Chapter 1 Doctor and Police? They're both rookies, oh well. ...

Today is another 'wonderful' day.

After the alarm clock continued to bother him for ten minutes, Officer Richard Grayson slowly opened his eyes, groaned as he struggled to sit up in a less-than-awful position.

Then he accidentally stepped on the crumpled uniform on the ground and almost tripped. While trying to pull up his pants, he accidentally pulled at the wound on his back.

No one comforted poor Dick.

Only the old mattress creaked and warped, one corner sticking up as if to protest.

Dick patted the old mattress with a pained expression, praying that his old friend could hold on a little longer. His hard-earned savings had already been used to buy a small part for his motorcycle, so if his mattress decided to strike—

There's nothing we can do but let it be.

Good news from Nightwing: last night was Christmas Eve.

The bad news is that Officer Grayson will probably have to work overtime until the early hours of the morning to 'switch shifts' with Nightwing.

—A few thugs were hung up by Nightwing at the police station entrance, and the diligent Officer Grayson, after arriving at work, would handle the situation with an exaggerated, terrified expression; Officer Grayson needed to take some time out of his busy schedule to investigate a burglary, because the annoyingly handsome Nightwing had sent him some clues to his email last night; Grandma Johnson's old cat-themed car next door had gone missing again, and he needed to help check whose house that 14-pound orange and white cat was hiding in today, stealing dog food…

Dick glanced at his dark circles in the mirror again, then forced a bright, Nightwing-like smile at his reflection. As he reached out and forcefully turned on the old faucet in the apartment, the tap, finally unable to tolerate the apartment owner's rough treatment, sprayed water all over Dick's face.

Poor Officer Grayson frantically grabbed a towel and haphazardly plugged the pipe, thinking that he would definitely move to a better house when he had money.

But money doesn't just appear out of thin air, unless he uses the trust fund Bruce gave him, but... that would mean he's surrendering to Bruce, and Nightwing absolutely cannot surrender voluntarily, at least not now.

By the time Dick finally dealt with the fish-filled bathroom and the faucet that was vomiting uncontrollably, he was already destined to be late for work.

However, today may be Officer Dick's day of suffering.

He got stuck in traffic and caught two motorcyclists on the way, but he still lost his meager salary for being late—given that he's just a regular patrol officer who hasn't been on the job for long, he'll probably have to work for free this month.

Upon successfully arriving at the police station, he accidentally witnessed a vicious couple fighting in front of the station. He tried to break them up but was accidentally slapped by the angry woman and then scolded by his superior.

After enduring his boss's terrible sarcasm and his colleagues' sympathetic glances, Dick was assigned to the oldest, wrinkled patrol car in the police station and a shrewd colleague who only snored in the passenger seat and whose patrols always went to fried chicken restaurants.

Dick gripped the steering wheel, his gaze wistful as if he could see ten silent bats circling his head, cacophoning with laughter.

His partner had already turned off the police car's GPS, declared they were going to operate covertly, and precisely opened his sleepy eyes as he tried to drive the car into an accident-prone area, punching him while forcefully pulling the steering wheel back.

Dick also wanted to punch the other person.

But he's still a rookie cop, and bullying newcomers is a signature tactic of the Broodhaven Police Department.

He needs to find a chance to slip away later, otherwise he'll have to waste his time at the fried chicken shop today.

"'Delicious Fried Chicken'! We're finally here!" The veteran officer opened the car door as if nothing had happened, grinning at Dick. "Relax, young man! Always remember to enjoy life while you can; it's a life motto that every Broodhaven cop must have!"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Thanks, but I'm allergic to life creeds and fried chicken."

Dick, who is allergic to many allergens, hides in a police car, secretly eavesdropping on other police cars, ready to take action on his own at any time.

'Bang--'

It was the unsettling sound of rubber tires slipping and rubbing against the ground, and the terrified screams of people.

The sound wasn't coming from the headphones, but from a short distance away.

Dick reacted quickly, starting the vehicle and driving as fast as he could towards the direction from which the sound came.

The veteran police officer carrying the fried chicken also reacted quickly and hid in the fried chicken shop, pretending that he hadn't seen anything.

When Dick arrived at the scene in his poor old Jetta, the surrounding area was already in complete chaos.

A black car without license plates rammed into another police car, which Dick had seen that morning, and both cars were dented. The police car driver was in the driver's seat, his condition unknown, while the officer in the passenger seat was covered in blood, but thankfully his eyes were still open, and he was shouting in panic.

Dick's pupils contracted.

He knew who the car belonged to.

Eric Hosen, a seasoned scoundrel in line with the culture of the Port Bros. Police Department, is a drinker, smoker, eat, drink and have fun, occasionally driving his police car to pick up girls during working hours, and also has some ambiguous ties with the local thugs in Broshaven.

His methods were shady, his bottom line unclear, and he often mocked all the newcomers, including Dick, as rookies who didn't understand the local customs.

But Dick did learn a lot of the "methods" that the police officers of Brudhaven needed from him.

Like Gotham, Broodhaven is an industrialized coastal city. While it doesn't have the relatively long history or countless old families intertwined like octopus tentacles of Gotham, it has just as many gang wars, power struggles, drug trafficking, racial issues, and wealth inequality, with a crime rate nearly identical to neighboring Gotham.

Every day, as Dick traveled from his apartment in the South District across the city to the city center in the North via the elevated subway, he felt as if he were witnessing the entire century's economic development process—beneath the towering, modern skyscrapers of the North lay the desolate, dilapidated slums and barely any commercial activity of the South District.

Just as Manhattan collided with Detroit, a north-south viaduct cruelly divided people into different classes.

Adam Smith and his unseen hand made the already wealthy lives of a small group of people in Brudhaven even worse, to the point that they wished they could bathe in gold every day.

But the towering buildings cast a heavy shadow over the South Side, where crime thrived amidst the weeds. Deep-seated structural problems led to an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent in Broodhaven, and this figure could reach as high as 50 percent, especially among certain minority groups.

Unemployed youths spontaneously form gangs on the streets, continuing to attract homeless young people down the same path.

Dick braked a short distance from the scene of the incident, then nimbly leaped out of the driver's seat and ran towards Eric Hossen's car.

He hoped it was an accident, but the driver had vanished from the driver's seat, and several young men wearing hats were peering around.

The road was wide, with no congested intersections and very few vehicles. The tire tracks of the hit-and-run car were clearly aimed directly at Eric—Dick's keen observation told him this was an obvious premeditated murder.

Eric was unconscious, and judging from the extent of the damage to the driver's seat, he was probably...

However, someone arrived at the scene even faster than Dick.

The tall, slender, red-haired young man with a backpack left Dick with a sharply defined profile and a dashing back view.

The two men gripped the car door at the same time, their fingers touching. Dick's blue eyes met a pair of green eyes hidden behind his glasses.

He saw his own image, with its messy hair, reflected in the clear, calm eyes of the young man opposite him, and he was momentarily stunned, a rare occurrence for him.

For that excessively handsome face and excessively indifferent expression.

This man doesn't look like a native of Brudhaven at all, Dick thought.

Also, his eyes are really beautiful.

The young man's beautiful eyes sized Dick up and down through his non-prescription glasses, his gaze lingering briefly on Dick's badge and the handprint on his cheek before inevitably projecting the stereotypical image of Officer Brudhaven onto Dick.

Police work is not a respected profession in Brudhaven. To the poor in this neighborhood, cops are synonymous with racism, police brutality, bribery, and being the dogs of the rich.

Alan Osborn and his car had suffered greatly in the three days following their arrival in Brudhaven, where they were added to the missing persons list.

"Help!" the officer in the passenger seat yelled at Dick, "My leg is going to break!"

Neither Allen nor Dick said a word. They pulled open the car door together, and in the chaos, Dick accidentally stepped on Allen's foot.

Allen glanced down at the footprints on his leather shoes, his tone as chilly as a Siberian gust of wind: "The fuel tank is leaking. If you're not prepared to be put into a box along with the wounded and myself in ten minutes, I suggest you get out of the way and not get in my way."

Dick began calculating how much it would cost to clean the other person's expensive handmade leather shoes after that stomp.

The premise is that he didn't lose weight and reach 6 pounds with the other person.

Agent Eric Hossen was bleeding from his forehead, his life hanging in the balance, and the rough, bearded lower half of his face was unrecognizable.

The police officer in the passenger seat limped out, shouting as he ran out. His movements were so swift that it seemed he didn't actually need their help.

The young officer, clutching his bleeding head, limped but it didn't stop him from quickly pulling open Dick's car and getting in.

"Grayson, please look after Eric for me. I have to go now!"

The engine roared to life, leaving only a trail of exhaust fumes behind.

Dick: ...

He heard the young man opposite him sneer.

Dick felt incredibly embarrassed and wanted to say that he and that guy were not on the same wavelength.

Good cop Dick tried to salvage the image of the Broodhaven Police Department under Allen's cold gaze: "I guess he's going to find someone. Can you help me see when the ambulance will arrive? It's dangerous here. You'd better stay away and leave it to me."

Allen thought the policeman was strange and, moreover, a nuisance.

He didn't say anything more, but leaned in to unbuckle Eric's seatbelt: "Could you be so kind as to check when the driver inside will die? If he's dead, we can talk a little longer. And thank you for calling an ambulance, smart cop."

Dick changed his approach and continued his rescue: "...You're welcome. I had excellent grades at the police academy."

But Eric was stuck very tightly, and Allen and Dick tried for a long time but couldn't get him out.

"Okay... I'll go get the tools and cut the roof open. You'd better..." stay away.

"Do your job, officer. If you really can't, call 911 and get someone more professional."

Dick hesitated for a moment, then, after seeing that Allen had taken a stethoscope out of his bag, decided to go get a chainsaw.

The killer clearly had no intention of leaving Eric any chance of survival, so the crash was merciless. The entire front of the Jetta was crushed, the airbags deployed, but they couldn't stop Eric's thigh from being broken into three pieces with a large section of bone protruding, and a shard of windshield was still stuck in his chest.

The patient lost consciousness, the pupils were sluggish in response to light but not yet dilated, and no pulse was palpable in the carotid artery.

With the fire department not yet arriving and the ambulance stuck in traffic, Allen didn't hesitate to pull an adrenaline shot from his bag.

Dick had already reached through the spiderweb-like windshield of the Jetta with a chainsaw and was carefully cutting through the debris.

The car door was pressed too hard. Eric was not a slender and delicate man; his large belly was stuck in the driver's seat like a piece of desperate pork belly.

On the other side, Allen had quickly cleaned Eric's mouth and nose and took out an emergency oxygen bag from his bag.

The dripping sound of the fuel tank reached their ears, and the sparks from the chainsaw were terrifying.

Allen and Dick exchanged a glance and simultaneously quickened their movements.

Before the fuel tank exploded, Eric, covered in blood, was finally pulled off by the two men and quickly carried away.

Some onlookers quietly left, while others nonchalantly took photos of the bloodstains and the unconscious Eric.

"Get out of there! Get out of there now!" Dick shouted at the crowd around him who were still filming short videos.

Just after he pushed a young man who was taking pictures onto the nearby lawn, the car's fuel tank was ignited, flames shot into the sky, and another car was also involved in a secondary explosion.

People screamed and scattered, and the young man Dick pushed aside yelled "Cool!" at the explosion.

Great, today is another very Brudhaven day.

Dick stared blankly as the lawn's owner, leaning on his cane, roared at him. The old man was shouting that he was going to the police station to complain that he had trampled the delicate grass on the lawn.

The young man he rescued has already run over and taken close-up photos of the flames.

“I think you mean you’re welcome, sir.” Dick rolled his eyes at the lawn owner. “When you complain, please tell our chief that you should switch the police car to a Ford Explorer… Maybe next time I’ll have time to be careful not to run over your lawn if I’m driving a $60,000 car.”

Before the old man could hit him on the head with his cane, he quickly ran back to Allen's side.

The young man's first aid techniques were very skilled; he looked like a professional doctor.

Dick pulled the tourniquet that Allen handed him tight, and together with Allen, they worked in perfect harmony to fix and stop the bleeding in Eric.

The fire trucks and ambulances finally arrived.

He was starting to suspect that Allen was going to perform surgery on Eric on the spot if they didn't get there soon. He spotted a comprehensive first aid kit and a bunch of other equipment in Allen's backpack that he hadn't quite made out.

The officer looked at Allen with a mixture of surprise and confusion, wondering if the young people who had moved to Brudhaven were so prescient.

Allen glanced at the chainsaw, the same adrenaline, the thermometer, the disposable ice pack, and the splint in Dick's hand, thinking that this policeman was quite the show-off—referring to his backpack.

Allen suddenly remembered someone's advice. He hesitated for a moment, then decided to raise the corners of his mouth, revealing a carefully crafted smile: "The chainsaw looks good. Where did you buy it?"

Dick choked again as he looked into the doctor's unsmiling eyes behind his glasses.

He had never seen anyone's smile that made him feel that winter had arrived.

"...There's a secondhand hardware store near the police station. I can take you there if you need it—the owner will rip you off if you don't have a referral."

Paramedics have already brought over the stretcher.

The heart and lung resuscitation under Allen's command did not stop, and Dick heard him humming "Stayin' Alive".

"I think I can..."

“I’m sorry,” Allen said, his lips still curved in that same smile, “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Eric was lifted into the ambulance. Allen gave clear instructions at three times the speed: "Middle-aged man, crush injury, severed artery and massive blood loss. A tourniquet is on his left leg, and his pulse is undetectable. Perform endotracheal intubation first, give him 4 units of type O blood, and then inject him with adrenaline."

The emergency responders spontaneously began to act.

In the chaos, someone asked, "...Who are you?"

"Alan Osborn, a... doctor." His internship begins today.

Allen's face still bore the splatter of blood, but his expression remained calm, as if he were not pressing on a heart about to stop beating.

Emergency responder Daniel Brightman was on duty for the first time today—temporarily, because his teacher had fled Brudhaven two days earlier.

The rookie paramedic's first time in an ambulance leads him to meet intern Dr. Alan Osborn and rookie police officer Dick Grayson.

What he didn't know was that he would later have countless more interactions with this doctor and this policeman as a paramedic.

Allen looked up at the paramedics who hadn't moved, his green eyes filled with confusion.

Under the doctor's watchful green eyes, Daniel felt a threat from a superior predator, as if the doctor was about to plunge a scalpel into his heart—because he had disobeyed or failed his emergency medical test.

The paramedic's already tense state of mind suddenly collapsed: "I...this is my first day on the job! I...what's next? I forgot my first aid manual!!"

"...Do you know how to intubate a patient? Pry open his mouth and use what you learned in your training!"

"I...I...can I Google it?! Please, please let me Google it!"

In the end, Dick, who was standing to the side, snatched the tools from the rookie first aider's hands.

Alan's suspicious gaze fell on Dick.

Dick flashed a confident smile: "I've studied it, on YouTube, don't worry!"