Stark took out a cigarette from the cigarette box with slightly trembling hands and wanted to light it with a campfire, but accidentally made the fire too big and almost burned his hand.
Schiller directly took the cigarette in his hand, flicked it out to extinguish the fire, lit it again with the warm charcoal next to it, and handed it to Stark.
"Don't you smoke?"
"I don't need a cigarette to relieve my anxiety."
"I'm not..."
Stark found that once he contradicted Schiller, Schiller would adopt a standard perfunctory attitude, followed by "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," and there was never any debate between them.
Stark took a puff of his cigarette and coughed a few times. He saw Schiller using a stone next to the fire to knock out the pattern on the metal badge that had just been thrown into the fire.
Schiller tilted his head, half of his face was illuminated by the bonfire, and the other half was in shadow. Stark felt that this scene was a perfect description of Schiller.
Half like a killer, half like a child, his focused attitude when doing anything is easily reminiscent of his attitude when killing people. It is equally calm and natural, with a kind of bloody terror born out of childish malice.
Stark felt that he was a little frightened by his imagination. He took another puff of cigarette and successfully swallowed the smoke this time. The stimulation of nicotine made him sober up a little.
"Why do you want to wear it off?" Stark asked what Schiller was doing. He had almost polished the pattern on the metal badge until it was invisible.
"They are not from the same place." Schiller said: "I'm afraid the locals won't like this group of mercenaries, and we can't let them know that we have dealt with them."
Stark suddenly thought of Eric again, and he thought about it: "What would happen if they knew?"
The movement of Schiller's hand paused, he turned back and threw the iron piece back into the fire, stared at the bonfire and said: "The military's series of human experiment plans can be called all-inclusive. For some reason, they seem to
We want to use exhaustive methods to find the best answer for human body modification, so the experimental materials cover humans of all ages.”
Stark's hand tightened instantly. He heard the implication of Schiller's words. It was not only answering Stark's question that they did not even spare autistic children, but also talking about the relationship between local people and employees.
Soldier relationship.
If mercenaries are doing dirty work for the military, then they kidnap local people to use as raw materials for human experiments. I am afraid they not only kidnap adults, but taking away the cubs of a ethnic group is a matter of sworn hatred in any era.
Eric probably knew this and fled in a hurry. Stark thought, he knew that he could not fall into the hands of the locals, because he was also a member of the mercenaries who did dirty work for the military.
However, Eric did save himself in the first attack. Even if he abandoned him and ran away later, it would just be one less unnecessary victim. He should be happy, right?
Eric had no reason to stay. They met by chance. The other person had already risked his life to save him once. How could he ask for more?
But the more Stark thought about it, the more he felt uncomfortable and confused. The excitement brought by nicotine made him more talkative, and he eagerly wanted to talk to someone about this matter.
In the end, he decided to open up this topic regardless of Schiller being a psychiatrist, so he said: "You know what? Before I came here, someone saved me once."
"Why do you say 'ye'?"
Stark found that the topic could not proceed anymore, because if they answered Schiller's question, they would return to the topic of whether Schiller saved him or not.
Stark decided to ignore Schiller's question and tell his own story. He smoked a cigarette and said: "His name is Eric. He is a mercenary. The pattern on his armband is the same as the one on this badge. They may belong to the same company."
A mercenary group."
"On the way to the inspection site, my car was attacked by artillery fire. I was almost killed. He saved me."
Stark slowly talked about his previous experiences, and then he spread his hands and emphasized: "No one in this world has to save anyone, right? What's more, you still risk your life on the battlefield."
"I know I shouldn't ask for more. I should be happy for his successful escape. I do... I do feel so..."
"Although you don't like psychiatrists, psychiatrists usually like patients like you." Schiller said. Stark stared at him, not knowing what he meant, and then he heard Schiller continue: "You
The longer you continue to be duplicitous, the higher the total price you will get based on hourly billing. Judging from how tough you are, it is not a problem to support five psychiatrists."
"That's what I think." Stark frowned and emphasized: "Then what do you want me to think? Crying and complaining that he abandoned me? Or calling him a coward?"
"The only reason you didn't do this is that you have morals. It is morality that constrains your thoughts and makes you feel that you cannot blame your savior."
"Are you saying that I'm inherently a bad person who resents my savior for not doing enough?"
"What do you think your negative emotions are now?" Schiller adjusted his sitting posture and sat cross-legged opposite Stark and asked.
Stark opened his mouth, but said nothing. After a while, he lowered his eyelashes and shook his head and said: "I don't know, I can't be honest and say that I am very happy now, or just because of my situation.
As for worries, I do have some negative emotions that are difficult to explain.”
"That's called loss."
Stark raised his eyes and looked at Schiller.
"The image of a person in your eyes is formed by his actions. When the mercenary saved you, you will think that he is a hero who is willing to help others and is willing to risk his life to save others."
"In your eyes, a hero has the responsibility to save others, so when he later abandons you and runs away, you feel that he has broken the image of a hero in your mind. You realize that he is not a hero, but just an ordinary person who is greedy for life and afraid of death.
people."
"Morally speaking, there is nothing wrong with what he did. Fear of death is human instinct, and protecting oneself in extreme circumstances is a decision that anyone would make."
"But you have something higher than morality, and that is your expectation of heroism. From a legal and moral perspective, he did not betray you, but it frustrated your expectations of a hero and your emotions were hurt."
Stark felt that Schiller completely expressed his inner thoughts, but because of this, he felt that the psychiatrist was scary. He pursed his lips and instinctively put on a defensive posture, and did not say anything to Schiller.
Make any comments.
"But this is not the first time that your expectations for a hero have been disappointed. Usually, it is the first time that people project a superhuman image that is far higher than the secular moral realm on their own parents, thinking that they are omnipotent heroes."
"But as they grow up, this expectation will always be disappointed, but to varying degrees. Some people just realize that their parents are actually ordinary people who work hard, and the wisdom of some small citizens who are inconsistent with the law is just a necessary skill for them to survive, and then gradually accept it
And learn everything to become the next generation of ordinary people."
"But if the contrast between before and after is too great and expectations are too much disappointed, people will also develop corresponding traumatic stress disorder."
"The manifestation of this kind of traumatic stress disorder is that they no longer believe that there are heroes in the world, and that most people are hypocrites just like the person who failed their expectations, thus being completely disappointed with human nature and society."
"But if they still have a glimmer of hope, they will always want to find a real hero to prove that they are not fools who were deceived, but just wronged others. From this, a hero complex is born."
"People with this complex are keen on creating gods, projecting their own heroic fantasies on others, and inevitably feel unparalleled loss when they see the other person's less than heroic side, and may even develop into resentment.
.”
"It's not that I resent the other party for not being heroic enough. Essentially, I resent that the other party failed my hopes once again."
"enough."
Stark stood up, threw the cigarette butt in his hand into the bonfire, moved slowly and said, "I'm tired, I'm going to sleep."
Schiller looked at his back and said: "The heroic expectations projected on the mercenaries have failed, so you projected the same expectations on me."
Stark's footsteps paused.
"Maybe you haven't noticed it yourself, but during the time we've been together, you've been constantly emphasizing that my actions have saved you, that I'm selflessly giving to you, that I'm as strong as a hero, friendly and considerate."
"And every time I point out that this is just your fantasy and not a fact, you are obviously avoiding the topic. You don't want to talk about gains and losses, you only want to talk about complexes and doctrines."
"A visionary with heroic feelings, a person who would rather be a child for heroic fantasy or a person who has never stopped fantasizing because he has never stepped out of his boyhood. This is you, Tony Stark."
Stark sat beside the emergency bed. He could feel the moisture in his eyes. He saw Schiller kneeling beside the bonfire, his body very straight and his eyes looking at him calmly.
Schiller's face is still half in the light and half in the dark, but this time it is more like a fusion of sympathy and empathy, using reason to analyze emotions and using emotions to influence reason.
At this moment, he felt the charm of reason, which very well calmed some of his turbulent emotions.
So Stark did not fall asleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at Schiller a little tiredly and asked: "So, my good doctor, how do you think this disease should be treated?"
"This is not a disease, you can understand it as a kind of inertial thinking." Schiller fiddled with the metal badge iron piece in his hand that had been hammered beyond recognition, and said: "Before a person makes a move to betray or hurt you, you will
You believe wholeheartedly that he's a hero, and when you find out he's not, the first thing that hurts is your feelings."
"This is actually an evasive way of thinking. Give a person a definition and framework, think that he is like this, and then ignore all the weird things, get along with him according to the same pattern, and pin everything on the fact that he is indeed a hero.
on the possibility.”
"You can't escape, Tony." Schiller raised his head and looked at Stark and said, "Don't continue to wallow in the frustration of your youth. See clearly what you want behind the heroic fantasy caused by personality regression."
Stark has asked himself this question countless times - what does he want? To save, or to be saved?
In other words, should we wait for a hero or become a hero?
Stark looked at Schiller and saw the warm and shining water in his eyes, which made his gray eyes look like silver sand flowing down from the Milky Way.
This reminded Stark of the times when he was a child, standing alone in front of his bedroom door, waiting for the return of the first great hero in his life every night.
But since then, he has never waited for it again. The only thing that accompanied him was the gentle and lonely moonlight.
In this night's dream, Stark heard his childhood voice again.
"I want to be a great hero like my father."
"But dad is no longer a hero."
Suddenly, Stark saw his young self looking at him across infinite time, and he heard himself say: