Chương 2597: Chapter 1819: The Summer of Fools' Village (31)_1

At 23 Camphor Street, where the former Living Hell (an establishment in Gotham) once stood, Selina sat on a window seat, fiddling with several chunky, beaded trinkets and gazing into the central courtyard of the building.

Across from her, Maggie wasn't sitting in her wheelchair. She was resting on the edge of the bed with two boxes on the bedside table and three bags on the floor, all filled with a variety of sparkly little items.

In her hands, Maggie held a thin nylon cord, meticulously threading selected small pieces from the boxes onto it. Every so often, she would tie a decorative knot, her fingers dancing until a Gotham-style, intricately designed bracelet came to life.

The reason this bracelet embodied a Gotham aesthetic was because it wasn't merely decorated with delicate gemstones or polished beads. Instead, it featured reddish-brown nuts and bolts, chain links, bullet casings adorned with the names of popular rap artists and, most notably, a metal tag stamped with a bat design at the center.

The chain that Selina was assembling was somewhat similar, except it incorporated more metal components and even resin replicas of hearts and brains. This trinket showcased a slightly gothic and gloomy style reminiscent of Gotham's unique aesthetic.

Bruce had been very busy for a period of time, and Selina had not been sitting idly. After making waves with a minor stint in Hollywood, many directors were taken with her looks and figure and wanted her to play decorative roles in their movies.

Working in film was a novelty for Selina and she preferred not to take roles that she didn't find interesting. After some time off, she returned to Gotham, where her close friend Maggie had found a new source of income: setting up her own stall.

Given her poor health, Maggie couldn't do heavy manual labor. She had been helping out at a church, assisting the priest with counting donations, making shopping lists, and other tasks. The work wasn't demanding, but it didn't pay much either. With Maggie's dream of saving enough money to buy sperm from a sperm bank to have a child of her own, she had been on the lookout for a better-paying job.

When Gotham's tourism industry was just taking off, Maggie noticed that the merchandise sold in the mob-controlled districts was patchy in quality. Merchants would offer anything and everything that local factories produced. Pax badges lacked even the simple inclusion of a pin, not to mention high-quality accessories.

Spotting a business opportunity, Maggie approached a mob-associated woman who she used to know. She bought a small pack of miniature badges through her and procured ropes and second-hand ornament parts from a flea market to craft a few bracelets at home. She then went to sell her products near the beach.

She did not set up a traditional stall or obstruct foot traffic but instead displayed her goods on a cloth draped over her wheelchair. She ventured amongst the crowds to sell, with the mafia turning a blind eye to her activities.

Whether it was out of sympathy or due to a real gap in the market for such trinkets in Gotham, Maggie's products sold quickly. In under two hours, she sold out and profited nearly thirty U.S. dollars.

For a woman of poor health, this was a substantial income. She bought the raw materials from the mob and put most of her savings into buying the Gotham-themed accessories they produced, which didn't amount to more than seven or eight dollars. She invested another three dollars in ropes and micronized accessories but yielded twofold in profit, an astonishing return.

It wasn't that Gotham didn't offer more lucrative work, but Maggie's poor health condition and dependency on a wheelchair limited her choices. Working at the church, she could only earn around thirty cents a day, hardly enough to live on. Yet, within a day of crafting and selling, she amassed a significant amount of savings, an extraordinary feat for someone of her circumstances in Gotham.

Before Selina returned to Gotham, Maggie had been making and selling her jewelry. Upon her return, Selina spotted an even bigger business opportunity. Even though Catwoman wasn't particularly interested in running a business, her success in Gotham was a testament to her sharp instincts.

She approached the mob controlling the local streets and showed them the fruits of Maggie's handicraft skills. At first, they were dismissive, so Selina set up a stall right outside their door.

The mob couldn't allow her to operate with impunity. However, within ten minutes of mobilizing to shut down her operation, a group of passing graffiti enthusiasts bought all of Selina's items.

They adorned themselves with the chains and wore the lock pendants as earrings. They even requested that Selina return the next day, as they found the accessories incredibly cool and wanted to send some to their friends.

Seeing the business potential, the mob agreed to cooperate with Selina. They mobilized people flagged as non-combatants or those who couldn't easily socialize, organizing them to craft small trinkets from the factory-made metal parts according to Selina's design blueprints, and set up stalls to sell their products.

Gothamites had developed a unique aesthetic, distinct from mainstream tastes, due to their unusual living environment. The designs Selina provided were simple, like hanging metal badges on ropes or converting unusual miniature artifacts into earrings or pendants.

However, the unique thoughts and imaginations of Gotham residents led to huge strides in style and design. Long-time mob workers chose and combined accessories according to their own preferences, consequently creating a vast range of pure prison-style bracelets, earrings, and pendants.

Selina was exasperated by the situation but, to her surprise, out-of-towners were fascinated by these uniquely styled pieces. In particular, industrial-style accessories made from bullet casings, bolts, and metal bearings were usually sold out as soon as they hit the stalls.

Left with no other choice, Selina had to adjust her designs. The mob, seeing the potential for profit in such designs, began requesting factories to produce more parts in similar styles. Soon, nearly all the accessories sold in Gotham's stalls embodied this industrial theme.

This solved a significant employment problem for Gotham's frail, elderly, and disabled residents. Anyone who could still move their hands could sit and craft accessories for hours. It also gave many school children supervised after-school activities. They divided their workload; some children were responsible for purchasing, others for crafting, some for securing space at the markets, and some for selling the finished items.

Suddenly, Gotham had a new kind of street vendor, children adorned with necklaces, bracelets, pendants, and earrings, selling the little trinkets they'd created all around the city.

Maggie considered joining in, but quickly realized she was not cut out for business. She didn't have the guts of Selina. She would become breathless after a bit of chit-chat. Her survival thus far was simply due to good luck. Handling negotiations with street mobs or securing vendor spots was not what she can do.

So, Selina and the mob she first teamed up with struck a deal. They secured the right to use a vendor booth for three days every week. Maggie led a group of five or six kids from her apartment building in creating the merchandise, which they sold at the booth when the time came.

Even though the market was somewhat oversaturated, and their production rate couldn't compete with the well-staffed mob, they managed to make a few dozen dollars a week, and Maggie was nearing her savings goal.

They were due to set up shop again tomorrow, but three kids in Maggie's team had succumbed to heat stroke and couldn't work. They couldn't even fill one table with their products. An overly sparse booth would significantly reduce the shopping desire of passersby, so Selina came to help Maggie speed up production.

As Maggie crafted a bracelet, she looked up and asked, "Have you read the recent newspapers?"

Selina nodded and said, "Indeed. The front page headlines have been quite interesting."

Maggie let out a bitter smile and sighed, "You're optimistic. Do you know that the reporters are looking for you everywhere, trying to squeeze evidence of Bruce Wayne's psychological abuse out of you?"

Selina snorted, "I'm positive about one thing. If Bruce really wanted to sleep with that woman named Talya, he wouldn't need to resort to drugs. He wouldn't need money either. His face alone is the best weapon."

"And I'm even more certain that if he drugged Talya, there's no way she'd be able to detect the residual drug in any clinic in Gotham, or any clinic in the world, for that matter."

Maggie covered her face with her hand. "I just can't figure out how the two of you get along in daily life. I'm very sure you two could end up in a mental hospital together, without the need for an extra nurse."

"That's about the gist of it." Selina waved her hand dismissively.

"But I'm still a bit worried, Selina. Of course, I'm not saying that he really has mind control over you or anything, you'd surely scratch him all over. Several times you've complained to me about the constraints of high society. If the two of you really were to get married, the troubles would certainly multiply. Could you adapt?" Maggie shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't even mention it. Just thinking about it gives me a headache." Selina dropped the item in her hand, covered her head with her hands, took a seat next to Maggie and lay back. She looked at the ceiling and said, "Honestly, we've discussed marriage before, and just the thought of the process already exhausts me."

"Do you know? He probably plans on inviting the entire human race to bear witness as I parade around in a wedding dress Jesus might have prepared for when his mother was getting married, in a necklace made from gemstones plucked from the crowns of twenty-six English queens, stepping on a carpet that has been woven since humans descended from trees. My lips, painted with a lipstick made from seventy-two of the most poisonous human mushrooms but is completely non-toxic and changes into god knows how many colors, will then kiss him."

Maggie chuckled softly, "Shouldn't you feel cherished by him?"

"Oh, 'cherished', that's the word." Selina stretched out two fingers and made air quotes, saying, "All this to tell everyone, that even though I've married a girl from the slums, I can dress her up like Queen Mary, like it's a 'you-can't-tell-she's-a-country-bumpkin' competition."

"Selina, don't say that." Maggie reached out to pat Selina's head, saying, "That's not a very auspicious analogy."

"But one look at that Italian designer's eyes and I know he plans on choking me with around ten kilograms of collar weight."

"I don't know why it has to be this way." Selina sighed, "I feel like he's misunderstood something. I should find time to talk to him."

"Talking always helps." Maggie spoke out in encouragement. "Maybe you can tell him if something about this is making you uncomfortable."

"Then he'll look terribly sad, like it's my fault for not joining him in his 'how much stuff can we hang on a doll' game. Like I've let down his affections, so he's decided to die right now to show me. Can you understand how lethal such an expression is, with that face and those eyes of his?"

"Wait a second." Maggie suddenly looked at Selina alarmed. "I take back what I said earlier. Are you sure you're not under his mind control?"

"Damn, of course, I am - just like how you get mind-controlled by every rain-soaked, pitiful puppy you see in a cardboard box on a street corner on rainy nights."

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