The night in Gotham never closes shop; crime is as natural as breathing.
At a corner in the East End, two thugs were wrestling with a convenience store's rolling shutter.
One of them held a rusty crowbar, shoving it into the gap with grunts of exertion while spitting foul curses from his mouth.
The other was keeping watch nearby, his neck shrinking back from the freezing cold.
Chen Mo crouched atop a lamppost diagonally above them, looking like a giant red and blue spider.
The resemblance was striking, especially since this big spider was currently spacing out while spinning webs out of his own silk for amusement.
Chen Mo stopped spinning his web and noticed the two misguided youths who, out of all the rotten luck, had chosen to break the law right in front of him.
He stared at the crowbar for two seconds, thinking that the leverage point they found was really sub-par.
He hung upside down from the lamppost, facing the look-out thug directly.
"Hey, gents. Why pick a fight with a door in the middle of the night? This door clocks in and out on time every day, works diligently to block the wind and rain, and has never been late or left early. Have you considered its feelings?"
The look-out thug snapped his head up, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.
He saw an upside-down mask stitched from cheap fabric, with crude goggles for eyes.
"Spider-Man!"
The thug shrieked, his voice echoing through the empty street like a duck having its neck stepped on.
Chen Mo swayed in the air.
"Correct! Your prize is--"
He suddenly released his feet and landed gracefully on the ground.
Before the two thugs could regain their senses, Chen Mo's hands began flicking rapidly like they were having a seizure.
White webs shot left and right, precisely splatting onto the chests of both men.
Chen Mo grabbed the webs and yanked hard, causing the two thugs to collide violently like two magnets.
He circled around them three times. The webbing bound them back-to-back so tightly that they looked like a pair of conjoined twins whose relationship had shattered but were forced to stay together.
Chen Mo clapped the dust off his hands and casually lifted the bundle of "conjoined thugs," hanging them onto the sign hook outside the convenience store.
"Wait for the police officers here. Don't flail around. Once this webbing dries, it's harder than an ex-girlfriend's heart. If you try to force it off, it'll rip your skin. Try it if you don't believe me."
The thug with the crowbar tried to struggle, but the webbing dug into his flesh, causing him to let out a miserable, piercing shriek.
Chen Mo sighed.
"See, I told you. You minor villains these days just don't listen to advice. You can't become supervillains if you don't listen to advice."
Chen Mo shot a strand of web, ending his slacking session on patrol as he swung toward the next block.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Gotham, the situation wasn't nearly as "friendly."
At the East End docks, five smugglers were busy unloading cargo from a black sedan.
The leader was a mid-level manager of the Maroni family, dressed in a sophisticated trench coat, lighting a cigar.
A dark shadow dropped silently from a gargoyle on an apartment building, resembling a patch of solidified night.
The smugglers didn't even hear the sound of landing.
The thug bringing up the rear as a lookout was just about to turn around when a large hand wearing a Kevlar-armored glove clamped onto his face.
Thud.
The dull sound of a head slamming against the car door sounded exceptionally piercing in the silent harbor.
Then came the second one, and the third one.
Batman's movements lacked any superfluous flair; every punch was aimed straight at incapacitating the target.
The fourth thug finally reacted. He had just pulled out his pistol when Batman's fist connected with his ribs.
Crack.
It was the sound of fracturing bone, so crisp it made one's teeth ache.
The fifth thug, the leader, dropped his cigar, turned around, and bolted.
A batarang whizzed through the air, precisely pinning his pant leg to the ground.
The leader tripped over his own feet and ate dirt hard.
Batman walked over slowly, his black cape rustling loudly in the wind.
He hoisted the man off the ground like a dead dog.
The man bared his teeth in agony, and upon seeing the mask before him, a look of despair surfaced in his eyes.
"Fuck... talk about absolute dog shit luck today. Why is it you?"
Batman didn't speak, his gaze as cold as an ice cellar.
"I mean," the man shuddered violently from the pain, "why couldn't it be that Spider-kid? At most, he ties people up and hangs them from lampposts... oh, I forgot this patch isn't that Spider-kid's turf. Bats, can't you consider assigning this area to your vigilante colleague too?"
He looked down at his unnaturally twisted ankle, tears nearly spilling from his eyes.
"You fucking fractured it right off the bat. Seriously, I'd rather run into Spider-Man. Besides, he never lets my words fall flat; I chat really well with him. But you? You only give us the silent treatment."
The force in Batman's hand tightened a bit more.
"Can your customer service attitude be a bit friendlier?"
Batman threw him to the ground, pulled a specialized restraint strap from his utility belt, and bound him with practiced movements.
From beginning to end, he didn't utter a single word.
He didn't like to talk during fights.
...
In Gotham's Upper East Side, inside a private villa under the name of Wayne Enterprises.
This place and the ruin of the East End seemed like two different planets.
The crystal chandeliers dazed the eyes, and expensive champagne bubbled finely in glasses.
Bruce Wayne, who was eager to return and make appearances in the public eye to establish his presence, wore a custom handmade suit. Holding a glass of champagne from which he hadn't taken a single sip, he was surrounded by a crowd of socialites.
A blonde woman was telling a joke about yachts and supermodels, drawing bursts of reserved yet hypocritical laughter around them.
Bruce was smiling too.
The arc of his lips was perfectly standard, even carrying a touch of well-measured frivolity.
But his eyes were unfocused. Piercing through the expensive perfumes and the glint of jewelry, he seemed to be looking at the night sky beyond the French windows.
Far away, in the direction of the East End, the faint sound of sirens echoed indistinctly.
The audio system inside the villa vibrated so hard the surface of the water trembled; no one noticed that faint, distant noise.
A woman leaned her waist a bit closer into his embrace, her heavy perfume surging like a chemical weapon.
Bruce smiled and lowered his head, using the opportunity of checking his watch to avoid her gaze.
"Apologies, everyone. I think I need to catch up on some sleep. Last night's party still has a lingering kick."
He swirled his wine glass and departed, his retreating figure looking precisely like a prodigal son whose body had been hollowed out by alcohol and nightlife.
...
At three in the morning, having no public eye that required his face, Chen Mo swung back to his attic.
Stripping off the ragged pajamas that reeked of sweat, Chen Mo sat on the broken sofa with exposed springs and pulled a few coins from his pocket.
This was what he had "picked up" from the thugs' pockets tonight. The system's judgment on this kind of "illegal gain" was very vague; as long as it wasn't counted as a large asset, the buzzing sound was still tolerable.
Chen Mo tossed the coins into a tin can in the corner.
Clink.
Clink.
The crisp sounds echoed in the quiet attic.
When exactly would his manuscript fees be paid?
Two more leaks had sprung in the roof.
Chen Mo sighed, stood up, shifted the tin can over, and caught the newly leaking water droplets.
Plop.
The sound of dripping water and the clinking of coins alternated with a rather strong rhythm.
He lay back down on the sofa, staring at the few expanding water stains on the ceiling, and began calculating tomorrow's livelihood in his mind.
"System, do you think if I went to sell spider silk, I could strike it rich?"
The system ignored him.
"True, this stuff dissolves into water after three hours. The buyers would probably chase me all over the streets with kitchen knives."
Chen Mo tossed and turned, the sofa springs letting out a creaking protest.
Tomorrow he had to check out the South Side. He heard an auto repair shop there was hiring temporary workers... never mind, the owner of that repair shop seemed to be an old Mexican.
Better pinch some pennies. He had a hundred and twenty-three dollars and fifty cents left. If he ate a bit worse, it should be enough to keep him alive until the day his manuscript fees arrived.
...
In Gotham's North District, at a secret stronghold of the Falcone family.
A middle-aged man in a sharp suit sat in a broad leather chair. He was a trusted confidant of Falcone, responsible for managing the underground bank business.
Standing before him was an intelligence subordinate drenched in sweat.
"Investigated thoroughly?"
The middle-aged man spoke, his voice steady and even.
"Thoroughly investigated. That Spider-Man intercepted that batch of our money a few days ago, and didn't keep a single cent. He scattered it all over the East End slums."
The subordinate swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly.
"He climbed to the top of that abandoned water tower and threw it down handful by handful. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, all scattered. Those poor bastards in the slums went completely crazy grabbing it."
The middle-aged man picked up the whiskey on the table, the ice cubes inside clinking gently.
He didn't speak, merely staring at the liquid in the glass.
"Should we handle it?" the subordinate asked tentatively.
The middle-aged man took a sip of his drink and spoke in a tone as though evaluating today's weather.
"Gotham never lacks lunatics."
He set down his glass.
"There's one dressed in a bat suit beating people up all over the streets, another who likes to give riddles when he has nothing better to do, and now there's an extra one who robs money to scatter it in the slums. What's so strange about that?"
He looked up, a coldness characteristic of old-school mobsters showing in his eyes.
"Did he touch our core business? Aside from that batch of intercepted bank cash--which was dirty money anyway and hadn't entered our revenue flow--did he actively seek out our strongholds after scattering the money?"
The subordinate shook his head hastily.
"Then just keep an eye on him. Lunatics have their own way of living. As long as he doesn't barge through our doors every day like that bat, let him be with his money scattering."
The middle-aged man waved his hand.
"If Maroni is stupid enough to want to stick his neck out, let him. Letting that Spider-kid wear down Maroni's thugs isn't a bad thing for us."
The subordinate nodded and backed out.
The middle-aged man turned his chair around, looked at the gray, hazy Gotham nightscape outside the window, and muttered to himself.
"But robbing money and not keeping it for himself, scattering it all to the poor instead... this kind of lunatic is quite a new breed."
On the other side, at the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge.
In the underground office, Oswald Cobblepot was curled up in his wide office chair. He held a paper knife with an ivory handle, unhurriedly slicing open a letter.
His deputy stood across the desk, carefully reporting the reactions from all sides.
The Penguin folded the letter neatly and placed it in a drawer.
"Falcone thinks it doesn't matter; he's waiting. Maroni had a thug named 'Scarface' sent to the ICU by Spider-Man. He can't swallow this insult, but Batman has been watching him too closely lately, so he doesn't dare move."
The Penguin smiled.
His smile looked exceptionally grotesque in the dim light, like a real penguin.
"What do we need to do?" the deputy asked.
"Do nothing."
The Penguin snapped the paper knife shut with a crisp click.
"Let them watch each other. Falcone sees Spider-Man as a lunatic, Maroni sees Spider-Man as an enemy, and Batman sees Spider-Man as an unstable variable."
He tapped his fingers gently against the desk.
"Three sides, three perspectives. We'll just wait right here and see who loses patience first. The order of Gotham is like a stack of bills; you pull one out, and the rest will move with it."
The camera panned back to that dilapidated attic.
Chen Mo tossed and turned again, the springs of the broken sofa nearly stabbing his waist.
Another leak had sprung in the roof. The shoulder area of that red and blue pajama set was badly worn down; he needed to find some sturdy fabric to patch it up.
Or he could just scavenge around the secondhand market to see if he could buy a similar new one.
The rain began to pour harder.
Dense raindrops beat against the tin roof, sounding like a thousand people striking the exact same note with their fingers simultaneously.
Chen Mo closed his eyes and, amidst the ticking sound of the leaking roof, fell into a deep sleep.
Goodnight, In the Night Garden.