Late at night in Gotham City, the rain smelled of industrial fumes, like a bowl of thick soup made with expired seasonings.
Chen Mo crouched on the head of a precarious stone gargoyle beneath the dripping eaves, his stomach making more of a racket than the distant sirens.
That was hunger beating a drum to demand justice.
He hadn't seen a proper carb in twenty-four whole hours.
As one of the vast army of transmigrators, Chen Mo felt he might be bringing shame on the entire group.
Other transmigrators either got systems that let them crush everything in sight or became cast-off heirs of wealthy families, tigers and fish returned to their element.
He, meanwhile, had been bound to a Spider-Man roleplay system that forced his words and actions to conform to Spider-Man's image.
How were all those rules the system imposed any different from simply demanding he be a saint?
Ding~ Your Saint Mother System has been bound~
Tsk.
Chen Mo looked down into the narrow alley below, where a scrawny, skeletal punk was waving a rusty folding knife at a trembling woman.
This was the thirty-fifth robbery he had encountered on tonight's patrol.
Chen Mo silently gave Gotham's public safety a thumbs-up.
The concentration of talent here truly lived up to Gotham City's reputation as a blessed land of outstanding people.
May God bless Gotham. Amen.
If he hadn't needed to grind those pitiful system rewards, Chen Mo would have much preferred rummaging through the dumpster behind the Iceberg Lounge to see whether he could find some food Penguin didn't want.
But he couldn't.
The system ruled that rummaging through dumpsters was "undignified conduct" that would damage a superhero's image.
Sigh.
...He was joking about that part.
Surely nobody had missed the joke?
His desire to get a job, however, was genuine.
But with the double hardcore buffs of being an illegal immigrant and child labor, this failed man...boy, currently only fifteen years old, was having trouble finding work.
Chen Mo sighed, rolled his weak, aching ankles, and leaped off the stone beast.
Dizzy from low blood sugar, he stumbled on landing and nearly dropped to his knees in a grand bow before the robber.
The scrawny punk jumped at the dark figure that had suddenly fallen from the sky, nearly stabbing his own thigh with the folding knife.
Chen Mo steadied himself. His face twisted beneath his mask, but the voice that came out was positively sunny.
"Hey, lost brother, playing with knives this late at night isn't a good habit. It'll cut your pure soul."
The scrawny punk froze.
He stared at the boy before him, who wore red-and-blue pajamas, a hood, and a mask, and was as skinny as a bean sprout.
"Where'd this lunatic come from? Get lost! Don't get in the way of me making money!"
The scrawny punk swore and lunged at him with the folding knife.
Chen Mo dodged sideways, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him backward with his own momentum.
"Violence doesn't solve anything, bro. That's not a knife in your hand. It's the shackles of sin."
As Chen Mo delivered lines that made even him want to delete his character and start over, he skillfully toyed with his opponent using martial arts.
He shoved the scrawny punk from behind and watched him fall flat on his face.
The scrawny punk scrambled up, his eyes red.
"Shut the fuck up! I'll kill you!"
Chen Mo hopped lightly onto the wall and clung there like a giant gecko.
"What you need is love and redemption, not more bloodshed. In this city shrouded in gloom, shouldn't we give each other a hug?"
The scrawny punk broke down.
Help.
What should you do when you get into a street fight with someone who chants scriptures while fighting?
Oh, right, you can't beat him, either.
"Are you fucking sick? If you're sick, go make an appointment at Arkham! Stop grossing me out here!"
The scrawny punk threw away his knife, covered his ears, and shouted.
Chen Mo jumped down from the wall, as light as a falling leaf. He ignored the man's breakdown-seriously, if meeting him was enough to break the guy, how had he survived in Gotham this long?-and turned toward the woman huddled in the corner.
"Ma'am, you're safe. Justice may be late, but it will never fail to arrive."
The woman stared blankly at him, clutching her purse.
"Thank you... Um, should I call the police?"
Chen Mo considered how quickly Gotham's police responded, then thought of those fat guys who did nothing but sit in their patrol cars eating doughnuts.
"Considering the police phone lines might be handling three hundred other robberies right now, I think you could go home, have some hot cocoa, and get a good night's sleep first."
With that, he turned and walked toward the scrawny punk, who was trying to sneak away.
Chen Mo clamped a hand on his shoulder. The scrawny punk shuddered in fright, nearly in tears.
"Hero! Boss! I was wrong! I really was wrong! Take me to the police station, please! Just stop talking to me!"
Chen Mo fought back the urge to shatter the man's nose with a punch. His fist trembled slightly, not from anger, but from hunger.
But his expression, had it been visible through his mask, would surely have been filled with sunlike warmth.
He, Spider-Man, was just that positive.
Chen Mo gently helped the scrawny punk up and even reached out to brush the dust off his clothes.
"Don't be afraid, lost child. God will forgive every soul that recognizes its mistakes and changes its ways. Since you've realized your mistake, go. Find your own light."
The scrawny punk stood stunned. He could hardly believe his ears.
In Gotham, a failed robbery usually ended with you beaten to a pulp and dumped in a trash can, or pinned to a wall with a Batarang.
This red-and-blue freak was actually letting him go?
"You... you're really letting me go?"
Chen Mo nodded, his tone firm and solemn.
"Go. Use your hands to create value, not to steal. Remember, every tomorrow is a new beginning."
Can you feel it? This little alley is glowing! It's radiating from me! I'm practically Gotham's little sun!
Knock him out right here? My control over my strength isn't great. Sixteen tons in a single palm strike could easily kill someone by accident.
Stick him to the wall with spiderwebs... Sorry, that feature hasn't been unlocked yet.
The scrawny punk scrambled toward the mouth of the alley, moving as fast as if the Gotham police's entire fleet were chasing him.
Chen Mo stood there, watching him disappear into the night, and sighed again. His stomach voiced another long protest.
"God bless Gotham."
He muttered it into the empty alley.
But I really don't have any money for food.
Molly, a woman who had just been transferred to Gotham for work, fumbled a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of a battered wallet whose surface was almost peeling off, her hand trembling.
The bill had clearly been through a washing machine. Its edges were curled, and an unwashable grease stain marked the middle.
But to Chen Mo, it radiated a sacred glow more dazzling than the lights of Gotham City Hall.
Molly extended her hand a little farther, her eyes showing something extremely rare in Gotham: maternal compassion.
"Take it, kid. I know it's not much, but you... you look like you need some new clothes, or a full meal."
Chen Mo stared at the ten-dollar bill, his eyes practically glued to it.
Ten dollars.
Enough for two burgers, or a pile of energy bars to last until tomorrow.
His hand had already reached out. His fingertips touched the bill. The paper was rough, its edges fuzzy. It was real.
The system's alarm instantly blared in his head.
[Warning: accepting payment is prohibited.] [Spider-Man roleplay system notice: Spider-Man does not take so much as a needle or thread from the public.] [If you accept this money, your probability of falling off a wall within the next twenty-four hours will increase to eighty-nine percent.]
Chen Mo's fingers froze.
He looked down at the money, up at Molly's sincere face, then down at the money again.
Then he withdrew his hand.
The movement was slow, as though he were doing something that went against human instinct-which, in fact, he was.
"No, thank you, ma'am."
He spoke as casually as if turning down an extra piece of gum.
"My rates are pretty high. Ten bucks isn't enough. Maybe next time."
Molly froze.
The corner of Chen Mo's mouth twitched beneath his mask.
He replayed what he'd just said in his head.
High rates? Not enough? Next time? What the fuck kind of thing was that to say? It sounded like I thought the money wasn't enough.
Sorry, I'm too hungry. My emotional intelligence has temporarily gone offline.
But his expression, visible at the corners of his eyes even through the mask, remained bright and sunny.
"What I mean is, keep it. This city's cold enough. Don't let your wallet freeze too."
Chen Mo added that.
He added it quickly, but managed to steady his tone.
Molly's eyes reddened.
She looked at the boy before her, wearing a uniform made from cheap pajamas, loose threads still showing at the cuffs, and her lips moved.
"You saved my life... I can't just do nothing."
Chen Mo stepped back and slipped both hands into his hoodie pockets, not to look cool, but because he was afraid they might reach out against his will.
"Getting home safely is the best payment you could give me."
After saying that, he gave himself a score in his head.
Seven out of ten.
Good line, decent delivery. It's just that my stomach nearly drowned out the last sentence.
Molly couldn't speak.
She clutched the ten-dollar bill and looked at him.
Chen Mo felt his willpower would crumble if he stayed any longer. He turned toward the wall, hooked his fingers into the gaps between the bricks, and climbed two steps up.
"Wait!"
Molly called from below.
"Please tell me, what's your name?"
Chen Mo paused. He turned his face, and the lights of the rainy night outlined half his youthful face above the mask.
"No need to thank me, ma'am."
With a slight push, he vaulted onto a second-floor windowsill.
"I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"
With that, his figure vanished into the building's shadows.
Molly stood in the alley, facing the empty wall, and murmured as though to herself.
"Thank you, Spider-Man."
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