The group name was quite respectable.
"East District Seventh Public High School Home-School Communication Group."
The profile picture was a photo of the banner hanging at the school entrance: "Welcoming All Children Back to the Classroom."
If you only looked at the profile picture, you would think this group was filled with civilized people who cared deeply about education.
In fact, they really were civilized people.
And civilized people didn't need curse words to tear someone apart.
The first person to speak up was a mother whose avatar was a family photo taken at the beach.
Her message was long, divided into three paragraphs, with highly disciplined punctuation.
"I fully support helping underprivileged children, and I understand the goodwill of the Wayne Foundation. However, today's situation is no longer a simple charity project; it is a severe impact on the existing students' learning environment. My child said that a student was carrying a knife in the classroom this morning, and there was chaos over meals at lunch. I want to ask the school, who is responsible for the safety of ordinary students?"
Someone immediately chimed in below.
"Agreed. Not trying to discriminate against anyone, but school is not a social relief station. Helping impoverished students should be left to professional organizations; the risk shouldn't be shifted onto ordinary families."
"My child has told me for two days straight now that he doesn't want to go to school. He said someone in the hallway asked him if he wanted to buy 'little pills that keep you from getting nervous during exams.' May I ask, is this educational equality, or is it drugs moving into the countryside?"
"The Wayne Foundation has plenty of money, so why don't they build a separate school? Why must they use our children for an integration experiment?"
"I'm not against charity. I donate clothes every year. But charity cannot sacrifice my child."
As soon as this sentence came out, the group fell brief silent for a few seconds.
Then, the likes began to flood the screen.
Because this sentence was just too useful.
Charity cannot sacrifice my child.
It was concise, powerful, met the needs of moral self-preservation, and casually placed the speaker in a position of "I am also kind, but I am more rational."
It could be called the ultimate holy phrase for middle-class parent groups.
Soon, someone began to compile their demands.
Demand the school publish the specific agreement of the Wayne Foundation's pilot project.
Demand a clear behavioral management mechanism for extremely underprivileged students.
Demand an increase in campus security personnel.
Demand that ordinary students and high-risk students eat and participate in activities in separate zones.
Demand that the Wayne Foundation bear all extra costs generated by this.
These five points were screenshotted, forwarded, screenshotted again, and forwarded again.
By the third round of forwarding, the fourth point had transformed from "high-risk students" to "homeless street kids."
By the sixth round, it became "students with criminal backgrounds."
By the ninth round, someone was already swearing up and down that the Wayne Foundation had stuffed a batch of gang members fresh out of juvenile detention into the school.
The evidence was that someone had seen a boy with a folding knife in his waistband with their own eyes, and someone had even brought a gun into the school!
Nobody cared that the brat who brought the gun had originally been studying at this school all along and had already been bullied for two years.
Who cared?
In Gotham, rumors spread much faster than the Gotham Police Department could respond to a call.
If the GCPD could possess this kind of efficiency, Batman could probably retire early, go home to inherit the family business, and live a happy life being nagged into marriage by Alfred every day.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the first news van arrived at the school gate.
The TV station logo on the side of the vehicle was washed a bit blurry by the rain.
The camera lens was very bright, bright like a hyena spotting an animal that hadn't breathed its last breath yet.
When it came to news intuition with capitalistic characteristics, they had it down to a science.
A circle of parents gathered outside the school gates; some were genuinely there to pick up their kids, some had rushed over specifically, and some were even actors hired to pose as parents.
News needed to be provocative.
The reporter stood under the banner, with that very sentence right behind him:
Welcoming All Children Back to the Classroom.
The composition was excellent.
The irony was sufficient, the background was clear, and a random edit would get it onto the evening news. If it was shot well enough, maybe it could even make a run for a Grammy.
Facing the camera, the reporter looked solemn.
"Today, the educational equality pilot project funded by the Wayne Foundation sparked controversy at East District Seventh Public High School. According to reports from multiple students and parents, on the first day of the project's launch, issues such as lunch distribution chaos, student conflicts, and rising security pressure emerged within the school. Supporters believe this is an important step for Gotham toward educational equity, while opponents question whether Bruce Wayne is using ordinary students as samples for a social experiment."
The camera turned to a mother wearing a gray coat.
She had clearly prepared her speech.
She might have even practiced it in her car.
"I want to say, we are not cold-blooded people."
Excellent.
This phrase again.
In Gotham, whenever someone said "we are not cold-blooded people," it was usually followed by a highly cold-hearted speech.
"Of course we hope all children have a future. But the problem is, the future cannot be built on the basis of sacrificing other children. My son needs to prepare for further education this year; he needs a stable classroom environment, not to worry every day about whether the person sitting next to him is going to pull a knife."
The reporter asked:
"Do you believe the Wayne Foundation should bear the responsibility?"
The mother nodded immediately.
"Of course. They pushed the project, they did the publicity, and they took the news photos. Now that something has gone wrong, the school and parents shouldn't have to bear the consequences. Mr. Bruce Wayne is very wealthy and very influential, but he cannot use our children as tools to prove his own kindness."
This sentence was edited into a short video that night and achieved the highest number of shares.
The background music was even a bit tragic.
Another father was more direct.
He wore work clothes with machine oil still on his hands, clearly not the kind of person from the Upper East Side who drank red wine while discussing charity.
But the words out of his mouth were sharper than red wine.
"I fix cars twelve hours a day just because I want my daughter to stay far away from these neighborhood punks. And the result? The Wayne Foundation moves the neighborhood right into the school. I am not a rich man; I don't have the money to send her to a private school. Public school is the last bit of hope for people like us. Now they even want to take this and use it for an experiment."
The reporter asked:
"What are your thoughts on the impoverished students themselves?"
The man fell silent for a moment.
This question was insidious.
If he scolded them, he would look cold-blooded.
If he didn't scold them, it wouldn't be news enough.
Finally, he said:
"They are children too. I know."
He lowered his head and rubbed the machine oil on his hands.
"But so is my daughter."
This sentence quickly went viral too.
Because it was even harder to refute than the previous one.
"They are children too, but so is my child."
This was Gotham's dilemma.
Everyone was clutching a piece of a sinking wooden plank.
And then everyone felt that it was Bruce Wayne who insisted on forcing others to climb up too.
By four o'clock in the afternoon, the first trending hashtag appeared on social media.
#WayneSocialExperiment#
Five minutes later, the second one.
#WhoWillProtectOrdinaryStudents#
Ten minutes later, the third one.
#WaynesTreatStudentsPay#
As soon as this hashtag came out, its spreading speed instantly surpassed the first two.
Because it was short enough, sarcastic enough, and felt just like Gotham.
The poor saw it and thought it was right.
Bruce Wayne said it was his treat, but in the end, he didn't prepare any food at all.
The middle class saw it and also thought it was right.
Bruce Wayne said it was his treat, but in the end, it was their children paying the bill.
The media saw it and thought it was even more right.
It could be used as a headline.
And anything that could be a headline gained an independent life of its own in Gotham.
Accounts of all stripes began their carnival.
Someone posted a photo of Bruce Wayne holding up a glass and smiling at a charity gala, spliced next to a photo of a chicken drumstick dropped on the cafeteria floor.
The caption read:
One is drinking champagne, the other is fighting over a chicken leg.
This image spread very quickly.
Even though Bruce's photo was actually from three months ago, and the cafeteria chicken leg hadn't been fought over by students.
But that didn't matter.
In the science of communication, truth is responsible for walking, while emotion is responsible for driving.
Someone else published a long article.
The title was:
"Educational Equality, or Rich Man's Penance? Why Bruce Wayne's Goodwill Always Makes the Bottom Layer Pay"
The long article was very long.
So long that it looked like the author had genuinely thought about it.
The article first affirmed that the Wayne Foundation's "intentions may be good," and then used three thousand words to demonstrate "how good intentions, in the absence of community consultation, translate into institutional violence."
If Chen Mo saw this article, he would probably weep with emotion.
Not because it was well-written.
But because this person had actually managed to water down the simple fact that "the food wasn't distributed properly" into three thousand words to publish a report, and would likely receive a draft fee much higher than his own.
Pure envy.
Another account stood in the exact opposite direction.
The
"Why Is a Bunch of People Eating Free Food Still Cursing Bruce Wayne?"
Below this article, the comment section quickly turned into a massive class-based mudslide.
Some said the poor were insatiably greedy.
Some said the middle class was cold-blooded and selfish.
Some said the Wayne Enterprises' showboating deserved to backfire.
Some said Bruce Wayne was so rich, why didn't he just buy up all the schools.
Someone even replied seriously:
"Because after he buys them up, you will curse him for monopolizing educational resources."
This comment received thirty-seven likes.
And then it was blacklisted by the original poster.
By evening, the matter was no longer an issue of the cafeteria.
It had turned into:
Whether the Wayne Foundation was overstepping boundaries to interfere with public education.
Whether extremely underprivileged students affected campus safety.
Whether middle-class families were losing their last public resources.
Whether poverty relief should be predicated on "not disturbing normal people."
Whether Bruce Wayne was actually doing charity, or using a school to wash away his own class guilt.
Nobody was discussing how those thirty-six hot meals came to be reserved.
Nobody was discussing why the promised lunch system had broken down on the first day.
Nobody was discussing when the transport truck would arrive, why the meal subsidy cards couldn't be scanned, or why the registration system failed to synchronize temporary ID numbers to the cafeteria terminals.
Those things were too specific.
Specific things were hard to curse at.
People were much easier to curse at.
Especially Bruce Wayne.
He was rich enough.
Famous enough.
He stood high enough.
So high that when everyone looked up, they could see him.
And they could all spit at him.