Chapter 1614: No Time to Die (Part 13)

Since knowing Bruce, for a long time, Schiller thought Bruce wanted to be Batman because he saw bats flying through the dark attic on the night his parents died. The fear remaining in his heart at that time made him think bats were the embodiment of fear, and when he became a bat, he could bring fear to the criminals of Cat Getan.

But after Bruce graduated, Schiller found that there actually wasn't that much to it, nor was it because bats had any special connotation—Bruce just liked bats.

It was also after that that Schiller learned Bruce had actually always wanted to raise bats in Wei En Manor, but Alfred didn't agree. Besides the fact that these things might carry germs, it was also because their excrement was too hard to clean. This was one of the few things Alfred would refuse Bruce.

After having the inner world, Bruce finally fulfilled his dream of raising bats. After all, the buildings here were constructed by magic and had self-cleaning functions, and no one here was afraid of bat germs.

And because mages often had to brew potions and draw magic circles, bats could be called the traditional livestock of the magic world, possessing fairly mature artificially selected breeds, as well as very stable feeding methods and practitioners. Thus, Bruce funded the reconstruction of the Oblivion Bar, and Master Night helped him find a group of Night Sprites from the magic world of Maia to help him raise bats.

Perhaps also due to some special disturbances, all natural urban animals in Cat Getan were very quick to learn magic, and they learned a bit too thoroughly.

After producing two-story-high magic spider spirits, magic-transformed stray cats with eight tails, stray dogs that transformed into werewolf kings on the night of the full moon, and magic-transformed sparrow demons with a wingspan of twenty-two meters, Schiller and other mages unanimously agreed that Batman's act of raising bats was quite forward-looking and had practical value.

Of course, the bats in ordinary people's cognition couldn't deliver letters. On one hand, it was because they indeed couldn't be trained like carrier pigeons to gain a sense of space and distance, and on the other hand, their body size wasn't suitable for carrying heavy objects, nor did they have the endurance of pigeons. But these shortcomings were nothing in the face of magic.

Although the bats raised in the magic world before were used for extracting medicine and alchemy materials, as long as the wingspan and bone structure were slightly adjusted, they could do the work of delivering letters. But in order to make the admission notices not so monotonous and rigid, Bruce, the largest sponsor of the entire inner world, smuggled a lot of private goods into them.

First, the letter paper was printed with bat patterns, the envelope was a variant of the classic bat logo, the wax seal used to seal the envelope was a combination of the bat and the Wei En family crest, and the bat doll the size of a keychain gifted with the letter was made of rabbit fur, soft and fluffy.

Bruce had previously sampled about four versions of bat dolls. In order to observe the effect of the wax seal, he also customized some badges with the same pattern as the seal. In addition, there were bat stickers, bat flashlights, bat spray guns, bat cookies, bat candies, and even chemical products like bat oil drums and bat gas tanks.

In short, Bruce tried all the production lines Wei En Enterprises had and produced a pile of bat peripherals. Thomas was very confused but helpless about this. Anyway, playing with bat peripherals was better than being a bat peripheral himself, right?

But soon, Thomas discovered that the positive impact of this matter was more than that. Suddenly one day, Mayor Luo Yin found him and hoped that Wei En Enterprises could establish a specialized cultural and entertainment industry department to connect with the municipal government and commercialize all bat peripherals, especially those that could be applied to the upcoming music festival.

As everyone knows, the first time Cat Getan appeared in the public eye with a positive image was because of the photos Clark took of Batman, which became a bit popular. It wasn't strange that people naturally associated Cat Getan with bats.

And because Gordon had previously borrowed the first-generation bat signal to use as the traffic light for the central roundabout, and this group of police officers clearly didn't have the technical ability to change the bat pattern, so until now, the traffic light at the central roundabout would still project a red or green bat pattern into the sky when turned on.

The vast majority of tourists coming to Cat Getan, no matter which attraction they were going to, would pass through the central roundabout. For the magical bat pattern, the first person to see it was confused, the second was curious, and the third was taking photos. And by the tenth or hundredth time, this magical bat pattern was woven into dozens of bizarre story versions and became one of the classic attractions that must be visited in Cat Getan tourism.

Although the internet media wasn't very developed in this era, various web pages had been developed fairly well. Plus, tourists coming here spread the word, and bats gradually became Cat Getan's representative animal, and even the city's image logo.

Ordinary people in Cat Getan had no opinion on this. Cat Getan indeed had many bats flying past the window at night. Usually, few people paid attention to these animals, but since those out-of-towners liked them, it wasn't impossible to become an attraction.

Under the guidance of locals, many tourists found excellent spots to watch bat flocks. Every night, large groups of wild bats would fly from the western suburbs all the way to the northern district, passing by Cat Getan Cathedral on the way. The dark night, the ancient cathedral, and the flocks of bats flying past created a Gothic atmosphere that was fascinating, and it looked great no matter from which angle it was photographed.

Mayor Luo Yin could accept this situation better than ordinary people, and even felt very happy about it. The tourism logo of many cities often takes ten or even decades to build. Many logos that seem classic now were scolded as ugly when they were first built, such as the most classic "Hollywood" sign standing on the hillside.

Surprisingly, people's acceptance of bats, an animal with a poor image, as Cat Getan's logo was actually quite high. Luo Yin hurriedly struck while the iron was hot, first making several fake bat lights and placing them in the center of the roundabout. Every night, he held a gorgeous light show, attracting a group of tourists to watch from the roof of the building next to it.

Then he joined forces with the animal science major of Cat Getan University to create a kind of bat bait, which could make the wild bats outside the city fly according to the route he planned, and then set up different viewing spots in the city to divert tourists.

Then he added the bat image to the final promotion of the music festival, deepening people's understanding that bats represent Cat Getan.

After proceeding to this point, only the last step remained: how to drive all industries to transform the virtual fame of the bat image into real bat economy. And the simplest and easiest step among them was selling bat peripherals.

Whether it was the stalls on the streets near the central roundabout or the roofs of buildings around various attractions, Cat Getan citizens had long set up stalls. But Cat Getan had never done tourism business before, and many people simply didn't know what to sell that would be more profitable.

Either the things sold were strange and no one bought them—for example, there were gangsters setting up stalls on the spot to sell guns. Tourists weren't that they didn't want to buy, the key was that Cat Getan's prices were already high, and the price of guns wasn't cheap. And what Cat Getan sold weren't small pistols, but large firearms. People were here for tourism, not being kidnapped, so where would they have such a high budget to buy a submachine gun back?

Most of those who didn't sell such dangerous goods sold food and drink, but there were only a few ways to make local snacks. Looking at the stalls on a street, there were no more than three ways to make them. Most of the time, whoever opened in front made more money. For the identical snacks behind, tourists didn't need to eat them a second time.

Now Cat Getan's street stall economy was in a state of being busy, chaotic, and not making money. If this continued, it would easily dampen the enthusiasm of local people and the twelve gangster families for the tourism industry. The municipal government had to find a shot of adrenaline to make everyone realize that engaging in the tourism industry could make money, and it was more profitable than before.

Luo Yin thinking of bat peripherals was thanks to Gordon, and Gordon was thanks to Joker Jack. As mentioned before, in order to create bat dolls with suitable images and sizes, Bruce sampled several versions.

After the final version was determined, the previously sampled versions were useless, so he gave his friends one each. Joker Jack got the largest bat doll, with a wingspan of two meters, which could be called magnificent.

When Gordon went to Jack's house once, he saw this big doll at a glance. He thought it was quite interesting, so he took a photo with his phone and sent it to Luo Yin. Luo Yin was overjoyed and asked Gordon on the spot whose subordinate this was. Finally, he discovered that this thing was produced by Wei En Enterprises.

When Luo Yin found Thomas, he held his hand with tears in his eyes, praising his foresight and business acumen. It took Thomas a long time to figure out that the pile of messy things Bruce piled in the warehouse could be sold, and what was even more surprising was that someone actually bought them.

And the fact was that not only did people buy them, but they sold very well. After all, the price expectation of peripherals is different from food and drink. Some people might think it's expensive to buy a snack for ten dollars, but if they buy an exquisite city souvenir for ten dollars to take home, everyone will think it's worth it.

After obtaining Bruce's authorization, the factories of the twelve families produced bat fridge magnets, bat T-shirts, bat car stickers, bat ornaments, and even bat doll bouquets without stopping, and then distributed them to various attractions for sale.

Then, all the gangsters were surprised to find that this thing was more profitable than selling powder. The cost of almost all plastic or metal peripheral products was very low, and the more they were produced, the lower the cost. Even if they couldn't be sold, they didn't take up space in the warehouse and wouldn't go bad. They could be taken out and sold the same way next year.

Printed products took a little more effort, but the selling price was also high. A regular white shirt sold for a few dollars, which was considered very expensive even by Cat Getan's prices. But as long as a slightly complex special pattern was printed on it to become a city tourism souvenir, it could easily be sold for a high price of over ten dollars.

The US economy was on the rise in the early 90s, employment was quite sufficient, and there were many holidays. Everyone had spare money in their hands and was willing to spend money when traveling. All the tourist cities that became popular in this era made a lot of money, and Cat Getan was no exception.

Thus, before the music festival even started, tourists who arrived early and wanted to travel around Cat Getan had already brought considerable income to various strata of Cat Getan.

This made the people of all strata in Cat Getan, especially the twelve gangster families, fully realize: what era is it, and you're still working hard to engage in traditional robbery? Isn't engaging in tourism, selling peripherals, and robbing tourists' money faster than robbing a bank? ===== CHAPTER 1615 =====