Who needs your pity?

A brand-new brass plaque stood outside the public high school Chen Mo had been assigned to.

The plaque had been polished to a shine, so bright that it looked out of place beside the gray wall covered in three layers of spray-painted profanity, two layers of gang tags, and a line reading "Principal, drop dead."

It read:

Wayne Foundation Educational Equality Pilot Program.

Chen Mo slung the backpack he had just found in a dumpster yesterday over his shoulder and followed the crowd inside.

The system still beeped a few times whenever he rummaged through a dumpster, but he could let it beep. It wasn't a big deal. It didn't actually deduct his abilities or luck, and saving money was what really mattered.

Even though a shooting had nearly happened just yesterday, the two guards at the school entrance were still smoking and looking down at a phone, respectively. The metal detector stood beside them, giving off a feeble electrical hum.

On average, it went off once for every three people who passed through.

A boy in a black hoodie walked through, and the detector beeped like it was having a heart attack.

A guard lifted his eyelids.

The boy took a folding knife out of his pocket and tossed it into a plastic basket beside him with practiced ease.

Three knives, two lighters, an unopened box of needles, and a car antenna removed from who knew where already lay in the basket.

"Pick it up after school," the guard said.

"Someone swapped out my knife last time," the boy said.

The guard exhaled smoke. "Then get here earlier today."

Chen Mo: "..."

Great.

Very orderly.

He had only taken two steps forward when someone bumped into him from behind.

A tall, skinny boy squeezed past him, carrying a stack of books with yellowing pages and several different names written on their covers.

They had probably been reused so many times they were nearly historical artifacts.

"Watch where you're going, Asian kid," the tall, skinny boy muttered.

Chen Mo glanced at him.

The boy's gaze was fierce, but wearily so.

Like a stray dog that had guarded a bone beside a dumpster for three days. He didn't really want to bite anyone, but if he didn't act fierce, the other dogs would bite him to death.

Chen Mo decided to be magnanimous.

He, Gotham's Spider-Man, simply loved the world as God did.

"Good morning, friend. May knowledge light up your life."

The tall, skinny boy stopped and turned to look at him.

His expression shifted from ferocity to confusion, then from confusion to a kind of sympathy that said, "Did Gotham already teach this guy's brain a lesson before he even enrolled?"

"Are you sick in the head?"

Chen Mo nodded. "No diagnosis yet."

The tall, skinny boy fell silent for two seconds, then hurried away with his books.

Chen Mo felt he had won.

At least when it came to mental contamination, Spider-Man never lost.

That didn't mean he wanted to go up against Joker right now, nor was it any kind of provocation. For the sake of his mental health, Chen Mo really didn't want to fight Joker.

The school building's lobby was even noisier than outside.

The sounds of students doing their morning reading.

All sorts of words starting with b and f rang out nonstop.

Cursing, locker doors being kicked open, bodies slamming into lockers during a fight at the end of the hallway, and the principal's voice over the PA, putting on a show of composure.

"Students, please maintain order. Today is the second day of the new semester, and also the second day of the official launch of the Wayne Foundation Educational Equality Pilot Program. We believe every child has the right to a future..."

Before he had even finished, someone kicked over a trash can at the end of the hallway.

Milk cartons, crumpled test papers, cigarette butts, and half a moldy hamburger spilled across the floor.

A fat boy flipped off the PA speaker.

"The right to a future? I don't even have the fucking lunch money to get into the cafeteria."

Someone nearby laughed.

They laughed because it was too true-so true that if they didn't laugh, they would have to cry.

Just like the school entrance, the classroom entrance had been decorated with a new poster, a brand-new welcome poster printed in color, with the Wayne Foundation logo in the corner.

Every child is Gotham's tomorrow.

Underneath the poster, someone had added a line in black marker:

Then who's feeding us today?

Chen Mo stared at that line for a while.

The handwriting was crooked and truly ugly.

But then he thought that a kid who could read and write already counted as a top student. It was pretty good already.

Chen Mo pushed the door open and went inside.

The classroom was already more than half full.

The dividing line between rich and poor students was so clear it looked as though someone had measured it with a ruler.

In the row by the windows, a few students in clean jackets clustered together, brand-new tablets on their desks. Their headphones were all the same brand, and their shoes were unreasonably clean.

They spoke quietly and covered their mouths when they laughed, as though even their laughter had been trained by private tutors.

On the side by the door, students sat scattered about, their clothes old, their backpacks old, their eyes old too.

Some slept with their heads on their desks.

Someone broke a breakfast biscuit into four pieces and ate slowly, as though dismantling a time bomb.

Someone had set an empty water bottle at the corner of their desk, filled with water from the restroom tap.

Chen Mo had just found an empty seat and sat down when he heard two boys arguing in the row ahead.

A Black boy slapped his lunch card onto the desk.

"I know I still had three dollars and twenty cents on my card."

A white boy sneered. "What can three twenty buy? Half a screw from the bathroom door handle on young Master Wayne's yacht?"

"Shut up, Danny."

"Am I wrong? That woman presenting the Wayne Foundation segment on TV said yesterday they'd increased education spending. Spent it where? On your fucking mom? I had cold mashed potatoes yesterday. There were still ice crystals in them."

"You're lucky you even got cold mashed potatoes."

A girl in a knit hat suddenly spoke from the corner.

Her voice was very hoarse, as though her throat had been worn down by years of smoke and cold air.

"My little brother's school handed out 'meal substitutes' yesterday."

Danny turned around. "Substitutes for what?"

The girl's face was expressionless. "Lunch. A shopping voucher you can't redeem anywhere. Fuck them, fobbing us off with a piece of waste paper."

The classroom went quiet for a second.

Then someone laughed out loud.

The laugh was brief and shrill.

"Lunch substitutes? Fucking fancy. Can I apply for a substitute life, then? I want Bruce Wayne's life."

"Go apply, then. Write to Bruce Wayne. Doesn't he love saving Gotham? Some rich bastard looking down from on high, playing around with his own generosity. Who the fuck needs his pity?"

"Give it a rest. He's busy saving models at dinner parties."

"Or he might be busy changing the champagne tower."

"Or putting up brass plaques for us. Did you see that thing at the entrance? Shiny as a fucking headstone."

That drew even louder laughter from the classroom.

Someone slapped a desk.

Someone whistled.

Someone threw a pen at the Wayne Foundation promotional poster that had likewise been newly put up on the classroom wall.

The pen's tip struck Bruce Wayne's smiling face on the poster, leaving a small black dot right at the corner of his eye.

Like a teardrop mole.