Cobblepot’s Happy Life (Part 1)

Gotham’s first law was this: here, things always went in the worst possible direction. If you had a bad feeling about something, it would definitely come true.

And Gotham’s second law was this: in Gotham, no matter how correct your intentions were, how clever your methods, or how perfect your plan, they could always turn it into a pile of shit.

This vocational school, jointly founded by more than a dozen major gangs, was located in Living Hell in the East End. Thanks to the construction and renovation here, its facilities had become the best in the entire East End, and it was the only place in the district where the environment and atmosphere were relatively suitable for a school.

Note: relatively suitable.

When Schiller returned to Living Hell, the place had already changed beyond recognition.

The renovated Living Hell was still chaotic and crowded, but at least it was no longer old and dilapidated. The alleys were still narrow, but at least they were clean. The corridors were still cramped, but at least there was enough lighting and signage so people would not get lost.

The vocational school had been set up in an empty room on the eighth floor of the building on Living Hell’s eastern side. Outside was an eighth-floor terrace where the students could spend their free time.

Originally, this place had been meant to become a laundry room, but changes to the water pipe routes had left it vacant.

Such a prime location with a terrace was naturally controlled by the biggest gang here, the Muni Gang. Under pressure from the other dozen or so major gangs, however, the Muni Gang had surrendered the space for the vocational school.

So far, things still seemed fairly normal. The whole matter sounded rather absurd, but it had not yet exceeded Schiller’s understanding of Gotham.

Just as Schiller had expected, the gangsters welcomed him warmly and invited him to teach a class here.

There were no special requirements for the lesson’s content. Simply put, whatever he taught the Falcone family’s children, he would teach these students as well.

Schiller had anticipated this long ago, so he did not refuse. He stepped onto the podium, intending to discuss Gotham City’s history and the development of the gang industry, just as he usually did at Falcone Manor.

This classroom was fairly large. At the very least, compared to the other rooms in Living Hell, it was already spacious.

But the more than forty students below packed it to the brim. When Schiller walked to the podium and glanced down, he found that they were all quite young. The oldest was no more than twenty, while the youngest was probably just over ten.

That was only natural. The gang bosses were not idiots. Of course they knew that even if a thirty- or forty-year-old drunk came to class, he would not have much of a future.

These young people, even if they had a few bad habits now, had at least not yet had their brains ruined by alcohol. They would certainly learn faster than middle-aged people.

Schiller had a habit: wherever he taught, the first thing he did was take attendance.

As it turned out, this class did not even have a roster. The gang bosses watching from below could only produce a sheet of paper and tell the students to write down their names themselves.

After the paper made its way around the room and Schiller collected it, he covered his forehead and said helplessly, "All right, it seems the situation here is even worse than I thought."

Still, he did his best to maintain a teacher’s professional composure. Schiller said, "First, what I need you to write is your real name, not your nicknames or aliases. Who is this person called Tire? Could you raise your hand?"

A chubby boy below raised his hand. He even grinned smugly at the people beside him before shouting, "Me! Teacher! I’m Tire! Exploding Tire!"

"All right, then tell me your name. What’s your surname?"

"My name is Tire. My mom and everyone around here calls me that because I was fat from the moment I was born."

"But you must have a surname, right?"

The chubby boy scrunched up his face. "My dad died before I was born, so I don’t know his surname. As for my mom, I only know her name was Bonnie…"

"All right, sit down." Schiller continued looking over the page. "Then who is this… Red Truck?"

A Black student in a red jacket, with a lip ring and a nose ring, stood up. "Me! I’m the street racing king around here! Teacher, need something delivered? I’m your guy! From Living Hell to Elizabeth Street, I can get there in ten minutes!"

"You really are…" Schiller paused. After thinking about it, he realized that it would take him at least forty minutes to drive from here to Elizabeth Street. Did this person fly? He could get there in ten minutes?

Another voice immediately rang out in the classroom. "Give it up! You ride a motorcycle. What cargo can your motorcycle even carry?"

Schiller looked up. The speaker was a white girl with full-sleeve tattoos. He asked, "And what’s your name?"

"I don’t have one. Most people here don’t have proper names. You can call me Rocket Launcher, the most powerful kind. Whoosh—hahahaha…" The girl and the students around her burst into laughter.

Schiller sighed and continued examining the names on the paper. His gaze moved down with his finger, and soon, he spotted a distinctly different handwriting.

Most of the handwriting on the page looked like illegible scribbles. English letters were simple enough already, yet they had managed to make them look like crawling bugs. But amid all that bug-like handwriting, one entry stood out.

Not only were its letters written properly, they even bore traces of ornate cursive strokes. Schiller read the name aloud: "Oswald Cobblepot…"

He had just been about to look up and see who it was when he froze. Why did that name sound so familiar?

It couldn’t be that much of a coincidence, could it?

As soon as he finished reading the name, a short figure sitting in the corner stood up. He was pale, with sunken eyes and a rather unappealing hooked nose. Raising his hand, he said, "It’s me, teacher."

Schiller opened his mouth. He felt that what he wanted to ask would be somewhat inappropriate. After all, the boy with his hand raised looked only to be in his teens, probably even younger than Bruce.

He could hardly walk over and ask whether he would someday become Gotham’s infamous supervillain, the Penguin.

That was right. Oswald Cobblepot was such a distinctive name that there should not have been anyone else in all of Gotham with the same one. If nothing unexpected happened, this was the Penguin in his youth.

Schiller studied Cobblepot carefully. Other than being somewhat short and having a gloomy air about him, the boy actually looked rather refined.

After all, one had to consider what sort of demons he was surrounded by. Most of the students sitting here had the same style as Red Truck, dressed in all kinds of bright jackets, with six or seven piercings in their ears. Most of the Black students wore dreadlocks, while the white students had equally bizarre hairstyles. They were covered in tattoos and squirmed in their chairs as if thorns had grown out of the seats, moving seven times a minute. If the gang bosses had not been standing along the walls, they would have turned the room upside down already.

In that environment, Cobblepot seemed perfectly normal, even somewhat gentlemanly.

He wore an obviously old suit that did not fit him particularly well, though it was unclear where he had gotten it. Under it was a plaid shirt, its collar meticulously arranged, and even his cufflinks were properly fastened.

His hair was black, his sideburns neatly trimmed. His face had none of those bizarre piercings, nor any obvious tattoos. Aside from the hooked nose that made him look somewhat gloomy, he actually looked fairly decent.

For some reason, seeing the Penguin like this even moved Schiller a little. So there were normal children in Living Hell after all.

That was right. Compared with these second-generation gang kids whose styles were all over the place, the Penguin could practically be considered well-behaved.

Thinking back, Schiller realized that this was probably normal. In the comics, the Penguin had always been a gang boss with aristocratic pretensions who liked putting on airs. He often wore a top hat, held a cigar, and owned a lavishly decorated restaurant.

This little Penguin had not developed that far yet, but the signs were already there. His clothes and appearance were old-fashioned, like someone from the nineteenth century, making him inevitably seem out of place.

Cobblepot sat alone in the classroom corner, completely ignoring the whispered conversations around him. He merely stared at Schiller with a somewhat blank expression.

Schiller felt that he looked familiar, but he truly could not remember where he had seen this future Penguin before. He thought about it for a moment, failed to recall anything, and then put the matter aside.

Schiller cleared his throat, and the room below immediately quieted down considerably. He said, "There should have been teachers here before me to give you lessons, but this class, I’m going to establish some discipline. There are two things."

"First, make a proper roster. I don’t care whether you had names before. From now on, you must make one up for yourselves. Cobblepot is the only one on this list with decent handwriting, so he’ll handle it. Once you’ve made up names, tell him, and have him write them on a sheet of paper…"

"The second thing is to choose a class monitor responsible for making the schedule and arranging class and dismissal times… You, the chubby boy called Tire. You seem popular enough, so it’ll be you. After each teacher’s class ends, ask when their next class will be, then write it on the schedule."

The chubby boy opened his mouth, clearly not expecting such a major responsibility to land on his head. He looked pleadingly at one of the gang bosses standing by the wall. The boss glared at him, and Tire could only say, "All right, but, teacher, I can’t even spell the names of some subjects."

"Then go ask Cobblepot. He should know. His handwriting looks good, so have him write out the schedule and put it up on the wall."

Cobblepot clearly had not expected Schiller to assign the task to him. He seemed a little restrained, without the slightest trace of the future villain’s scheming temperament. He muttered a few nervous words under his breath, but ultimately said nothing.

Schiller was not giving him special treatment, nor had he taken a liking to the future Penguin.

He was simply stating a fact. Cobblepot was the only person in the entire class whose writing was legible, and he could remember and spell such complicated names correctly. There was no one else to give the task to.

The moment Schiller dismissed the class, the room below descended into chaos. Cobblepot still hid in the corner without saying a word.

Looking at the scene, Schiller shook his head. In a city like this, even the most basic vocational education was a long and arduous undertaking.