Chicken soup therapy

Baron had escaped, leaving Oswald with no outlet for his fury but to spray bullets wildly at the pickup truck he had abandoned.

He felt as though someone had pried his mouth open and forced him to swallow a cockroach.

"Why? Why does this frustrating shit always fucking happen to me?!" As the dust settled, Oswald turned to Qin Wei, throwing up his hands to vent his frustration.

"Forget it. We need to get him to a hospital."

Holding the blood-soaked Dick in his arms, Qin Wei's hands shook violently. Three people had been shot dead before his eyes. It felt as though someone had ripped open his chest and stuffed a stun grenade inside.

Oswald, however, seemed to have no such trouble. He got into the car and started it in one smooth motion.

"Goddammit! This kid's getting blood all over the car. Now I'll have to wash it again! I didn't collect the rent, and now I'm out cleaning fees, repair bills, gas money... wait, are we going to have to pay his hospital bill too?"

When Qin Wei confirmed that they were, Oswald furiously pounded the steering wheel several times with both fists.

Of course, people always had to pay for their recklessness and bad temper. If society couldn't teach them that lesson, an airbag certainly would.

Bang!

"I've fucking had enough!"

Anyone working in medicine in Gotham was bound to make a fortune. The city wasn't large, yet it boasted an absurd twelve hospitals. Qin Wei had visited two of them; this was his third. But no matter which hospital it was or what time of day, there was always a long line outside the doctor's office.

Gunshot victims, burn victims, and, most commonly, thugs injured in fights. They usually pressed a piece of gauze over their wounds while their lowlife friends supported them into the hospital, leaving long trails of blood behind them.

Qin Wei encountered two of those while taking Dick to the emergency room. They were crowded around the nurses' station, arguing endlessly over who should be treated first, with a group of patients behind them who were furious but didn't dare speak up.

Qin Wei suggested cutting ahead of them right to their faces, and they nearly glared him to death.

Oswald, standing beside him, wasn't about to take that. He glared right back.

With the muzzle of his gun.

The instant Oswald drew his pistol, the two men who had been competing over whose injuries were worse suddenly perked up. Their dizziness vanished, their wounds stopped hurting, and they called to their lackeys and bolted.

Rich people might suffer insults in Gotham, but anyone with a gun tucked into his waistband received "respect" wherever he went.

Qin Wei paid for Dick's surgery and signed the surgical consent form. When he returned to the nurses' station to find Oswald, he discovered him exchanging flirtatious looks with a young nurse.

Oswald had excellent taste. The nurse was gorgeous.

"You looked so handsome when you drew your gun just now."

"Did I, my lovely Ms. Nightingale? Has anyone ever told you what a beautiful voice you have..." Oswald absently touched the tip of his nose, which the airbag had knocked swollen.

"Owwwwwwww!"

Sometimes bad luck came one thing after another, but there was no need to lose heart. Perhaps good fortune was waiting just around the corner.

The young nurse considerately sprayed medicine onto his swollen nose, then gently covered it with a piece of gauze. Oswald smiled throughout the entire process.

Despite standing some distance away, Qin Wei could smell the sickly stink of romance.

Once that was done, the two left the emergency room. Qin Wei discreetly poked Oswald in the waist.

"What's her name?"

"Gloria. Such a lovely name. I got her number, too."

"So you're not angry anymore?"

At that, Oswald's face hardened again. He really was a moody child.

"That bastard Baron. One day, I'm going to skin him alive."

"Then you'd better hurry. Someone might beat you to it."

Qin Wei meant Dick. Without Batman to rein him in, an enraged Dick would surely embark on a wild quest for revenge. The only question was how far he could get against a madman like Baron.

Qin Wei would neither stop him nor help him. He wanted to see whether a character from the story would still have plot armor after straying from the script, and test Dick's skills along the way.

He sympathized with what the boy had suffered, but sympathy was the most useless emotion in Gotham. Qin Wei wasn't Batman. He didn't have all that time to let Robin grow. What he needed was someone who could fight Maroni now.

Just then, Oswald's text notification sounded.

The screen's pale blue glow lit his face, and a grave, uneasy look gradually crept over his brow.

"What's wrong?" Qin Wei asked.

"A text from Maroni. He wants all fifteen of us bosses to see him immediately. That damned old fox is usually so cautious. He almost never calls us together outside the regular Monday meeting. They must have found the fake Harvey's body." Oswald licked his dry, cracked lips and reached up to touch his nose again.

Qin Wei stopped his hand.

"I'll go with you."

"Whew! I'd like that too. But you weren't invited. You're not allowed to attend the meeting."

Oswald let out a heavy breath. That was precisely what worried him. Without Qin Wei beside him, he felt as though he had lost his anchor.

Qin Wei knew what was troubling him, too. He put an arm around Oswald's shoulders and rubbed them.

"Find your courage."

"Is courage alone enough for something like this?"

"Why wouldn't it be? You're scared, you're worried, but what does that change except throwing your own mind into turmoil? What's happened has happened. We've already done everything we possibly can. Now we hold our heads high and face this goddamn mess. Even if we die, we make it a death worth looking at."

Seeing a spark in Oswald's eyes, Qin Wei seized the chance to add more fuel.

"The strong turn their blades on those stronger than themselves. The weak turn theirs on those weaker. Don't tell me you only dared draw your gun and shoot those two scumbags because they were weaker than you."

Reverse psychology always worked on children. With his mouth pried open and a whole bucket of inspirational chicken soup poured down his throat, Oswald now had a fierce fire of fighting spirit burning in his eyes.

Before transmigrating, Qin Wei had been force-fed countless doses of inspirational chicken soup by unscrupulous bosses. Now he had become the very sort of person he used to despise.

But unlike bosses who didn't care whether their employees lived or died, he and Oswald currently shared the same fate. Those words were meant for himself as well.

Before Oswald left, he had one last piece of advice to give him.

"This mood probably won't last long. If your life is threatened, keep repeating these words to yourself."

With that, he leaned close to Oswald's ear and whispered.