Gotham in Progress (Part 1)

In the resplendent banquet hall, a massive chandelier made of hundreds of candles cast a dazzling glow. Silverware and crystal plates gleamed brightly, the champagne tower resembled a little mountain of gold, and silk tablecloths draped smoothly to the floor. The men’s leather shoes were polished to a shine, while the women’s high heels were studded with gems and pearls.

Magnificent skirts hung like curtains of the Milky Way. As footsteps glided to the light dance music, hazy specks of light swirled between ties and hems. The tall Bruce gently held Selene around the waist and spun with her across the dance floor.

On the surface, they were the most perfectly matched couple on the dance floor. Bruce was handsome and impeccably dressed, his tall frame radiating masculine charm at every moment. Though Catwoman was rather petite, her figure possessed beautifully smooth curves. Years of exercise had given her more defined muscle lines than the other ladies, and the mermaid dress inlaid with tiny diamonds perfectly outlined her sensual silhouette. Around her exposed neck hung a necklace of pink diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires. That dazzling brilliance made Selene the brightest presence on the entire dance floor.

Of course, they only looked harmonious on the surface. As Catwoman’s first time entering such a social occasion, there was no way she would obediently focus on dancing.

"Take your eyes off her…" Bruce whispered in her ear. "It’s very rude to stare at people like that."

"I like the pearls on her wrist, especially the biggest one in the middle. That luster is so captivating." Catwoman blinked her large eyes, staring fixedly at the pearl bracelet on another lady’s wrist across the dance floor.

Bruce had just opened his mouth to continue persuading her when Catwoman withdrew her gaze and began staring at him instead. Selene had a pair of exceptionally beautiful green eyes, greener and purer than even the emerald around her neck. Under that gaze, Bruce’s mind went blank. He swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue and said instead, "…If you like pearls, I can give you a bracelet too."

Catwoman said, "I know. You just want to stop me from stealing it. Fine, even though I didn’t listen to a word of those banquet rules you told me before, I know I can’t steal things here…"

Bruce was practically moved to tears. His struggle with this cat could only be described as brutal.

First of all, Catwoman was a girl from the slums, and she was still quite young. Her thefts had basically been limited to Gotham City, and she had never attended any proper high-society gatherings.

No cat would enjoy wearing high heels that made walking and moving extremely inconvenient, along with a mermaid dress that barely allowed her to take a step. Bruce had nearly exhausted his lifetime’s worth of eloquence just convincing her to put on the gown. Yet the first mermaid dress she wore was torn because Selene took too large a stride.

In the end, Bruce had no choice but to tell Selene that the dress was worth over a hundred thousand dollars, and every gem on it was an expensive natural stone. Only then did he stop this cat from using her dazzling acrobatic skills to destroy every garment of that sort.

Then, less than ten minutes after she put on the necklace around her neck, one of its gems vanished. Bruce had not even seen how Catwoman had pried it off. In the end, he, the jewelry designer, and the wardrobe consultant spent dozens of minutes coaxing and persuading her before Selene finally allowed an intact necklace to remain around her neck.

Catwoman had beautiful, sensual black hair. When she stole in the past, she would gather it up and tuck it beneath her hood, rarely taking the time to groom it carefully, so it was always a little messy. While getting her hair done, she got out of the chair seven times in ten minutes. Bruce had no choice but to sit beside her and watch her constantly.

After they had finally finished everything and were riding in a luxury car to the venue, Catwoman acted as if she had nails in her seat and refused to sit still. Bruce, who had originally been in the passenger seat, had to move into the back with her before he could stop her from frantically pulling out and dumping every bottle of alcohol from the car’s minibar out of agitation and excitement.

Once they reached the venue, it was even worse. Catwoman kept staring at the various jewels and accessories worn by the other young ladies and wives. Bruce was on edge, terrified that if he looked away for even a second, all those jewels and accessories would vanish without a trace.

Only then did Bruce realize that Catwoman might not merely suffer from kleptomania. There was definitely something else wrong with her mentally. She truly resembled a cat, whether in her behavioral logic or her psychological state.

However, Catwoman was quite interested in becoming a celebrity. In her view, once she became famous, she could hang all those gems on herself and show their beauty to the entire world.

Even so, Catwoman still had a long road ahead of her.

While Catwoman and Bruce were tugging at each other, the mob had plenty to do as well. After a period of major construction throughout Gotham City, hundreds of warehouses had risen from the ground. Though this was a good thing, it also brought some problems.

Originally, Gotham City’s municipal planning had been arranged by its earliest builders, the first Court of Owls. After Falcone took control of the city, the Old Godfather further renovated Gotham City according to Rome’s urban layout. Wayne Enterprises had always shared an understanding with Falcone, and they had also planned the outskirts of Gotham.

The problem now was that so many warehouses had appeared out of nowhere, along with newly built service facilities across every industry, such as rest stops for truck drivers, temporary roadside dining spots, dock loading areas, newly opened gas stations, and so on. These structures had been erected in a rush. Their ugliness was one thing, but more importantly, the unplanned construction had begun making Gotham City’s urban layout increasingly irrational.

A mob boss would acquire a plot of land, then independently build a warehouse and its supporting facilities on that plot. Another boss would do the same. As a result, many facilities that were not far apart ended up duplicated, while warehouses on smaller plots far away had none of those facilities. Drivers and other workers had no choice but to travel even farther in search of them, adding yet more pressure to traffic.

This made it impossible for Gotham City’s entire logistics planning system to calculate the optimal routes, because the placement of the underlying infrastructure was simply too unreasonable. Victor had nearly worked his hair gray and still could not produce a standard answer.

After operating for a while, the logistics system’s precision and efficiency remained a tangled mess. Moreover, the relatively orderly urban environment that Falcone and the Wayne Family had painstakingly planned was being ruined by the dense warehouse facilities and night markets springing up like mushrooms after rain.

Gotham City’s primary contradiction now was that the demands on infrastructure brought by rapid economic growth could not be met by its outdated urban structure.

To adapt to this capitalist revival, Gotham City urgently needed a major reconstruction.

Did Gotham City have the strength to rebuild? Of course it did. Falcone had ruled Gotham City for so many years; there was no way he had failed to accumulate even that much capital. Not to mention Wayne Enterprises—even if the Twelve Families pooled their resources, they would have more than enough to rebuild the entire city.

But the problem was that they had money waiting for people. The urban planning experts they invited all shook their heads. Even with guns pointed at them by the mob, they could only say there was no solution. The difficulty lay in the planning calculations, which exceeded what ordinary people could handle.

Some experts could produce proposals, but none of those proposals could satisfy everyone. Either they lacked aesthetic appeal or their functionality was insufficient. Neither Falcone nor Wayne Enterprises was willing to completely abandon beauty in favor of function, because they took a longer view. One day, Gotham’s industries would need to transform and upgrade, and the city’s visual appeal would eventually prove useful.

After being passed around, turned over, and tossed back and forth, the problem ultimately returned to Schiller.

Recently, Schiller had been busy with another matter. When the Talon had approached him before, he had anticipated that the Court of Owls, that troublemaking stick, would sooner or later emerge to stir things up.

Yet what puzzled him was that ever since that incident, he had been unable to find even the slightest trace of the Court of Owls. The organization seemed to have vanished into thin air. Using his connections and methods, Schiller searched all over the city for several days, turning it upside down, but found no suspicious individuals who might be Talons.

Do not forget that once Schiller’s Gray Mist spread out, it could collect intelligence down to the microscopic level. Over the past several days, he had gradually scanned nearly half of Gotham City and still found nothing.

That only made Schiller more suspicious. He was not afraid of enemies exposing their flaws; he was afraid of enemies hiding completely, leaving him no idea what conspiracy they might be plotting.

Logically, once the Court of Owls had deployed, there was no reason for it to withdraw halfway through. Schiller believed the Talon had definitely not been targeting only him, but every person who might have played a role in this Gotham reform.

Before launching this plan, Schiller had already prepared for the possibility that these people might face a wave of assassinations from the Court of Owls.

But what baffled him now was that the Court of Owls had disappeared!

Forget Talons—he had not even seen a single owl feather. What was wrong with the Court of Owls? Had they abandoned Gotham and gone on vacation together?

With the Court of Owls issue still unresolved, Schiller remained hesitant about rebuilding Gotham. He knew that in some comic versions, the Court of Owls had added a kind of metal with mysterious power to Gotham’s buildings during their construction.

This metal would cause Gotham City to grow increasingly dark and insane. Although Schiller had previously taken samples from some Gotham buildings and found nothing unusual, he could not be certain that he would recognize this mysterious substance.

But once Gotham City’s major reconstruction began, it would definitely touch the Court of Owls’ core interests and provoke a fierce counterattack. If they did not make thorough preparations in advance, the key figures behind these reforms might suffer devastating losses.

However, the other family heads, including Bruce and Falcone, all felt that since Schiller had initially produced a reform plan so decisively and achieved considerable results with it, he was not the type to hesitate and look back.

Yet this time, he displayed hesitation. Perhaps there were certain things they had overlooked. As a result, the previously rapid momentum of reconstruction gradually slowed.

Meanwhile, although Catwoman wanted to become a big star, she had no patience for those classes. Bruce watched her far too closely, afraid that she would sneak out one day, steal something, and offend someone again.

Catwoman was nearly driven mad from being cooped up. Finally, one day, she seized an opening and secretly slipped away.

However, her escape did not evade old butler Alfred’s eyes. Bruce received the news immediately and hurriedly sent people after her. Catwoman had not had enough fun and did not want to return with Bruce. Chased until she was scrambling everywhere, she had no choice but to flee into the sewers.