Chapter 5: Save
Normally, Ma Zhaodi believed that no one was born evil. Sure, in this world, there were probably a few exceptions—but Victor Fries wasn't one of them.
He had once been a brilliant cryogenicist, deeply in love with his wife—a true soulmate. But as Derek had said before, she had developed a terminal illness, one so rare that there was no viable treatment anywhere in the world.
Victor was not only a scientific genius but also a devoted husband. Instead of succumbing to despair, he turned his expertise toward studying her disease, hoping to find a cure.
But her condition had already deteriorated beyond hope. Time was running out. So, he used everything he knew to construct an advanced cryogenic chamber to place her in stasis—freezing her body to buy time for his research.
But this was Gotham. And like everything else in Gotham, even the most beautiful stories have a way of rotting from the inside.
One day, the company funding Victor's research decided to pull the plug—profits mattered more than people. A confrontation erupted. It escalated into a violent lab incident, rupturing the cryo chamber and releasing a surge of freezing gas.
Victor survived the accident, but it transformed him on a cellular level. His body could no longer survive above freezing temperatures. Normal room temperature would kill him. From that day forward, he had to live in a specially designed cryo-suit, and he armed himself with freezing weapons.
His grief turned to vengeance. He hunted down everyone responsible for the accident. And just like that, Gotham lost a gifted scientist and gained another tragic supervillain.
He kept his wife in cryogenic suspension and continued his desperate research—robbing, stealing, doing whatever it took to fund her preservation. Yet, compared to most of Gotham's rogues, Mr. Freeze was seen as… relatively low threat.
---
Cut back to the rooftop.
Ma Zhaodi let out a slow sigh. "Tell me, do you have something against the doctor who gave you that tip?"
"…No. Why?"
He could tell Derek had genuinely paused to think about it.
"Then do you know what Victor Fries is up to now?"
"I heard… after a lab accident, he and his wife disappeared."
Thank God. If Derek had already crossed paths with Mr. Freeze, Ma Zhaodi might've started making getaway plans right then and there.
"So what now?"
"I don't know," Derek whispered. "It took everything just to get my wife somewhere safe, to build a stable routine. But now it's all slipping away again."
He clutched his head, spiraling fast.
"I don't know… I don't know… I just wanted to get enough money today to pay next month's medical bill…"
Then the breakdown hit.
Still seated on the rooftop, Derek began crying uncontrollably—tears and snot flowing as he screamed in rage and despair.
"And then I ran into you, of all people! And I actually believed your crap—I brought you home! God, I'm such an idiot. I can't save her. I'm a goddamn loser. A useless, pathetic idiot…!"
Ma Zhaodi didn't try to stop him. Derek had been bottling this up for too long. A full breakdown might just be the release his mind needed.
He pulled up a second rusty chair, wiped off the water, and sat beside him. The freezing metal bit into his skin, stinging through to his bones.
He looked out at the hazy city lights in the distance and sighed softly into the dark:
"When it rains, it pours. Misery loves the miserable."
---
[Click.]
The sound of a key turning in a rusted lock echoed down the hallway. The iron door creaked open with a long, gritty scrape.
"Derek?"
A soft voice came from inside. The footsteps were slow and weak, the speaker clearly lacking strength.
"I'm home, Camila."
Ma Zhaodi followed Derek inside. From the shadows, a thin, bald woman emerged, steadying herself against the wall as she walked. She was clearly very ill, her movements slow, her body frail. Her expression was tired and dim, but when she saw Ma Zhaodi, surprise flickered in her eyes.
After Derek gave a quick introduction, she managed a gentle smile.
Despite her skeletal frame, pale skin, and sunken cheeks, there was something warm about her smile—an echo of the vibrant woman she must've once been.
Judging by her condition, Ma Zhaodi guessed she might not last another three months. Maybe even less. He wasn't a doctor, but any normal person could see—her time was short.
The apartment wasn't as filthy as he'd expected. In fact, Derek had kept it quite clean. The furniture was old and mismatched, clearly leftover from previous tenants, but still usable. Derek and Camila had clearly made this place into a home, without ever showing signs of resentment for their surroundings.
As Ma Zhaodi took it all in, he caught something else—Camila, very calmly, slid a handgun out from behind her back and placed it into the drawer in her room.
Yeah. If Derek hadn't walked in first, there's a good chance he'd have been staring down the barrel of that gun.
But after a few seconds, Ma Zhaodi felt oddly at ease. This was Gotham, after all. In a slum apartment, not owning a gun would be the real red flag.
Which brought him to a question:
Was Derek's gun even real?
The thought had barely formed when he saw Derek walk into his room, pull out the same pistol he'd used during the mugging, fit it with a magazine from his pocket, and place both into the drawer.
So it was real. Just… unloaded when pointed at his head.
That should've been reassuring, but it actually just made him angrier the more he thought about it.
Grumbling to himself, Ma Zhaodi opened his system interface. His newly purchased Beginner Checkpoint was still unused. If he'd actually been shot earlier, it could've been Game Over before his Gotham grind had even begun.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to anchor the checkpoint here.
[Save Point successfully placed. This save file can be reloaded up to 20 times, with no time limit. Upon entering a near-death state, you may choose to reload or continue.]
[Reminder: You may have up to five save points active at once and can cancel any at will.]
[Save point location and time can be relocated with funds or manually recovered.]