American comic Gotham, the sheriff of Arkham

Chapter 157 Nashton in the Orphanage

Mrs. Gunn's Welfare Home, located near Crime Alley, also has another facility called the Troubled Juvenile Management Center, both of which manage street kids, so these two issues are combined together.

Mrs. Gunn was an old woman dressed in a nun's uniform with a cigar in her mouth. The children in the orphanage called her Grandma Gunn. The children in the orphanage could stay there until they were sixteen years old.

We were about to leave here. The welfare home looked a little shabby. Perhaps because it was winter, the yard was very deserted.

Only on that faded slide, there were a few young children playing. Even the cold winter could not hide the simple happiness and smiles on their faces.

The cracks on the window glass were tightly sealed with tape, and the yellow tape looked like an ugly patch.

Sitting in the crowded room, leaning against the radiator against the wall, Edward Nashton looked at the children outside with some envy. The radiator was warm, but his hands were still frostbitten.

A teenager who was sleeping on the ground nearby was suddenly awakened, covering his feet and screaming. Nashton turned his head and saw the teenager covering his toes with blood flowing out.

A series of "squeak, squeak" sounds from mice scared the teenagers who were sitting or lying on the ground so much that they all stood up.

There were screams, curses, and the house was in a mess. The old blankets on the floor and dirty clothes were scattered everywhere. Even so, they didn't catch the biting rat.

Nashton leaned against the wall helplessly. In Gotham... rats are man-eaters. It was not the first time that his toes were bitten off by rats, and it would definitely not be the last time here.

"Edward!" someone called him in the corridor.

Nashton turned his head and saw some older boys standing at the door waving. Girls are more likely to be adopted than boys, and more people are willing to adopt younger ones.

No one wants people like them who are older.

But those guys outside will leave soon, because they are already sixteen years old...

Nashton squeezed out of the crowd. The older guys leaned against the wall of the corridor, cigarettes in their hands. Although they had not left the welfare home yet, they already had the ruffian spirit of gangsters.

"Try this, it's a rare commodity!"

A red-haired boy of Irish descent, smiling, took out a handful of leaves from his pocket mysteriously, and rolled the paper in his hand into a thin cigarette.

“This thing is awesome, it makes the world brighter.”

A kid leaning against the wall grinned, looking very funny with a missing front tooth from a fight. He was holding a thin cigarette between his fingers, feeling high.

Nashton was holding a thin cigarette, and the teenagers in the room all looked over here. They didn't dare to come over, they could only look, because these older boys were the bullies of the welfare home.

Even Mrs. Gunn disliked them.

"Are you leaving?" Nashton asked, rubbing the thin cigarette in his palm with his fingers.

He asked the question that he was afraid of but also curious about: leaving here, leaving this orphanage, leaving this so-called "home".

"Of course! We can all make a name for ourselves in the future. Do you know the Romans? We will be soldiers of the Roman Empire in the future."

The red-haired boy held his head high and chest puffed out with pride, like a feared Roman subordinate. He raised his hand and patted Nashton on the back.

"Of course, we won't forget you. If you hadn't found such a large sum of money, I might have been thrown out."

The red-haired boy patted Nashton on the back gratefully. Nashton smiled indifferently and put the cigarette in his hand into his pocket.

"But boy, if I had found such a large sum of money, I would have run away long ago. It's so much!"

The other boy, who was smoking, shook his head with some regret. It would have been great if he had picked up so much money.

"Ding-ding-ding, ding-ding-ding, ding-ding-ding-ding."

A rhythmic ringing of a bell came from outside, interrupting the boys' conversation, and footsteps were heard on the wooden stairs.

Mrs. Gunn came down, and the older boys quickly opened the window in the corridor and jumped out in no time.

They don't want to meet this evil mother-in-law and would rather wander the streets than stay here and be humiliated by her.

Nashton looked at the people who had escaped and hurried over to close the window, but he was still a step too late.

"Edward! Damn it! How many times have I told you not to open the window? You let the heat escape as soon as it's a little bit warm. You deserve to be frozen to death, you bastards!"

The sound of cursing came from the corridor. Nashton lowered his head, not daring to argue, but just clenched his fists tightly.

But Mrs. Gunn didn't have time to discipline him, otherwise she would definitely make this disobedient boy roll out and stand naked for an hour.

In the yard outside.

Barry, wearing Santa Claus clothes and a big white beard, was playing with the children.

He likes this feeling, and he also likes children. Perhaps it is because he is also an orphan, and he always feels grateful to the welfare home. This is also one of the reasons why he became a superhero.

"You really started to play. How old are you?"

A man carrying boxes of saplings came over from the trunk of the car and looked at Barry, who was like a big child, speechless.

Where is the maturity you promised?

Miaomu held the gift box in his hand and walked into the house. The welfare home was a three-story residential building. The first floor was where the children lived. The window glass was covered with curious faces.

"Welcome, welcome. May I ask..."

Mrs. Gunn hurried over to greet her, but before she could say anything polite, Naegi stuffed the gift box in his hand into her hand.

"Well, this is the seventh welfare home I've delivered to. This is Ms. Tompkins' Christmas gift to the children."

Miaogi clapped his hands. He had toured Gotham again today, which was considered a very grand task.

At least Naegi felt satisfied, and he felt a sense of accomplishment when he helped others, especially when the action was simple, and after all, he wasn't putting on a show, so he wasn't afraid of anything.

"By the way, I still have two boxes of canned food in my car. I should change to a pickup truck. It doesn't hold enough stuff."

Miao Mu muttered to himself as he walked outside. The police uniform he was wearing made Mrs. Gunn's pupils shrink. She swallowed the polite words she was about to say.

"Come here and hold it for me!" Mrs. Gunn turned around and shouted.

Nashton hurried over and took the gift box with colorful wrapping paper. It was quite heavy to carry.

"Tell those kids not to say anything, understand?" Mrs. Gunn said in a serious and slightly threatening voice.

Nashton nodded numbly. This orphanage was not as good as it seemed, except for the older boys who had escaped from Mrs. Gunn's clutches as they grew older.

The others were all pawns in Mrs. Gunn's hands. Some of the more agile children became thieves, while people like him could only walk around the streets holding cardboard boxes and looking miserable. Perhaps they were still good...

Nashton looked up at the ceiling. The first floor was where these unwanted guys crowded together.

But the third floor was empty. For some reason, Nashton didn't envy the girls who were sent away for adoption.

Mrs. Gunn trotted over and warned the kids not to talk nonsense. Although the police were not scary, she didn't want to cause any trouble.

Miao Mu came in from outside carrying a canned box. The heavy canned box looked like an empty box in his hands.

The moment Nashton saw Naegi, he felt as if a bomb had exploded in his head. Everything went blank and he stood there in a daze.

Miao Mu didn't care. He put the can box aside and smiled at Nashton who was standing there.

"There are candies in it. Oh, by the way, I'll give you a handful. Eat them secretly."

Naegi took out a handful of candy from his pocket, stuffed it into Nashton's pocket, and gave a kind smile.

"You...you..." Nashton was a little excited, but didn't know what to say, and even stuttered.

"Come on, you've worked hard."

Mrs. Gunn ran back, shook hands with Naegi quickly, and pushed Nashton aside.

It was just that the smell of cigarettes on her body made Miao Mu frown unconsciously, and waved his hand and said: "No, this is a small gift from Ms. Tompkins, I just passed it on."

"Is it Ms. Tompkins from the Upper East Side?" Mrs. Gunn asked tentatively.

"Yes, do you know each other?" asked Miao Mu.

"Of course, she's a very nice person." Mrs. Gunn smiled so hard that crow's feet appeared on her face. She quickly invited Miaomu to sit upstairs.

Nashton stood in the shadow of the corridor carrying a gift box, his brows furrowed, and no one knew what he was thinking about.

The window in the corridor was pulled open from the outside, and a gust of cold wind blew in, making Nashton shrink his neck due to the cold.

A dark green gas tank was thrown in from outside, fell to the ground, and rolled to his feet.

"Don't say that the old man only favors me. This is my return to you." A voice sounded from outside.

Nashton didn't know what was going on. He dropped the gift box in his hand and ran towards the window, but there was no one outside the window.

A figure jumped up from the wall in the distance, flipped over the two-meter-high wall, and disappeared without a trace.

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