Chapter 779: Deadly Joke (VI)

In the end, Bruce still couldn't muster up the courage to use the kitchen utensils here. It wasn't because he was timid, because he just saw a man leaning against the side to take drugs and put a handful of plant roots in the pot.

He didn't require the dishes to be completely clean and hygienic, but at least they couldn't be poisonous, right?

Coming downstairs, Bruce decided to survey the terrain here first. At this time, it was almost dusk, and there were still many people on the street, so it was noisy. Bruce felt that he was out of place here, and everyone looked at him with a strange look.

Bruce knew that not many people knew him. Bruce was more famous in the upper circles, because those people could afford entertainment magazines and often saw him coming out of the bar.

However, people here can basically only afford ordinary newspapers, which rarely have gossip news, and if they don't read magazines, they probably don't know what Bruce looks like.

Bruce looked down at his clothes. He wasn't so stupid. He came here wearing a brand name. He was wearing unbranded clothes, which were no different from what the Gotham citizens who usually walked on the street wore.

Bruce thought that the problem might be with his shoes. He had just rushed here from the shareholders' meeting and had not had time to change his leather shoes. He also forgot to take off his watch, which might be a bit out of place here.

The watch is easy to deal with. He can just take it off and put it in his pocket. But if he takes off his leather shoes, where can he find shoes to wear?

Bruce looked around and found that many people were wearing boots. This was indeed a good choice. After all, Gotham has rain all year round. A pair of sturdy rubber boots can prevent his feet from getting wet.

Bruce was lucky. He found a boot shop on the corner. When Bruce went there, there were not many people there. He leaned his upper body into the somewhat closed shop and asked, "How much are the rain boots?"

The shop owner who was counting the bill looked up at him and said, "5 dollars, add 2 dollars and get an umbrella..."

Bruce raised his eyebrows, not because he thought it was expensive, but because he thought it was too cheap. He reached out and took a pair of boots from the cabinet next to him. He looked at it and found that the material was very thick and the joints were well made, so he said, "Give me a pair of boots and an umbrella."

The shop owner said, "Put down the pair in your hand, it's a display, wait a minute."

As he said that, he walked into the room inside, took out a pair of boots and an umbrella, and handed them to Bruce. Bruce did not take it immediately, but looked at it. After taking it in his hand, he also carefully checked it, and then handed the money to the shop owner.

On the way back, Bruce found a small hot dog shop on the side of the road, and he spent another two dollars to buy a hot dog.

Back in the rental house, Bruce immediately changed his shoes, took off his watch and hid it, then opened the hot dog package and took a bite.

The next second, he frowned hard. The bread and hot dog sausage of this hot dog were not bad, but there was too much sauce. The moment he took it in his mouth, the sauce rushed directly into his throat, making him almost vomit.

In addition to the rich mayonnaise, there was also spicy chili sauce. There were several slices of pickled cucumber and chili rings in the hot dog. There was almost no aroma of bread and meat flavor of sausage. Only the taste of sauce was left in his mouth.

Bruce endured the discomfort and ate the hot dog, then ran to the faucet and drank two sips of tap water.

Finally, the strange spice smell was suppressed. Bruce coughed hard twice, shook his hands, and supported himself on the edge of the sink. He thought, maybe he was too pretentious. In the slums, putting more sauce should be considered an advantage, right?

But soon, he found that he was too young, because within 20 minutes, he began to have a stomachache.

He was choked by the sauce before, and hurried to the tap to drink water, but he forgot that this was not his manor, and there was no expensive and terrible water purification system. This was the slums of Gotham, and Mendeleev didn't know what was in the tap water.

His stomach, which was used to eating light food, was not used to the large amount of chili sauce and chili rings, and coupled with the tap water that looked like the periodic table of chemical elements, Bruce squatted in the toilet for a whole night, and it was not until the second half of the night that he felt a little better, lying on the bed and fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, it was almost noon. Bruce wanted to get up early to find a job, but now he was facing another problem, that is, what to do for lunch?

Yesterday's dinner didn't replenish his energy, but made him a little dehydrated. Now he was thirsty and hungry, but he didn't dare to eat or drink anything, for fear of gastroenteritis again due to bacteria.

Now he understood what Maggie meant. It was really difficult for people who didn't grow up here to survive, because in addition to having a firm will, a flexible mind, and strong endurance, you also need a steel stomach.

Enduring weakness, Bruce felt that he had to cook for himself. He decided to buy some vegetables, but he didn't know where to buy them. Fortunately, when he went downstairs, he met the Asian woman who cooked before.

The woman lived on the third floor. She told Bruce that he could go to a nearby street where there was a vegetable supermarket. If he wanted to buy meat, he had to go further to the slaughterhouse next door.

When he arrived at the place where the woman pointed the way, Bruce found that the prices here were really cheap, and the boots, umbrellas and hot dogs he had bought before might have been ripped off.

For less than a dollar, he could buy vegetables that would fill him up. Although the vegetables here were not very fresh, and some even looked like defective products discarded by high-end restaurants, they were at least edible.

Bruce felt that he had to buy another pot, because no one knew what the pot in the public kitchen had cooked.

Bruce asked the vegetable vendor where he could buy a pot. The black vendor thought for a moment, scratched his head and said, "Why don't you go to the grocery market next door?"

There is a grocery market on a street not far from the vegetable supermarket. It sells everything, including hardware parts, daily necessities, second-hand goods, pots and pans...

Bruce did see someone selling pots, but the problem was that the pots here were all second-hand, and they looked shady, or in other words, most of the things here were shady.

Bruce saw the logo of a restaurant he was familiar with, and the reason why the set of dishes appeared here was definitely not donated by this restaurant out of kindness.

Walking on the way to the grocery market, Bruce seemed to have come to a large-scale stolen goods sales site. He thought, no wonder Selena lives here, no wonder every time he didn't catch Selena on the spot, the stolen goods disappeared overnight.

But there was no way, he had no choice at all. He knew that there was no organic supermarket in the slums. Bruce wandered around for a long time and finally picked a frying pan. He also tried to bargain for the first time, and then he found that he was really cheated before.

This ordinary frying pan cost $3, and finally the price was bargained down to 60 cents. In the end, Bruce left the grocery market with an iron pan and many vegetables. His back on the road was heavier than Batman.

Then he went to the slaughterhouse to buy some relatively fresh minced beef. When he returned to his residence, Bruce did not dare to use tap water to wash the vegetables, or even to use it to wash the pot. He could only fill the pot with water, put it on the stove, boil it, pour out the water, and then carefully scrub it, and then boil another pot of water and let it cool, and use it to wash the vegetables.

By the time the vegetables and other things were processed, it was already past lunch time. Bruce, who was used to eating on time, felt some pain in his stomach.

After starting to fry the beef patties, Bruce felt even more uncomfortable. He didn't know how this kitchen was designed. No matter which direction Bruce stood in front of the pot, he was always facing the downwind. There was no range hood, and the fumes from frying meat kept hitting his face, choking him so much that he couldn't open his eyes.

The stove used a gas tank, but the knob had been in disrepair for a long time, and it was impossible to control the fire. A handful of spinach leaves were thrown in, but they were still not cooked after half an hour of stewing. Potato slices were thrown in, and the pot was burnt in two minutes.

Bruce was not very good at cooking. Being able to cook the dishes was already a gift for him. He really couldn't control the heat, which was closer to metaphysics.

When eating, these vegetables that were not cooked well made him even more difficult to swallow. The meal took more than an hour, and the sun had set before he finished lunch. When he was washing the pots and dishes, he was pierced by the afterglow of the sunset and couldn't open his eyes.

Before this, he had never thought that he was such a hypocritical person. He felt that he had a very strong willpower. He could run a kilometer after being shot twice. He had experienced countless pains and was still willing to go to the battlefield.

Such a great hero never thought that he would be defeated by trivial matters in the world.

He never thought that he did not want to cry because of the wounds left by the vicious criminals, but was choked by the fireworks hidden in the dusk light.

The bat fell to the bottom of the cliff and found that there was no big battle to fight here. The biggest enemy he had to face was the small and trivial but ubiquitous unsatisfactory situation. It was not difficult, but if he took a wrong step, he would no longer have the strength to save the situation.

After finishing his meal, Bruce sat on the small balcony in the living room, listening to the drunkards yelling upstairs, the couples quarreling downstairs, smelling the stench brought by the garbage trucks on the street, feeling the surging of gastric juice, and quietly watched a sunset here.

At this moment, he suddenly felt that he was enlightened, which was an effect that no psychotherapy could achieve.

Because here, the death of parents may make people sad, but they don’t have much time to be sad, because they have to go to work to pay rent, buy groceries, cook and go to the market, eat, sleep and take out the garbage.

Sadness, grievance, entanglement, and nostalgia are best compressed into a few days. If they are like Batman, who entangles for ten years, they may starve to death.

Only the bats hanging high in the attic have time to imagine themselves as the Avengers in the dark. Humans standing on the ground just want to think about what to eat tomorrow.

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