Chapter 3003: Dense Green Trees and Long Summer Days (1)

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What is summer like in Gotham City?

In the past, people would say that a summer day in Gotham was like a rain that threatened to fall but never did, with heavy dark clouds always looming so low that the sound of thunder seemed like a beast passing through the layers of clouds, and the gloomy and humid alleys hid countless dangers unknown to man.

But now, in this city that has found its sunshine again, summer is hot and prolonged. The heat waves roll during daylight, cicadas become too lethargic to make a sound, and the calling of seagulls halts as they perch on the doorsteps of cafes, their voices hoarse. Leather shoes walk over melting asphalt roads, pulling out threads of shiny strings, and hurried pedestrians shade their heads with newspapers, not daring to stay under the sun for a moment.

Since May, Gotham has grown increasingly hotter. When the temperature hit 30 degrees, people could still rely on cooling devices to get by, but as the temperature closed in on 40 degrees, there were not many brave enough to step outside.

Logically speaking, a coastal city like this should not get so hot, especially since Gotham is surrounded by sea on three sides, and its climate should be better than Metropolis.

Yet this city has taken modernization to another extreme. Since there was no sunshine, skyscrapers could be built as tall as possible, reflective glass as bright as could be, with reinforced concrete structures heavily utilized, and asphalt roads prolifically constructed.

As is widely known, the urban heat island effect occurs under such circumstances, and these things were entirely fine when there was no sunlight.

But now, with the clouds dispersed and the sunshine returning, the entire city is like an iron sheet scorching under the unforgiving sun.

Back when Gotham was encased in ice, the city was considered a summer retreat. But as the Dense Ice Technology advanced iteration after iteration, the dense ice used in Gotham's underground cold storage no longer provided coldness and almost didn't participate in heat exchange, naturally losing its cooling effect.

With favorable conditions all around, the city has become hotter and hotter.

The people of Gotham have faced many disasters in their lifetimes, capturing a few demons only to encounter a few monsters; the city had just started to see the light of day again and was almost cooked alive in the increasingly hot summers.

Shiller was incredibly relieved to have moved into his new home.

The West District had been transformed into an industrial zone, and industrial activities are one of the culprits of the urban heat island effect. With temperatures around 40 degrees there, staying any longer would have eventually led to death by heat.

His new home, however, had many advantages. Behind it was a large lake, bordered by a forest, with streams flowing further down the lake, surrounded by all grass and trees—the greenery and water bodies are things that can help reduce the heat conduction effect.

Even so, Shiller's psychological defenses crumbled the moment he saw the thermometer display a reading of 36 degrees in the morning.

The last time he saw such high temperatures was in his previous life—if he remembered correctly, it should have been in Chongqing.

In a way, there are similarities between the two cities, especially after Gotham's situation improved. Shiller carefully examined a map and found that Gotham and Chongqing did indeed look very similar now.

Not to mention anything else, but Chongqing is where two rivers converge, a city of a million bridges, and Gotham too has the confluence of two rivers, the Hudson and Gotham River, right in the center of the city, with countless bridges over both rivers, thus splitting the city into East and West.

The difference is that Gotham's terrain is flatter, lacking the many hills and ravines. Naturally, it doesn't have the same magical feel, but Bruce's transformation project turned this place into a true 8D city. Shiller himself couldn't even find his way out of the East District, let alone rely on navigation.

Unfortunately, as the saying goes, bad habits are learned more quickly than good ones. While Gotham's city center managed to maintain around 35 degrees for a couple of years, now even the suburbs are heading towards 40 degrees. The Gothamites call it "East Coast Little Chongqing."

Normally, if one wanted to regulate the temperature, they could bring back the dark clouds, but Bruce is no longer Batman, and the Gotham curse maintained for Batman's existence no longer exists. The dark clouds have become thinner by the day and can no longer serve as a cover.

Shiller stood in front of the thermometer for ten minutes.

In fact, this is a very difficult problem to solve. It can't just be fixed by bringing back Pamela to plant trees everywhere, as Gotham's urban construction is already very saturated. Where can trees be planted?

For example, the road in front of Shiller's house has four lanes and usually doesn't get congested, but the premises are that the road has no greenery in the middle or on the sides—it is just a blunt road with no sidewalks.

If greening were to be done, first, the four lanes would have to be reduced to two to make space for sidewalks, and then between the sidewalks and vehicle lanes, green lawns and trees could be planted.

This particular road could be transformed without issues because this area isn't densely populated, but Gotham already has a significant traffic problem. Even with the wool Bruce shorn from dark energy, the city is barely maintaining. In such a situation, isn't it a joke to talk about greening?

Many cities in Europe and America face this problem. Their city construction happened too early, when there were not as many cars and tall buildings, and a two-lane road was completely sufficient.

Even in some of the older European cities, there are no asphalt roads to speak of—just cobblestone roads for shared vehicular and pedestrian use, and the traffic rules are entirely up to mood.

It's not that all governments don't want to manage, but that there's simply no way to. If you want to alter a road, then houses have to move back. If you move the houses, you squeeze other roads, leaving no space. You can't keep pushing everything back layer by layer, flattening the whole city like a pancake.

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Things were even more troublesome in Gotham City, where the architecture wasn't like the small European-style houses in the city centers of many European countries. Since construction started later, even the oldest parts of Gotham Cathedral were tall buildings, making demolition even more complicated.

Of course, besides road greenery, parks, nature reserves, and reservoirs could be built, but it's clear the city was only starting to recover. People had just begun to climb out of the mire and were not yet at a point where environmental considerations could take precedence. Good locations needed to meet residential demands first, followed by the building of associated facilities and meeting commercial and industrial growth.

And each one of these facilities that could help address environmental issues was enormous, and no one was willing to sacrifice so much land.

Even the construction of parks was a nuanced affair. Many envied Central Park in New York, but it actually served as a counterexample of urban development. Excessive centralization of green space neither positively affected the urban environment nor allowed more than a handful of people to enjoy urban green areas, even if the park was well-built, it defied the principles of urban environmental construction.

But if Gotham were to build many separated parks, the issue was not just land but also funding, which was even harder to come by. The city government, currently in the midst of a great depression, had the will but not the means.

However, seeing the temperature rising day by day and the endless stream of heatstroke patients being admitted to the hospital, the prominent figures of Gotham could no longer stand idly by.

Standing in front of the thermometer, Shiller took out his phone just as the door opened, and Helen collapsed onto the living room sofa.

"Why can it be so hot? Why can the weather be so hot?!!" Helen wailed.

Shiller glanced back at her and said, "The air conditioning is already at its lowest. If you're still hot, go grab some ice cubes from the fridge."

Helen didn't move. If Shiller didn't know she was Doomsday, he would have thought she had died from the heat.

Remembering that she was Doomsday, Shiller asked with some confusion, "Aren't you able to consume the sun? Why do you feel hot?"

"That's different. I don't feel hot when I'm in my true form, but my current body is human. My temperature regulation system is the same as yours, so of course, I feel hot."

Helen sprang up from the sofa again and said, "We've checked out the forest, and it's indeed moist and cool. We're planning to build a treehouse there, what do you think?"

"Whatever," Shiller nodded. It wasn't that he didn't want to offer sincere advice, but he truly was powerless to assist.

The people from Marvel had been around for a while now. Jarvis and Wanda, the little couple with children, came and stayed in the manor of James Gordon in the North District.

After James and Barbara got back together, they quickly had a child, another girl, but it seemed James was wary of naming her Barbara, to avoid the fate of Barbarys from other universes, so he named her Jane Gordon instead.

Jane was older than Wanda's twin boys and could already run around. Wanda and Barbara shared parenting experiences, while Jarvis drove them out for outings.

The folks from the Guardians of the Galaxy could never sit still. They were old hands at the rough life. Arriving without a penny to their names, they soon found houses in the East District and fit in swimmingly.

The young superheroes from the New Warriors Team, essentially the group closest to rogue teenagers, turned up at Shiller's, and along with Helen, they caused him no end of trouble.

At first, when they discovered the lake behind Shiller's house, they wanted to fish, but due to poor skills, they never caught anything. Speedball Robert, the Little Smart Ghost, somehow got a hold of an electrified net and nearly exterminated the fish in the lake, leading to complaints from other neighbors, prompting Shiller to order them to release the fish back.

Shiller was hoping they could help tidy up the garden, but clearly, they weren't the type to put their backs into any work. They dug around wildly when excavating, hosed carelessly when watering, and played with the mud, making a messy mess everywhere, their havoc rivaling a pack of huskies.

Shiller had thought of driving them away, but his ordered gazebo had arrived. He had arranged for it to come with installation, but sadly received news that the installers were demanding a high heat surcharge, almost equivalent to the installation fee itself.

Shiller thought of finding another installation service, but after enquiring with several companies, all demanded a heat surcharge, each one costlier than the last, leaving him no choice. He then called Killer Croc, only to find out he had been hospitalized.

He should have foreseen it. Crocodiles are ectothermic, and which pet croc could endure moving house in 40-degree weather?

Zatanna, who invested in the moving company, and Gordon were busy looking after Killer Croc. Cobblepot was occupied with moving his mother to a cooler suburb. Mayor Roy was swamped with work. Even Scarecrow and Professor Pig had taken Federal Bureau of Investigation contracts to work in the colder weather of Metropolis.

After much consideration, Shiller decided not to waste free labor. He had the New Warriors Team members stay, and lately, they had been setting up the gazebo in an orderly fashion.

Assembling a gazebo wasn't complicated at all, and could be done in an afternoon, but the blistering heat from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. made work impossible. They could only rush the job at night, but even after five days, the small gazebo in the garden wasn't complete, and Shiller still had to cook for them daily.

Fortunately, due to the intense heat, serial killers largely stayed indoors. Gordon finally had some downtime and decided to visit Shiller as he was checking his backyard garden.

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