Chapter 72: Genius on the Left, Madman on the Right (Part 2)

Schiller was called back by the principal. Even if he could remotely control the hospital, he still needed other people to manage the affairs of the mental hospital. This task fell on Bruce.

Schiller was very confident and threw all the work to Bruce. Bruce always felt that the professor had more confidence in him than he did in himself.

He was just a freshman, and he had to take over an atypical mental hospital in his first internship. Although there was no real mental patient in this mental hospital, he was more dangerous and troublesome than a mental patient.

When Bruce questioned whether he could do the job, Schiller told him: "Sometimes, if you don't push yourself, you don't know you are a genius."

On the first day of work, Bruce encountered a big problem. He couldn't tell who was who here.

Although he had memorized all the patient files as thick as a book, and remembered all their names, room numbers and corresponding medical records, if this was in an ordinary hospital, it would be enough for an intern to do this.

But unfortunately, there was no mental patient in the traditional sense here. Behind their names and diagnosis books was an extremely complex social identity.

Who is a member of which gang? Which gang has a bad relationship with which gang? Who used to be an enemy of whom? Who is a partner of whom? This information cannot be seen from the medical records.

In the past, Bruce probably heard some of Schiller's phone calls. His memory, which is far superior to that of ordinary people, made this information a gift package for his beginners. It doesn't matter if he can't figure out everyone's social identity. He can reverse it from these existing clues.

In addition, Bruce is very good at disguise, just like his disguise of the playboy identity. In this hospital, he became a rich man with a bold personality, pampered and comfortable, but full of yearning for the gangster life.

The identity of the world's richest man provides him with a lot of benefits. Generally, no gang member thinks that the world's richest man will deliberately come to him to talk. Therefore, when Bruce showed interest in the gangster story, the gang leaders just thought that this young rich man, like the son of a rich man, had lived a comfortable life for too long and yearned for the exciting life in gangster movies.

Therefore, although they added a lot of their own fabrications when telling stories, Bruce can still infer real and useful information about the social relations of gangs from these stories.

In a city where almost everyone is related to gangs, figuring out the complicated gang relations almost means figuring out all the threads of the city's bottom layer.

Bruce found that the survival rules of this city are much more complicated than he imagined.

Starting from the small gangs at the bottom, even a small group of only a dozen people, they have their own survival rules.

These small gangs often undertake the business of patrolling the streets and petty thefts, and they also have to pay protection fees to larger gangs for their use.

And the larger gangs, which can have hundreds of people, are the mainstream of Gotham. Most of them have one or two industries, which may be shops or factories.

They provide protection for these industries, drive away troublemakers, and remotely control their small gangs to solicit customers. When conflicts arise over customers, they will also have small-scale fights, but they basically hide behind the car and shoot a few shots with a pistol, and rarely use large-scale firepower.

Going up, there are large gangs with hundreds of people. These gangs have reached another level. Each of them has at least one special industry to survive. Bruce found that these damn gangs have even achieved industry segmentation.

When they reach a scale of hundreds of people, they often control at least one smuggling chain or a complete industrial chain of planting, refining and sales, or they control the vast majority of industries in the red-light district. Some of the best among them have even achieved a monopoly in a certain industry in a certain area.

At this level, the profits they can grab every day have reached a rather astonishing level, and saturation has also occurred.

Above that, they can no longer be called gangs, but family crime groups. The twelve gang families that rule Gotham, except for the core force controlled by their bosses, actually do not have any business that they need to personally handle. What they have to do is to remotely control these big gangs. Each gang family has dozens or hundreds of big gangs under their command, who are in charge of different businesses in different areas.

When Falcone established the twelve families, he used twelve different industries to let them focus on their own.

And Falcone is at the top of the pyramid, giving orders to all families and gangs.

In the collection and analysis of this information, Bruce found that the seemingly chaotic and disorderly rules of Gotham are actually a very solid pyramid. Wealth is extracted from the criminal industry layer by layer, and then redistributed and produced by the top.

In such a cycle, Gotham has created its own unique ecosystem and created the largest criminal industry gathering place in the United States.

At the same time, Bruce found that, unlike what he had imagined, from the perspective of sociology and economics, the city's industrial structure was damn healthy. Whether it was the distribution of industrial volumes at all levels or the division of so-called industrial clusters, it was actually better than most cities in the United States.

As the investigation went deeper, Bruce began to doubt his original intention little by little, because he found that although Gotham was evil, it was not actually poor, and the people's living standards were not low. In addition to being very dangerous, the people here were quite rich.

During his travels in the United States, Bruce also studied the living standards of people in major cities in the United States. He found that the living standards of most people in this damn city of Gotham were actually much higher than the passing line.

During his visit to the hospital, Bruce met an old man from the fortress, and people called him "Rifle".

Rifle was originally going to rush into the city, but his daughter married a small gang leader in Gotham. This small gang leader was maliciously framed, and his daughter almost suffered misfortune. Rifle, who received his daughter's call for help, rushed to Gotham with an old-fashioned rifle and killed the gang members who wanted to frame his son-in-law with a few shots.

The Lauren family, one of the twelve families, took a fancy to the old man's temper and his good skills. Now he is the owner of a restaurant in the West District of the Lauren family.

Unlike other gang members, this old man really came to the hospital. He has a long-term headache, which seems to be a complication of anxiety, so his son-in-law found a relationship to send him in for treatment. After two courses of treatment, he has improved a lot.

"Everywhere is the same, everywhere is the same..."

Rifle, smoking a cigar, leaned on the hospital bed and said to Bruce: "How good do you think it will be to storm the city? Everyone lives on clean streets, every family has a car to drive, and children go to school in school uniforms?"

He took another puff of the cigarette. The old man even had some southern aristocratic manners, just like a real rifle.

With smoke, he slowly recalled: "When I met Mary, you know, it was decades ago... At that time, I was a poor boy, and I was also struggling in the city with bare hands..."

"There are gangs in Yaoqiang, and there are gangs everywhere. I work for them, but it's not as good as Gotham. I earn too little, sometimes I don't even have a penny in my pocket. I want to marry Mary, but I have no money, how can we get married?"

"So, I took a gun and started a killer business, which made my life better. When my daughter was born, I was doing well. Although I haven't read much, I think Gotham is much better."

Bruce said: "Gotham is better than Yaoqiang?"

If it weren't for the old man who looked quite knowledgeable, Bruce would have thought he was crazy.

"I know that you guys with decent status think that this city is rotten, with gangs everywhere and everyone is a criminal, but for people like us, we work hard for whoever we work for, and we will follow whoever pays more."

"In Gotham, as long as you are a formal member of a gang, you can actually make a lot of money, and for someone like me who owns a restaurant or a bar, it's no different from running a big business."

"And here, the members of the gang are actually safer. There is a set of order here. If you don't want to declare war on a gang, it's best not to touch its people, even if it's just a small gangster at the bottom."

"So, those who join the gang to support their families are actually safer than other places, because the gang has the final say here. Once you become a member of the gang, you can speak more effectively."

"I know, I know..." Rifle put down the cigarette and said, "I know very well that being a killer will be punished. I will go to hell and Satan's judgment will be waiting for me, but I don't care. Do you know why?"

Before Bruce answered, and the rifle said by itself: "I have to fill my stomach first, make more money, and live a better life."

"God didn't let me be born in a family like you who has no worries about food and clothing. My father lost everything in gambling, and my mother ran away with someone else. My only property is an old gun that doesn't work very well. So I thought, I just did it, what can I do?"

"After coming to Gotham, I found that the person who built this city must be a genius. Don't you think these gangs are planned too well? It even achieved a perfect balance, allowing the city to operate for a long time, and people live well."

"What's the name of a man under my son-in-law?... Forget it, we all call him "One Hand". His left hand was cut off by his father who took drugs and his brain was damaged when he was a child. But he has been working with the casino owner on their street since he was a child, specializing in throwing dice. He even bought a car last year and is getting married next month."

"The gang industry is huge, and they are in short supply of people. As long as they have hands and feet and can work, they will accept anyone."

"Children who don't go to school can learn a skill by joining gangs. Those who are a little smart can work in restaurants and learn to cook from the boss, or go to bars to learn how to mix drinks. The best ones are those who can learn skills in casinos, and they are all born smart."

"Those who are agile can become pickpockets, those with good eyesight can be sentinels, and the worst can learn a few fighting skills from others. There are so many gangs, restaurants, bars, casinos, and car repair shops, all of which need either employees or security guards. You can make a living anywhere."

"In my opinion, the economy has been better in the past two years. I will save some money. You can even buy a small independent house on the edge of the rich area in the south. Oh, you should live in the center of there, after all, they say you are a rich man. "

"My grandson is not as lucky as you, but it is enough, much better than me. At least he was born in a house that will not leak, and his mother takes good care of him, and his father makes money outside. We live well, right?"

Perhaps because of the headache, the old man seemed very energetic and kept mumbling some details of his life. At this time, Bruce's thoughts drifted far away.

The words of the rifle made him start thinking.

Gotham's criminal industry planning is very perfect, which is almost impossible to be formed naturally. The gangs are born from chaos, and it is impossible for everyone to spontaneously organize these industries.

So how did this city become the weird look it is today?

Is it possible that someone really designed it like this on purpose?

Then what is his purpose? He has the ability to plan the industrial chain so perfectly, so why does he have to make it a crime capital? Can't we do something else?

Gotham is simply the biggest wonder among all cities in the United States. It has been running smoothly for such a long time in a bizarre and twisted posture. It has become one of the most prosperous cities on the East Coast by taking a different approach. It has rushed to the forefront of GDP in cities in the United States in an extremely outrageous way. People's living standards are not only up to standard, but also excellent.

His creator must be a genius. He wrote order with disorder and created a new urban operation model almost out of thin air.

But at the same time, he must be a madman. He used his crazy creativity to create the world's largest sin city with his own hands.

Bruce thought, maybe here, genius and madness are only separated by a thin line. Gotham is like a coin standing between the two of them. It seems that it will fall at any time, but until today, it is still swinging on this line.

Everyone here, like this city, has two sides. They are both geniuses with special talents and unparalleled madmen.

Geniuses are on the left, lunatics are on the right, and everyone in Gotham follows the same traffic rules as here—

I go straight and never turn.