It was another silent night in Gotham. In the deserted corridor of the hospital, there were only light footprints left on the tile floor, telling of the hustle and bustle during the day and the silence of the night.
In such a city that is always extremely noisy due to the sound of gunfire, the hospital is still quiet. The injured people silently lick their wounds here before facing the dangers outside again.
One hand held the door handle of the ward door and turned it gently. The sound of the door opening did not cover up the slight vibration of the instrument. The paper flipped lightly. Victor, who was standing at the bedside reading the report, looked at the matriarch who came in.
Le, said: "What did the attending doctor say? How is the medication adapting to it?"
Schiller looked at the report sheet in his hand. The drug reaction data on it made him feel a little familiar.
Connors once told him what data meant that the lizard serum would be effective, and the good news was that this string of numbers happened to be within the effective range.
Schiller came to the hospital bed and looked at Bruce lying on the hospital bed. Now, he was beyond recognition.
Before the burns from the warehouse fire had healed, chemicals were poured all over the body. Then they were exposed to wind and sun without receiving complete treatment, which led to further infection and worsening of the wounds.
What's even more frightening is that after he fell into a barrel of chemical dye, most of the hair on his body had been corroded, and his skin turned into a rough surface like a zombie.
This image is very scary. After the epidermis has been corroded, the subcutaneous fat, muscles and tendons are tangled together. He has become the kind of muscular man in the anatomy textbook, but it is even more terrifying than that.
Now Bruce no longer has that handsome appearance. His youth, strength, and beauty all disappeared with that fall. His body became silent, like a bat stuck on a mousetrap.
In order to take off again, I have to peel off my own skin.
But neither Victor nor Schiller saw this appearance. Through this terrifying appearance, they saw the soul that was gradually awakening.
The powerful power emanating from it surprised Victor and made Schiller silently cross himself to the other smiling bat.
God bless him, Schiller thought. A Batman who laughs only because he is infected by the Joker virus will never be able to compete with a Batman who really wants to laugh.
Schiller subconsciously reached out and touched the side of his neck, and Victor followed his movements and his eyes fell between his fingers. He saw a shallow scar there.
Victor has always had such a scar on the side of his neck since he met Schiller. This actually made Victor very confused because he didn't think anyone in this city could hurt Schiller.
But Schiller never talked about it, as if it was not an accident that could be laughed off. Standing in front of the hospital bed, Victor spoke again: "Schiller, can you tell me what is going on?
I don't think you would be a person who abuses students. How did Bruce become like this?"
"Victor, do you want to hear a story?" Schiller stood in front of the hospital bed, looking into Victor's eyes through the soft light emitted by the spotlights at the top of the ward. He said: "A story about arrogance and
A story of prejudice?”
Schiller lowered his eyes and looked at the monster lying on the bed. He said: "Bruce was far from as strong as he showed when he reported to school on the first day, and it is still the same to this day."
"He has been relying on bluffing to strengthen his confidence that he can complete the great cause of revenge. I don't like dealing with such a person..."
Victor thought for a while and said, "Indeed, if a person is so paranoid that he can deceive himself, it will definitely turn into a strong demand for others to cooperate with his ideas. He must be too deep into the drama to not wake up."
"I understand this deeply..." Victor showed a sad expression and said: "During the most desperate days, I told myself that my wife would definitely wake up, she would definitely wake up, she would definitely wake up.
Will recover."
"If anyone casts a sympathetic look on me, comforts me, and asks me to grieve, I will have the urge to kill him, because he is exposing this illusion of mine, and I rely on this illusion to survive.
.”
Schiller sighed slightly and said: "At that time,
I thought that my rejection of Bruce's behavior was out of my own emotions and a conclusion reached after some rational analysis, but I didn't realize that from that time on, something terrible happened."
Victor opened his eyes slightly and looked at Schiller, wondering what kind of thing he would call terrible.
"You should know that I am not a native of Gotham. Ever since I came to this city, I have felt boring and very bored."
"And when Bruce appeared in front of me and asked me a question, I heard a series of laughter ringing in my heart, but at that time, I did not realize the seriousness of the problem..."
Schiller paused briefly, then said: "As you may know, I have always suffered from mental illness, including congenital autism, acquired anxiety disorders, and some obsessive-compulsive symptoms."
This was the first time that Victor heard Schiller admit that he was a mental patient, but he had actually known this for a long time.
Schiller's daily behavior and habits are indeed somewhat abnormal, but this is nothing in the city of Gotham, so it will not attract much attention.
But Schiller seems to have been avoiding this fact, and he is unwilling to talk about his mental condition.
Victor can understand that no matter how good the theory is or how rich the experience, doctors will not be able to treat themselves, because doctors are also human beings and have weaknesses, and they are unwilling to face their own illness.
And now, for the first time, Victor heard Schiller take the initiative to talk about his mental condition, which revealed Victor's long-standing doubts.
"I don't know if you know anything about savant syndrome, but my mental world has been different from other people's for as long as I can remember."
Schiller tapped the guardrail of the hospital bed with his fingers, making a crisp sound. He said: "Of course, I didn't know this until later. I didn't know until later that the mental world of normal people is chaotic and disorderly. They think
The way is completely different from mine..."
"They looked at their memories, not by going down the stairs, looking for time stamps on the files, pulling out the folders and looking at them carefully, but in a more hazy and chaotic way, remembering what they had experienced.
, and some were even lost by them.”
Schiller squeezed the guardrail's hand gently, and Victor captured the details of this action. He said: "If you really don't want to remember, then stop thinking about it. Let's talk about other issues."
Schiller shook his head and continued: "When I was very young, I once saw other children building blocks. I thought it was very interesting, so for the first time, I used some memory fragments in my own spiritual world.
I built a tower of blocks."
"The tower was very small, crumbling, and would collapse at the first touch. But in the days that followed, I had nothing else to do, so I kept trying to make more blocks and build a taller tower.·
"At that time, I was driven by instinct and didn't know what I was doing. I just thought it was fun and didn't feel the danger involved."
"I just wanted a more magnificent tower, so I made more building blocks to reach higher places, but I think you should know that the building blocks will eventually collapse one day."
Victor understood Schiller's metaphor. After all, he had also read Schiller's paper on the palace of thought, so he asked: "When you were a child, you built a tower of building blocks that you couldn't control, so one day
, that tall tower collapsed, what happened after that?”
Schiller was silent for a long time, and he said: "Accidents in the real world did not happen on the day the tower collapsed. All this had been foreshadowed."
"As I built the tower higher and higher, I found that I began to have a stronger memory ability. I could remember the details of every daily life. I had a photographic memory and could recite things backwards and forwards. And because my spirit itself was not normal.
, I didn’t consciously cover up all this.”
Victor had a bad premonition and asked, "You have revealed your genius, and then what?"
Victor found that Schiller would always pause for a long time when describing all this. He seemed to be trying to ignore certain parts of his experience, or rather
When identifying what can be said.
After a while, Schiller continued: "The characteristics that are different from most ordinary people in this society are always easy to detect. My living conditions have undergone some changes. Originally, this was nothing, but in the building blocks
After the tower collapsed, things became uncontrollable."
"Have you had a nervous breakdown?" Victor asked.
"It's worse than that." Schiller looked down at his fingers and said, "I'm just an ordinary person. The human brain has a limit. Thinking is always limited by bandwidth and cannot expand infinitely."
"I made the information I obtained into building blocks one after another. In order to build the blocks higher, my personality climbed up the tower of blocks, just to put the next building block on top."
"If the tower of blocks represents the various types of information I have acquired, then the ground represents my spiritual foundation, and obviously, my mental stability is not that high."
"So, one day, there was an earthquake."
Victor's fingers holding the notebook tightened slightly. He looked at Schiller and didn't see any special expression on his face, but this matter was obviously not as easy as what he said.
Convert these symbolic metaphors into more direct concepts, and the matter becomes even more terrifying.
A genius who is born with savant syndrome and possesses super memory and learning ability. One day, his spiritual world completely collapses, which may cause many horrific consequences.
"The ground cracked and the tower collapsed, it doesn't really matter..." Schiller shook his head and said, "What matters is that my personality fell from the top... and was shattered."