Chapter 799: Deadly Joke (26)_1

"Shiller, I think we really need to have a serious discussion." One morning, Bruce stopped Shiller who was about to go out and said to him earnestly.

"What do you want? Don't hinder me from going out to find a job, don't you know how dire the situation is now? I've been here for several days and I haven't found a single formal job yet," Shiller pushed Bruce's arm aside, intending to leave.

As Bruce watched Shiller, he noticed that several days had passed yet his clothes, shoes, and watch remained in perfect condition. With a healthy complexion and a sprightly ambience, he spent more than twelve hours a day job hunting and did not seem tired at all.

Shiller tried to leave again, but Bruce intercepted him, "No, you can't go out, what you're doing is too dangerous, can't you just find a job in Living Hell?"

Shiller pondered for a moment then replied, "Alright, it's not entirely unreasonable. I've been wandering around here for so many days without finding any promising jobs. I have not tried job hunting nearby. I'll give it a try."

Bruce sighed in relief. However, his relief lasted less than half a minute before his heart leaped into his throat again, witnessing Shiller heading straight towards the water purifier.

Bruce painstakingly pulled him back again, finding himself nearly drained of energy, he felt more tired than he had been all the previous days combined, he was even finding it hard to stand upright.

Leaning on the fence nearby, he said to Shiller, "You can't poison the water source, you can't use chemical threats to coerce the mobs into providing you with work, and you can't collude with the newsboy to intercept clean water for high prices..."

Shiller thought for a moment then said, "Okay, I guess I'll go upstairs and wander around."

Ten minutes later, Bruce intercepted him again, "No, you can't conspire with the newsboy to monopolize newspapers, and you absolutely cannot open the lids of other people's milk bottles... "

"Shiller! Don't go onto the rooftop! Don't touch the green plants here, you can't dig them out and sell them, these are public facilities... "

"Don't tamper with the sewer pipes! What? The owl? There's no owl left!"

"Hans is looking for you? You can't murder for him, you're not a hitman, you're a college professor!"

In the following days, Bruce came to realize the serious consequences of making decisions with a malnourished brain.

During these days, Bruce's main job was to follow Shiller job hunting. Shiller always managed to secure the perfect work opportunity for himself during every job hunt.

Actually, there were employment opportunities in East Gotham, but only in a few places. Staying within this district and finding a job could only be done in these few places, so Shiller basically spending his days wandering around the warehouse district, the restaurant district, the truck district, and Living Hell.

Shiller was always job-hunting, but in fact, he had never really found a job.

In the warehouse district, he would manipulate warehouse records, forge fake accounts, switch tags, steal items. In the restaurant district, he would band with one to poison another's food, then conspire with the other to poison the first one's food. In the truck area, he would collude with one mob to scam another, then collude with the latter to scam the former. In Living Hell, he would monitor the water purifier downstairs and check the drain pipe upstairs...

By right, such fraudulent activities can't last long. But surprisingly, Shiller was able to make them long-term, sustainable and even profitable affairs.

Firstly, uttering the warehouse job, initially he altered merchandise records to smuggle goods out in order to ensure his basic survival. But later, either through a mishap or his own intention, a mob boss got wind of this.

Typically, this would be the genesis of his misfortune. But instead, Shiller held discussions with the mob boss, who then took a turn for the worse. Today, they lost 1,200 items due to a truck tipping over, and tomorrow they lost 800 items due to a warehouse fire.

The mob boss, now in distress, went after Shiller, only to receive an alternate proposal from him.

Simply put, if there is no merchandise, there are no profits. If there are no profits, there is no need to pay protection fees according to the rules of the mob. Of course, if we replace the term "protection fees" with "taxes", many people would understand this concept.

A total of 2,000 items, 1,200 items were crushed and unsellable due to the truck flipping over, 800 items were completely lost due to the fire. So, the profits from these 2,000 items would be 0, therefore the protection fee that needed to be paid when reporting to their superiors would also be 0.

At the same time, transporting these 2,000 items required human labor costs. To store these 2,000 items required warehousing costs. In addition, trading, promotional, and transitional fees needed to be paid. When all these are added up, excluding the buying cost of these 2,000 items, the cost would triple.

However, because of the disappearance of the 2,000 items, all the costs paid turned into losses. Hence, at the end of the year financial report, the corresponding amount of profit would be scratched off. This part of the profit would not need to be submitted according to proportion, therefore it was directly tax-free.

Watching Shiller's actions escalate from petty theft to tax evasion, Bruce had to change the rules of the game. It was clear that the warehouse district was now off-limits. If it continued, the reconstruction process would not be able to keep up with the rate of conflagrations torching the warehouses.

And in the restaurant district, at first they were only helping small stall owners wipe out competitors, but soon they started eyeing the meat supply channels.

To get low cost, high-quality meat, they could only target smuggled frozen meat. But Shiller seemed to think the cost of smuggled frozen meat was still too high, so he targeted sick cows. But since the quantity of sick cows was too few and it was a one-time deal, Shiller decided to collude with veterinarians to create the illusion that healthy cows were sick. Eventually, he even began contacting ranchers to collectively drive down the price of cattle.

In order to ensure Gotham's food safety in the future, Bruce further delineated the restaurant district as off-limits for Shiller. Without much protest, Shiller simply turned his attention to tormenting the truck drivers.

Of course, the truck drivers should be grateful to Joker Jack. The hero named Jack defended the truck drivers' territory, driving out Shiller who wanted to form a truckers' union here. This time, it was a victory for the ordinary people.

Regardless, Bruce still ruled out the truck drivers gathering spots for Shiller's job hunt, after all, he did not want to wake up early only to see two jokers squatting by his bed, asking him for opinions.

With nowhere else to go, why not just stay in Living Hell? But clearly, even staying in Living Hell couldn't quench Shiller's desire to find steady work.

After accumulating primitive capital, Shiller started to speculate in property.

Property speculation was indeed difficult for someone to do alone, but what Shiller was good at was painting big rosy pictures, and then dragging people into it.

Living Hell, in the East District, had a significant location advantage. With complete facilities, comfortable living conditions, and most importantly, unique sanitation conditions, moreover, it was the only school district. If this wasn't the time to speculate on property, then when?

Of course, Bruce wasn't fool. As soon as Shiller took the first step, he had noticed that the outcome of property speculation would be driving out all the local residents to leave all the houses empty for the investors, thus widening the wealth gap and leading to greater chaos.

In the meantime, to prevent Shiller from creating various employment opportunities and expanding investment channels, Bruce had to wake up early and go to bed late. His meals were hastily swept over, and he was even more disheveled than when he was homeless.

When he was homeless, he was fighting a crazy reality, and now he was fighting a lunatic for whom even crazy reality could not lay a glove on him.

Bruce found that the fundamental reason why Shiller could gain an upper hand here was his lack of morality.

Therefore, Bruce realized that it made sense for Shiller to wonder what was so difficult about living in a slum, because in Shiller's eyes, life in a slum was not hard at all, and it felt like home to him.

It made Bruce start to think, did all his suffering and hardship here come down to him not being bad enough?

When he was out of strength to even leave his room and could only lean on his bed to talk to Shiller, the first question he asked Shiller was: "Do you think I deserve this, right?"

Shiller moved a chair and sat by Bruce's bed, peeling a fresh apple. He said, "I know what you want to ask. Are you asking if good guys deserve to be held at gunpoint?"

"You find that your hardship here is not because you're not smart enough or not hard-working enough, but merely because you're not bad enough."

"You don't want to hurt people, and you don't want to abandon your conscience for survival. This puts you at a complete disadvantage in the competition. You've figured out that following the rules only leads to death in this place."

Bruce could be described as being emaciated now. In just over two months, he had become so thin that you could clearly see the shape of his skull. His handsome face, which used to trouble him greatly, had disappeared.

He was becoming more like a regular in the East District, even the ones at the very bottom of the social ladder. Yet his blue eyes were still bright, like the blue skies Gotham never had.

"If, in a city, good people have no way out and can only die in such a social environment, perhaps this city is beyond redemption, isn't it?" Shiller looked at Bruce.

Bruce remained silent, not responding.

"I admire your persistence," Shiller stood and walked toward the door, "I'm a persistent man too, so I'm off to look for a job."

Just as Shiller turned around, Bruce saw the smile on his face.

After the door closed, he scrambled from his bed, because in Shiller's final smile, he saw a terrifying lunacy.

Now he understood why everything was so strange, the man he was sharing a room with was not a professor but the eternal incubus of Gotham.

Bruce used his last bit of energy to get up, he knew he had to catch up with Shiller, some force was pushing him to do so.

After that faint laughter had almost disappeared, another force surged from his chest.

He staggered out the door, no sign of Shiller outside, but he knew where to look.

In the production workshop of ACE Chemical Factory, Shiller was standing on the feed platform of a giant chemical reagent mixing tank, holding a match in his hands. On the side wall of the mixing tank, Bruce saw a 'No-Open-Flame' sign.

Shiller stared at the flame of the match as if Bruce was not there. Bruce stumbled onto the feeding platform, used up his last ounce of energy, and fell to the floor.

In the glowing chemical liquid, their figures seemed very small. The round storage tank looked like the sun, and Shiller and Bruce were floating above the sun's flame.

Bruce was utterly drained. After a long period of torment, he no longer had the strength to fight. He could only watch as Shiller lit another match, and behind the fire was his manic smile.

Bruce painfully closed his eyes, and when a hoarse voice squeezed out from his throat, it was lower than the wind over the boundless desert:

"Joker..."