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 that he was timid, because he just saw a man leaning next to him taking drugs and putting a handful of plant roots into the pot.

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

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

Bruce knew that not many people knew him. Bruce was more famous in the upper class circles, because those people could afford entertainment magazines and could often see him hanging out from bars.

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

Bruce looked down at his clothes. He was not that stupid. He came here wearing a brand name. He was wearing unbranded clothes, which were no different from those worn by Gotham citizens walking on the street.

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

The watch is easy to handle, just take it off and put it in your pocket, but if he takes off his leather shoes, where will he find shoes to wear?

Bruce looked around and found that many people were wearing boots. This was indeed a good choice. After all, it rained all year round in Gotham, and a pair of sturdy rubber boots could prevent the feet from getting wet.

Bruce was very lucky. He found a shop selling boots on the corner of the street. There was no one there when Bruce went there. He leaned his upper body into the somewhat closed store and asked, "How much do rain boots cost?"

The shop owner who was settling the accounts looked up at him and said, "Five dollars, add another two dollars, and get an umbrella as a gift..."

Bruce raised an eyebrow, 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 them 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 store owner said: "Put down the pair in your hand. They are for display. Wait a minute."

With that said, he walked into the inner room, took out a pair of boots and an umbrella, and handed it to Bruce. Bruce did not accept it immediately, but looked at it. After receiving it, he also checked it carefully. Then he handed the money to the shop owner.

On the way back, Bruce found a hot dog shop on the roadside. He spent another two dollars and bought a hot dog.

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

The next second, he frowned hard. The buns and sausages of this hot dog were pretty good, but there was too much sauce. The moment he entered the mouth, the sauce poured directly into his throat. It almost made him vomit.

In addition to the rich mayonnaise, there is also spicy chili sauce. There are several slices of pickled cucumber and chili pepper rings in the hot dog. There is almost no aroma of bread and meat flavor of sausage, leaving only the taste of sauce in the mouth.

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

Finally suppressing the weird smell of spices, Bruce coughed hard twice, shook his hands, and propped himself on the edge of the sink. He thought that maybe he was being too pretentious. In the slums, there was too much sauce. , should be considered an advantage, right?

But soon, he realized that he was too young, because within 20 minutes, he started to have stomachache.

He was caught by the mouthful of sauce before, and hurriedly went to the water pipe to drink water, but he forgot that this was not his manor, and there was no expensive and terrible water purification system. This was Mendeleev didn’t even know what was in the tap water in Gotham’s slums.

His stomach, which was used to eating bland food, was not used to the large amounts of chili sauce and chili rings. Coupled with the tap water that was as regular as the periodic table of chemical elements, Bruce squatted in the toilet all night and did not feel better until late at night. After a while, I lay on the bed and fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, it was already close to noon. Bruce wanted to go find work early in the morning, but now he was faced with another problem, that is, what to do for lunch?

Yesterday's dinner did not replenish him with any energy. Instead, it made him a little dehydrated. Now he is thirsty and hungry. He dare not eat or drink anything for fear of causing gastroenteritis again due to bacterial problems.

Now he understood what Maggie meant. It is really difficult for people who did not grow up here to survive, because in addition to having a firm will, a flexible mind, and strong endurance, you also have to have a firm will, a flexible mind, and strong endurance. Has a stomach of steel.

Suffering from weakness, Bruce felt that he still had to cook by himself. He decided to buy some food, but he didn't know where to buy it. Fortunately, when he was going downstairs, he met the Asian woman who was cooking before.

This 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 could only go further to the slaughterhouse next to it.

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

For less than one dollar, he could buy vegetables that would fill his stomach. 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 a 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 about it, scratched his head and said, "Why don't you go to the grocery market next door?"

There was a grocery market on a street not far from the vegetable supermarket, where everything was sold, 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 familiar restaurant, and the reason why the set of dishes appeared here was definitely not because the restaurant donated them out of kindness.

Walking on the road to the grocery market, Bruce seemed to have come to a large-scale stolen goods sale scene. He thought, no wonder Selina lives here, no wonder every time he didn't catch Selina 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 such organic supermarket in the slums. Bruce walked 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 carrying an iron pan and many vegetables. His back walking on the road was heavier than Batman.

After that, he went to the slaughterhouse to buy some fairly fresh ground beef. When he got back to his residence, Bruce didn't dare to use tap water to wash vegetables, or even to clean the pot. He could only fill the pot with water, put it on the stove, pour out the water after boiling, then scrub it carefully, and then boil another pot of water and let it cool, and use it to wash vegetables.

By the time he had finished cooking the vegetables, it was already past lunch time. Bruce, who was used to eating on time, felt some pain in his stomach.

After he started frying 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 in the downwind. There was no range hood, and the fumes from frying meat kept rushing towards his face, choking him so 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 hard to control the fire. A handful of spinach leaves were thrown in, and it was still not cooked after half an hour of stewing. Potato slices were thrown in, and it was cooked in two minutes.

Bruce was not very good at cooking. Being able to cook well was already a gift for him. He really couldn't grasp the heat that was closer to metaphysics.

When eating, these vegetables that were not cooked well were even more difficult for him to swallow. He ate for more than an hour. The sun had set before he finished lunch. When he was washing the pots and dishes, he was blinded by the afterglow of the sunset.

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 step onto the battlefield.

Such a great hero never thought that he would be defeated by the trivialities of the world.

He didn't think that he didn't 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 but ubiquitous unhappiness. 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 upstairs yelling, the couples quarreling downstairs, smelling the stench brought by the garbage trucks on the street, feeling the surging of gastric juice, and quietly watching 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 vegetables, cook, 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 the time to imagine themselves as the avengers in the dark. Humans standing on the ground only think about what to eat tomorrow.