Early morning.
Gotham.
Beneath the towering skyscrapers lay the slums.
This shantytown was a place where not even the police would patrol alone.
The corrugated iron roofs resembled scars on a mangy head, patched together haphazardly. Sandwiched between them were clotheslines, discarded mattresses, and someone's broken sofa--its surface stained with a dark brown blotch that didn't look like coffee.
The air was thick with a mixture of mustiness, spoiled food, cheap cigarettes, and a sickeningly sweet odor, as if something were quietly rotting away.
Chen Mo crouched atop the highest point of an abandoned water tower.
The iron frame of the water tower was so rusted that only its skeleton remained. The wind swept through the gaps in the frame, making a wailing sound like someone blowing across the mouth of a bottle.
He unzipped the first bag of money.
One-hundred-dollar bills, neatly stacked, radiating the crisp scent of fresh ink.
In the shantytowns of Gotham, this scent was sweeter than bread, sweeter than a woman, sweeter than anything else in the world.
Because it could buy all of those things.
Chen Mo didn't dump the whole bag out at once.
He grabbed a handful and, with a flick of his wrist, scattered them like fish food.
The banknotes dispersed into a green flurry of snow, drifting toward the west.
He grabbed another handful and scattered them to the east.
Another handful, to the north.
He climbed down from the water tower and moved slowly along the tin roofs of the shantytown. Every few steps, he would grab a handful from the bag, distributing them evenly and silently.
Below him was the panorama of sentient life.
In the easternmost corner, a vagrant curled up in the gap between a tin shack and a brick wall.
The original color of his clothes was no longer discernible; he had worn them for so long that the dye of the fabric itself had been rubbed away, leaving only the grayish-white of the bare fibers.
A small fire burned beside him, fueled by scraps of wood and old newspapers scavenged from the trash heaps.
The flame was tiny, flickering on the verge of extinction, shrinking into a ball against the wind.
His gaze was vacant, his pupils dilated like two dried-up wells. Having just finished a hit, the syringe was still cast aside by his feet, a drop of blood clinging to the needle--already dried into a dark red.
His entire body leaned against the wall, his posture so limp that he resembled a ragdoll carelessly tossed aside.
A trace of a smile hung on the corner of his mouth--the kind of blank, empty smile that came when there was absolutely nothing left to think about, when the brain had been thoroughly bleached.
A green piece of paper drifted down from the sky, fluttering past his eyes.
His gaze followed the paper for a moment, as if it took him a long time to confirm that this object truly existed.
Then he reached out, pinching the edge of the bill with two fingers, lifting it to his eyes to examine it against the firelight.
The banknote was licked by a tongue of flame. Its edges rapidly curled, turning from green to brown, and then from brown to black.
The flame crawled upward along the edge like a thin, bright-red snake.
He smiled.
It was a very faint smile, as if he were seeing something that only he could see.
Hallucinations--he had seen plenty of them.
Once, he saw his own blood vessels grow out from his arm, turning into vines that wrapped around a lamppost and suspended his entire body in midair. Another time, he saw a cat covered in eyes crawl out of the sewer, every single eye weeping tears of gasoline, before the cat set itself on fire.
So, he was very used to it.
He rolled up the burning hundred-dollar bill slowly and meticulously, as if rolling a handmade cigar. Then, he casually tossed it into the fire.
The flames suddenly surged.
The green banknote rapidly curled into a ball within the fire, the ink making a faint sizzling sound under the intense heat.
The paper began to carbonize from the edges. Benjamin Franklin's face on the hundred-dollar bill first wrinkled, then blackened, and finally shattered into pieces.
Two meters away, another vagrant was leaning against the wall, wrapped in a tattered down jacket scavenged from a dumpster.
The down jacket was split open at the shoulder, the gray filling spilling out like a suppurating wound. He had been dozing off but was jolted awake by the sudden surge of the flame. Opening his eyes, his pupils reflected the green mass rapidly vanishing in the center of the fire.
He froze for a second. Then, his eyes widened violently, so large they almost bulged out of their sockets.
"Holy shit! That's fucking money!"
He leaped up from the ground like a dog whose tail had been stepped on and pounced toward the fire.
He thrust his hand straight in, his fingers grabbing the edge of the burning piece of paper. The tongue of flame licked the back of his hand; the hairs instantly curled and scorched, and his skin turned from white to red, and from red to a translucent, sickly pale oozing with tissue fluid.
He couldn't feel the pain. Pinching the edge of the ash, he fished it out of the fire. Two-thirds of the bill had already burned away, and the remaining portion was still sparking. He slapped at it with his other hand, the sparks burning into his palm, causing the skin of his palm to fuse with the paper ash.
The fire was extinguished.
He pinched the remnant, holding it up to his eyes. It was a black, curled mass of ash that still retained the rough shape of a banknote.
With a gentle touch of his finger, the blackened part shattered, turning into powder that rustled down through the cracks of his fingers.
It fell into the mud and water, floating on the surface like a razor-thin layer of coal cinders that could be blown away by the wind at any moment.
On the back of his hand, blisters had already risen where he was burned--translucent, filled with pale yellow tissue fluid, and fringed with an unhealthy ring of red.
He didn't look at his hand. He stared at the ash for a long time. Then, he wiped his hand against his pant leg, leaving the ash and fragments of scorched skin smeared on his trousers.
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, acting as if nothing had happened.
The high vagrant still leaned nearby, that blank smile still plastered on his face.
The fire continued to burn, the scraps of wood crackling within the flames. He didn't remember what had just been burned. He wouldn't remember tomorrow either. The day after tomorrow, he might not even remember where he was today.
This was quite nice.
In a place like this, memory was a luxury. The clearer you remembered, the more painfully you lived.
In another direction, in the alley opposite a convenience store.
A man crouched at the base of a wall.
The cuffs of his shirt were frayed, and the collar was worn, but one could still tell it had once been a decent piece of clothing. Oxford cloth, light blue, with the needle marks left behind where a brand label had been ripped off the left chest.
He crouched there, his knees pressed against his chest, his hands shoved into his pockets.
Inside his right pocket was a steel pipe scavenged from a construction site, about forty centimeters long. One end had been sawed off, leaving a jagged, rusty edge.
He gripped it tightly, his palm slick with sweat.
The sweat and rust mixed together, creating a sour, metallic taste like licking a battery. He stared intently at the convenience store door. It was an automatic glass door, plastered with a printed sign that read "No Credit Allowed," the edges of the paper already curling up.
He was calculating.
Go in, grab bread, grab water, grab anything that could be stuffed into his mouth.
He knew the clerk behind the counter. Last week, when he still had a decent job and his credit hadn't collapsed into bankruptcy, he would nod to him every day when passing by.
The clerk would nod back.
Neither of them knew the other's name, but they nodded twice a day--once in the morning, once in the evening.
He felt that counted as knowing each other.
Now, he was going to go in and rob this person he knew. The clerk would press the alarm button under the counter. How long would it take for the police to arrive?
They wouldn't come.
The police in this district wouldn't dispatch for a convenience store robbery.
But the clerk had a gun of his own. He had seen the shotgun underneath the cash register. Last time a vagrant was causing trouble at the entrance, the clerk simply placed the gun on the counter without saying a word, and the vagrant left.
So, he had to strike before the clerk could reach that gun. Using the steel pipe. Smashing it right onto the hand reaching for the weapon. Then grab the things and run. If he couldn't run, he would fight for his life.
Just risking his life.
His life wasn't worth much anyway.
A hundred-dollar bill drifted down, landing in the muddy water by his feet.
He looked down at the money.
Franklin's face was facing up, half-submerged in the muddy water. The muddy water slowly soaked along the edges of the bill, turning the green ink into a filthy, dark olive green.
He looked at that face. He looked for a long time. Long enough for the nearby streetlamp to flicker three times.
He loosened his grip on the steel pipe in his pocket.
His fingers opened one by one, and the steel pipe slid down, pressing against the side of his thigh.
He bent over and picked the banknote out of the muddy water. The muddy water dripped from the edges of the bill, landing on his frayed cuffs. He used his thumb to wipe the mud off Franklin's face, but it didn't come clean; the mud stains had embedded themselves into the fibers of the paper.
He held the banknote up to his eyes, looking at it against the streetlamp. The watermark was there. The security thread was there.
It was real.
He folded the banknote and stuffed it into his shirt pocket, right against his chest.
Then he stood up, his knees popping with a sharp crack. He walked into the convenience store. The automatic door slid open, the doorbell emitting a short electronic chime.
The clerk behind the counter looked up--the man who used to nod to him twice a day.
The man walked to the shelves, picked up a loaf of sliced bread, and a bottle of mineral water.
The cheapest ones. He walked to the checkout counter, pulled the banknote out of his shirt pocket, and placed it on the counter surface. The bill was wet and stained with mud, sticking to the counter with its edges slightly curled. The clerk looked down at the bill, then raised his eyes to look at the man's face. He watched for a few seconds. Then, he opened the cash register and counted out the change.
Coins, and a few crumpled one-dollar bills. He pushed the change along with the bread and mineral water in front of the man.
Neither of them spoke. The man took his items and walked out of the convenience store. He sat on a concrete block at the mouth of the alley, tore open the bread packaging, and took out a slice. The crust was a bit dry, and as he chewed it in his mouth, it felt like chewing on paper.
He chewed very slowly. Not because he wasn't hungry, but on the contrary, because he had starved for too long. His stomach had shriveled to the size of a fist; eating too fast would make him vomit.
The steel pipe was still in his other pocket.
He didn't know when the next banknote would drift down. So, he kept it.
In the deepest depths.
An area where even the vagrants were unwilling to gather.
There were no tin shacks here, no shelters built from discarded cardboard boxes--only a half-collapsed red brick wall and a concrete eave that barely managed to shelter half a body.
Rainwater dripped from the eave, soaking the base of the wall into a patch of dark green moss.
Lying on the moss was a vagrant whose body was already crawling with maggots. He lay on his side, his knees curled up, his arms bent, his head pillowed on one hand.
Like the posture of an infant inside a mother's womb.
But the skin on his face was gray, his lips were white, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken, like two dried-up wells.
There were several wounds on his body, distributed across his arms, shins, and the outer side of his ribs--ulcerations smashed by blunt instruments, trampled by shoe soles, and worn out bit by bit by life itself.
The skin at the edges of the wounds rolled back, exposing the dark red flesh beneath, the surface of the flesh covered with a thin, translucent membrane of pus.
The smell could be detected from several meters away--sickeningly sweet, like overripe fruit left to bake in the sun for three days.
Flies rested on the wound on his shin, and he didn't wave his hand to shoo them away.
It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he no longer had the strength.
A dog curled beside him.
It was so dirty that its original coat color was indistinguishable--it might have been yellow, it might have been white, or it might have been black and white.
Now it was a uniform gray-brown, repeatedly soaked by muddy water, engine oil, and unspecified liquids. The dog's belly was large and sagged loosely; its nipples were swollen, surrounded by a ring of red marks sucked out by puppies.
It had just given birth.
From some corner, the puppies whimpered, their voices thin, like the wind blowing through rusted wire. The dog did not look back.
It curled up beside its master, its chin resting in its master's palm.
The old vagrant's fingers twitched--the final, involuntary spasm of muscles before death.
His fingertips brushed against the dog's ear. The dog lifted its head and licked his fingers. That finger was ice-cold, coated in dust, and the grime ran deep beneath the fingernail.
The dog's tongue was warm and pink, carrying a thin sheen of moisture. That was probably the only clean thing in this entire alleyway.
The old vagrant's lips were moving. His voice was extremely faint, like the wind passing through the gaps in sheet metal.
"You can eat me."
The dog didn't understand. The dog just licked his finger.
"Thank you for staying with me all this time." His voice was as dry as sandpaper scraping against glass. "Everyone else left. The landlord. The foreman. The guy who agreed to do temporary work together. The docks. The one at the convenience store who nodded to me every day. All gone."
He paused, his Adam's apple moving as if trying to swallow something. But there was nothing in his throat. "Only you are still here. Only you didn't abandon me."
The dog rested its chin in his palm. That hand had almost entirely lost its warmth, but the dog didn't care.
Resting its chin there, the dog's eyes half-closed, and its tail swept slowly across the ground once, kicking up a small puff of dust.
"The world doesn't want me anymore. You still do."
He closed his eyes, his hand sliding off the dog's head and falling onto the freezing concrete ground, his fingers slightly curled as if he were still gripping something.
A hundred-dollar bill drifted down, landing on his knee. The green falling upon the gray was like a leaf drifting from another world.
The pants on his knee had a hole torn in them, exposing the patella beneath, which was so emaciated it was just a layer of skin over bone.
The banknote landed on top of the patella, its corners lifted by the wind, gently tapping against that protruding bone.
He didn't open his eyes. He no longer had the strength to pick it up, to consume, to spend.
Money was useless to a dead man.
A hand suddenly shot out from the side, snatching the banknote away.
That hand was extremely thin, the cracks of the nails filled with black grime, and there was a scabbed knife scar on the web of the thumb.
The owner of the hand was a young man wearing a hoodie, the hood pulled down very low, revealing only a section of his chin, which bore a freshly healed scratch mark.
Clutching the banknote in his hand, he turned to leave.
The dog bared its teeth--like a tail being stepped on, like a belly being kicked, compressing all its fear and pain into a single, hoarse growl.
Its lips peeled back, exposing pink gums and several worn, yellowing canine teeth. The dog was very old.
It had lost quite a few teeth. But it bared them anyway.
The owner of that hand turned around, raised his foot, and delivered a harsh kick straight into the dog's belly.
The dog's belly caved in entirely from the kick, its body flying like a kicked ball, launching off the ground and flipping in midair before crashing against the red brick wall.
Its ribs struck the corner of a brick, emitting a dull thud.
The dog let out a sharp, brief shriek--not a bark, but the sound of air being violently squeezed out of its lungs.
Then it collapsed onto the ground, lying on its side, its four legs twitching.
Yet it climbed back up. It lay prone on the ground for about five breaths of time, its hind legs pushing against the ground, propping its body up bit by bit.
The side of its belly that had been kicked was shaking violently, the rising and falling of its ribs unnaturally fast, like the heartbeat of a sparrow gripped tightly in a palm.
Its hind leg was lame, and it didn't dare let it touch the ground, managing to stand on only three legs. But it stood up.
Limping on that hind leg, step by step, it slowly walked back to its master's side. A distance of a mere few meters took it a long time to traverse. It curled down once more, resting its chin inside that hand which would never move again.
From the corner came the whimpering cries of the puppies. The dog did not look back. It rested its chin there, its eyes half-closed, its tail slowly sweeping across the ground once. The dust kicked up settled onto its own paws.
Crouched on top of the water tower, Chen Mo emptied the final bag of money. A few bills remained inside the bag, looking to be about four or five hundred dollars.
He pulled them out, folded them, and stuffed them into his clothes.
Buzz.
The system chimed again.
Chen Mo's hand froze in midair.
He crouched atop the water tower, his hand shoved in his pocket, his fingers pinching those few banknotes so hard his knuckles turned white.
The wind scraped past the corrugated iron roofs, carrying up the sounds of fighting over the banknotes below--cursing, agonizing screams, the sound of fabric tearing, the sound of fists striking flesh.
This time, he remained silent for a long time.
Then, Chen Mo curled his lips. He climbed down from the wall.
The person who had stolen the money and kicked the dog was already gone. The banknote was gone too.
The dog remained curled beside its master. Hearing his footsteps, the dog lifted its head, a low growl rolling from its throat. Its lips peeled back, exposing those few worn, yellowing canine teeth.
Its body was shaking, three legs supporting it against the ground, the side of its belly that had been kicked still heaving violently. But it did not retreat.
Chen Mo crouched down.
Level with the dog.
He didn't reach out to pet it, he didn't say "it's okay," nor did he make any of the gestures humans use when trying to comfort an animal. He just crouched there, pulled three hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, and without even folding them, stuffed them directly into that hand which had already grown cold. The banknotes pressed against the fingers, and as the wind blew, the edges of the paper trembled gently.
As if that hand were still gripping something, refusing to let go.
The dog lowered its head and sniffed the banknotes. The scent of ink, the scent of mud, the scent of sweat, the scent of blood. Then it sniffed its master's fingers. Finally, it rested its chin back on top of those three banknotes. Its tail swept slowly across the ground once. The dust kicked up settled onto the surface of Chen Mo's shoes.
Chen Mo stood up.
He turned around and climbed back onto the wall. Returning to the top of the water tower, only a single hundred-dollar bill remained in his pocket.
The system finally fell quiet as well.
He pulled his zipper up and crouched on the edge of the water tower.
Things he couldn't see were still happening below.
Wherever the money drifted, some fought for it, some hid it, some burned it. Some gripped it tightly as they walked into a pharmacy; some gripped it tightly as they waited for death. The sounds of fighting drifted up from between the tin shacks, muffled, like people arguing underwater. Someone was crying, someone was laughing, someone was cursing, someone was praying.
Chen Mo listened quietly.
He knew this world wouldn't become a better place because of these few bags of money.
The old vagrant who had been waiting for death at the base of the wall died anyway. The dog was still kicked, the puppies would still whimper for milk, and when they grew a bit older, they too would be kicked by others, they too would curl beside some dying person, lick that person's fingers, and then rest their chins inside that hand which would never move again.
The docks would still break the legs of temporary workers. Antibiotics still couldn't be bought. Painkillers were still sold by the bucket--cheap, plentiful, addictive--and the streets would always be here, waiting for the next person to fall.
The operational logic of this city wouldn't change in the slightest just because a teenager in pajamas scattered a few bags of banknotes.
But tonight, in some corner of Gotham, someone might be gripping a hundred-dollar bill, sleeping through the first night of their life where they didn't have to consider how they would die tomorrow.
It might be the man with the wet banknotes in his shirt pocket. It might be the vagrant whose palm was blistered from the heat and who closed his eyes without saying a word. It might be some woman he hadn't seen, who rushed out of a tin shack, picked up a bill, ran back inside, and barred the door shut.
It might be some child who hid the banknote beneath their pillow, staying awake the entire night, terrified that the moment they opened their eyes, they would find the money was just a dream.
That was enough.
Chen Mo stood up, stretching his legs which had grown numb from crouching.
His knees clicked with a sharp snap.
The gray wind scraped past him, bearing the scent of rust, the scent of mold, and that sickeningly sweet odor, as if something were quietly rotting away.
The hundred dollars in his pocket pressed against his chest, radiating a slight warmth. He didn't look back at that alleyway.
He turned, climbed down the water tower, and vanished into the shadows of the shantytown.