American comics: Praising the sun, starting from Gotham!

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The sports car has excellent sound insulation; even when the engine revs are at the redline, the cabin remains quiet.

Xiu En leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. In some ways, for his eyes, which could see the metallic ripples directly, his vision might have been a superfluous distraction.

A sharp, metallic echo, carrying a putrid and burning sensation, pulsed continuously in his senses.

It was a very unique accent, distinct from the clean, efficient, yet somewhat dull, modern, alloy-sounding accent that permeated the city center.

The smell was filled with Gotham's unique dampness and greasiness, as well as a hint of madness that was not unfamiliar to people.

This is a piece of Gotham's trash, mixed with contempt for order.

"Drive southeast, Afu. There's a place over there that smells like a giant incinerator."

Xiu En suddenly raised his hand and pointed his index finger at the front right side of the windshield.

"The smell over there... is like someone poured a whole barrel of high-octane gasoline into a pot of melting heavy metal soup, and then sprinkled some cheap, radioactive pepper powder on top."

"An industrial zone? I understand."

Alfred didn't even ask where the so-called smell was coming from.

This butler has developed an exceptional ability to adapt to Xiu En.

I drove onto the ramp leading to the suburbs.

The chimneys of the industrial area are already visible, and the sunflower on Xiu En's shoulder is starting to stir.

Instead of seeking the sun, several extremely thin vines tightly bound Xiu En's trench coat collar, their leaves even contracting in a defensive posture.

"Okay, okay, I know it's not very comfortable over there. The smell of sulfur dioxide in the air is so strong it's pungent, right?"

Xiu En gently patted the small flower on his shoulder as a comforting gesture.

"Don't be nervous. We should deal with this kind of thing that wastes metal and damages the environment with an environmentally conscious mindset."

Ivy, in her sunflower form, trembled with anger, conveying a very direct emotion: turn it into fertilizer.

Twenty minutes later, the sports car stopped outside an abandoned smelter that had been there for some years.

Even from hundreds of meters away, the unnatural heat and the blinding firelight shining through the broken windows gave the impression that the people living here were no ordinary folks.

"Looks like we're lucky; he's a grumpy friend."

Xiu En pushed open the car door, and the intense heat radiation that would be deadly to ordinary people felt like a kind of appetizer to him.

His whole body began to emit a brighter light, and even the surface of his trench coat showed a layer of flowing golden light.

"You stay in the car, Alfred. This heat probably won't cook me, but it'll definitely damage your paint. I'm going to go say hello to this fellow Gotham native and ask him why he's using that cheap depleted uranium as fuel when he's on a business trip all this way."

Xiu En made no attempt to hide anything and kicked open the large iron gate.

Amidst the roaring flames, a figure clad in fireproof heavy armor and carrying a jetpack hovered above a massive waste pool, venting something.

That was none other than Firefly, Gotham's veteran pyrotechnician.

He was fiddling with a flamethrower that looked to have undergone some kind of dangerous and illegal modification. The originally orange-red flames now had an eerie, pale green hue due to the presence of depleted uranium powder, and the high temperature almost distorted the surrounding air.

"Hey! That big, fluttering moth up there!"

Xiu En looked up and shouted, the golden light in the dim factory room more dazzling than the flame in the other person's hand.

"Since we're both from Gotham, can't we at least follow the rules there? Using depleted uranium, are you trying to add some radioactive fluorescent paint to The Flash's nighttime running route?"

"Ah!! My eyes! Did you shove a searchlight into your mouth?!"

Even with specially made, heavy goggles, the high-frequency, intense light that exploded on his retina at close range still made the firefly scream.

Tears blurred his vision instantly under the bright light, but the muscle memory he had built up over the years of crime in Gotham made him instinctively pull the trigger.

The flamethrower roared, and a ghastly green fire dragon roared as if it wanted to engulf the golden humanoid light source in front of it.

The intense heat instantly licked Xiu En's trench coat, but was strangely swallowed up when it came into contact with that layer of flowing golden light.

Xiu En even had to pretend to be tasting red wine, even though it was actually a radiant flame at several thousand degrees.

"Pah, I'll just say it directly, it's true."

The voice emanating from the golden light remained languid, even carrying a hint of disappointment and disdain.

"Enough! You're just a glib-tongued fool! Stop criticizing everything!"

The sunflower on Xiu En's shoulder suddenly pulled itself out of the trench coat collar, its slender leaves even human-like, hands on its hips, and the center of the flower head, which should have been bearing seeds, seemed to have a real, angry little face twisted out.

"The sulfides from the fuel this guy is using are killing the plants here! It's unforgivable!"

The cement floor of the abandoned factory also cracked open.

There were no gaps in the ground for plants to grow, but that didn't deter an angry nature guardian.

At the same time, Xiu En also helped to wrap the fireflies with a dozen or so rusted and bent discarded steel bars nearby.

Ivy's vines roared and twisted underground, then shot skyward like tentacles reaching out from hell.

"What...what the hell is this?!"

The firefly, still flying erratically in mid-air trying to create distance, felt a tightening around its ankle. The pulling force from the cold, hard metal completely ignored the maximum power of the thrusters on its back.

"This is called green and environmentally friendly recycling, understand?"

Xiu En kindly acted as the commentator, even though he himself took a step to the side.

The steel bars and vines, like a giant python constricting its prey, instantly wrapped around the fireflies in mid-air.

The thrusters creaked and groaned under the pressure of the metal, then with a hiss, they went out. The arsonist who wanted to burn down the city center crashed heavily onto the ashes-covered ground like a broken iron dumpling.

"Thanks, Xiaohua."

Xiu En stretched out his fingers and straightened the sunflower, whose leaves had curled up from anger, back onto his shoulder, then walked toward the still twitching rice dumpling.

"Alright, buddy, now let's talk about who owns that awful-smelling, radioactive shotgun, and who gave you that disgusting fuel formula?"