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Chapter 103 Trouble and Trust
Chapter 103 Trouble and Trust
The gang noticed the movement of people, not only homeless children controlled by them or their intermediaries, but also some of their reserves—teenagers who hadn't officially joined the gang but would help with minor tasks—becoming members of the boarding school.
Zheng En wouldn't refuse to let these misguided teenagers join him, even if some of them were over eighteen. But he knew that if there was nowhere else for them to go, they would only become part of Gotham's shadow under the pressure of life.
Of course, compared to younger children, they need to put in more physical labor. Boarding school provides three meals a day, and various cleaning and lawn-mowing tasks are part of the students' learning. Sometimes the Wayne Foundation distributes free food on the street, and the students volunteer to maintain order.
Gangs are a dangerous industry, but the income is also quite good, and it's understandable that some people want to join to earn more money.
It's also normal for some people to simply have no other options and then escape once they have other choices.
But logic aside, gangsters care about their reputation. The withdrawal of these homeless children made the gangs that used them lose face, so the gang members naturally wanted to get revenge.
Initially, it was just students who were beaten up off-campus. Because they had left the gang on their own and didn't want others to know about their troubles, they mostly kept quiet.
The school is managed in small groups, with well-behaved students becoming group leaders to take care of others. Because they are all homeless children, they understand each other's hardships, and there's no need to bring issues from outside the school into the school.
Nobody wants to cause trouble and then be kicked out.
But not all gangs are willing to take things easy.
Being beaten up and let go is considered a good outcome. However, some gangs are harsh on the homeless children they control, and these children usually run away in groups of three or five. These gangs won't let them go easily.
Even if they got advance notice from their companions and hid in the school, the gangsters loitering at the school gate would still grab other students by the collar and demand to know their whereabouts.
"and then?"
When Zheng En heard about this in the principal's office, the students had already resolved the matter on their own. Harleen Quizel was standing in front of the desk with several teenagers, including Wellen, recounting what had just happened.
"They were very brave; those few people were no match for them."
Harleen smiled and praised them a few times. She was on her way back to school to rest when the incident happened, so she saw the whole thing.
When she was invited to become a psychology teacher, her lease on her apartment was about to expire. The apartment was a half-hour drive from the boarding school, and she didn't plan to renew it. Since she couldn't find a place closer to the school, she boldly asked Jung Eun for accommodation.
Jung Eun, of course, wouldn't refuse. There were plenty of vacant rooms at the school, so Harleen naturally moved in. That's why the gangsters deliberately chose a weekend when the students were out to ambush her at the school, which is how she stumbled upon the scene.
Two gangsters in black suits were loitering a short distance from the school gate. Harlin was about to walk around them when she saw them blocking two students who were traveling together.
Boarding school students are easy to spot, as most wear uniforms. Although the school doesn't have dress codes, with winter approaching and the weather turning cooler, the free uniforms are warm and comfortable, so they have no reason not to wear them.
"Hey! Kid!"
A man with a small mustache grabbed one of the students by the collar. "Heard of Daniel Finch? Tell him and all those bastards who ran off with him to get out here!"
"I...we've never heard of that name." The student was nearly unable to speak, the man with the mustache tightening his grip on his collar. "What did you say?"
"We really don't know him!"
Another student tried to pry the bearded man's hand off, but was punched in the stomach by the bearded man's accomplice and had to bend over and clutch his abdomen.
"I don't care." The man with the mustache pointed his gun at the student being strangled, then looked at another student. "Go back and call out Daniel Finch or any of the students who escaped from Henry's gang. If you can't, he's dead."
"etc!"
Harleen, who had been watching from the sidelines, couldn't stand it any longer. Before being seduced by the clown, she was a compassionate person, and now that she was teaching at a boarding school, these people could all be considered her students.
Although she felt a moment of regret after blurting it out, under the watchful eyes of the gangsters and students, she quickly made up her mind: "I'll take his place. I'm a teacher at this school."
"Teacher Harleen!"
The students who weren't caught looked at her in surprise. Harleen didn't even turn her head. "Go tell the principal."
"You've really worked hard." Hearing this, Zheng En made a cup of tea and pushed it towards her. Harlin smiled shyly, "Well, I'm a teacher, so it's what I should do."
She then went on to tell what happened next.
The bearded man glanced at the student, then at Harleen, and agreed to her request without much thought.
A woman wearing high heels is far more harmless than a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy.
The students didn't keep her and the gang members waiting long, but there were far more people than Harleen had expected.
The man with the mustache counted the people who had arrived. "One, two—five, quite a complete group. All the people who defected from our gang are here, right?" He spoke to Wayne, who was clearly the leader. Seeing that everyone he needed had arrived, he released Harlin from his restraints.
Harleen knew from the situation that they hadn't gone to find Zheng En, and she was extremely anxious, fearing that the students had really been taken away by the gangsters. She wanted to say something, but before she could open her mouth, she saw Wei Lun approach the gangsters.
He was tall and agile. The bearded man, who hadn't expected them to fight back and was still holding a gun, had his wrist snapped before he could react.
The gun was handed to Wellen. Even though the other gang members saw that things were not going well and pulled out their pistols, they had to obediently drop them under the watchful eyes of the crowd because there were people standing in front of and behind them.
After Harlin finished recounting the whole story, Zheng En stopped twirling his pen. The teenagers obediently lowered their heads, a stark contrast to the composed Wei Lun beside them.
"If Harlin hadn't been there, you wouldn't have been planning to tell me at all."
Zheng En immediately pointed out the most crucial point, and the teenagers wished they could bury their heads in the ground.
Harleen tried to smooth things over, saying, "They were just worried about you, but it's good that things were resolved satisfactorily."
Zheng En raised her hand to signal her to be quiet. "You can go out now. I want to hear what they have to say."
Harlin could only give them a look that said, "I tried my best," before slowly walking out.
"Sorry, teacher, we just didn't want you to worry."
The first to speak was a boy named Daniel Finch, the boy the gang had specifically requested: "You've done enough for us, and we don't want you to bother us during your weekend rest time."
He looked at Jung Eun earnestly, "Besides, there are only two of them, and we think we can handle it."
His words were both reasonable and sincere, and Jung Eun understood why the other man had been able to persuade so many homeless children to leave the gang with him. Language has power, and Daniel was very good at using that power.
"No, that's not right." Zheng En shook his head, pointing out the part he dared not say, "What you're worried about is that I'll kick you out."
There are no fools among the kids who have been homeless in Gotham for so long, and the students' faces turned pale instantly. They hurriedly tried to explain, but their tongues weren't as eloquent as Daniel's. "No, we...we just wanted to solve our own problems."
"We won't let them affect the school!"
But all these words convey the same meaning.
Jung Eun sighed, "Don't worry, I have no intention of kicking you out of school in any way."
"I just hope you can trust me a little more."
Unlike Wayne or Jason, these homeless children didn't have enough time to spend with him, so they could only try to understand his thoughts by treating him like a former gangster or middleman.
Don't cause trouble, and don't let him know.
Zheng En didn't want them to be anxious and fearful at school with this mindset, so he just told them in a very ordinary tone, as if he were talking about the weather.
"My determination to promote the socialization of homeless children is not that fragile, and the Wayne Foundation is not a place where just any third-rate organization can try to take advantage of me."
"Next time they come, just use the skills you learned from who-knows-where to drive them away. Don't fire unless absolutely necessary." Zheng En smiled. "As for if you do fire, make sure you're accurate, so you don't accidentally injure anyone or cause any deaths."
He never intended to raise the boarding school children to be docile sheep.
Most of them were homeless children from the East District, a place full of gangsters, criminals, and mentally ill people—Jung Eun wanted them to obey the law, and self-defense was a necessary part of the law.
No one can refresh their surroundings with a single click like in a game; changing oneself is far easier than changing one's environment.
"If you can't do these two things, you might as well smash the gun in your hand and sell it for scrap."
These words shocked the teenagers. They had thought that Zheng En was the kind of person most commonly seen on TV and in books, someone who couldn't tolerate bad things, but it was clear that he wasn't.
Several teenagers walked out in a daze, and Zheng En had no idea what kind of turmoil was churning in their hearts.
Wellen was kept by him.
"This kind of thing might happen again in the future, and I'll be relying on you then."
It's easy to tell from Harlin's account that Weiren had become a kind of pillar of support among them. Zheng En wasn't surprised either; Weiren was big, had a fierce appearance, and had spent a lot of time at school—these factors combined easily made him a figure of authority among the students.
"Okay." Wellen nodded, hesitated for a moment, but still voiced his question, "Why didn't you let me bring them directly?"
Even before today, Wellen had prepared for being asked for help, thanks to Jung Eun's reminder.
If only one or two students are beaten, it can be explained as a personal matter. But if many students are beaten, the teacher will feel something is wrong even without the group leader reporting it.
Most of them are ordinary people living in normal communities. They don't think that fighting among homeless children is common. They turn a blind eye to the injuries on the students. After many misunderstandings, they coincidentally come to the correct conclusion.
Since Zheng En is the principal, he wouldn't get any information from him, so he sent Jason instead.
The students in the school are divided into two categories based on the age of twelve. The older children, who are over twelve, can learn skills suitable for work in addition to supplementing their basic knowledge, while the younger children, who are under twelve, mainly focus on reading and writing.
Jason is popular, loyal, and one of the few kids who can learn skills. He ranks at the top of his class in repair and is very popular among the kids and older kids. Before long, he found out what Zheng En wanted to know.
Zheng En was not surprised by this. He knew beforehand that most of the homeless children were controlled. Now that they had broken free from that control, some of those people would definitely not give up and would try to put the rope back around their necks.
He didn't think he needed to get involved; gangs that valued homeless children so much couldn't be that powerful. Normal gangs operate their own territories and generate income; the money they make from exploiting homeless children isn't even a fraction of their revenue.
As for those who leave the reserves, capable gangs are never short of people who want to join, and some petty gangsters beat them up mostly for the sake of face.
Knowing that the gang would cause trouble, Jung Eun entrusted the matter directly to Wei Lun.
The other party is, after all, a named supervillain in a comic book; using him to solve this kind of problem is a complete waste of his talents.
As Zheng En had anticipated, things didn't go as planned. However, Wei Lun couldn't understand why they had to go through all that trouble. "What would be the impact if I just brought them here to apologize directly?"
"So you told me your secret, but I turned around and told the Gotham City Police Department. Will you still trust me after that?"
Jung Eun gave a simple example: "If you become an informant, they will no longer trust you."
"I don't have that much time and energy to build relationships with all the students. The difference in our status makes them quite hesitant to be around me," Zheng En frankly told Wei Lun.
"But you're different. You're one of them. They believe you have the ability to help them solve their problems and that you'll stand with them."
Wellen fell into thought. "That's why they would ask me for help and keep it a secret."
If Jung Eun hadn't said beforehand that he would take Daniel and the others directly to Jung Eun when they asked him for help, even if the situation was urgent, he would still do so after the matter was resolved.
"Of course, I don't mean to keep you as a spy."
Jung Eun joked, "It's just that they don't trust me enough yet, so I need you to keep an eye on them. You're their friend, aren't you?"