Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 243 Is British food really that weird?
Please recall what you said to others before you left.

"What do you mean? What did I say to the others before I left?"

As they were talking, Ma Zhaodi suddenly realized something.

"Harvey, I need to go on a long trip and I might need your help. Do you have time?"

"Fries, I have to go on a long trip. Can you help me? Come with me?"

“Sheriff Gordon, I’d like to borrow your key. I need to go up to the rooftop to turn on the Bat-Lights and find Batman.”

"Alfred, is Bruce there? I need to speak with him."

Yes, I talked to a lot of people before I left. Basically, all the people in Gotham knew I was going on a long trip. To cover it up, I just bought a plane ticket and then sneaked back to my rented room.

"No, you didn't have to go all the way to London for me, why did you have to go to such lengths?"

[Your flight ticket is destined for London, and the system has detected that Batman is heading to the rental house. To prevent exposure, emergency response measures are being activated.]

How long have I been gone?

[Time passes during a business trip: 25 days, 21 hours, 8 minutes, and 47 seconds]
Time flows in this universe: zero seconds.

"Does your business trip involve a built-in time stop? Why didn't you say so earlier? If I had known, I wouldn't have used that lame excuse."

Ma Zhaodi looked around. It was a gloomy, drizzly day. Thin puddles of water had formed on the street, and damp bits of trash and chewing gum clung to the asphalt like unsightly patches of skin. In the distance, a flock of pigeons, completely unafraid of people, were rummaging through a large pile of garbage bags next to the sidewalk trash cans—the trash scraps were probably washed out of those bags by the rain.

“There seems to be a lot of trash,” Ma Zhaodi frowned. His sense of smell was too sensitive, and at that moment, the stench of the trash on the street was trying to penetrate his nose.

Fallen leaves, cardboard boxes, cigarette butts. Hmm? Why is there a bicycle that's been dismantled into pieces?

Ma Zhaodi shifted his gaze from the roadside to the tall buildings lining both sides of the street. The gray, blue, and white buildings were all beautiful, with stone carvings, chimneys, and some Gothic-style structures complete with pretty little spires. Warm lights shone through the large, arched white windows, offering pedestrians a slightly more reassuring feeling.

Looking at the beautiful buildings, Ma Zhaodi felt a little better, and decided to treat it as an outing to enjoy the scenery.

The streets were crowded with people, and some trees and garden plants were decorated with colorful lights. Ma Zhaodi tried to ask them how they felt about it, but in reality, the plants didn't seem to feel anything—they were just grass and trees, and didn't have such complex emotions as humans. Their instinctive thirst for water and sunlight was probably their biggest emotional fluctuation.

As Ma Zhaodi walked past a street corner, he saw two homeless men sitting on the side of the street, with cushions under their bottoms, heads down, staring silently at the ground. They neither spoke nor begged, and he couldn't tell if they were tired or just exhausted.

Ma Zhaodi thought for a moment, took out a US dollar bill from his pocket, and after a long silence, he turned around and went straight to the bank.

"Let me think... I need to open a UK bank account, and I also need a passport, then..."

You can spend $10,000 in points to upgrade your "Local Resident Status" to "Local Resident Global Status." The system will upgrade your status based on your Gotham City resident status, providing a global account, automatic visa processing, related documentation, and a phone card, etc.

"Great."

Ma Zhaodi spent 10,000 points to upgrade, but he still went to the bank afterwards. After all, the cash he had wasn't British pounds, and the US dollars he obtained in another universe had all been exchanged for gold. This stuff couldn't be spent directly and was still lying in his shop space.

Don't misunderstand, the system can't accept ordinary items, but Ma Zhaodi used a clever trick, carving the gold into a golden pumpkin. [The Ugly Golden Pumpkin Headgear That Drops Sanity]
Price: The system does not accept junk files.

Note: It's hard to imagine the mental state of the person who sculpted this—but given that it's made of gold, probably no one would refuse to own it; in a sense, it possesses a kind of numerical beauty.

Ma Zhaodi didn't care about the system's evaluation at all. It was already good enough that it could be stored. There was no need to buy a storage bag or storage ring specifically for this.

Space-related items are still too expensive.

When Ma Zhaodi walked out of the bank, he had more than £7,000 in his bank account, which he had exchanged for $10,000. Although he didn't know how long this money would last in the UK, it should be enough to live on for a month.

Anyway, he wouldn't actually stay here for the full two years of his visa. In fact, Ma Zhaodi planned to stay for a while and then return directly to Gotham—he needed to go back and check on the progress of the reform. Bruce had promised that every now and then, if the plan went smoothly, he would deposit a share into Ma Zhaodi's account, the exact amount depending on the plan's profitability.

Thinking about these things, Ma Zhaodi walked back onto the streets of London. He happened to see a food truck by the roadside, so he went over to it.

"Let me try British food and see if it's as weird as they say."

However, he was never able to taste it.

Just as Ma Zhaodi was halfway there, a Mediterranean man in a suit suddenly rushed out from the side of the road. He was covered in sweat and looked anxious. He said urgently to the man next to the food cart, "Gino, give me six Super Burgers!"

Six? Henry, what's wrong? Didn't you have lunch?

"Stop asking, just give it to me!"

Ma Zhaodi, who was standing to the side, suddenly stopped. Apart from superhumans with enhanced physiques, he had never seen anyone who could eat like this. But the fat man in front of him had an unsteady gait and was slow to react to the information around him. He didn't look like a super criminal or a superhero at all.

Perhaps some people are just naturally bigger eaters?

As Ma Zhaodi was thinking this, the man had already grabbed a hamburger in each hand and started eating.

"Slow down, Henry, slow down."

Henry opened his mouth, took a bite of half a hamburger, and then swallowed the other half. After eating six, he wanted six more, as if there was a giant baby bird inside him crying for food. A mountain of hamburgers could not fill his hungry stomach.

"Is British food really that weird?"

Ma Zhaodi sighed, but then he thought that this was the DC universe, full of extraordinary people, and that a big eater wasn't so strange. So he simply ignored it and turned to walk towards a restaurant on the street.

"Fish and chips is also a national dish of Britain, so it's not a bad idea to give it a try."

Both the UK and the US speak English, so Ma Zhaodi had no language barrier. After ordering, he sat down and took out his phone to check the news.

However, three minutes later, hurried footsteps sounded again outside the restaurant.

(End of this chapter)