Chapter 2160

After finally getting rid of the persistent reporters, the Penguin got into the car to the hospital. The car turned a corner and stopped in front of the hospital. The car door opened, and just as a shiny leather shoe stepped on the ground, the Penguin saw that the outside was swarming with people holding signs. The signs all said things like "Hell is your destination," "Satan is in the human world," and "Death, death, only death."

The Penguin reflexively shrank his neck back, pulled back the foot he had stepped out, and sat in the car to calm down, thinking to himself not to lower himself to their level.

He had been a gang boss for so many years, what kind of curses hadn't he seen? If curses were useful, the grass on his grave would already be three meters high. Let them scold if they wanted to.

So he straightened his tie again, took a deep breath, picked up his umbrella, and walked out.

The next second, a mountain-shaking and sea-roaring cheer surrounded him.

"Long live the Mayor!!!"

"Hero! Hero! Hero!!!"

"Well done!!!"

"This is what Wei En deserves! Long live the Mayor!!!"

"You sent that fat cat back to hell. He deserved this lesson. Well done! Mayor!!"

The Penguin froze in place.

Then he suddenly thought of something.

Previously, Bruce had caused a big mess. He had stepped into the Joker's trap and let go of the hand he was using to save someone in full view of everyone. Under the push of media public opinion, the debate about this matter became more and more intense.

New Jersey was a staunch blue state. There were not many citizens who followed traditional moral spirits; most were supporters of neoliberalism, and there was no lack of "white left" saints. Therefore, the current public opinion situation was almost overwhelmingly condemning Bruce.

"If you don't have the skills, don't go up. If you go up, you shouldn't take such risky means to save people. If you save them, you should act as soon as possible, instead of just standing there in a daze." Anyway, the faults of this operation were endless, and Bruce's image also had a trend of being gradually demonized.

Some said he was an unscrupulous capitalist who wanted to shape himself into a hero; some said he was an evil criminal who was worried about others exposing his dirty secrets, so he killed someone himself; others said he was an arrogant but stupid and incompetent waste.

As a result, not even a day had passed since the incident, and Bruce had walked into the Mayor's office upright and came out horizontally. Mayor Oswald Cobblepot had shot him, leaving him still lying in the hospital for emergency treatment.

These people, whose radical emotions had long been stirred up, couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction and excitement in their shock. They would think, "Yes, that's how it should be done. Let this damn fat cat know that this world is not a playground for him to do whatever he wants!"

In fact, the above arguments were now spreading on major media at the limit speed of internet information dissemination theory.

When the Penguin got into the car, he was still a Mayor born as a gang boss; when he got out of the car, he had already become a hero of the entire East Coast.

The Penguin, who had never received such sincere and warm welcome, was completely stunned. He couldn't even say the instinctive polite words. After the security guards separated the crowd, he rushed into the hospital like a fugitive.

Feeling the cool breeze blowing in the hospital lobby, the Penguin's mind finally calmed down. "This isn't right. This isn't something Gothamites could do."

Cat Getan's spirit had always been that one could lose their life but not their "live" (entertainment). They actually didn't care at all whether someone died; they only cared about how dramatic the matter was, how many rounds of confrontation the two sides had, and what kind of ups and downs the dramatic reversal had. Simply put, they were "fun-seekers."

Gothamites' greatest advantage was that they wouldn't claim to be a righteous army, wouldn't put themselves into the perspective of the righteous, and firmly stand on one side to judge the other. Instead, they would sit in the middle and shout, "Fight! Fight! I love watching people die at my doorstep!"

The Penguin had lived in Cat Getan since he was a child and had seen countless outrageous crime scenes. It wasn't that there hadn't been exciting scenes of successful revenge or successful punishment of evil, but he had never seen Gothamites holding banners and walking on the streets to praise the murderer.

Because Gothamites actually knew that taking sides was risky. You didn't know if the descendants of the person who was beaten to death would suddenly go crazy twenty years later and come to your house, turning you into a part of his artistic creation.

Gothamites, including the Penguin, basically only watched coldly after encountering such things, at most chatting with their buddies or neighbors to watch the fun.

So where did this group of overly enthusiastic Labradors in front of him come from?

That's right, they were from New York.

If the Penguin had ever lived in New York, he would understand that New Yorkers were too good at doing this kind of thing.

The most popular topics about superheroes in New York in a year could probably fill three books: "Superhero Spider-Man!", "Spider-Man Falls from the Altar!", "Spider-Man Falls from the Altar Again!".

If Peter Parker had any other professional identity besides Spider-Man and a researcher, it was probably a bungee jumper. If he didn't jump off the altar a dozen times a year, he would feel like something was missing.

Of course, this was a hot topic among those restless and fickle young people, and the hottest topic among those more stable middle-aged and elderly social elites could also be summarized into three books: "Captain America's Glorious Past", "The Secret of Captain America's Resurrection", "Evil Genetically Modified Human Captain America".

New Yorkers often said that Captain America was the only topic you could bring up at a celebrity banquet that would never go wrong, because it contained the three topic elements that the American upper class liked most—World War II, resurrection, and evil scientific experiments.

As the "big brother" of Marvel, the background board for youth hero stories like Spider-Man, a native New Yorker, perfectly possessed the three elements that made blood pressure rise: believing whatever they heard, being easily fooled, and being forever young and never learning a lesson.

In order to enhance the gold content of individual heroism and also to belittle the important role of the masses in history, American comics produced in the era of ideological struggle would portray ordinary people in the cities where superheroes were located as villains who often misunderstood heroes.

Whether it was Spider-Man or Superman, such plots had appeared in their stories. Heroes were always kind, righteous, and simple, while the masses were stupid, evil, chaotic, forever ungrateful, and forever ungrateful.

Although this situation had improved slightly after the end of the Cold War, many screenwriters dared to touch upon the truth only superficially, setting the plot of the masses' indignation as them being fooled by the media to reflect the essence of reality.

Out of the need to disrupt the internal power structure of the Wei En Group, the behind-the-scenes manipulators of the two cities spared no effort to smear Bruce's image after the Andael incident occurred.

Cat Getan fun-seekers who were used to such tragedies were not easily incited, but New Yorkers who were used to following the trend were easily ignited. On the spot, many people went to the entrance of the Wei En Group to hold banners, write slogans, and hold parades, demanding that Bruce Wei En give them an explanation.

Gothamites, on the other hand, loved to watch the fun and didn't think it was big enough. Not only did they point the way for the parade team, but they also drove cars to sell water and food, providing logistical support for the parade crowd. When security personnel came out to suppress them, they took the lead in charging the defense line, making the parade protest momentum bigger and bigger.

The media kept fanning the flames, the masses spontaneously added to it, the fire burned more and more vigorously. When the wave reached its climax, with a "bang" of a gunshot, Bruce Wei En fell.

The devil was dead, and the hero had won once again.

Click, click, click, the sound of shutters kept ringing. One photo after another with a heavy saturated color style was recorded by the reporters' lenses and spread throughout the United States and even the world with the two major media, old and new.

In the photo, the dark clouds were very low, and the slightly old hospital color was even deeper. People of all skin colors holding various colorful slogans surrounded the Penguin. They crowded around him, cheered for him with their arms raised, made gestures of praise to him, and their eyes flashed with pious and enthusiastic brilliance.

The Penguin in the lens looked back. That originally fat and bloated figure became burly and broad under the crowd's crowding. When that face, which originally had a hooked nose and looked very sinister, raised its head, it actually carried a bit of solemnity and seriousness.

When this photo made it to the front page headlines of major media, the public either cheered or questioned, and all kinds of guesses emerged one after another.

The views of the upper class and the internal party were surprisingly consistent—this was a game carefully designed by Oswald Cobblepot.

For ordinary people, the simplest way to judge the behind-the-scenes manipulator is to see who is the ultimate beneficiary of a certain matter.

There are many people in this world who harm others without benefiting themselves, but it is often because they are not smart enough, their ideas are good, but their execution ability is not enough, which leads to all kinds of unimaginable farces.

Oswald Cobblepot was not such a person. At least in the eyes of the upper class of this universe, he could not be considered a smart politician, but at least he was a shrewd gang boss, and he was indeed the person who benefited the most from this whole thing.

First of all, more than one person had guessed that Cobblepot was the real mastermind behind the Wei En couple's murder case. And if the reporter named Andael really had some clues in his hands that could threaten him, then he was dead, and the clues were broken, and Cobblepot was truly safe.

Even so, the revenge-minded little Wei En was still a confidant of Cobblepot. But now there were too many people staring at Wei En, and acting rashly would definitely bring fire upon himself.

So Cobblepot carefully directed the Andael incident, hired kidnappers to kidnap Andael, and then lured Bruce to save him.

Bruce Wei En was originally an incompetent rich second generation. How could his saving people succeed? Cobblepot counted on this point. After Bruce Wei En failed to save people, he guided public opinion to make him a street rat that everyone shouted at.

Finally, he invited Bruce Wei En to his office, provoked him with words, lured him to attack himself, and then used the excuse of self-defense to seriously injure or even kill Bruce Wei En.

For one thing, Bruce Wei En, who had been investigating the Wei En couple's murder case, would die. For another, he could use this incident to brush his presence on major media, gain the public's trust, and campaign for the upcoming mayoral election.

It was simply a brilliant strategy. Such evaluations spread continuously in the upper class of the entire East Coast, and what was stronger than this was one sigh after another.

The idea was good, but the means were wrong.

The Penguin became a hero by this strategy, but unfortunately, he was the people's hero.

As everyone knows, on the land of the United States, politicians can stand on the side of money, can stand on the side of interests, can stand on the side of lies, crimes, and extreme thoughts, but they absolutely cannot stand on the side of millions of Americans.

Or rather, you can claim that you stand on the side of the American people, but you absolutely cannot really do it.

Otherwise, shooting a big capitalist for the will of the people, who can tell the difference between you and Stalin now?