Chapter 5: Save Point

Generally speaking, Ma Ma Zhaodi believed that no one in the world was born evil; perhaps this principle did encounter some exceptions in this world, but Victor Fries was not one of them.

He had originally been a genius cryogenicist, and he and his wife were truly soulmates, but just as Drake had said earlier, his wife had also contracted a terminal illness for which there was similarly no effective treatment anywhere in the world.

He was an indomitable genius and also a husband who deeply loved his wife; he was not crushed into despair by the situation, but instead began researching his wife's condition, hoping to find a cure.

But his wife was already critically ill with little time left, so he used his talents and knowledge to build a high-tech cryogenic stasis device for her; this freezing technology could suspend his wife's life state, buying him time for his research.

Yet, just like Gotham's own dark tone, no matter how beautiful a story was, here it would always slide toward a terrible direction; one day, the company funding Victor's research wanted to halt the experiment for profit reasons, sparking a fierce conflict with Victor.

This conflict caused a gas leak from the freezing equipment inside the room, leading to a major accident; Victor survived the incident like a miracle, but the accident altered his cellular structure, turning his entire body into a cold-blooded constitution where his body temperature had to be kept below zero degrees at all times to survive, and contact with normal room temperature would kill him.

He specially crafted a cryogenic suit and various freezing weapons for himself and began using murder to retaliate against everyone involved in the accident; from then on, Gotham gained another super-villain with a tragic life and lost a learned and talented genius cryogenicist.

He kept his wife in cryogenic stasis, continuing to research a cure for her, obtaining funds for maintaining the treatment through robbery or other means, and still lived in Gotham to this day; despite this, he was still considered a relatively low-threat villain in Gotham City.

The camera pulled back.

Ma Ma Zhaodi sighed: "Do you have any grudge against the doctor who gave you that advice?"

"... No, why do you ask?"

Ma Ma Zhaodi was certain that Drake had just carefully pondered the relationship between himself and that doctor.

"Then do you know what Victor Fries's current situation is?"

"I heard that after a laboratory accident occurred, he and his wife both disappeared."

Fortunately, he hadn't come into contact with Mr. Freeze yet; otherwise, Ma Ma Zhaodi would really have to start preparing to run away.

"Then what do you plan to do?"

"I don't know; I finally managed to settle down here with my wife, but now I've lost all hope again."

Drake covered his head, muttering to himself on the verge of collapse: "I don't know, I don't know; I just wanted to go rob some money today so I could pay next month's medical bills..."

He sat dejectedly on the rooftop, then suddenly burst into tears and began shouting in anger: "And then I fucking ran into you! I even fucking believed your bullshit, thinking you could help me, and even brought you home! I'm an idiot; I can't save her; I'm a fucking incompetent idiot... boo hoo hoo..."

Ma Ma Zhaodi did not stop him; he had suppressed his emotions under despair and immense pressure for too long, and venting those emotions through crying would be beneficial for the recovery of his mental state.

He pulled over another iron chair, casually wiped off the water stains on it, and sat down imitating Drake; the piercing cold likewise penetrated through his skin straight to the depths of his body, bringing a slight stinging sensation.

Gazing at the blurred city halo in the distance, Ma Ma Zhaodi sighed softly in the darkness.

Ropes always break at the thinnest point; misfortune always seeks out the bitter-fated.

"Click."

The sound of a key turning in the lock rang out; the rust-covered iron door was pushed open, emitting a dry, creaking friction noise.

"Drake?"

Slow footsteps sounded; the person walking seemed to have little strength, moving not very quickly.

"Camilla, I'm back."

Ma Ma Zhaodi and Drake entered the house together and saw an emaciated woman who had lost all her hair walking out from the room; she seemed extremely weak, needing to support herself against the walls while walking, and her mental state appeared listless; upon seeing Ma Ma Zhaodi, she looked very surprised, and only after Drake finished the introductions did she offer Ma Ma Zhaodi a kind smile.

Her smile was very gentle; even though her body had grown so thin it was nearly skin and bones and her face was so pale it lacked much color, one could still faintly discern from the expression in her brows and eyes that she had once been a very sunny woman.

Looking at her condition, Ma Ma Zhaodi estimated that the time she had left would not exceed three months, perhaps even less; of course, he had never studied medicine, but anyone normal who saw her condition could judge that her days were numbered.

The interior was not as dirty and messy as Ma Ma Zhaodi had imagined, but had been tidied up very cleanly by Drake; although the furniture and furnishings left by the previous tenant were all old, they were still usable, and the Drake couple seemed to have grown accustomed to living in this house, showing no disdain for the rental unit either verbally or through body language.

While Ma Ma Zhaodi was looking around, he saw Lady Camilla slowly pull a pistol from behind her back and then put it away in the drawer of her room.

Obviously, if the person who had opened the door and entered just now had not been Drake, there was a high probability that a gun barrel would have been pressed against their head first.

A few seconds after seeing that gun, Ma Ma Zhaodi felt relieved; after all, this was Gotham City, and this was still a rental house in the slums, so not carrying a gun when going out from home would be the greatest abnormality here.

Speaking of which, was the gun in Drake's hand real or fake?

This thought suddenly arose in Ma Ma Zhaodi's mind, and then he saw Drake walk into his bedroom, pull out the pistol used during the robbery, combine it with a pistol magazine from his pocket, and then place them both into the drawer.

That was acceptable; although it was a real gun, at least when the gun barrel had been pressed against his forehead, there was no magazine inside the pistol.

No, thinking about it carefully, he was still quite angry.

Ma Ma Zhaodi looked at his Shangcheng; the novice save point he had purchased was currently still in an unused state; if he took a bullet while in this state, his legend of starting from scratch in another world could come to a complete end.

He considered it slightly again and immediately used the save point on this small house.

"Save point successfully used; this save point has twenty reload attempts, with no time limit; in the event that you are about to enter a near-death state, you may choose to reload from this save point or abandon reloading from this save point."

"Please note: at most five save points can exist simultaneously, and they can be canceled at any time."

"Please note: you can use funds to shift the spatiotemporal coordinates of a save point or to reclaim it."

(End of Chapter)