"Who saved us?"
Qin Wei asked the most important question.
As he spoke, he licked his dry lips, his eyes fixed on James Gordon. If what he had seen earlier hadn't been a hallucination, then Batman was hiding in this world in a far more secretive way.
"You don't know either? Bullock and I fell into the sea and clung to a reef. Eventually, we ran out of strength and sank. When we woke up, we were on shore."
Gordon's answer was like a powerful dose of reassurance.
Qin Wei had to leave. He had to find Batman within an hour.
Before leaving, he borrowed some money from Gordon and asked for a flashlight and a length of rope.
"What do you need those for?"
"Don't worry, I won't do anything illegal. But I can't tell you, either, or you'll start shouting about sending me to Arkham Asylum, just like last time."
After saying goodbye to Gordon, Qin Wei flagged down a taxi on the street.
When he said he wanted to go to Wayne Manor, the driver swore and tried to throw him out. Rumors of hauntings had surrounded Wayne Manor for years. Nobody wanted to go near that hellhole except YouTubers filming outdoor explorations, especially in the middle of the night.
Then he slapped three hundred dollars against the driver's face.
"In a hurry?"
"The faster, the better!"
"Then buckle up tight!"
The orange taxi tore down Gotham's empty roads, crossed the Robert Kane Bridge, and reached Wayne Manor on the northeastern outskirts of Gotham.
The headlights lit up the rust-covered fence. The abandoned Wayne Manor resembled a rotting monster, radiating an unsettling aura from every inch.
"I'll wait in the car!"
The driver locked the doors, produced a bag of macaroni from somewhere, and began crunching away.
Qin Wei climbed over the fence and found the deep well sealed with wooden boards.
It led to the Batcave. It held Bruce Wayne's fear. It was where a hero's story began.
After smashing the boards, Qin Wei tied one end of the rope to a dead old tree, held the flashlight between his teeth, and slowly lowered himself into the hole.
Moss covered the slippery walls of the well. The noise he made disturbed the sleeping bats inside, and a clamor of beating wings surged out of the deep darkness.
Qin Wei had thought he wasn't afraid of bats, but when countless little winged creatures fluttered past his face, he still squeezed his eyes shut in terror.
He caught a scent, a familiar rotten stench he had often smelled in the sewers. It was the smell of fear seeping from his pores.
Fear of these little virus carriers had long since been written into human DNA.
No wonder Batman had chosen them as his symbol.
Once he reached the bottom of the well, Qin Wei walked through the rugged cave for about five minutes.
The flashlight's powerful beam illuminated an underground cavern filled with stalactites.
Disappointment awaited him.
There was no high-tech equipment, no Batmobile, and no transparent glass case holding a suit of armor.
The place remained as it had always been: an abandoned underground mine. A rusted mine lift lay dead at the bottom of the cavern, like the corpse of a holdout from a bygone era stubbornly guarding its headquarters.
Without Batman, Qin Wei knew he would die at Maroni's hands.
This stupid transmigration game should have ended long ago. Only extraordinary luck had kept him alive until now.
"Did you find what you wanted?" The driver was still chattering when he got back into the car.
"Don't worry! If the police ask, I won't tell them you came here. Everyone in Gotham has secrets..."
Qin Wei couldn't be bothered to answer. He rested his head against the window and let the desolate scenery recede in his eyes.
He didn't have much time left. In the final moments of his life, he wanted to return to the Senate, the only familiar place he had in this cold world.
He got out of the car and gave the driver all the money in his pockets.
"Commissioner Gordon, looks like I won't be paying you back!" Qin Wei muttered with a foolish grin. The moment he turned around, he saw a familiar face on the Senate's steps.
Oswald?!
The two battered men stared at each other.
"Damn it, Oswald! How did you escape?"
After asking, Qin Wei felt a little stupid. Maroni had no need to restrict Oswald's movements. He held all of Gotham City in the palm of his hand.
"I just slipped out of the hospital. That son of a bitch Maroni thought I was still unconscious, so he didn't leave many men watching me."
Oswald's jaw was in a cast, making his voice sound muffled. After what had happened, Maroni's standing in his eyes had plummeted, and the way he addressed him had gone from "respected sir" to "motherfucker."
"You didn't get the money back, did you?"
Qin Wei shook his head.
Oswald wasn't upset. "It was an impossible task anyway. But I still have to thank you for everything you did. Looks like you got hurt pretty badly."
"I stole two bottles of your liquor. Let's call it even."
They exchanged a smile, silently accepting the worst possible ending.
There were ten minutes left until midnight. In the final moments of their lives, they sat on the apartment building's steps, chatting on and off.
"You're from the Cobblepot Family, right? How did an heir to one of the four great families end up working as Maroni's lackey?"
"It's not a pleasant story. I'll tell you another time, if I get the chance." Oswald rubbed his distinctive high-bridged nose.
He spoke of getting another chance, but they both knew neither of them would have one.
The midnight chimes echoed through Gotham, and hurried footsteps sounded from the street corner.
Had Maroni sent a hitman? Oswald brushed the dust off his backside and stood, hoping to meet death with as much dignity as he could.
But when the newcomer emerged from the darkness beneath a streetlight, Qin Wei's heart began pounding.
Selina? What was she doing here?
"I finally found you! Why didn't you tell Commissioner Gordon where you were going before you left? I had to run back and forth looking for you!"
"Come with me. I need to talk to you!" She cast a wary glance at Oswald, then grabbed Qin Wei's hand and pulled him into a nearby alley.
"Sorry, I might not make it through tonight. Our partnership..."
Qin Wei had barely begun to apologize when a stack of checks was thrust into his hand. He switched on his flashlight and counted them. There were nine checks for five hundred thousand dollars each. Together with the five hundred thousand Hugo had returned to Maroni, they added up to the stolen gambling money.
"Where did you get these?"
"From Hugo Strange, of course." Selina tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at Qin Wei, looking pleased with herself.
"But we never found Hugo's hideout..."
"Are you an idiot? Use your brain! The Bioman has a violent temper. If Dr. Hugo didn't want his experimental equipment destroyed, he wouldn't set up his lab on the bottom level of the sewers, where the Bioman keeps roaming around."
"The first and second levels aren't safe either. People could find them too easily."
"So his lab is on the third level of the sewers! You found his lab and stole the money?"
At the news, Qin Wei's breathing grew rapid. He clutched his chest, taking quite a while to recover.
Every time he braced himself for the worst, death's scythe would narrowly miss him. After enough rounds of that, even a healthy heart would develop something wrong from the fright.
But Catwoman's answer caught him by surprise.
"No, no, no! I was planning to steal it, but Hugo seemed to know I'd come. He was waiting for me."
"So..."
"One correction: the person I intended to wait for wasn't this beautiful young lady. It was you."
That familiar voice sounded from the shadows. Qin Wei raised his flashlight and looked toward it.
Dr. Hugo's face appeared like a ghost in the beam, his smile never reaching his eyes.
While Qin Wei was still reeling from the doctor's appearance, Selina suddenly turned on him and jabbed something into his neck.
He felt a sharp, needlelike object pierce the flesh of his neck. Instantly, an electric numbness spread through his entire body.
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