blogombal Chapter 39: The Hero Appears?
Chapter 39: The Hero Appears?
The alleyway was filled with the stench of rotting garbage.
Qin Wei and Oswald leaned back to back, watching the two teams in red hoods approach step by step.
"How do you want to die? A bullet to the head, a slit in the throat, or have your genitals cut off and stuffed in your mouth? How about this? If you don't resist, I might spare your lives!"
The leader, Red Hood, continued to humiliate the two men, holding a gun in one hand and twirling a butterfly knife with the other.
Qin Wei's face was extremely grim; the trouble caused by the plot twists had finally reached him.
These Red Hoods are completely different from Maroni and his ilk. These outlaws never consider profit or consequences; they act entirely on their whims and are the scum of the slums.
Nothing but violence can suppress them.
And this is precisely what Qin Wei lacks most right now.
Before he could devise a solution, Red Hood had already raised his blade. In desperation, he raised his left hand to block the attack…
An astonishing thing happened: as the knife was blocked, Qin Wei's body instinctively made a follow-up movement.
He clenched his right fist, assumed a lunge stance, and gathered his strength...
The powerful uppercut, like a Saturn V rocket breaking through the atmosphere, slammed into Red Hood's jawbone.
Like crushing a walnut, a crisp cracking sound rang out, and the vibration of bones rubbing against teeth was clearly transmitted to Qin Wei's mind through his fist.
The next instant, his consciousness received precise feedback from the attack.
"Comminuted fracture of the mandible, grade 3 concussion, loss of consciousness for at least five minutes, 95% probability of amnesia."
"The opponent has been completely rendered incapable of action."
"This was an excellent first strike."
What is that?!
This was Qin Wei's first time going all out, a stark contrast to his lack of combat experience; his body seemed to have been through countless battles.
It's important to understand that without professional combat training, most people struggle with their own punches, let alone using the correct posture to engage their waist and hip muscles for an effective strike.
Qin Wei, however, did just that. He even predicted the type of injury his strike would cause to his opponent, as if his body was made for fighting.
But before he could think about why, the angry red-hooded figure behind him had already pulled the trigger.
boom--
……
The riots in the Lower District continued, and almost the entire Gotham Police Department was mobilized, including Gordon and Brock, who were responsible for protecting Harvey.
After settling Harvey in a safe house, the two drove to the scene of the incident.
Crossing the bridge, the chaotic night scene before them sent shivers down their spines.
Gordon, in particular, as a native of Gotham and a veteran police officer, personally experienced the night of riots twenty years ago that was enough to be written into Gotham's history.
Now it seems that this riot is so similar to that night.
Gordon vividly remembers that night. Gotham City seemed like Pompeii, flooded with lava, bathed in towering flames. The rioters, like overpopulated lemmings, broke through checkpoints and police lines, pushed over riot police, and filled the streets and alleys, every government building, and every police car.
He no longer wanted to recall how he dealt with these guys.
After everything had settled down, Gordon found Wayne and his family lying in pools of blood in a crime alley.
Just a week earlier, Thomas Wayne had discussed his "revitalization plan" at a media conference.
He hoped to improve the decades-long chaos in the lower districts by building more welfare schools, relocating three factories to the lower districts, and increasing the amount of relief food, combining knowledge and labor with aid.
Young Gordon had complete faith in Thomas; as a native of Gotham, he understood the weight of those words.
In fact, it wasn't just him; all the residents of Gotham thought so, and everyone was talking about Thomas's plan.
The overcrowded Blackgate prison is just a symptom; the East Side, abandoned by Gotham, is the root of the problem.
But all hope vanished on the night of the riot, along with the shattered pearl necklace.
Gordon watched the ambulance leave, inside which lay Wayne's only son, whose spine had been pierced by bullets. The poor boy had been shot four times in the back; one bullet broke his spine, two pierced his lungs, and the last one tore open his kidney.
With such severe injuries, it was a miracle that the poor child had survived until the medical staff arrived. But Gordon also knew that even if they could snatch his life from the jaws of death, the child would spend the rest of his life in a hospital bed with a catheter in his throat.
Poor child, sometimes living is more painful than dying.
After regaining his senses, Gordon rubbed his eyes and remained silent for a long time until a young police officer ran up to him to report the latest developments.
"The riots in the West District have been quelled and the fires are under control. Chief Luo has ordered us to head to the East District."
"How come it's so fast?"
Gordon was puzzled. This riot was not large in scale, but in terms of chaos, it was probably even greater than the riot night twenty years ago. How come the Gotham Police Department was able to control the West Side so soon after arriving at the scene?
"Actually, we didn't do anything, but there was one..."
The police officer hesitated at this point.
"What exactly is it? What's so hard to say?"
"There's a strange person..."
……
boom--
It was as if some annoying guy was slowly pulling the tape out of the cassette, and the gunshot, which should have been fleeting, was stretched out indefinitely.
The movement of everyone also came to a standstill.
Qin Wei saw Oswald rushing towards him, his face frozen in terror. The red-hooded figure, having been knocked away, stretched out its arms like a white dove in an oil painting, hovering in the air.
Is this what they call a carousel?
Qin Wei felt a mix of emotions he couldn't quite describe. He felt like a general who had fought on the battlefield for decades and had made great achievements, but instead of dying under the trampling of swords and spears, he was tripped up by bandits on his way home.
Oh, by the way, there's a specific idiom to sum up this metaphor—"to capsize in a ditch."
If he could, he would wish he had superhuman speed to turn around and catch that bullet.
But there are no "what ifs" in the world.
Qin Wei made a wish in his heart: if he were to transmigrate in his next life, he hoped to gain a superpower.
The time limit for the revolving lantern was almost up, and the flow of time began to resume. Filtering out the piercing gunshots, he heard the whistling wind behind his ear as the deadly bullet hurtled towards the back of his head.
He could even feel the temperature of the bullets...
Ouch!
The sound of the bullet hitting something was strange; it didn't sound like it had pierced through a skull, but rather like it had slammed into a steel plate.
Even though the revolving lantern display had ended, the red-hooded figure behind him remained silent. Oswald and the group of annoying guys in front of him all stared wide-eyed and gaped.
What's wrong with them all?
Are you not afraid of dry eyes, or have you never experienced the pain of a dislocated jaw?
Huff... Could there be something behind me?!
Qin Wei, like a wound-up toy, mechanically turned his head back little by little.
He had considered several possibilities regarding what might be behind it all: Killer Croc, Doctor Pig, or even Bane and Scarecrow. These guys would be considered grotesque even among Gotham villains.
However, because Qin Wei focused all his attention on the villains, he forgot a crucial point.
In Gotham, the people who truly deserve to be synonymous with fear are never the villains.
A night wind carrying a slightly burnt smell blew into the alley, causing the jagged hem of a cloak to flutter in the wind, revealing a thug unconscious beneath black special operations boots.