In the kitchen, Chen Mo slammed the half-kneaded lump of dough onto the worktop.
Gary, the owner, stood on his right, his belly pressed against Chen Mo's shoulder. Through a layer of work clothes washed pale, the warmth and dampness of that lump of fat came through distinctly.
The owner's wife circled around to his left, her red-painted fingernails hooking his apron strings. Her heavily lipsticked mouth spread in a grin, revealing a gold tooth.
Chen Mo raised his left hand.
He backhanded the owner's wife across the face. It was a small movement, powered by his wrist, his fingertips just sweeping across her powder-caked cheekbone.
The sound was crisp, like snapping a fresh carrot.
The owner's wife staggered two steps sideways, her heels scraping a piercing screech across the tiled floor. Her back hit a storage rack. A bag of flour wobbled but didn't fall.
Four red marks rose on her face, and the impact shook a patch of lipstick off the gold tooth at the corner of her mouth.
Before Gary could even open his mouth, Chen Mo's right hand had already swung up.
Another backhand, again powered by the wrist.
Gary's face was fleshier than his wife's, and the sound was duller, like slapping overproofed dough.
His head jerked sharply to the right, the fat under his chin swaying with it. He stumbled back a step, struck his lower back against the edge of the oven, and howled at the heat.
The kitchen went quiet for about half a second.
The alarm from Chen Mo's system shrieked like a boiling kettle.
"I know this was wrong, but I really couldn't get it out of my system any other way, okay?" Chen Mo tried to reason with the system.
The owner's wife recovered first.
She clutched her face, tears of pain welling in her eyes, her heavily lipsticked mouth opening into an irregular oval.
"You-you hit me? You hit me!"
Her voice was as shrill as nails scraping a baking tray. Noisy as hell.
But with that scream from the owner's wife, the system finally stopped throwing up alarms.
Gary reacted a beat slower, but his reaction was more direct.
He looked down at his flour-stained apron, then back up at Chen Mo. His expression went from blank confusion to fury, like a fat pig that had finally realized someone had kicked it.
He clenched his fist, the few black hairs on his knuckles stretching taut.
Chen Mo even had time to count exactly how many there were.
Through his Spider-Sense, that fat fist moved as slowly as an underfed snail.
He even had time to add a Roast Session quip in his head. You run a bakery. Shouldn't your hands be covered in flour? Why is it all motor oil?
Do you seriously not do any work?
How did this crappy bakery stay open when everything tasted so awful?
Chen Mo turned sideways.
It was the smallest movement, just enough to let that sweaty, stinking fist fly past the rim of his ear.
Thud.
The fist smashed into the oven's sheet-metal casing with a loud, dull bang.
The oven door sprang open a crack, and a wave of heat rushed out. Inside, the row of baguettes was visibly collapsing.
"Owww-"
Gary's scream pierced the flour-filled air, sounding like a groundhog whose tail had been stepped on.
The opening notes of the system's alarm sounded again.
Chen Mo hurriedly put on a look of utter terror, flailing both hands in the air.
"Oh no, boss! Are you okay? Why did you have to hit me? This oven is innocent! It bakes bread for you every day, and you hit it that hard? Doesn't it hurt?"
As he spoke, Chen Mo "stumbled," his center of gravity tipping forward with perfect naturalness.
His elbow rose with the motion and struck Gary squarely under the chin.
The system went silent.
Now that's what you call having a legitimate cause.
Crack.
It was the sound of teeth colliding violently, enough to make your own teeth ache just hearing it, like two pieces of cheap tile being forcibly pressed together.
Gary's head snapped back. Like a mass of rotten flesh with its bones pulled out, he spun halfway around on the spot, an incoherent whimper escaping his mouth.
Chen Mo stood there looking innocent.
He'd meant well. Things had just gone wrong by accident. Bad luck-what could he do?
Even the system had forgiven him. Boss, ma'am, weren't you two going to forgive him too?
"Gary! You little bastard!"
The owner's wife clearly had no intention of forgiving him. She lunged at him, screaming.
Her tight dress restricted her movements until she looked like a blood sausage launched from a slingshot. Her nails were sharp enough to use as bottle openers, and they went straight for Chen Mo's face.
The four red marks on her left cheek hadn't faded yet, making her expression look especially vicious.
Chen Mo put on a look as though he was about to cry and scrambled backward.
"Calm down, ma'am! We can talk this out! No hitting! Your nails are so long-could you afford to compensate me if you scratched up my face?"
His back "accidentally" bumped into the storage rack beside him.
The rack was already wobbly. The neatly stacked bags of flour on top shook from the impact, swayed twice, and dropped straight down from two meters up.
Poof.
A flour bag landed squarely on the owner's wife's head and burst instantly. At that moment, it was as though a white smoke bomb had gone off in the kitchen.
She was coated snow-white from head to toe, even her eyelashes laden with white powder. She looked exactly like a freshly unearthed terracotta warrior.
She opened her mouth to curse, only to inhale a huge mouthful of flour. Her old face flushed red as she choked and coughed wildly.
Against the white powder, the four red marks on her face stood out even more, like four fingernail scratches in snow.
Gary finally recovered.
His face was covered in flour mixed with blood from his nose, patches of white and red making him look like an enraged clown with only half his makeup done.
With a roar, he lowered his head and charged at Chen Mo like a fat pig stabbed in the ass.
Chen Mo looked down at the floor, then at the dough that had fallen beside his feet.
It was the dough he'd been halfway through kneading. Perfect elasticity, a smooth surface-a good piece of dough. What a waste.
He crouched to pick it up.
His timing was just right.
As Gary charged over, his foot caught on the ankle Chen Mo had stuck out.
There was no stopping that tremendous momentum. Gary went airborne from level ground, traced a clumsy arc, and finally plunged headfirst into the oversized trash can in the corner with a crash.
The trash can rocked violently twice, then, unable to bear the sudden weight, toppled straight onto the floor.
Gary's two fat legs stuck out of the opening, kicking helplessly in the air. His trousers had caught on the rim as he flipped inside and been pulled down a little, exposing a strip of dingy underwear.
Chen Mo averted his eyes. He was going to get a stye. What an eyesore.
Gary struggled inside the trash can, rotten vegetable leaves and coffee grounds clinging all over him. His voice came from inside, as muffled as though a coffin lid lay between them.
"Get out! You jinx! Get out of my shop right now!"
For once, Chen Mo didn't waste words.
He didn't want to spend another second in this dump.
The smell of stale garlic, cheap perfume, and scorched flour mixed into a chemical weapon in his nostrils, one he would willingly trade for hanging himself from the top of Wayne Tower with webbing and spending an entire night in the cold wind.
He turned and walked out of the kitchen.
As he passed the register, Chen Mo paused and pulled open the drawer.
A few bills lay scattered inside, crumpled with curled edges, as though they had been repeatedly scrunched up. Expressionless, Chen Mo took out a twenty-dollar bill, folded it carefully, and slipped it into his pocket.
That was his pay for these past few days.
He didn't take a cent more.
He had kneaded dough for three days, standing ten hours a day. He took that money with every right.
He walked out of the bakery.
Gotham was still a letdown by day. The sky was gray, and the sunlight filtered through the heavy clouds into a dirty pale yellow, like strong tea left overnight and splashed onto an old bedsheet.
The air always carried that ineradicable smell of rust and the musty stink rising from the sewers.
He was used to it already.
So used to it that an occasional whiff of fresh bread seemed like a hallucination. He picked up his battered schoolbag and headed toward the street corner with his head down.
He cursed inwardly as he walked.
He hadn't worn a mask or covered his face before leaving home today. Normally, by the time he finished work, it would be time for Spider-Man to clock in, making for a seamless transition.
He'd only planned to come to work, knead some dough, and bake some baguettes. Who could have guessed he'd also have to put on a full-blown martial arts show?
...Well, he should have guessed.
I need to find an empty alley and get changed. I'm a little short-tempered today. Perfect for finding a few punks to let off steam... Pah! Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is in great form today. Just right for an early chat with young people who've sunk into the mire and strayed off course!
The sooner, the better.
Stroking his devastatingly handsome face as he went, Chen Mo turned into a secluded narrow alley.
The good news was that he had found some punks.
In Gotham, that was practically more natural than breathing. Just right for letting off some steam after he got changed.
The bad news was that he hadn't had time to change yet. The worse news was that those three punks weren't entirely straight.
He hated LJPG... Lpjg... He'd forgotten.
Anyway, in the beautiful world Chen Mo hoped for, men liked men and women liked women.
...Pah!
Men liked women, and women liked men!
He hoped everyone in this world had a normal sexual orientation, just as choosing a gender should mean choosing only male or female, not male, female, other, or custom.
Deep in the alley, three young men leaned against the wall with cigarettes in their mouths.
Their ill-intentioned gazes roamed over Chen Mo, sliding from his face to his neck, then from his neck to his waist, before finally stopping on the battered schoolbag in his hand.
Chen Mo knew that sort of look all too well.
It wasn't an "I'm going to rob you" look. It was... so fucking disgusting.
The one in front spat his cigarette butt onto the ground and ground it out hard with his toe. A faded mermaid was tattooed on his arm, its tail distorted by his muscles until it looked like a catfish being dissected.
"Well, look at that face." He grinned, and that grin made Chen Mo feel as though a slimy slug had stuck itself to the back of his neck. "Softer than the cream cakes in the bakery window. Kid, you new around here? Who do you belong to? Haven't seen you around the East End. Like cream puffs?"
Chen Mo stood at the mouth of the alley with his battered schoolbag in hand and looked down at himself.
A cheap work uniform, still marked with flour he hadn't brushed off completely.
The sleeves were a little short, revealing thin wrists, their bones jutting out like two underdeveloped walnuts.
Add to that a face that, to Gotham's criminals, was the equivalent of "free samples."
He sighed. He really should have checked the almanac before leaving home today.
If they'd been three older ladies instead, maybe he would have gone astray.
What if?
Before you continue