A Narrow Escape

Qin Wei's legs gave out, and he sank to his knees. He wanted to run too, but his muscles were spasming, leaving him without an ounce of strength.

An excess of adrenaline caused the muscles to contract and compress the blood vessels, directing blood toward the brain. This was normally a protective mechanism, briefly boosting brainpower to help a person handle an emergency.

But now that very mechanism had doomed Qin Wei.

What do I need my brain for? I need my legs!

At that life-or-death moment, a long whip dangled down from the Bioman's corpse beside him. Qin Wei looked up to find a panting Bullock sprawled on top of it.

He had already done most of the work for Qin Wei. Only the final step remained.

"Just... just a little more. The end of the whip is down by you... tie it tight!"

Bullock might have had the face of a man who never took anything seriously, but he was a thoroughly dependable adult. Seeing Qin Wei paralyzed with fear, he had dragged his battered body over and taken on the task himself.

In the blink of an eye, the Bioman was upon Qin Wei. It lowered its body and turned its shoulder toward him, its massive, rocklike deltoid slamming forward like an unstoppable battering ram.

At that same moment, the whip was finally knotted tight.

"Here it comes! Get out of the way!"

Bullock shouted a warning and rolled almost simultaneously with Qin Wei, narrowly evading the impact.

BOOM!

The two mountains of flesh collided with brutal force, like a dump truck with failed brakes plowing straight into an African elephant.

How heavy was a Bioman? A brown bear of comparable size weighed roughly a ton. Given that these creatures were even broader and more heavily built, the actual figure might have been more staggering than Qin Wei had imagined.

Yet even that tremendous mass could not withstand the impact. The Bioman's corpse was ripped in two by sheer brute force, both chunks hurled more than ten meters away.

The sight sent a wave of belated terror through Qin Wei.

Without Bullock's help, he would already have been checking in at the next world.

"What are you standing around for? Planning to stay and wrestle with it?"

Bullock smacked him on the head, snapping Qin Wei out of his daze. Only then did he notice that a large opening had been pried in the grate.

The plan worked!

Catwoman and Gordon jumped down first, with Bullock close behind. But when Qin Wei's turn came, he lost his nerve.

An abyss yawned beneath the grate, sewage rushing down into the darkness.

What lay at the bottom of that abyss-water, or rocks that would smash him to pieces?

As he hesitated, the dazed Bioman began to recover.

Qin Wei realized he had never had a choice.

He closed his eyes and jumped.

He was lucky: the current engulfed him as he fell. Otherwise, even if there really was water below, a drop of nearly a hundred meters would have been enough to smash him to pieces.

But it was too soon to celebrate. The real ordeal had only just begun. Before long, the outflow pipe narrowed and began to twist and turn.

Wrapped in sewage, Qin Wei could not breathe. His head was like a cue ball struck by an incompetent snooker player, bouncing from side to side and repeatedly crashing into the pipe walls.

He felt as though his brains were about to be shaken into a smooth pulp.

BANG!

A cannon-shot roar exploded beside his ears. Sudden weightlessness enveloped his body, and a cold, faintly salty breeze brushed his exposed skin, chilling him after an entire night without food.

Am I... out?

Light filtered through his tightly closed eyelids. Qin Wei groggily opened his eyes to see a blazing sun blooming over a sea turned fiery red.

In Qin Wei's memory, Gotham's sky had always been shrouded in clouds. Damp air and rotting mold set its tone, with gray-black Gothic buildings forming the backdrop.

Sunlight. It had been so very long since he had last seen it.

So beautiful!

Qin Wei murmured, reaching out involuntarily as though he could hide it in his palm.

But the brief weightlessness gave way to a rapid plunge. Top-heavy, Qin Wei fell headfirst into the black seawater. Caught unprepared, he swallowed two mouthfuls, and his throat and lungs burned as though scorched by fire.

Through the haze, someone wrapped their arms tightly around him from behind and pulled him above the surface.

"Can you hear me...? Hold on..."

Selina's voice lingered in his ears, indistinct, now near and now far away. But Qin Wei was too exhausted. Once he closed his eyes, he did not want to wake again.

"I can't... hold on much longer. Is anyone coming to save us...?"

Selina's voice trembled, sounding exhausted and cold. Qin Wei forced his eyes open a crack and saw her wrist, blue-purple from the chill.

You don't need to save me. You won't make it either if you keep this up.

Qin Wei wanted to tell her to let go, but he was too tired even to open his mouth.

After an unknown length of time, he and Selina sank beneath the surface. He could feel cold liquid creeping down his windpipe and into his lungs, filling every air sac it could find.

What an absurd journey to another world.

Qin Wei could not quite accept it. He opened his eyes, wanting one last look at this world.

Beyond the twisting, churning seawater lay a pink sky. A black speck in that sky steadily grew larger. Only when it came to a complete hover above the water did Qin Wei recognize what it was.

A bat-shaped fighter jet.

People said you hallucinated before death. Now Qin Wei believed it.

Even at death's door, I'm still imagining Batman swooping in to save the day. I really am hopeless.

There is no Batman in Gotham.

Qin Wei woke from the nightmare with a scream, his body snapping upright like a mousetrap. He nearly collided with the girl who had been about to change his dressings.

"You're awake? Wait a moment. I'll go get Dad!" The girl was about seventeen or eighteen, her lovely blond hair tied in a high ponytail. She wore a slightly oversized T-shirt with Winnie-the-Pooh printed on the back.

"Where am I?"

The girl left in such a hurry that Qin Wei did not even have time to ask.

Turning his head, he found the answer in Gordon's family photograph on the bedside table.

"Gordon's house? Whew... thank goodness!"

This might well have been the safest place in all of Gotham.

He instinctively reached up to rake his fingers through his hair, a habitual gesture Qin Wei used to relieve stress. This time, though, his hand met a head covered in bandages.

His terrible experience in the sewers returned to him, piece by piece.

He spread his hands and examined them, lifted the blanket to move his legs, and finally checked his "manhood." After confirming that he was all in one piece, Qin Wei let out a long breath and collapsed back onto the bed.

After an ordeal that had nearly killed him, he had escaped with nothing but superficial injuries. Qin Wei honestly did not know whether to consider himself unlucky or fortunate.

Before long, Gordon came in.

"You seem pretty lively. Looks like your brain didn't suffer any major damage."

"Yeah, you're looking pretty good yourself. Handsomer than when I first met you, even." In high spirits, Qin Wei joked with Gordon.

"Roll that tongue up and tuck it back in your mouth. I'm not some little girl who likes sweet talk," Gordon shot back with a smile.

"How's everyone else?"

"Bullock was hurt pretty badly. He's still in the hospital, but at least he's going to live. Your friend woke up a day before you did, then climbed out the window and left without saying goodbye."

"That's good. That's good..." Hearing that Selina was all right put Qin Wei at ease.

But he quickly caught another important detail in Gordon's words. Looking at the darkness outside the window, he felt a sense of foreboding rise within him.

"Wait, she woke up a day before me? What's the date and time now?"

"Eleventh hour of the night, on the thirteenth. It's been two and a half days since we escaped the sewers. Why, got a date with a lovely lady?" Gordon had yet to realize just how much trouble Qin Wei was in.

Eleven o'clock on the thirteenth-one more hour, and Maroni's deadline would be up.

"A date with a lovely lady? Ha, ha, ha... the one waiting for me is a demon straight out of hell!"