"A true chaos artist shouldn't think in terms of subtraction—they should think in terms of addition!"
Cloud's face wore the smile of a demonic mentor.
"For instance, make every light in this city turn on at the same time!"
"Make all the neon signs start playing your Puddin's face!"
"Make all the traffic lights start flashing wildly to a rock beat!"
"Turn all of Gotham into one giant, 24-hour disco that never closes, drowning in light pollution and noise!"
"That's what a carnival looks like!"
After hearing Cloud's imaginative, artistic description, Harley Quinn was completely dumbstruck.
She stared at this man, at the smile on his face that was crazier and more creative than the Joker's.
At those deep eyes that seemed to contain infinite chaos.
She felt her heart—that heart that beat only for the Joker—had just skipped a beat.
She felt like she'd found a toy even more interesting than her "Puddin"!
No.
Perhaps...
A new god.
Ever since being utterly shaken by Cloud's lecture on "the addition and subtraction of chaos art" at Gotham's Central Power Station, Harley Quinn—Gotham's "Crime Princess"—had developed a new condition.
—"Cloud Dependency Syndrome."
She discovered that her brain, always filled with various insane ideas, was now completely occupied by an even more interesting, even more deadly man.
She no longer thought about her "Puddin" all day.
Now, her daily thoughts were...
"What fun thing is that handsome guy Cloud going to do today?"
"How many more ideas does he have in that head of his—things even crazier and more interesting than turning a city into a disco?"
"What kind of person is he?"
To figure this out, Harley Quinn decided to design a unique, distinctively "Harley" human nature test game just for Cloud.
She wanted to prove to him: In this shitty, hypocritical world, everyone has a madman living inside them.
And so, on a standard "crime night" in rainy Gotham, Cloud received an extremely distinctive invitation.
It was a playing card painted with a clown's face, with a line written in crooked lipstick:
"Wanna play a game, handsome? I'll be waiting at Fun Land~?"
Signed: Your adorable Harley.
"Fun Land?"
Cloud looked at this very "Harley-style" invitation and smiled.
"Sounds interesting."
When he arrived at the long-abandoned amusement park—looking particularly sinister and eerie in the rainy night—he was greeted by a classic "trolley problem" setup.
At the park's center, tied to the rusty Ferris wheel, were two people.
One was Gotham's respected mayor.
The other was a famous philanthropist who frequently appeared on TV calling for people to believe in love and peace.
Below the Ferris wheel, Harley Quinn stood in her classic red-and-black harlequin jumpsuit, like an excited emcee, next to a bomb painted with a clown face.
"Welcome! Welcome! My dear Mr. Cloud, to my little theater of human nature!"
Harley gave Cloud a theatrical curtsy.
"Let the game begin!"
She picked up a megaphone and announced loudly in her shrill, neurotic voice.
"The rules are simple! There are two people on that Ferris wheel. One's a sanctimonious hypocrite. The other's a fame-chasing fake philanthropist."
"And my adorable big baby here at my feet is going to go BOOM in three minutes, sending them both to heaven as the most gorgeous fireworks!"
"Now the choice is yours, my dear handsome man."
Her face broke into a smile full of anticipation and madness.
"You can only save one."
"Tell me your choice. Will you save the mayor who can give you power? Or the philanthropist who can give you fame?"
"Show me what makes you different from all these ordinary mortals!"
She wanted to see Cloud caught in an agonizing dilemma.
She wanted to prove that so-called "heroes" and "gods," when faced with this cruel choice, would ultimately reveal their selfish, ugly natures.
This was her and her "Puddin's" favorite game.
However... Cloud's reaction was completely beyond her expectations.
He didn't hesitate for even a moment. There was no anguish whatsoever.
He looked at Harley like watching a child playing house, then sighed with exasperation.
"Harley, Harley, Harley."
"I already told you—your scale is too small."
"Only children make choices."
"Adults? We take everything."
Without even moving his feet, he simply snapped his fingers at the giant Ferris wheel.
Snap!
The next second.
Before Harley's instantly frozen, "this-wasn't-in-the-script" gaze—
The Ferris wheel binding the mayor and philanthropist came alive!
Its massive metal frame began to twist, deform, and extend in ways that defied physics...
Like two gentle mechanical arms, it steadily "embraced" the two people from their seats and gently deposited them on safe ground far away.
The entire process was smooth as water, full of a postmodern mechanical aesthetic.
"Wh... what?!"
Harley stared at this inconceivable scene, forgetting to even blow her bubblegum.
Before she could recover from the shock of "Ferris Wheel Transformers," Cloud snapped his fingers again at the "big baby" about to explode at her feet.
Snap!
The clown-faced bomb, large enough to level half the amusement park, didn't make a "BOOM" at the last second of its countdown.
Instead, it went pop like a burst balloon.
What poured out wasn't destructive flames and shockwaves.
It was endless, colorful, candy-scented streamers and glitter!
Streamers danced through the rainy night, instantly transforming this sinister amusement park into a party venue full of fairy-tale magic.
Harley: "..."
Her game had been declared a complete failure in a way she absolutely could not comprehend—full of magic and fairy-tale charm.
...
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