You, go take out Two-Face and Batman!

Losing one's job right in the middle of a workday is, to Ma Zhaodi, a brand of humor roughly equivalent to watching Ultraman and the rest of the crew team up for a raid boss.

To borrow someone else's phrasing: after all the fighting, only the raid party was left.

"Wait, what about everyone else in this damn restaurant? Are they just going to get dragged in and never let out? Where is Falcone? Falcone, do something!"

He pulled out his phone to call Donald and the manager. Predictably, neither call went through. But that was to be expected; even Falcone couldn't just round up a crew and storm the Gotham City Police Department in the middle of the night to rescue people.

"Then what about me?" Ma Zhaodi stood alone outside the Red Dragon Restaurant, slowly donning a mask of agony, looking like a husky abandoned by the pack. "I'm unemployed again? Unemployed before I even get my end-of-the-month pay?"

Strictly speaking, it wasn't that he hadn't received his end-of-the-month pay; he had simply drawn that five thousand dollars in advance at the beginning of the month, meaning he just missed out on the asset point settlement at month's end.

"Damn it, my five thousand dollars in asset points..." The mere thought of his heavy financial loss caused a dull ache in Ma Zhaodi's chest. "Batman, you have no conscience, you've done every evil deed in the book, you're utterly inhuman! Of all the days in the month, you just had to pick payday to crack down on criminals. I swear..."

"What is this guy sitting on the curb muttering about?"

"Can't understand him, ignore him, let's hurry. There are so many lunatics in Gotham, we don't need to provoke another one."

Just then, two passersby watched as the man on the curbside raised his head and flashed them his middle finger. "Eat shit."

"Hey, you..."

"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..."

The phone in his pocket suddenly rang. Ignoring the angry pedestrians nearby, Ma Zhaodi answered the call himself.

"Hello? Is this Ma Zhaodi?"

"It's me. And you are?"

"Donald is temporarily stuck in the hospital under police watch, but he mentioned you to us—I heard your skills are quite good?"

***

Holy crap, the Falcone family actually has internal referrals! Donald, you absolute angel!

"What kind of skills are you talking about?" Even though he wanted to take the job on the spot, Ma Zhaodi asked cautiously, "Just to be clear, I don't know how to use a gun."

"He said your nerve and luck are good, and you have a quick wit. You blocked a bit of trouble for the restaurant."

Fair is fair: considering the psychological trauma the manager suffered throughout the whole ordeal, attributing that "trouble" to him was probably more accurate.

"That's right, it was me!" Ma Zhaodi's gaze turned resolute as he admitted it right then and there with a decisive tone. "Donald is a great boss; he saw my potential at a glance. When a restaurant runs into trouble like that, naturally I couldn't shirk responsibility—I was the first one up there helping out!"

Clearly, ever since arriving in Gotham, his thick-skinnedness was the one thing progressing faster than his driving skills.

"Man, you don't have to go that far..." The person on the other end seemed slightly thrown off. After adjusting his mood a bit, he said, "Anyway, what Donald requested, the brothers won't forget. But I heard you're new to Gotham and haven't joined any gang yet?"

"Yeah, I don't know how to use a gun, and I don't dare slash anyone, so I can only scrape by making a living doing odd jobs."

"Afraid to slash people, but brave enough for a shootout?" The man on the phone chuckled. "A clean background isn't a bad thing, though—come to work tomorrow. Just remember, you're serving the Falcone family and the Maroni family, not working for some stray cats and dogs in Gotham City, so be prepared."

Ma Zhaodi: ?

Wait, how the hell did the Maroni family get dragged into this? He had originally thought his record was barely passable, but now he had completely plunged into the giant dyeing vat of organized crime.

"Hold on, what kind of job is this?"

"Your old line of work: waiter."

***

And so, on the very day he lost his job, Ma Zhaodi found a new one, becoming a dedicated waiter for the Falcone family.

As the premier crime family in Gotham City, they naturally maintained the appropriate pomp and circumstance. Holidays, family weddings and funerals, various banquets, and social engagements with other gangs occurred in an endless stream. Waiters were drawn exclusively from a trusted and capable pool of personnel who had served the family for years or had been recommended by members. In the sharp-eyed view of Donald, Ma Zhaodi fit right into that category.

***

Not everyone was willing to brave a hail of bullets to come to work in Gotham, nor was everyone bold enough to engage in a gunfight with the Penguin's mob, only to return home completely unscathed every midnight without any gang affiliation or firearms training. His standards as a waiter were high enough, and his luck was freakishly good. The fact that he hadn't joined a gang, nor become an informant for any faction, meant his mind wasn't overly restless. In other words, he was suitably foolish and sufficiently trustworthy.

Ma Zhaodi: *Being an informant doesn't give you asset points.*

"Remember, at the end of next month, the Roman is hosting a party on a yacht. All of you must prepare in advance—this is extremely important. Both Falcone and Maroni will be attending, and nothing can go wrong. Ma Zhaodi, if there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask me."

Dressed in a tailored suit, Ma Zhaodi nodded. Today was his first day of training, and frankly, it felt largely similar to his time at the Red Dragon. Aside from having a lot more things to memorize, there was virtually no difference.

His free time here was much more abundant than before. After all, banquets weren't everyday occurrences, and while everyone else was busy with their side hustles during downtime, Ma Zhaodi belonged to the rare minority with nothing to do.

He held a thick manual in his hands, filled with more items he needed to commit to memory: banquet menus, wine selections, ingredients, service etiquette, and procedural flows. Yet his attention wasn't on the manual at all; instead, he drifted toward a few people chatting nearby.

"Johnny, have you heard? I heard someone's already preparing to take on the Roman's bounty."

"Is that surprising? It's a bounty issued by the Don; with a heavy reward, there are always brave souls—plus, the Roman wouldn't treat anyone willing to take risks for him as disposable pawns."

"It's a small, obscure gang—the Irish crew. Have you heard of them?"

"There are as many obscure small gangs as there are hairs on a dog—doesn't matter which one wants to pull it off, only the one who succeeds gets the cash."

"I'm just saying, have you ever thought that instead of letting some no-name gang get that money, we might as well..."

"I advise you not to do that. There's a reason the boss doesn't let family members make a move—ever heard of Batman? I don't want my limbs broken and tossed at the door of the precinct after dealing with that prosecutor."

"Batman's on the bounty list too, a whole million—"

"Go fuck yourself. If you have a death wish, don't drag me down with you!"