Chapter 40: The Relieved Passing

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“Ma Zhaodi, what happened to that pumpkin you carved yesterday? Did you leave it at home?”

“I remember it being rather distinctive. You didn’t bring it today?”

Faced with Santos and Castro’s seemingly curious questions, Ma Zhaodi wore an embarrassed yet impeccably polite smile.

He really shouldn’t have carved that damn pumpkin in the restaurant yesterday. Now his coworkers were grilling him mercilessly. Could he admit that the pumpkin at the scene was his? He couldn’t confess it even to Gordon, let alone to these people from the Falcone family. The dead man was Falcone’s own nephew. Supposedly, just a few months ago, he had personally hosted a lavish banquet to celebrate the boy’s wedding.

Going by the methods of this Gotham kingpin, the Falcone mob might reason with him—but the odds of them actually reasoning with him were practically nonexistent.

Drenched in sweat, he immediately moved his save point to the present. Then, with an awkward chuckle, he produced the little magic pumpkin lantern.

“No, no. Yesterday, when I went out to set up my stall, I realized that nobody actually wanted to buy a pumpkin this ugly. Look—it’s still in my hands.”

“Oh?”

The others examined it carefully. The pumpkin in Ma Zhaodi’s hands was indeed different from the one on television, yet it bore a striking resemblance to the one he had carved yesterday.

That was right. They were both equally ugly.

“But I can’t help feeling that both pumpkins look like your work...” Rick stroked his chin. “Their styles are far too similar. They both give off the same sort of abstract ugliness.”

“Come on, you can’t discriminate against me. There are so many people in this world—surely a few of them are just as incapable of carving pumpkins as I am.” Seeing them begin to waver, Ma Zhaodi instantly regained his confidence and shouted, “You’re making it sound as if I’m the only bad person in the world, when in reality I’m a law-abiding—”

“According to information released by the Gotham City Police Department, approximately twenty million dollars stored inside a large factory were discovered yesterday to have caught fire and burned to ashes on Halloween night. Based on tests conducted on several samples that drifted out of the warehouse, all the money stored there was legal tender rather than counterfeit. However, the enormous sum remains of unknown origin. Police speculate that it may have been illegally obtained by a criminal organization and concealed inside the warehouse as cover.”

“This also means that the criminal organization will be unable to complete its money-laundering operation for quite some time, demonstrating the efficiency and reliability of the Gotham City Police Department, as well as its ability to deter criminal forces. Commissioner Gordon stated that—”

As he listened to the news report on television, Ma Zhaodi’s shouting gradually faded until it disappeared completely.

Real... real money? Twenty million?

“Fxxk!”

Just as he struggled to process the implications of the news, Santos slammed a fist down on the table beside him.

“Those bastards have gone too far! If it weren’t for that bank executive, the family’s company would have long since—”

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“Santos.”

A voice cut off Santos’s hysterics. The supervisor walked slowly into the restaurant and casually switched off the television.

“Don’t be so uncivilized. We still have guests to attend to today. Don’t let this sort of thing interfere with your work.”

Santos gritted his teeth and nodded fiercely.

“What are you so anxious about? Everyone knows that no one can touch the Godfather’s money without permission. Whoever dares challenge the dignity of the Falcone family will pay the price sooner or later.”

“Mr. Ma Zhaodi, what happened today was merely casual conversation. I trust you’re not the sort of person who enjoys spreading gossip, correct?”

“Ahaha, of course. Haha, of course.”

Ma Zhaodi responded stiffly to the supervisor. The smile on his face looked even worse than tears, and everyone assumed he was nervous because he had overheard some family secrets.

But in truth, no one could understand the source of his anxiety.

“Twenty million? Real money? Falcone’s?”

Each of those three words carried tremendous weight. Combined, they brought Ma Zhaodi an almost infinite sense of wonder.

If his earlier level of anxiety had been equivalent to facing an entire backpack of blank assignments on the final day of summer vacation, then his current anxiety was like the teacher suddenly announcing that everyone had to return to school a day early.

“System! You set me up!”

“Ma Zhaodi, are you all right?”

The supervisor suddenly patted him on the shoulder.

“Are you ill? Do you need to take the day off?”

“Oh, no. No need.”

Ma Zhaodi forced a smile, saw the supervisor off, and then went over the newspaper again and again, hoping that the Gotham news reporter had misspoken—or that his own hearing had failed him.

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At last, after repeatedly confirming the details, he finally smiled in relief and casually set down the newspaper in his hand.

His heart, which had been hanging by a thread, finally settled.

Peaceful.jpg

Damn it. Looking at the timeline, the Falcone company and the bank had been negotiating their cooperation for more than half a year. During that entire period, the Falcone family’s money-laundering operation had been stuck at its final step. In other words, those twenty million dollars were all dirty money belonging to the Falcone family, and through the Falcone company, the money was about to be laundered clean.

What was more, the Falcone family was highly likely to be cooperating with criminal organizations from other regions as well. Judging from the scope of the Falcone company’s business, those partners might include families from New York, Metropolis, Chicago, and other places.

Burning that money at such a critical moment—how was Ma Zhaodi supposed to be “fighting crime”? He had slapped Falcone right in the face.

Fine, fine. One day, when Falcone discovered that some little punk named Ma Zhaodi had left a mark at the scene of his nephew’s death, and then learned that the same man had burned twenty million dollars belonging to the family, the residents of Gotham could look forward to fireworks in the East End.

The kind where both the man and his house were blasted into the sky.

Damn it. He could die before he let himself be exposed. Because if the truth came out, he really would be dead.

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“I want that little punk dead! I want that furtive rat, that cryptic maniac, that lawless arsonist dead! I’ll cut off their heads and hang them from the top of Gotham Tower, then throw their bodies into the streets so that everyone in Gotham can see what happens when they provoke the Falcone family!”

In a penthouse atop Gotham City, the crime lord Falcone—a three-scarred mob boss—was beside himself with rage.

Without question, this was not an emotion commonly displayed by a mob godfather of his stature. In fact, as a man renowned for his composure, discipline, and impeccable manners, he had rarely lost his temper to this extent in recent years. Most people were not worthy of driving him into such a fury.

But today, after the spies he had stationed throughout the city painstakingly gathered every clue concerning the night of the warehouse fire, they ultimately discovered nothing.

That was when he unleashed his thunderous rage, because it meant he had no target for his revenge.

To encounter such a situation—to be consumed by fury with nowhere to direct it—was a feeling he had not tasted in a very long time. Only when dealing with masked vigilantes like Batman had he ever felt this stifled and helpless.

Because he could find neither his enemy nor the enemy’s family.