Chapter 72: Geniuses on the Left, Madmen on the Right (II)

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Chapter 72: Geniuses on the Left, Madmen on the Right (II) Schiller was summoned back by the principal. Even though he could control things remotely, he still needed someone to oversee the affairs of the psychiatric hospital. That responsibility fell onto Bruce. Schiller confidently delegated all the work to Bruce. Bruce couldn't help but feel that Professor Schiller had more faith in him than he had in himself. He was just a freshman student, and he was taking over an atypical psychiatric hospital for his first internship. While this psychiatric hospital didn't have any real psychiatric patients, it was even more dangerous and troublesome than dealing with actual patients. When Bruce questioned his ability to handle the job, Schiller told him, "Sometimes, you don't realize you're a genius until you push yourself." On his first day of work, Bruce encountered a major problem - he couldn't distinguish one person from another. Even though he had memorized thick patient files, including all their names, room numbers, and corresponding medical records, which would have been more than sufficient for a regular hospital, this place was different. Behind the names and diagnoses in their files lay complex social identities. Who belonged to which gang? Which gangs had hostile relationships? Who used to be enemies, and who were now partners? None of this information was discernible from the patient files. Listening to Schiller talk about the telephone, Bruce had picked up some clues. His extraordinary memory turned these fragments into valuable insights. Without understanding everyone's social identities and relationships, he could deduce them from these clues. Moreover, Bruce was skilled at disguises. Just as he had concealed his playboy identity, here in the hospital, he became a billionaire who was carefree and affluent but yearned for the gang life. The identity of the world's richest person gave him certain advantages. Gang members didn't expect the world's richest person to approach them with ulterior motives. So, when Bruce showed an interest in gang stories, the gang leaders simply thought this young billionaire, like any wealthy heir, had grown tired of a life of comfort and longed for the excitement of the gang world. Thus, when they shared their stories, Bruce could still extract valuable information about gang society and relationships, even though he suspected they had embellished some of the tales. In a city where almost everyone had ties to a gang, understanding the intricate web of gang relationships meant uncovering the city's underlying structure.Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com Bruce realized that the rules of survival in this city were far more complex than he had imagined. Starting with small gangs at the bottom, even a gang with just a dozen members had its own rules of survival. These small gangs often handled street patrols and petty crimes and paid protection fees to larger gangs that controlled them. Moving up the ladder, gangs with hundreds of members, considered mainstream in Gotham, often controlled one or two industries, such as shops or factories. They provided protection for these industries, controlled their smaller gangs, and occasionally engaged in small-scale shootouts when conflicts arose over customers. However, these conflicts rarely escalated beyond a few handgun shots fired from behind cars. Further up were the large gangs with several hundred members, each specializing in a specific industry vital for their survival. Bruce discovered that these gangs even had specialized subdivisions within their industries. At this scale, they often controlled smuggling routes or had complete production and distribution chains for specific products. Some excelled in dominating the majority of an industry, while a few managed to achieve near-monopolies in certain regions or sectors. At this level, their daily profits were astonishingly high, but they also faced saturation. Bruce asked, "Is Gotham better than the city you wanted to besiege?" If it weren't for the fact that this was coming from a seemingly knowledgeable old man, Bruce would have thought he was out of his mind. "I know you gents with respectable backgrounds think this city is rotten to the core, full of gangs and criminals everywhere. But for people like us, it doesn't matter where we work; we give our all to whoever pays the most." "In Gotham, as long as you're an official member of a gang, you actually earn quite a bit. And if you're like me, owning a restaurant or a bar, it's not much different from running a big business." "Moreover, here, gang members are safer. There's a unique order in place, and if you don't want to declare war on a gang, it's best not to mess with their people, even if it's just a low-level thug." "So, those who join gangs to make ends meet are actually safer here than anywhere else because the gangs rule the roost. Once you're part of a gang, your words carry more weight." "I know, I know..." Lai Fuqiang put down his cigarette and said, "I'm well aware that being a hitman will lead to consequences. I'll go to hell, face the judgment of Satan, but I don't care. Do you know why?" Before Bruce could respond, Lai Fuqiang continued, "I need to fill my belly first, earn more money, and have a better life." "God didn't place me in a comfortable family like yours. My father lost everything to gambling, my mother ran away with someone else, and my only possession was this old and unreliable gun. So, I thought, why not do this? What else can I do?" "After coming to Gotham, I realized that the people who built this city must have been geniuses. Don't you think these gangs are organized too perfectly? It's almost impossible for gangs to spontaneously organize these industries." "So, how did this city become the way it is today? Could it be that someone intentionally designed it like this? What's their purpose? Do they have the ability to plan these industries so perfectly? Why turn it into a city of crime? Couldn't they do something else?" "Gotham is simply the oddest among all American cities. It runs smoothly in a strange and twisted manner, carving its own path to becoming one of the most prosperous cities on the East Coast. It's achieved high GDP rankings through an absurd approach, and people not only survive here but thrive." "Its creator must be a genius, turning chaos into order, creating a new model of city operation almost out of thin air. But at the same time, he must be a madman, using his crazy ideas to build the world's largest haven of crime." Bruce thought, maybe here, genius and madness are separated by a thin line, and Gotham is like the coin balancing between them, ready to topple at any moment. But it continues to teeter on that line. Everyone here, just like this city, is a double-edged sword. They are both gifted geniuses and unparalleled madmen. Genius to the left, madness to the right, and everyone in Gotham follows the traffic rules here— "I go straight; I never turn."

Chapter 72: Geniuses on the Left, Madmen on the Right (II)

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