Since we're already here, it can't hurt to ask."

After saying that, she took the lead, following the music through the long hallway until she reached a tightly shut door.

The two exchanged a glance and pushed it open.

The room beyond looked like a circus-themed nightclub. Multicolored lights spun wildly with the music, and the corners were piled with circus props and assorted nonsense: inflatable barbells, towering funhouse mirrors, giant balls used in animal-taming acts, and flaming hoops.

Yet at that moment, Harley Quinn was the only person in the huge dance floor's center. She gripped a steel pole and whirled up and down it, performing all kinds of movements that pushed flexibility to the limit.

The spotlight focused on her. Gleaming sweat scattered through the air as she spun at high speed, while her red-and-blue twin ponytails bloomed like flowers.

She wasn't wearing her black-and-red uniform. Instead, she wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and denim shorts, showing off her lovely figure and delicate skin. Her eyes were closed as she indulged in the joy of dancing, her face brimming with happiness as though she owned the whole world.

She clung to the pole and danced like a butterfly, and Cindy was deeply disdainful of this masculine display from a woman. A grown woman learning to pole dance like a man? She really was insane.

Cindy nudged Su Ming, who seemed to be staring blankly, then leaned closer and said:

"There's someone else on the sofa at the four o'clock position of the dance floor."

Su Ming had seen them too and was about to tell her. Someone was sitting there with their back to them; only the top of their head showed above the high back of the sofa, bobbing constantly with the music. It looked like an audience member Harley had invited.