Chapter 2528: Rustling Down (23)

Take Jason's Kid Gang as an example. At the time, there were two children about his age. Now, one works at a repair shop, and the other went to a different city, likely working part-time at a convenience store.

Of the two girls only slightly younger than him, one went to work as a performer at an amusement park, and the other started a breakfast cart business with a friend.

As for the ones much younger than him—there was one who had absolutely no self-care ability back when he was the leader of the kids—that child is now in elementary school in the East District, living at the home of the child who works at the repair shop.

The rest of them give this child a sum of money every month to cover their living and schooling expenses. Because Jason's situation is relatively more comfortable, he gives the most.

The other kid gangs are mostly in this same mode. Some are already fully capable of working, while a few still have one or two members in school, with the others working to support them.

The emergence of the kid gang organization itself was to fill the void in social rules. Because there were too many orphans abandoned on the streets back then, and the gangs—the ruling class of the streets—had management lapses, the feral children spontaneously organized to survive in the cracks of the rules.

With the number of orphans plummeting, it is foreseeable that before long, this unique organizational form that appeared in a unique era will completely disappear into the long river of history, never to appear again.

However, Jason is indeed facing a problem now. The child at the repair shop responsible for raising the little one was laid off. While looking for work, he had to rent a smaller place, and the child in elementary school had nowhere to stay, so he went to the sister who works at the amusement park.

But life isn't easy for the girl working at the amusement park either. Although she wasn't laid off, her salary was cut, and because everyone is short on money, fewer people go to the amusement park, so she can't collect tips, and her life is also stretched thin.

The incomes of the other children have all dropped. Everyone has no money in their hands and is unwilling to spend, so no industry is making money, and thus the money used to support this child has decreased.

Jason has already poured in all his pocket money, and even dipped into some of the savings he earned from doing business at the music festival, yet it only barely keeps their lives stable at the original level.

After all, Jason is still in school. Although he is a day student, there are many places to spend money at school—occasionally treating others to snacks, buying water for everyone when tired from playing ball, or going to club activities after school—all require money.

Under Thomas's arrangements, none of the Robins attend ordinary schools; they attend proper elite private middle schools. Studying in such schools, one cannot buy cheap goods when treating others, and the expenses required to maintain social standing are not low.

Aside from occasionally buying things for his parents and mailing them, Dick has no extra expenses. Tim doesn't even need to be mentioned; he is a young master himself, and his mother and aunt stuff pocket money into his hands every day, fearing he might be bullied at school.

Jason has the worst economic situation among them because he has a whole family to support, and he is unwilling to ask others to borrow money, let alone ask Bruce for money, so he decided to get a part-time job himself.

He is very familiar with working part-time, but Dick and Tim have never done it, and they feel very curious, so they also want to join Jason.

Thus, they have been looking for a part-time project that the three of them can do together and earn money from. Alfred is not optimistic about this.

The old butler is not as naive as the children. In the current social situation, the pressure on all industries is great. Because consumption has shrunk sharply, all industries are laying people off, and part-time jobs are already very hard to find.

Dick and Tim are still complete novices, basically young masters who have never done manual labor. The kind of shops that hire part-timers need skilled workers who can start working as soon as they are hired; they have no time or cost to train novices.

What's more, the three of them want to work together, which obviously means they aren't taking earning money seriously. If Jason were working alone, it would be fine, but with three people together, he would have to be responsible for leading two novices, making it even harder to focus on work; it is truly hopeless to earn money.

But why else would they be Batman's top picks? Could the luck of those chosen by Bruce be bad? Just as the Robins were worrying about which industry to enter, Schiller's call came through.

After explaining the situation to them, the Robins were all very excited. They ran to the hospital at the fastest speed. After expressing concern mixed with mockery toward Constantine, they began to discuss how to run a moving company.

Three excited teenagers gathered together could practically break the roof. The nurse came several times, and in the end, it was only after Schiller spoke that they became slightly quieter.

Zatanna was also driven crazy by their noise. She followed Schiller out of the ward and said, "Anyway, my abilities are similar to Raven's. I'll stick with Wei Lun. Let Raven go with them; they are peers anyway."

Schiller could also understand Zatanna not wanting to babysit. The young magician has never been that patient. If the Robins kept making this much noise, Zatanna would sooner or later bind them all with a counter-spell.

By comparison, Raven's personality is a big problem. She has suppressed her emotions for too long. If those suppressed emotions are not channeled out, sooner or later, they will explode along with her energy.

And when it comes to how to channel emotions and how to let a normal personality return, Schiller has always advocated for peers to play with peers, rather than pinning any hope or emotion on others.

Wei Lun had no objections to this arrangement. He is very loyal. Upon learning that Jason was doing this to support his former kid gang companions, he generously offered to rent them that small truck, charging only 15% of what they earned for the day, and if they didn't earn money, they didn't have to pay.

Raven didn't know who they were, but she didn't really care. The only thing she still had some interest in was earning money, because once she saved enough, she could go shopping. She felt a longing for the dazzling commercial streets—a sight she couldn't see in Azeroth.

After Schiller left, the Robins discussed a lot more, including vehicle operation times, maintenance methods, the order of moving, and which routes were more efficient for each district, until the patient Constantine couldn't stand their noise anymore and chased them all out in one go.

Schiller and Raven drove back to the new house together. It was obvious that Raven was hesitant to speak along the way, looking like she wanted to ask who those three strange boys were, but didn't know how to start.

"They are Bruce Wayne's adopted sons... they used to be his assistants, but now he doesn't need assistants, so they are all in school."

"In school? Does that mean learning knowledge from a teacher?"

"Yes." Schiller turned the steering wheel and said, "But it's not like the one teacher to one student ratio you have in mind; it's many people sitting together learning from one teacher."

"Are you a teacher too?"

"Yes, I am a university teacher."

"How many students do you have?"

"There are probably a few hundred in total," Schiller said. "But as for the current students who have actually taken my classes, counting both graduate and doctoral students, there are exactly ten."

Raven opened her mouth in surprise. When she was in Azeroth, the teacher-student relationship she saw was an apprenticeship system, where one teacher would have no more than three students. She found it hard to imagine how a teacher could teach so many students.

Schiller's hand paused, then he said, "Perhaps you could also go to school to learn some knowledge about modern society. At least you should understand the basics of math, science, and chemistry, and then perhaps I can teach you some psychology basics."

Raven fell into thought. She was somewhat curious about schools in modern society, mainly because if she were to work with those three boys, it wouldn't be good if she didn't understand any of the topics they talked about.

But subconsciously, she was still resisting this because she felt she would lose control, and she didn't think she would use any math, science, or chemistry knowledge; she was a mage, after all.

After returning to the new house, Raven kept thinking about this until she fell asleep. In the end, she still didn't say she wanted to go to school. Unfortunately, she learned her lesson the next day.

The next day happened to be a day off. Early in the morning, the four of them met at the moving company's door, full of enthusiasm. Jason took a long list from Killer Croc, ready to show off his skills today.

However, the car had run out of gas after a few trips yesterday, so they planned to fill a tank of gas first and buy some spare gas to keep in the truck bed. After arriving at the gas station, they parked the car and, after calculating the amount of gas, began refueling. The three boys let Raven wait by the car while they went to the supermarket nearby to buy other things.

While Raven was waiting, the gas station employee came over and said the gas was already full, and the cars behind were waiting, telling them to pay the bill and drive the car out.

Raven didn't know how to drive, but she knew how to move the car. She directly used telekinesis to move the car and paid the money to the gas station employee.

Soon, the others returned and found the car wasn't in its original spot, having moved to a parking space nearby. They found the car and Raven. As soon as Jason got into the driver's seat, he noticed something was wrong; the fuel gauge showed the tank wasn't full.

After questioning Raven, Jason slapped his forehead and said, "This is a common trick at gas stations, specifically targeting novice drivers. They don't fill the tank but say there's a car in a hurry behind, asking you to pay first and fill it later. If you go to find them, they'll say that employee isn't their person, and they aren't responsible once the car leaves the fueling spot."

Raven also knew she had caused trouble. She actually didn't understand the operating principle of a car at all, nor did she know what the relationship between gas and a car running was. Anyway, since they told her to watch it, she watched it, and since the employee told her to move the car, she moved the car; she didn't know how to judge right from wrong.

Jason sighed and pointed at the car's fuel gauge, saying, "This is the fuel gauge. You can see here whether the tank is full or not. They probably realized you didn't know how to drive and looked like a stranger, so they lied to you and said it was full."

"Then what should we do now? Can we go back and find them?" Raven was a bit angry, and the power within her surged along with her emotions.

Tim sensed something was wrong and hurried forward, saying, "It's fine, we'll know next time. At least we got more than half a tank of gas, so we didn't lose too much. They also know we aren't to be trifled with and won't dare to go too far."

"Now if we go back to find them, even if we can get those few dollars back, our plan will be delayed. It's better to run a few more jobs and earn more money. What do you guys think?"

Although Jason was also a bit angry, he knew it wasn't right to blame Raven. Gotham is too special a city; it's hard for outsiders to understand. It was also their fault for being too excited and rushing to the convenience store all at once, without leaving anyone to watch the car.

"It's fine, get in the car first. You're the main force of our moving team." Jason said, "Even if we want to get even, we have to finish the work first. Let's go."