Every city has so many streets that people do not often walk.
Take this one for example.
It is huddled next to 22nd Street, no street sign, no light post, no name, not even a sewer at the entrance, like a wall from the two ends of the masonry, but will converge when there are no bricks, so it is irresponsible to leave such a gap, so small that you may miss it with a sneeze.
Likewise, the street's facilities are also very well matched with it.
There is a street lamp that has not been repaired for 10 years, two garbage cans that are always full, a few feral cats that frequent the street, flies that never die, and a small private hospital.
In fact, this small building can not be called a hospital, even a clinic, it only has two floors, it looks more like a decades-old gothic photo studio, or a pawn shop or something like that, but I do not know who bought it and put up a sign that says [HOSPITAL].
...
3:00 AM.
Dr. Zira stood in front of the sink, rinsing his hands with the cold water.
He hated all holidays, he didn't understand why people had to pick so many days out of the year to do something silly and pretend it meant something.
For example, this Halloween, everyone is wearing skeletons, carrying pumpkin lanterns, swinging in the street, making cheers of unknown significance. Those teenage children are also full of mother's foundation, to smash the neighbors' doors, and the reason is to ask for a few pieces of candy, who know they do not eat a few pieces of candy throughout the year, they would rather go to smoke marijuana.
Thankfully, they didn't come knocking on the door of this hospital, otherwise Ziliang wasn't sure if he would have poked a needle into their eyes.
Turning off the faucet, Ziliang hastily wiped his hands on his white coat and dried the water stains on it, he raised his head, and in the mirror in front of him, a thin face was reflected.
Messy hair, a kidney-like miserable white skin, although only 20 years old, but has not been much shaved beard makes him look more like the early 30s, and a pair of long-term insomnia and increasingly serious dark circles under the eyes ...
Yeah ... insomnia again.
Outside those bastard residents surprisingly until midnight, before they are willing to go back to sleep, and just after a half hour of silence, the streets surprisingly began to constantly appear annoying alarm bells, and more and more intensive, until this moment has not stopped.
No need to think, it must be some criminal escaped from prison again, it is estimated that the person thinks, today even in a prison uniform standing in the street, no one will think they have anything wrong.
Another series of vehicles drove by, police lights shone into this small doctor's office, and a few red and blue lights flashed on the walls.
Zi Liang came to the window and quietly pulled out a cigarette.
For some reason, he didn't turn on the light, so a scarlet bright spot flared up in the darkness. The smoke shrouded his face in a blur, and Ziliang realized helplessly that it should be dawn in a few hours.
Solely, he just stood there in the darkness, faintly smoking a cigarette, listening to the sound of wild cats purring and looking out the window at the police cars that flashed by every now and then.
"Fuck Halloween."
"Fuck the police cars."
"Fuck Gotham ..."
...
...
The long night finally passed, and on the first day of November, the heavens gave way to a bull's-eye rain, the crash of rain on the glass and the rising and falling clamor reaching Zira's ears through the windows.
The streets of this city are like a blood vessel leading to a dying heart, which is still in a state of arteriosclerosis. But this is good, because in this weather, no one should come to patronize this inconspicuous hospital ...
So Ziliang leaned back in that sofa chair of his, trying to see if he could find a little sleep in the noise.
But right after that, a pushing sound of the door broke his plan completely.
"Hey, it must be those young people who got up early in the morning and found themselves in pain in the lower body." Zira thought so.
According to an unbelievable statistic, before and after whatever festival, it is the high time zone for the transmission of gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS and other diseases, as if young people nowadays always feel that a date on a festival will seem more sacred than on weekdays, and they don't even let go of the Qingming Festival.
But ... to Ziliang's surprise, the one who walked into his office was a police officer, and it did not seem like he was going to see a doctor.
"Hello?" Ziliang asked.
"Hello." The policeman responded, hesitated for a short while, and pointed back to the door, "Uh ... maybe you didn't notice that the bags of trash you piled up at the door are a little stinky."
"Huh?" Zi Liang hushed his eyes giving such a questionable tone, because he didn't think this man came in with the rain just to tell himself to throw the garbage.
The police officer shrugged his shoulders ...
"Well, I just stopped by to remind you." He said, then handed over a chapter of paper with a portrait on it: "Actually, the purpose of my coming is to inform you that a criminal escaped from Arkham Asylum last night, you have to be careful."
Zi Liang took the notice and looked at it, on it was drawn a hideous-looking guy, the neck was like something wrong with the thyroid gland, thick and cheeks practiced as one, of course, it was not swollen, but full of muscles, wearing a prison uniform, a shocking scar from the door of the head all the way to the chin, a look at the stitching is not very good, stitch marks make it look like a large centipede crawled under the skin.
"Oh, thanks." Zi Liang muttered, and put the notice aside.
"Hey, I say doctor, don't care, this man is not just any prisoner, but a lunatic ..."
"Crazy?" Zi Liang asked indifferently.
"Yeah, the kind of homicidal maniac who goes around sawing people with a chainsaw." The officer said, and posed with a chainsaw waving up and down: "Total lunatic, without a shred of humanity, so I hope you'll close your business by 3pm within this week, it's no joke."
Zi Liang frowned: "Which is not as terrible as you say."
The officer froze: "What do you mean?"
"I mean when I saw him last night, I thought he was kinda cute." Zi Liang muttered, then lit a cigarette and took a breathless puff.