Chapter 29: I Told You I Don't Know How to Use a Gun

On the streets of Gotham at dusk, a light rain drizzled, washing over the hazy neon lights; on such a rainy night, ordinary people should have gone home long ago.

But Ma Ma Zhaodi did not go home, because the time was now nine o'clock in the evening, his work had not yet temporarily ended, and at this very moment, he was very worried about whether he could still get off work on time.

"Bang! Bang!"

Santos's face twisted; at this moment, he held a handgun, cowering with Bridget behind an overturned round dining table. Both of them had completely lost their usual gentle politeness, their forehead veins bulging, looking extremely ferocious.

"Bastards! Dare to cause trouble at the Red Dragon Restaurant! You are dead!"

And in the direction of the restaurant entrance, a group of burly, gun-wielding tough men were exchanging gunfire with the restaurant's armed waiters; it was obvious they had not entered through reservation.

A gunman wearing a gentleman's top hat and a tailcoat shouted a response to Santos at the door: "Cobblepot sends his regards! This is the consequence of stealing business from the Bingshan Restaurant!"

Gunfire, curses, and the laughter of madmen instantly mixed and intertwined, the hazy atmosphere of the rainy night immediately torn apart by these manic notes. And Ma Ma Zhaodi, huddled in the corner, seeing the wooden table surface deformed by bullets and revealing the solid bulletproof steel plate inside, calmly took a Pocky stick from a cigarette pack and put it in his mouth.

Damn it, no wonder the tables in the restaurant were damn heavy, needing several people to lift them together; turns out it was saving for a rainy day.

Since arriving in Gotham, he hadn't had a single peaceful day; it was either robbery or shooting, at the very least theft; the most peaceful day was performing an exorcism on a ghost car with nine soul rings.

"This damn city, the people living here are truly blessed, they've got it made for life."

The restaurant where he worked was also top-tier, always encountering outrageous clients; last time it was Two-Face Harvey Dent, this time it was Cobblepot's henchmen.

Much like Mr. Freeze, compared to the long full name Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, his identity as the super-villain the Penguin was far more well-known. The Cobblepot family, one of the four great families that founded Gotham, had not yet completely fallen when the Penguin was young; his father still retained a certain amount of wealth, but he himself was born fat and short, with a long hawk nose, and he suffered jealousy and isolation from classmates because of these traits.

His father later died of pneumonia caused by getting caught in the rain, his mother went almost completely mad, and the Cobblepot family thus fell; he finally relied on self-study to transition from a fallen descendant to an intelligence-based super-villain, becoming a notorious underworld tycoon in Gotham City, but he himself suffered from a level of inferiority complex and paranoia akin to mental illness; pretending to be elegant and being angry and irritable were his consistent style.

The Bingshan Restaurant, as his enterprise, was on the surface a quite popular normal restaurant, but in reality it shouldered illegal financial activities such as underground money laundering, as well as matters big and small between Cobblepot and other gangs.

It was obvious that the "stealing business from the Bingshan Restaurant" in his subordinates' mouths probably did not refer to the restaurant's customer traffic.

Under normal circumstances, the Penguin would absolutely not dare to come to the door and show his face, but recently Batman's strikes against the Falcone family had been quite significant. Wayne Enterprises took the opportunity to seize and purge many gray industries originally under Falcone's control, forcing them to actively squeeze and seize Cobblepot's gray operations; this kind of thing, the Falcone gang had done quite a few times before.

It was obvious that the Penguin before would have swallowed this anger, but at this moment, he was already somewhat impatient with the Falcone gang, which was no longer so authoritative.

Ma Ma Zhaodi sighed amidst the flying hail of bullets; he bit into the Pocky stick in his mouth and checked the cross pendant he wore under his clothes—the durability at this moment was still nine, indicating he had luckily not encountered any life-threatening danger.

He looked at the drizzling rain outside the window, even momentarily losing himself in thought; the rainy night view of Gotham City had a somewhat cyberpunk psychedelic flavor, although it also mixed with a bone-piercing cold chill, but he personally liked watching such a beautiful rainy scene indoors.

He very much wanted to go home at this time to buy a Happy Meal for lazy people, then continue binge-watching dramas with this scenery, but in reality, the reality at this moment was that he could not at all determine whether he could get off work on time from the restaurant and go home today.

Sigh, that's what it's like to be a worker; there's never any room for choice.

The supervisor saw Ma Ma Zhaodi cowering behind the table, thinking he was scared silly, so he shouted in his direction: "Ma Ma Zhaodi! Don't just stand there stupidly! Shoot!"

"I damn well don't know how!"

Ma Ma Zhaodi didn't know if it was his illusion, but the supervisor beside him seemed to have a moment of daze the instant he shouted this sentence.

"What nonsense are you talking?" He widened his eyes: "This is Gotham!"

"Can't there be a few people in Gotham who don't know how to shoot?" Ma Ma Zhaodi protested: "When the Wayne couple went out back then, they didn't bring guns at all!"

"You damn well should move to Star City as soon as possible!" The supervisor gritted his teeth and shouted: "Unlock the safety! Pull the trigger!"

Ma Ma Zhaodi, following his words, fumbled around clumsily for a long time, finally figuring out his Beretta; the supervisor saw him hesitantly aim for a long time, only to put the gun down again.

"I might hit things in the store."

"Don't damn well worry about that!" The supervisor, who had been anxious watching from the side, saw this guy put the gun down again, and his blood pressure shot up instantly; he roared at him: "These tables and chairs are damn well meant to be used as weapons in critical moments! Shoot the damn thing!"

"That's what you said!"

Ma Ma Zhaodi immediately aimed at the opposite side and pulled the trigger; with a bang, a shot hit the chandelier above directly.

"Crash—"

A series of shattering sounds rang out; the huge crystal chandelier immediately fell to the ground, scattering like water splashes, exploding into dozens of colorful tiny gem fragments.

"No—"

Although saying so was very rude, at this moment the supervisor's voice really sounded exactly like an old acquaintance from Ma Ma Zhaodi's memory.

Even the sound of familiar music seemed to ring in his ears.

"Snowflakes drifting, north wind whistling—"

"Ma Ma Zhaodi!"

The supervisor's roar suddenly rang out, pulling his thoughts back from the daze.

"Do you damn well know how expensive that chandelier is—"

"I was clearly aiming at the table to shoot!"

"You damn well aimed—"

The supervisor hadn't been particularly angry before, but hearing Ma Ma Zhaodi's such a blundering answer, he again felt a spasm of pain in his heart.

At this moment, the room, whose lighting was already not sufficient, lost the light source of the big chandelier and became even darker; even the hazy lights outside the window and the thin moonlight piercing through the clouds overshadowed the light in this corner.

Cobblepot's henchmen in the darkness, hearing the news that their leader had fallen, for a moment looked at each other in silence.

"Did their leader fall?"

"Seems like it, so should we still fight?"

(End of this chapter)