Chapter 34: The First Job on Halloween Night

"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump."

An urgent and chaotic knocking sound rose up.

"Who is there?"

Footsteps clattered loudly; the old lady asked a question while walking to the room's door, yet no one answered from outside.

So, she reached out and opened the door, asking the question again.

"Who is..."

"Awooo!"

A white, thin shadow suddenly drifted past the doorway; it had no limbs, no body, and not even facial features—it was a nimble ghost visible only by its two eyes.

Before she could utter a single scream, that white shadow had pounced, charging straight into her embrace.

Then it hugged her.

"Trick or treat!"

Small shadows surged out from all directions: some wore witch hats and held brooms; others wore black robes and held scythes; some topped their heads with little devil horns and held long forks; and one even wore blue clothes with a red cape.

"Oh, dear, Superman doesn't count as a ghost."

Tonight was Halloween; besides the adults dressed as monsters on the streets, children also donned strange costumes to become little devils, going door-to-door asking for candy, and if no candy was given, they would cause trouble.

The old lady smiled, took out candy, and spun around to distribute it to the children beside her; at that moment, her gaze flickered, and she unintentionally saw a person topped with a pumpkin standing on the street outside, holding another small pumpkin lantern in his hand.

"What an ugly pumpkin," she murmured subconsciously: "Has anyone ever topped a pumpkin this ugly on a previous Halloween?"

Ma Ma Zhaodi felt a bit panicked in his heart.

He had simply followed the system's prompt and navigated to the delivery location, but to be honest, he hadn't expected the client to choose this place to receive pumpkins.

This was Gotham City's Diamond District; it stretched across almost the entire length of Gotham from the East District, and as its name suggested, this was the gathering area for Gotham's wealthy.

Throughout Gotham City, the crime rate decreased progressively from north to south; the Upper City where the East District was located was the most chaotic area in all of Gotham with the most crime, basically shouldering the majority of Gotham City's criminal cases.

A bit further south lay the Aardvark District, the area where the Burnley District was located, the relatively stable Mid-City; compared to the East District, this area was wealthier and had far less crime, with only criminals wanting to do big things coming here to cause trouble, and the crimes occurring here were usually super cases capable of affecting the whole city, with the minimum being the level of a bank robbery.

And the Lower City at the very southern end of all of Gotham City, which was the district where the Diamond District where the wealthy lived was located, had the best security; the people living here and those in other areas of Gotham were basically from two different worlds; if one only looked at the Lower City, perhaps Gotham City would have hope of becoming the city with the lowest crime rate in the world.

But it was very ironic that Falcone, the godfather of the largest gang in all of Gotham, and Maroni, the leader of the second-largest gang, lived openly in the Diamond District, so rather than saying the crime rate here was low, it was better to say that the criminals here went unpunished.

At this moment, groups of people dressed as ghosts for Halloween were already wandering the dim streets: burly men wearing hockey masks, masked men in black robes holding knives, clowns with eerie makeup holding red balloons, bag-headed figures wielding chainsaws, skin-rotting zombies, and so on.

Each one more realistic than the last, each one more terrifying than the last, making him involuntarily shiver several times.

He looked at the abstract small pumpkin lantern in his hand; eerie light shot from the pumpkin's dead-fish eyes, and the pumpkin's grinning mouth bore a slightly crooked scratch mark, as if drool was still dripping from it.

"Would a rich guy really want to buy this kind of pumpkin? Can this thing really be used to scare people?"

Just then, a person wearing a black round hat on his head, a loose trench coat on his body, with an indistinct face and rough men's gloves on his hands, appeared before him; this image was like that of an assassin who would draw a gun at the slightest disagreement seen on television, and also belonged to the crowd of "monsters and demons" on the Halloween street.

He walked silently to Ma Ma Zhaodi's side, pointed at the small pumpkin lantern in his hand, paid, took the pumpkin, and immediately left the district, having not spoken a single word throughout the entire process, not even making a single extraneous sound.

"How can there be such an abstract Halloween cosplay?"

Ma Ma Zhaodi scratched his head, but seeing the "Mission Complete" prompt on the system, he didn't think much more of it; there were still two jobs waiting for him to work, and he had no time to research what this mysterious client wanted to do.

So on this Halloween, there was an abstract, incredibly ugly pumpkin-headed mysterious person; he wore a cheap coat and thick men's gloves, wandering aimlessly on the streets of the Diamond District, looking exactly like that kind of nonsensical killer seen on television, causing passersby to stop and watch.

"How can there be such an abstract Halloween cosplay?"

The trench coat wearer couldn't help but recall the person who sold him the pumpkin on the street.

No, now was not the time to think about this.

Its footsteps were light as it quietly climbed the narrow staircase; the time was already late at night, and most of the lights in this magnificent luxury villa had been extinguished, with only a few scattered lights on the second floor shining down along the corridor.

It walked through the hallway, feeling its way inward to search; at this time, most people in the villa had already fallen asleep, yet from a certain room upstairs, the sound of running water could faintly be heard.

So the trench coat wearer, like a shark smelling blood, silently swam toward the direction from which the sound came.

"Creak~"

A hand turned the faucet nearby; the water flow, which was about to fill the bathtub, immediately stopped rising, and amidst the misty steam, a figure hummed a song and sat in.

The light in the bathroom was very dim because the person in the bathtub did not recently like light that was too strong, as it made him feel uncomfortable.

"Hmph, that fool Daniel," he immersed his whole body in the water and couldn't help but hum softly; the warm sensation soaked his entire body, shrouding him like darkness, reminding him of the feeling of shooting that former bank president on the street back then.

At that time, he was also protected by the night and the shadows inside the car, just like now—this feeling was too reassuring, even making him somewhat addicted.

Of course, he didn't always feel this way; only after killing would he like such darkness—otherwise, in normal times, banquets with clinking glasses, glamorous socialites, and the satisfaction of being the center of attention were his favorite things.

"Creak~"

A sliver of light abruptly shone on his face, making him squint his eyes involuntarily to adapt to the sudden strong light.

How did the door open?

The very second this thought surfaced, his pupils immediately contracted because he realized what the answer to the problem was.

"No."

"Bang! Bang!"

The response to him was the muffled sound of gunshots.

(End of Chapter)