The screen’s fluorescent glow cast a light on William’s face, where a seven-figure Arabic numeral sat quietly in an anonymous Swiss bank account.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions—exactly one million U.S.
dollars.
William leaned back into his chair, and the swivel chair let out an overburdened creak.
This sum was enough to buy up all the abandoned apartments on Lake Street in the East End.
Gotham, this man-eating hellhole, had finally shown him a sliver of capitalistic warmth.
The nerves he had kept taut for three whole months finally relaxed completely at this very second.
His fingers left the keyboard, and he rubbed his throbbing temples.
Last night’s unannounced emergency surgery, combined with the close-quarters combat with Bruce Wayne, had overtaxed his physical strength.
Even though the system had forcibly infused him with master-level combat instincts, this body, which stayed up late year-round and lacked exposure to the Sun, was still sending protest signals to his brain.
A sore, aching sensation spread through his body along his spine, and his calf muscles were spasming slightly out of control.
Fighting alone won’t get me far.
This thought jumped into his mind.
During the abdominal surgery to stop the bleeding last night, if Bruce hadn’t lunged at him but instead had a second hidden bleeding point in his spleen, William wouldn’t have even had a spare hand to grab the backup hemostatic forceps.
Surgery is never a one-man show.
The lead surgeon, the first assistant, the second assistant, the scrub Nurse, and the anesthesiologist—it’s a precision-engineered set of gears.
Right now, he was acting as the lead surgeon, the scrub Nurse, and even filling in as the physical anesthesiologist.
Sooner or later, he would drop dead from overwork on the operating table.
He had to find an assistant who could hand him instruments, handle post-operative medical waste, and most importantly, keep their mouth shut if they saw things they shouldn’t.
William pushed away the keyboard and pulled out two yellowed A4 sheets of paper from the depths of a drawer.
He uncapped a black marker, and the tip frictioned against the paper, making a harsh scratching sound.
“Hiring Medical Assistant.
Room and board included, salary negotiable.
Requirements: Basic medical knowledge or nursing experience.
Tight-lipped, tough.
No curious seekers allowed.”
The few lines of text carried an air of perfunctory dismissal.
He grabbed a nearly empty bottle of office glue and pushed open the clinic’s heavy, rusted iron door.
The rain had stopped.
In the air of the alleyway at 22 Lake Street, a sour stench of industrial exhaust mixed with fermenting sewage floated about.
William slapped one of the notices onto the mottled red brick wall, pressing the edges down firmly with his palm.
He turned around and double-locked the iron door.
His palm pressed against the ‘Medical Supplies Warehouse’ door deep inside the clinic, which was strictly off-limits, and he pushed down the handle.
A deep blue vortex rotated silently.
Stepping through, the sour stench in the air was replaced by the smell of cheap marijuana and roasted hot dogs; this was the Marvel Universe, New York’s Hells Kitchen. Get faster updates on nоvelping.com.
With the same movements, he posted the same notice on a bullet-riddled telephone pole outside the New York clinic.
By betting on both sides, he would surely catch a suitable tool.
Having finished this, William returned to the Underground Room in Gotham.
The wall clock pointed to seven in the morning.
Sunday.
This was a hard rule William had set for himself.
Sunday was an unshakeable day of rest.
Even if the sky fell, or if Captain America or Superman showed up holding their intestines and knocking on the door, he would absolutely not take the case.
He walked to the sink and turned on the faucet.
Cold Water washed over his calloused hands.
Suddenly, a very chaotic sound of footsteps came from outside the door, accompanied by the splashing sound of combat boots stepping in puddles.
“Quick, quick, quick!
Everyone smarten up!”
A gravelly voice pierced through the iron door, carrying an unmistakable tone of sycophancy.
William turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel to dry his hands.
Outside the door, an old acquaintance from Hells Kitchen, a man of Russian descent named Vasily Grekov, was leading four or five gang underlings.
They were gathered around the recruitment notice he had just posted, each stretching their necks as if observing some rare masterpiece.
“Boss, what’s written on this?
We can’t read.”
One underling scratched his colorful, messy hair.
“Idiot!” Grekov slapped the back of the underling’s head.
“Dr.
William is hiring!
Hiring an assistant!”
The iron door was pulled open from the inside, making a harsh grinding sound.
William, wearing that crumpled old shirt and holding a Mark cup that hadn’t been cleaned properly, leaned against the doorframe.
“Something the matter?”
Grekov flinched, then quickly put on a fawning smile, rubbing his hands as he stepped forward.
“Dr.
William, morning!
My brothers and I were just passing by and saw your notice.
You’re hiring, so leave it to us!”
He patted his bulletproof vest, making a solemn promise.
Just say the word, and we’ll get you whoever you want!”
The messy-haired underling who had just been hit chimed in to show off:
“Right, right, right!
Dr.
William, what do you think of the head Nurse at Gotham General?
I heard there are two blonde chicks in surgery who are real lookers and very skilled!
I’ll take a few brothers tonight to kidnap them, strip them down, and bring them for your inspection!”
William’s gaze suddenly chilled, and the Mark cup in his hand didn’t even wobble.
His right leg lifted without warning, his thigh muscles completing their charge and explosion within a tenth of a second.
A dull sound of flesh impacting flesh rang out.
The messy-haired guy didn’t even have time to scream before he was sent flying three meters back, slamming heavily into a trash can in the corner of the alley.
Sour swill poured over his head, and he lost consciousness on the spot.
The fawning smiles on the faces of Grekov and the other underlings instantly froze, their Adam’s apples bobbing with difficulty.
William retracted his leg, rubbing non-existent dust off his sole against the doorstep.
“My rules are posted on the wall in black and white.
If you want to help spread the word, fine.
But if you dare use underhanded methods like kidnapping or coercion to ruin my reputation—” He lifted his eyelids, his gaze scraping across Grekov’s neck like a scalpel.
“You know the consequences.”
Grekov broke into a cold sweat, nodding frantically like a chicken pecking at grain.
He scrambled to pick up his unconscious companion and fled from Lake Street as if for his life.
Having dealt with that group of idiots, William turned and went back into the clinic.
Sunday was his statutory day of rest, but last night’s rescue of Bruce Wayne, that two-hundred-pound Beast, had exhausted almost all the medical bandages, high-concentration alcohol, and povidone-iodine in the warehouse.
Not even half a suture was left.
To deal with the life-threatening missions that could appear at any time, he had to personally go to the Upper East Side to restock.
Gotham’s sky was still a lifeless leaden gray, with heavy clouds pressing down on the tips of the skyscrapers.
Fortunately, it wasn’t raining heavily for once.
William changed into an extremely inconspicuous dark black trench coat, pulled his hat brim low, and blended into the relatively prosperous streets of the Upper East Side.
There were no bullet holes or foul stenches everywhere like in the East End; the air here wafted with the mixed scent of freshly ground coffee and high-end perfume.
William had just reached the entrance of a large chain medical supermarket, his fingers not yet touching the metal handle of the glass door, when a pig-slaughtering scream suddenly erupted from the crowd behind him.
“My wallet!
Damn it!
A thief!
Who stole my wallet!”