Chapter 799: Deadly Joke (Twenty-Six)

"Schiller, I think we really should have a good talk." One morning, Bruce stopped Schiller who was about to go out and said to him very seriously.

"What are you doing? Don't stop me from going out to find a job. Don't you know that the current situation is very serious? I have been here for several days, and I haven't found a formal job yet." Schiller pushed Bruce's arm and wanted to go out.

Bruce looked at Schiller. After a few days, his clothes, shoes, and watch were intact. His face was ruddy and energetic. He spent more than twelve hours looking for a job every day, but he was not tired at all.

Schiller was about to go out again, but Bruce stopped him and said, "No, you can't go out. What you are doing now is too dangerous. Can't you just find a job in this living hell?"

Schiller thought for a while and said, "Well, it's not completely unreasonable. I've been here for so many days and haven't found any promising jobs. I haven't tried to find a job near my home either. Forget it, I'll give it a try."

Bruce breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could breathe for half a minute, his heart was hoarse again, because Schiller went straight to the water purifier.

Bruce took great effort to pull him back. At this time, he had almost exhausted all his physical strength. He was more tired than the previous few days combined, and even his body was a little bit unable to stand straight.

He leaned against the fence next to him and said to Schiller: "You can't poison the water source, you can't use chemicals to threaten all the gangs here to provide you with jobs, and you can't collude with the newsboys to intercept the clean water and sell it at a high price..."

Schiller thought for a while and said: "Okay, then I'll go upstairs again."

Ten minutes later, Bruce stopped him again and said: "No, you can't go to the newsboys to monopolize newspapers, and you definitely can't open the caps of other people's milk bottles..."

"Schiller! Don't go to the rooftop! Don't touch the green plants here, you can't dig them out and sell them for money, this is a public facility..."

"Don't touch the sewer pipes! What? Owls? There are no owls!"

"Hans came to you? You can't kill for him, you are not a killer! You are a university professor!!!"

In the next few days, Bruce fully realized how serious the consequences would be if he made decisions when his brain was lacking nutrition.

During these days, Bruce's main job was to find a job with Schiller. Schiller always created perfect job opportunities for himself in every job search process.

In fact, there are only a few places in the East District of Gotham where there are jobs. If you want to find a job without leaving this area, you can only go to those places. So Schiller basically wanders around the warehouse area, the restaurant area, the truck area, and the living hell every day.

Schiller has been looking for a job, but he has never really found one.

In the warehouse area, he works as a warehouse manager, making false accounts, changing labels, and stealing things. In the restaurant area, he joins this family to poison the food of that family, and joins that family to poison the food of this family. In the truck area, he joins this gang to touch that gang, and then joins that gang to touch this gang. In the living hell, he looks down at the water purifier and looks up at the sewer pipe...

In theory, this kind of fraud will not last long, but Schiller can really turn these jobs into a long-term, sustainable, and promising career.

Let's talk about the work in the warehouse first. At first, he changed the cargo records just to smuggle some goods out to ensure his basic survival, but later, whether it was an accident or intentional, this matter was discovered by a gangster boss.

Logically speaking, this was the beginning of his bad luck, but Schiller went to talk to the gangster boss, and then his opponent's warehouse was in trouble. Today, due to the rollover of the truck, 1,200 pieces were lost, and tomorrow due to the fire in the warehouse, 800 pieces were lost.

The gangster boss was also anxious, and after finding Schiller, Schiller provided him with another idea.

As long as there is no goods, there is no profit. As long as there is no profit, according to the rules of the gang, there is no need to pay protection fees. Of course, if the word protection fee is replaced with tax, many people may understand it.

There are 2,000 pieces of goods in total, of which 1,200 pieces were crushed due to the overturn of the truck and could not be sold at all, and 800 pieces disappeared completely due to fire. Therefore, the profit of these 2,000 pieces is 0, and the protection fee to be paid when reporting to the higher authorities is also 0.

At the same time, transporting these 2,000 pieces requires labor costs, preserving these 2,000 pieces requires storage costs, and selling promotion or transshipment transactions require costs. Adding all together, in addition to the purchase cost of the 2,000 pieces of goods themselves, the cost will be more than three times higher.

Because the 2,000 pieces of goods disappeared, all the costs paid became losses, so the same amount of profit will be deducted from the year-end financial report, and this part of the profit will no longer need to be paid proportionally, that is, directly tax-free.

Seeing that Schiller's behavior has risen from petty theft to tax evasion, Bruce had to change the rules of the game. He must not go to the warehouse area. If this continues, the speed of reconstruction will not be able to keep up with the speed of the fire dragon burning the warehouse.

In the catering area, at first, they only helped the owners of small stalls to eliminate competitors, but soon, they began to target the meat supply channels.

If you want to get low-priced and high-quality meat, you can only target frozen smuggled meat, but Schiller seems to think that the cost of frozen smuggled meat is not low enough, so he targeted sick cows.

However, the number of sick cows is too small, and it is a one-time deal. Schiller plans to work with veterinarians to disguise the cows as sick cows. In the end, he began to contact ranchers to collectively lower the price of cattle seedlings.

For the future food safety of Gotham, Bruce also marked the catering area out of Schiller's range of activities. Schiller didn't say anything, but turned around and went to trouble the truck drivers again.

Of course, the truck drivers were able to escape death thanks to the clown Jack. The hero named Jack defended the truck drivers' territory and drove out Schiller who wanted to set up a truck union here. This time, it was a victory for the grassroots people.

Despite this, Bruce still excluded the gathering place of truck drivers from the scope of Schiller's job search. After all, he didn't want to wake up early in the morning and see two clowns squatting at his bedside, asking him to judge.

There is no place to go, so stay in the living hell? But obviously, even staying in the living hell can't stop Schiller's desire to find a stable job.

After the original capital accumulation, Schiller began to speculate in real estate.

It is indeed difficult for one person to speculate in real estate, but what Schiller is best at is drawing a bunch of pie in the sky and then pulling a group of people into the pit.

The living hell has a considerable location advantage in the East District, with complete supporting facilities and good living conditions. More importantly, the sanitary conditions are unique, and it is the only school district. What else is there to speculate?

Bruce is certainly not stupid. When Schiller took the first step, he found that the end of speculating in real estate is to drive out all the residents who originally lived here, and all the houses are empty to serve investors, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor, and then bringing greater chaos.

During this period, in order to prevent Shiller from creating various job opportunities and expanding investment channels, Bruce did not sleep at night and had to get up early in the morning. He only had a quick bite of food, and was even more embarrassed than when he was wandering before.

When he was wandering, he had to fight against the crazy reality, and now he has to fight against a madman who can't even do anything to him.

Bruce found that the most fundamental reason why Shiller could gain an advantage here was that he had no morals.

And from this, Bruce also found that it was reasonable for Shiller to wonder what was difficult about living in the slums, because in Shiller's view, living in the slums was not difficult at all, and he came here just like going home.

This made Bruce start to think, is the hardship he experienced here because he is not bad enough?

When he had exhausted his last strength and couldn't even leave the room, he could only half-lean on the bed to talk to Schiller. The first question he asked Schiller was: "You think I deserve it, right?"

Schiller moved a chair and sat at the head of his bed, peeling a fresh apple in his hand. He said: "I know what you want to ask. Do you want to ask whether good people should be pointed at with guns?"

"You find that you have such a hard time here, not because you are not smart enough or not hard enough, but because you are not bad enough."

"You don't want to hurt people actively, nor do you want to abandon your conscience in order to compete for survival materials. This makes you have no advantage in the competition. You find that following the rules here can only bring death."

Bruce can now be called emaciated. In just over two months, he has become so thin that the shape of his skull can be clearly seen, and his eyes are deeply sunken in his eye sockets. The handsome appearance that once troubled him deeply has also disappeared.

He became more like a thorough East Sider, and one of the lowest people in the East Side, but his blue eyes were still bright, like the blue sky that Gotham had never seen.

"If, in a city, good people have no way out and will only die in such a social environment, then perhaps this city cannot be saved, right?" Schiller looked at Bruce.

Bruce was silent and did not answer.

"I admire your persistence." Schiller stood up, turned and walked to the door and said, "I am also a persistent person, so I am going to find a job."

Just as Schiller turned back, Bruce saw the smile on his face.

After the sound of the door closing, he hurriedly climbed out of bed, because he saw terrible madness in Schiller's last smile.

Now, he understood all these abnormalities, and what exactly was the reason. The person who shared the room with him was not the professor, but Gotham's eternal nightmare.

Bruce climbed up with his last bit of strength. He knew that he had to catch up with Schiller. There was a force urging him to do so.

After the faint laughter almost disappeared, another kind of power burst out from his chest.

He stumbled out of the door. There was no sign of Schiller outside, but Bruce knew where he should go.

In the production workshop of ACE Chemical Plant, Schiller was standing on the feeding platform of a huge chemical mixing tank, holding a match in his hand, and Bruce saw the sign of "No open flames" on the side wall of the mixing tank.

Schiller stared at the flame of the match quietly as if he didn't see Bruce. Bruce stumbled onto the feeding platform, and he fell to the ground after exhausting his last bit of strength.

The figures of the two people looked very small against the background of fluorescent chemicals. The round storage tank was like a sun, and Schiller and Bruce were floating on the flames of the sun.

Bruce really had no strength left. The long torture made him no longer able to fight anyone. He could only watch Schiller light a match again, and behind the flame was his crazy smile.

Bruce closed his eyes in pain, and when the hoarse voice squeezed out of his throat, it was lower than the sound of the wind in the endless desert:

"The clown..."

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