Wayne, Your Treat!

The group had a respectable name.

"East End No. 7 Public Middle School Parent-School Communication Group."

Its profile picture was a photo of the banner outside the school gates: "Welcome all children back to the classroom."

Judging by the profile picture alone, you would have thought everyone in it was a civilized person who cared about education.

And they were indeed civilized people.

Civilized people did not need profanity to insult others.

The first to speak was a mother whose profile picture showed her family together at the beach.

Her message was long, divided into three paragraphs, with impeccable punctuation.

"I fully support helping disadvantaged children, and I understand the Wayne Foundation's good intentions. But today's situation is no longer a simple charity project. It is a serious disruption to existing students' learning environment. My child said a student brought a knife into the classroom this morning, and there was confusion over meals at lunchtime. I would like to ask the school: who is responsible for ordinary students' safety?"

Someone immediately replied.

"Agreed. This isn't discrimination against anyone, but a school is not a social relief center. There should be specialized agencies to help impoverished students. The risks should not be passed on to ordinary families."

"My child has said he doesn't want to go to school for two days running now. He said someone in the hallway asked whether he wanted to buy 'little pills that stop you getting nervous during exams.' Is this educational equality, or a drug outreach program?"

"The Wayne Foundation has money. Why not build a separate school? Why insist on using our children for an integration experiment?"

"I'm not against charity. I donate clothes every year. But charity cannot come at my child's expense."

After that remark, the group went quiet for a few seconds.

Then likes began flooding the screen.

Because that line was just so useful.

Charity cannot come at my child's expense.

It was concise, powerful, and fulfilled the need for moral self-preservation, while conveniently positioning the speaker as "kind too, but more rational."

A truly legendary line for middle-class parent groups.

Soon, someone began compiling their demands.

One: require the school to disclose the specific agreement governing the Wayne Foundation's pilot project.

Two: require clear behavioral management procedures for severely disadvantaged students.

Three: require additional security personnel on campus.

Four: require ordinary students and high-risk students to eat and participate in activities in separate areas.

Five: require the Wayne Foundation to cover all additional costs arising from this.

These five points were screenshotted, forwarded, screenshotted again, and forwarded again.

By the third round, "high-risk students" in the fourth point had become "homeless street students."

By the sixth round, it had become "students with criminal backgrounds."

By the ninth round, someone was already swearing that the Wayne Foundation had stuffed the school with gang members freshly released from juvenile detention.

Their evidence was that someone had personally seen a folding knife tucked into a boy's waistband, and someone had even brought a gun into the school!

Nobody cared that the little bastard who brought the gun had actually already been attending this school, and had been bullied for two years.

Who cared?

Rumors spread through Gotham far faster than the Gotham Police Department responded to calls.

If the Gotham Police Department could achieve that level of efficiency, Batman could probably retire early, go home to inherit the family business, and enjoy a happy life of Alfred nagging him to get married every day.

At three that afternoon, the first news van arrived outside the school gates.

Rain had washed the television station's logo on its side a little blurry.

The camera shone brightly, as brightly as a hyena spotting an animal that had not quite stopped breathing.

That was news sense with capitalist characteristics for you.

A ring of parents gathered outside the gates. Some had genuinely come to pick up their children, some had made a special trip, and some were even actors hired to pose as parents.

News needed inflammatory material.

The reporter stood beneath the banner, with these words perfectly positioned behind her:

Welcome all children back to the classroom.

It was a great composition.

Plenty of irony, a clear backdrop, and a little editing would get it onto the evening news. Shot well enough, it might even have a chance at a Grammy.

The reporter faced the camera, her expression solemn.

"Today, an educational equality pilot project funded by the Wayne Foundation sparked controversy at East End No. 7 Public Middle School. According to multiple students and parents, the project's first day saw confusion over lunch distribution, student conflicts, and increased pressure on school security. Supporters consider this an important step toward educational equity in Gotham, while opponents question whether Bruce Wayne is using ordinary students as subjects in a social experiment."

The camera turned toward a mother in a gray coat.

She had clearly prepared her statement.

She might even have rehearsed it in the car.

"I want to say that we are not coldhearted people."

Excellent.

That line again.

In Gotham, whenever someone said, "We are not coldhearted people," what followed was usually a statement delivered at a very low temperature.

"Of course we hope all children have a future. But the problem is, that future cannot be built at other children's expense. My son is preparing to enter his next school this year. He needs a stable classroom environment, not to spend every day worrying about whether the person sitting beside him will pull a knife."

The reporter asked:

"Do you believe the Wayne Foundation should take responsibility?"

The mother nodded immediately.

"Of course. They pushed the project, they handled the publicity, and they took the press photos. Now that something has gone wrong, they cannot leave the school and parents to bear the consequences. Mr. Bruce Wayne is very wealthy and very influential, but he cannot use our children as tools to prove his own kindness."

That statement was edited into a short video that evening and received the most shares.

Even the backing music was somewhat tragic and stirring.

Another father was more direct.

He wore work clothes, with motor oil still on his hands. Clearly, he was not the Upper East End sort who discussed charity over red wine.

But his words had more bite than red wine.

"I repair cars twelve hours a day, just so my daughter can stay away from those neighborhood punks. And what happens? The Wayne Foundation moves the neighborhood into the school. I'm not rich. I can't afford to send her to a private school. Public schools are the last little bit of hope people like us have. Now they want to use even that for an experiment."

The reporter asked:

"What do you think of the impoverished students themselves?"

The man fell silent for a moment.

That question was insidious.

If he criticized them, he would look coldhearted.

If he did not, it would not be newsworthy enough.

Finally, he said:

"They're children too. I know."

He lowered his head and rubbed at the motor oil on his hands.

"But so is my daughter."

That line soon went viral too.

Because it was even harder to refute than the previous one.

"They're children too, but so is my child."

That was Gotham's dilemma.

Everyone was clinging to a sinking plank.

And everyone felt Bruce Wayne was the one insisting on letting other people climb aboard too.

At four that afternoon, the first trending hashtag appeared on social media.

#WayneSocialExperiment#

Five minutes later, the second.

#WhoWillProtectOrdinaryStudents#

Ten minutes later, the third.

#WayneTreatsStudentsPayTheBill#

The moment that hashtag appeared, it spread faster than the first two.

Because it was short enough, caustic enough, and Gotham enough.

Poor people saw it and thought it was right.

Bruce Wayne had offered to treat everyone, only to have no food ready at all.

The middle class saw it and thought it was right too.

Bruce Wayne had offered to treat everyone, only for their children to pay the bill.

The media saw it and agreed even more.

It could make a headline.

Anything that could make a headline took on a life of its own in Gotham.

Accounts of every stripe began having a field day.

Someone posted a photo of Bruce Wayne smiling and raising a glass at a charity banquet, alongside a picture of a chicken leg that had fallen onto the cafeteria floor.

The caption read:

One drinks champagne, the other fights for chicken.

The image spread quickly.

Even though the photo of Bruce was actually three months old, and the chicken leg in the cafeteria had not fallen because students were fighting over it.

But that did not matter.

In communications, truth traveled on foot while emotion drove.

Someone else posted a long article.

Its title was:

"Educational Equality, or Atonement for the Rich? Why Bruce Wayne's Good Intentions Always Come at the Bottom's Expense"

The long article was very long.

Long enough to look as though the author had actually thought about it.

The article first acknowledged that the Wayne Foundation's "original intentions may have been benevolent," then spent three thousand words arguing "how benevolent intentions transform into institutional violence in the absence of community consultation."

If Chen Mo had seen that article, he probably would have been moved to tears.

Not because it was well written.

But because this person had actually padded the few words "they messed up handing out lunch" into three thousand words and gotten a report published, while probably earning a bigger fee than he did.

Pure envy.

Another account took the opposite position.

Its headline:

"Why Are People Getting Free Meals Still Attacking Bruce Wayne?"

Beneath that article, the comments quickly turned into a massive class mudslide.

Some said the poor were insatiably greedy.

Some said the middle class were coldhearted and selfish.

Some said Wayne Enterprises deserved to have its publicity stunt blow up in its face.

Some said Bruce Wayne was so rich, why did he not just buy every school?

Someone even replied in earnest:

"Because once he bought them, you'd accuse him of monopolizing educational resources."

That comment received thirty-seven likes.

Then the original poster blocked them.

By evening, this was no longer a cafeteria issue.

It had become:

Whether the Wayne Foundation had overstepped by intervening in public education.

Whether severely disadvantaged students endangered campus safety.

Whether middle-class families were losing their last remaining public resources.

Whether assistance for the poor should be conditional on "not bothering normal people."

Whether Bruce Wayne was truly doing charity, or using a school to wash away his class guilt.

Nobody was discussing how those thirty-six hot meals had been set aside.

Nobody was discussing why the promised lunch system had suffered a gap on its very first day.

Nobody was discussing when the delivery truck would arrive, why the meal subsidy cards would not scan, or why the registration system had failed to synchronize temporary ID numbers with the cafeteria terminals.

Those things were too specific.

Specific things were hard to attack.

People were easier to attack.

Especially Bruce Wayne.

He was rich enough.

Famous enough.

High enough above everyone.

So high that everyone could see him when they looked up.

And so everyone could spit at him.