Battle of Living Hell (Part 1)

In the morning, sunlight streamed into the bedroom at Wayne Manor. Bruce sat up in bed while Alfred stood outside the door. Bruce asked, "What time is it?"

"Nine o’clock, Master Bruce."

Bruce was a little surprised. He walked to the window, pulled open the curtains, and glanced outside. The sky was indeed already bright. Since returning to Gotham, this was the first time he had slept so late.

But Alfred looked quite pleased. When Bruce came downstairs for breakfast, Alfred stood nearby with a smile on his face.

"Alfred, what’s wrong? Why do you look so happy?"

"Because you have seemed rather happy lately, Master Bruce."

Bruce froze for a moment. Was he happy? He touched his face, then tried hard to recall his behavior lately.

Thanks to Schiller’s remarkably inventive Gotham University student internship program, Bruce had been incredibly busy lately. During the day, he had to go out with the other students to direct traffic. At night, he had to shuttle between the hospital and the prison, properly arranging the gang members who could not fit here and had to be moved there, or could not fit there and had to be moved back here.

He suddenly realized that lately, he had spent far more time being Bruce than being Batman.

In the past, he never hid his true nature at Wayne Manor. He rarely smiled and was fairly taciturn. Although he was close to Alfred, he seldom showed much emotional fluctuation.

But lately, because he had spent so much time being Bruce, his behavior had begun to resemble the playboy persona he had created. He no longer kept a straight face all day, and sometimes he even joked around with Alfred.

That raised a warning in his heart. Since returning to Gotham, he had never naturally slept until nine o’clock. This was a sign that his mind was letting down its guard.

From a psychological standpoint, this was actually normal. A large part of who a person became depended on who they believed themselves to be. Bruce was only eighteen, had just entered university, and when he immersed himself in playing a cheerful, sociable billionaire, he could not clearly distinguish the boundary between that fabricated identity and his own personality.

After another busy day, Bruce returned to the washroom in his bedroom. He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over his face.

The curtains beside him fluttered gently in the evening breeze. The cool-toned light overhead gathered a patch of pitch-black Shade at his feet.

Bruce braced both hands against the sink and stared into the mirror. The man in the mirror had blue eyes, but the overhead light cast them beneath the shadows of his brow.

"Who am I?" he asked.

"Who am I?"

"Who am I…"

His voice echoed through the empty room, struck the walls, and returned to his ears. It was as though another version of himself were asking him the same question. Vaguely, he thought he heard an answer, yet it also seemed as though he had heard nothing at all.

A reflected echo could not give him an answer. Bruce knew that clearly.

He reached out, intending to wipe away the mist gathered on the glass so he could see his own eyes clearly. But in the end, he did not do it. He let his entire face and eyes remain shrouded beneath the fog on the mirror’s surface, then straightened and looked down at his reflection as if from above.

"I am Batman."

"I am Batman…"

The corners of his mouth slowly turned downward. He was not wearing his cowl, but when the shadows crawled across his face, it seemed as though it had once again been covered by a black mask.

The shadows covering those blue eyes grew deeper and deeper. In the end, only his low voice echoed through the empty manor as he said, "I am Batman…"

Bruce walked out of the washroom. In the pitch-black bedroom, he did not turn on the lights. He simply walked to the door and opened it, then crossed the dark hallway. When he reached the stairs, he happened to see Alfred downstairs, polishing that old telephone with a piece of felt cloth.

Since Bruce had returned, he had invented a new portable communication device for himself—the mobile phone. He had never used that telephone again. The old rotary-dial phone was simply too antiquated, and whenever it rang, it only made the manor seem even emptier.

But Alfred cherished that phone dearly. Bruce had never seen even a speck of dust on it. Today was no exception, but this time, Bruce heard Alfred humming a tune. It sounded a little like a jazz number, full of the charm of a bygone era, like the joyful, lively mood of immigrants when they had first discovered this golden coast.

Bruce looked at Alfred’s back and closed his eyes in pain. His hand tightened around the railing, and the old wooden banister let out a soft creak. Alfred turned around and saw Bruce standing at the top of the stairs. Before he could ask anything, Bruce fled back to his bedroom as though running away.

When he shut the bedroom door, he was nearly gasping for breath, as if crossing that short distance had exhausted him more than running several kilometers.

He felt a violent emotion churning within him, as if something were constantly stimulating the emotional center of his brain.

Bruce had not felt emotions this intense in a very, very long time. After the gunshot on that pitch-black night, half the emotions in his inner world had disappeared. All feelings of joy, happiness, and being moved had been far away from him for a long time.

But when he saw Alfred so happy, Bruce did not know how to describe what he was feeling. This question had troubled him for a long time.

Unable to calm his thoughts, Bruce tossed and turned in bed without being able to sleep. An inexplicable impulse affected him. With no other choice, he put on the Batsuit and left Wayne Manor.

This was the first time Batman had put on this suit and left this place for a reason other than fighting criminals. He was merely trying to escape an emotion he did not want to accept.

Therefore, after leaving Wayne Manor, he drifted almost aimlessly through Gotham’s skies. Never before had Bruce hoped so desperately to run into a criminal as soon as possible, bring him to justice, and send him to prison… No, today they were supposed to be sent to the asylum.

At that thought, Batman covered his forehead uncomfortably. What was he thinking? Snap out of it! He was not Bruce right now! Stop worrying about that mess of shuttling people back and forth between the hospital and prison!

Yet Batman still could not control himself. The moment he thought about how the prison population would exceed capacity by another twenty-eight percent tomorrow, while the vacancy rate in the wards was less than fifteen percent, he felt a pressure more terrifying than anything else.

But damn it, this was supposed to be a city where one could encounter three robberies after taking two steps outside. Batman had wandered around for half an hour and had not encountered a single criminal.

The streets near the central roundabout were now brilliantly lit. Each of the four avenues extending from it hosted night markets stretching for over a kilometer, their lights blazing all night long.

Most of the people who came here worked night shifts. It was not just truck drivers hauling cargo through the night, but dockworkers, warehouse guards, security guards, and others on overnight duty. These people were now Gotham’s most active citizens.

Batman stood atop a tall building. He knew perfectly well that if he jumped down in an outfit like this, he would be shot twice before he even hit the ground. There were no crimes happening here, either. Clearly, the city center did not need Batman. He could only leave and head farther out.

Gotham City’s central roundabout and main transportation hub were not the whole city. Beyond the reach of the lights lay even more districts shrouded in darkness. Following his dark instincts, Batman came to the darkest area in all of Gotham.

This was Gotham’s East End. The East End had always been synonymous with chaos in Gotham. The gangs here were deeply entrenched and tangled beyond measure, but even the East End’s chaos had degrees.

The most terrifying place among them was called "Living Hell." It was the westernmost district of the East End, the place farthest from the docks, and also the most crowded, densely populated, gloomy, and impoverished place.

Living Hell was often called "Gotham within Gotham" by Gothamites. Every residential building here was crammed together at crooked angles. The alleys between buildings were not even wide enough for an adult to stretch out both arms. These dark, narrow alleys were piled high with clutter, leaving almost nowhere to step.

When Batman dropped from the rooftops and entered the first alley of Living Hell, he discovered that from the ground, the sky above was reduced to only a narrow slit. The dense web of electrical wires and antennas blocked most of the view, like the Web cast over his head.

Moving through such alleys was extremely difficult, even for Batman. There was almost no light here. Only a few high windows leaked faint glimmers of light. After nearly tripping over garbage bags several times, Batman finally turned on his flashlight.

Even so, walking here remained incredibly difficult. Batman had barely taken two steps down one alley when he found an extremely twisted staircase spiraling into a dark stairwell.

He climbed the creaking stairs. After entering the stairwell and emerging from it again, he found open ground in front of him. He walked forward and realized he was on the roof of a building, while another dark alley lay beneath his feet.

Batman found a ladder on the roof leading to the roof across from it. Even with Batman’s agility, he had to cross such a ladder with great caution.

As he stood on the ladder and looked down, the space below resembled a bottomless Abyss. Layer upon layer of windows, electrical wires, and garbage bags filled it, every chaotic and complicated thing tangled together like Hell spreading downward in endless layers.

After crossing the ladder to the other side, he saw another mountain of garbage bags piled in one corner of the roof. Beyond it stood another layered high-rise. A small door on its side required him to bend over to pass through. Only after Batman entered did he truly arrive inside the buildings of Living Hell.

The situation here was even worse than outside. There was almost no light at all. The stairwell was so narrow that Batman had to lower his head and pull in his arms, or he could not climb the stairs at all.

Batman felt that calling this passageway a staircase was inaccurate. It was more like an intestine. Calling this place Living Hell was truly fitting.

This narrow, dark, cramped stairwell resembled an intestinal organ inside a living creature. After climbing two floors, Batman finally saw another small door to the side.

After exiting through that door, the corridor before him was finally a little wider. Yet the doors here were still tightly shut, and all sorts of signs hung along the hallway: delicatessen, grocery store, barbershop, and so on.

Batman suddenly realized in surprise that Living Hell seemed to possess its own ecosystem. As he walked through the corridor, he found that six small doors leading to intestine-like passages connected to it. By Batman’s estimate, the structures of those six passages should all be identical to the one he had entered through, each corresponding to an entrance from one of the building’s six directions.

This was truly bizarre and wondrous, Batman thought.

This place was like a microcosm of Gotham, and it fully deserved the title of "Gotham within Gotham."

To his surprise, it not only had all kinds of living facilities, but its electricity, water, and communications also formed a self-contained system. Thick water pipes stretched endlessly ahead through the dark corridor like enormous blood vessels, while tangled electrical wires hung overhead like densely packed nerves.

Countless posters and advertisements were pasted beside every doorway, and quite a few doors even had mailboxes hanging in front of them.

This was the first time Batman had seen a Gotham like this. After all, before he had the Batmobile, the range of his crime-fighting had basically centered on Wayne Tower and spread outward for a certain distance. Most robbers also operated within that area, since it was Gotham’s busiest commercial district.

But now, standing in this Living Hell, he saw another side of Gotham City that no one knew about—or rather, the reality beneath Gotham’s prosperous surface.

Yet strangely, although this place was dark, cramped, terrifying, and bizarre, it possessed a complete ecosystem. It displayed a different kind of vitality and charm, even a mesmerizing beauty.

Batman felt that he might be going mad. He even felt that this real and chaotic sight was the city’s final answer.