Happy Valley Amusement Park stood just outside North Shore Old Town.
By day, the place looked like ruins the city government had forgotten. By night, it looked like somewhere even ghosts wouldn't bother staying long.
Tonight, it looked like a nightmare forcibly dragged out of a graveyard and lit up again.
The Batmobile stopped some distance away.
When Chen Mo got out, the first thing he saw was the crooked sign.
Only half the three characters spelling "Happy Valley" were lit.
The character for "happy" flashed once, then went dark twice.
The character for "joy" had nothing left but one edge.
The character for "valley" was intact, but its very completeness gave off something ominous.
Music drifted faintly from deep inside the park.
Given Joker's personality, he couldn't possibly have played normal amusement park background music. It was a wildly off-key nursery rhyme, as though someone were playing it over and over on an old gramophone with a deliberately bent needle. There was a cloying happiness in the melody, like a birthday party someone dreamed of during a high fever.
It fit Joker's style.
Just hearing that music was enough to make you think of Joker.
A gust brought the smells of rotting wood, damp rust, and cheap face paint.
Mixed in was something even more unpleasant.
Something like chemicals.
Like laughing gas.
Like something that would never let the corners of your mouth come down again.
Chen Mo instinctively touched the edge of his mask.
"I take it back."
"Take what back?" Batman asked quietly.
"Gotham doesn't deserve forgiveness. Every time I'm about to let my guard down and embrace this city, it slaps me across the face."
Genuine feeling poured out of Chen Mo as he spoke, his words forceful through gritted teeth.
They advanced through the shadows.