Chen Mo nimbly leaped and shifted between the brick crevices where the plaster had peeled away. Like a massive gecko, he lightly flipped into the sealed-off attic.
He had discovered this place eighteen days ago.
The attic was hidden on the top floor of an old apartment building. The entrance had been sealed with cement long ago, so even the most experienced local vagrants had no idea a whole hidden world existed here.
But for a wall-crawling Spider-Man, none of that mattered.
He slipped through the window and reached back to wedge the loose wooden board firmly into place.
The room was thick with dust. The furniture was entirely in the style of over a decade ago, exuding a heavy, musty odor.
However, it had a dilapidated sofa with springs and a ceiling to keep out the wind and rain.
Furthermore.
He could leech off the water pipes and power grid from the residential building downstairs!
For an undocumented minor wandering the streets of Gotham who had no desire to stray into a life of crime, this was practically a five-star presidential suite.
Chen Mo plopped down onto the sofa. The springs let out a piercing screech, vibrating so hard his rear stung.
He had no time to worry about that. He hurriedly pulled a paper parcel from his coat.
Before the parcel was even open, the aroma of cheap grease drifted into his nostrils.
Inside were two cheese beef burgers.
And a box of fries that was slightly squished.
This was his "spoils of war" from his night patrol just now.
Half an hour ago, an unlucky bastard who had just robbed a convenience store ran straight into him in an alleyway.
The robber was carrying the late-night snack he had just bought, and before he could even take a single bite, Chen Mo pinned him to the ground with a textbook shoulder throw.
At the time, Chen Mo had ducked the man's flailing arms while rambling: "Hey, brother, calm down. Look, you rob a convenience store, I stop you from robbing a convenience store--this is all standard procedure. But you went ahead and bought a late-night snack first and then robbed the place? That's just unprofessional. Do you know how slow the Gotham PD's response time is? You could have totally finished eating before robbing it, or robbed it before eating. You got the order wrong, brother. The order is all wrong."
The robber had been rambled at until he began questioning his life choices. He scrambled away on all fours, not even daring to ask for his burgers back.
What a joke!
If you encountered a masked freak in Gotham who kept muttering nonsense, seemed mentally unstable, possessed monstrous strength, and could climb walls, wouldn't you run?
The system didn't make a sound at the time.
As long as it wasn't stolen, the system usually turned a blind eye to this kind of "unowned" food.
Chen Mo even suspected that the system also thought he was on the verge of starving to death, which was why it let it slide.
He took a massive bite out of a burger. To his mouth, the cold cheese and dry, hard bread tasted even better than a grand imperial feast.
As Chen Mo chewed, he combed through the messy memories of the original owner in his mind.
The original owner's dad was named Old Ma.
Back home, he had been a fairly well-off middle-class citizen. Then, for some inexplicable reason, he insisted on bringing the original owner along to pursue the so-called "American Dream."
Pursuing a dream was one thing, but the old man just had to take the unconventional route and insist on smuggling the original owner into the country.
As a result, the moment they landed in Gotham, before they could even catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, they plowed headfirst into a gang war.
Old Ma became a sacrifice to the "American Dream" right on the spot.
The original owner fled the docks alone and wandered the streets of Gotham for a few days, finally starving to death next to a dumpster.
Then Chen Mo crossed over, complete with a "Spider-Man Cosplay System."
The original owner's name was Peter. His dad's surname was originally Ma, but he changed it to Parker after chasing the dream.
Chen Mo had been faced with two options.
First, go by Peter Parker--a name that sounded like it would curse his relatives, his friends, and himself.
Second, go by Ma Peter.
"Ma Peter."
That sounded exactly like "My Peter" in Chinese. Pun police, fine him!
Chen Mo swallowed the last bite of his burger and wiped his mouth.
He had made up his mind back then. To hell with Peter Parker, and to hell with Ma Peter.
He was already an undocumented immigrant, so why should he care about any of that?
His name was Chen Mo.
Chen as in silence, Mo as in silence.
In a city overrun by lunatics, talking less and exploiting more bugs was the ultimate way to survive.
Yeah, exactly. Talk less.
Right at that moment, a pale blue, translucent interface suddenly popped up on his retina.
[Ding! Phase one of the cosplay mission has been completed.]
[Current Persona Synchronization: 5%]
[Distributing milestone rewards...]
Chen Mo's spirits lifted.
After busting his hump for half a month, he was finally seeing some return on his investment.
He originally thought the system would reward him with some US dollars, or maybe a nano-suit that didn't require hand-washing.
Instead, a line of text surfaced on the system interface:
[Ability Unlocked: Biological Wrist Web-Shooting.]
Chen Mo blanked out for a moment.
Subconsciously, he raised his right hand and looked at his wrist.
Considering that most Spider-Men hand-crafted their web-fluid.
Chen Mo had fully prepared himself mentally to go digging through trash heaps to scavenge parts and hand-craft a web-shooter.
Yet this system had skipped right ahead and given him a genetic mutation.
"Thank heavens, saved me a bundle on material costs."
Chen Mo muttered to himself.
If he actually had to legally acquire chemical reagents and machinery, he figured he would have to perform street acts in Gotham until the year after next.
He tried to follow the instinct that had suddenly flooded his mind. Pressing his middle and ring fingers together, he aimed at the corner of the wall and pressed down hard.
Thwip.
A faint sound echoed.
A strand of white silk shot out from his wrist, precisely adhering to the dilapidated wardrobe in the distance.
Curious, Chen Mo reached out and gave it a tug.
With that tug, his expression instantly froze.
The strand of webbing was limp and saggy, like an overcooked noodle. With just a slight bit of force from him, it snapped with a crisp crack.
The break even carried a bizarre translucency, looking a bit... hollow.
"Wow, I'm so light that the webbing can't even carry me. Successful weight loss, yay."
Chen Mo babbled to himself while trying to fire off a few more consecutive shots.
As it turned out, each shot was worse than the last.
The final shot didn't even fly two meters before going completely limp in mid-air, looking like a puddle of unformed glue.
[System Notification: Due to the host being in a state of long-term malnutrition, biological protein reserves are severely deficient. The current web strength is only 0.5% of the normal level.]
"A break-in period. Right, it's not malnutrition, it's a break-in period."
Looking at the remnant white residue on his wrist, Chen Mo fell into a long silence.
Silently, Chen Mo threw a punch at the empty air.
This system was way too realistic.
With no money for food, even the web he spat out was brittle.
He looked at his hands, feeling the faint warmth brought to his stomach by that bit of burger.
Chen Mo sighed and lay down on the dilapidated sofa.
Outside the window, Gotham's night sky remained thick with dark clouds. Occasionally, the shrill wail of a siren would drift over from the distance.
Turning over to the creaking sound of the springs, Chen Mo fell fast asleep.
In his dream, he was sitting in Stark's private jet, holding an unlimited black card in his hand, absolutely annihilating a table packed with a grand imperial feast.
Meanwhile, Batman was crouching beside him, handing him tissues while saying:
"Chen Mo, eat more. The future of Gotham depends entirely on you."
Chen Mo laughed out loud in his dream.