Early morning in Gotham never truly felt like early morning.
It wasn't so much like the sun rising as it was like someone slowly peeling back a corner of a moldy grey cloth from above the city, only to reveal another equally moldy grey cloth underneath.
Inside the attic, Chen Mo lay prone on the floor.
A stack of manuscript drawings was spread out before him.
The puppy, Bruce, was curled up inside a cardboard box, a ring of spider-silk forming a makeshift splint around his hind leg. His tail thumped against the wall of the box every now and then.
Rustle.
Rustle.
It sounded like a cheap but steady metronome.
You're going to fracture your tail sooner or later if you keep that up.
Holding his pen, Chen Mo was adding the final touch to Batman on the cover.
The pointed ears.
They had to be pointed.
Without the point, there was no soul.
He drew that iconic pair of bat ears long and beautiful, with cold lines and sharp contours. It looked deeply Gotham, intensely Dark Knight, and perfectly suited to be persecuted by villains in turn.
Chen Mo studied it for three seconds.
Satisfied.
Extremely satisfied.
"Art," he murmured.
Bruce the puppy looked up at him.
Chen Mo flipped the entire stack of drawings back to the first page and reviewed it from beginning to end. For this second chapter of Gotham Phantom, he had gone with a full American comic book style.
Thick lines, high contrast, and shadows as heavy as the conscience of Gotham City Hall.
The plot drew inspiration from classic tropes found in old-school DC comics.
Batman in dire straits.
Batman forced into a Catwoman-style skintight suit.
Batman surrounded by supervillains who were taking turns fawning over him, yet he remained unyielding and strong.
There was also a grand two-page spread.
A torrential downpour.
An abandoned clock tower.
Chains.
A shattered mask.
Batman lifting his head, half his face hidden in shadow, his eyes completely filled with the sentiment of "I will still protect this city."
Below it ran a line of handwritten narration:
Looking at this line, Chen Mo fell silent for two seconds.
Then, he remarked with absolute sincerity, "I really am a man of culture."
If the real Bruce Wayne ever heard this sentence, he would probably fall silent as well.
Not out of being moved.
But to call the police.
Chen Mo continued to flip through the pages.
The more he looked, the more satisfied he became.
The visuals were great.
The human anatomy was accurate.
The emotions were intense.
And all the commercial elements were present.
Everything the underground comic market wanted, he had delivered.
The spiritual needs of Gotham's lower class were very simple.
They were bullied by gangs during the day, bullied by rent at night, and bullied by bills in the early hours of the morning.
Therefore, they needed to see something else to comfort themselves.
For example, seeing Gotham's most mysterious, terrifying, and ruthless Dark Knight get dragged into the mud and rubbed raw by fate alongside the villains.
This was reasonable--very reasonable.
"It's not like Bruce Wayne reads underground comics anyway."
Chen Mo crossed himself in his heart with zero sincerity.
"Hallelujah, Immeasurable Heavenly Lord, Amitabha, Amen."
He tidied up the manuscript, stuffed it into a manila envelope, and after sealing it, he still felt uneasy, so he wrote a line of words on the outside.
[To be personally opened by the Old Gotham Driver.]
After writing it, Chen Mo stared at the words for a moment.
"Is that a bit too arrogant?"
Bruce the puppy: "Woof."
"You think it's arrogant too?"
"Woof."
"Then it's fine. Arrogance means market recognition."
Chen Mo stuffed the envelope under the battered sofa, stood up, and stretched his wrists.
His joints let out a soft clicking sound.
It wasn't that he had developed arthritis from drawing; he was Spider-Man after all, so his physical fitness wouldn't be that poor.
Rather, a new kind of power inside his body was gradually adapting to his bones and muscles.
Eight tons.
This number sounded very abstract.
So abstract that when Chen Mo first saw the system prompt, his first reaction wasn't "I've become stronger," but "Should I be more careful when opening bottle caps in the future?"
After all, he had already snapped five pencils, crushed two cups, and accidentally bent a spoon handle into a highly modern art shape while pouring dog food for Bruce, successfully bringing disaster upon an already impoverished household.
Chen Mo walked to the attic window and pushed aside the loose wooden board.
The cold wind poured in.
The damp, chilly air unique to a Gotham winter night immediately wormed its way into his collar, like a pack of water ghouls who hadn't paid rent but forced their way in anyway.
Chen Mo shrunk his neck.
"How annoying. Even the wind in this city feels like a debt collector."
He climbed out the window, his fingers hooking into the gaps between the exterior bricks.
In the past, when he hung here, his fingers needed to exert force.
Now, he didn't need to.
He merely rested them lightly.
His entire body hung steadily in midair.
Chen Mo looked down at the street dozens of meters below his feet.
Two streetlights were broken.
A trash can was knocked over.
In the alley, a drunkard was shouting curses at a stray cat. Both sides were emotionally stable, and it didn't look like it would escalate into a criminal case anytime soon.
"Eight tons," Chen Mo muttered.
With a slight exertion of force, his entire body flipped up onto the roof as if he had been launched by a spring.
When he landed, he tried his best to absorb the impact.
Yet, the old tin roof beneath his feet still let out a worrisome, guilt-inducing wail.
Crack.
Chen Mo looked down at the tiny fissure.
"Don't blame me," Chen Mo said very seriously to the empty air. "It's fallen into disrepair over the years."
The system said nothing.
Chen Mo took its silence as a consensus that he hadn't damaged public property.
Flipping all the way to the top of the water tower, the wind at this height was even colder.
In the distance, the neon lights of downtown Gotham were blurred by the fog into a smudge of filthy glow. The Wayne Tower resembled a silver needle stabbed into the grey canopy of the sky, standing out with its lonely brightness.
Chen Mo raised his wrist.
"Let's test it out."
Aiming at an abandoned chimney across the way, he pressed down with his wrist.
Thwip.
A strand of spider silk shot out.
It was thicker than before.
Under the moonlight, it gleamed with a faint yellowish luster, like an elongated thread of amber.
The spider silk accurately adhered to the top of the chimney.
Chen Mo gripped the silk thread and gave it a gentle tug.
The chimney didn't budge.
Excellent.
He added a bit more force.
A fine, dense cracking sound echoed from the brick joints.
He added just a tiny bit more.
Snap.
Several loose red bricks at the top of the chimney were ripped straight off, tumbling through midair and crashing into the abandoned courtyard below.
Thud.
Thud, thud.
"Ding!" His external conscience began to issue a warning.
Chen Mo looked at the bricks.
Silence.
"It's sufficient," he evaluated calmly.
Then he added, "Maybe even a bit too sufficient."
Chen Mo looked down at the self-produced spider silk in his hand.
Its toughness in a semi-dry state was already quite exaggerated; when tugged, it possessed a texture that felt almost like a hybrid of rubber and steel cable.
Once fully cured, it would likely be sturdier than Kevlar.
Though that phrase sounded a lot like a death flag.
But Chen Mo felt that he did indeed need a service upgrade and customer experience optimization right now.
Gotham's criminals deserved a firmer restraint experience.
Chen Mo leapt down from the water tower.
A red and blue figure sliced through the night.
Good morning, criminals of Gotham!
...
The first customer arrived very quickly.
In a narrow back alley of the East End.
Three car thieves were working hard around an old pickup truck.
One was responsible for picking the lock, one was on lookout, and one stood by the side, recounting his grand ambition of becoming the future Car King of the East End.
Chen Mo crouched on the wall and listened for half a minute.
He discovered that this fellow's roadmap for his dream was remarkably complete.
Steal cars. Modify them. Sell them for money. Save up a sum. Open an auto repair shop. Use the repair shop to launder money. Finally, become a legitimate businessman.
Chen Mo listened with burgeoning respect.
Gotham truly was a place of hidden talents and extraordinary people.
Even a car thief had a complete business loop.
"Good evening, three young entrepreneurs."
Chen Mo dangled upside down, his face stopping right in front of the thief who was on lookout.
The cigarette in the lookout's mouth dropped with a soft thud.
"Spider-Man!"
"Correct."
Chen Mo released his footing and landed.
"I'm glad you know me. This saves the self-introduction phase and improves law enforcement efficiency."
The lockpicker reacted quickly, turning on his heels to run.
Chen Mo flicked his wrist and shot a strand of silk.
The pale yellow spider silk expanded into a web at the alley entrance. With a loud splat, it plastered against his chest, pinning the man along with half a trash can securely to the wall.
The second car thief drew a knife.
Without even looking, Chen Mo fired another shot with his left hand.
The spider silk wrapped around the thief's wrist and climbed up the hilt of the knife. In the blink of an eye, it wrapped the hand into a large, blended white-and-yellow steamed bun.
The third one was the smartest.
He raised both hands.
"I surrender."
Chen Mo turned to look at him.
"You have a bright future."
Three minutes later.
The three car thieves were neatly sealed at the entrance of the alley.
The spider silk wrapped them from shoulders to ankles, crisscrossing in layers with knots tied at critical positions, avoiding their mouths and noses to ensure breathing while making sure they couldn't do anything except blink.
They looked like three freshly manufactured, Gotham-exclusive silkworm cocoons.
One of them attempted to struggle.
The spider silk tightened instantly.
"Stop struggling."
Chen Mo crouched in front of them and patted the forehead of one of the men.
"How many times do I have to say it? The more you struggle, the tighter it gets."
The car thief's eyes were filled with terror.
Chen Mo pulled a sticky note out of his waist pouch and wrote seriously.
[Attempted Grand Theft Auto.
- A drawing of a chibi Spidey shooting silk.]
Finishing his writing, Chen Mo slapped it onto the forehead of the middle car thief.
"Alright, the customer feedback phase is over."
Chen Mo stood up.
"The police officers should arrive within twenty minutes to two hours. That's a wide window, but that's the signature Gotham service."
The sound of sirens drifted from afar.
Chen Mo looked up.
The police department's efficiency tonight was unexpectedly decent.
It was probably because this street was relatively close to a donut shop.
He shot a strand of spider silk and swung toward the next block.
Behind him, the three car thieves swayed gently in the wind.
The sticky note fluttered lightly on one of their foreheads.
Like a small, yellow epitaph.