amaotonovel Chapter 4516 The Darkest Night (44)
Chapter 4516 The Darkest Night (44)
Chapter 4516 The Darkest Night (Forty-Four)
Brand shook his head helplessly and said, "I don't deny the precision of your psychoanalysis and your ability to manipulate minds. He may be avoiding you precisely because he doesn't want to get himself into trouble. But if you take the initiative to contact him, that's another story."
Schiller didn't answer, clearly disagreeing. Brand stared at him and said, "Aren't you making some judgment based on something other than the facts again?"
Schiller paused, then said, "What if he can only resurrect the dead?"
"What do you mean?"
"All his followers can only be living corpses. That is to say, the person must die first in order to be resurrected by the power of death and then controlled by him. He cannot directly turn living people into followers."
"What kind of weird ability is this?" Jonathan said. "You mean he can't kill the living, he can only resurrect the dead, and then let the resurrected dead kill the living, turn the living into the dead, and then resurrect the dead again?"
Schiller nodded and said, "That's right. There is currently no evidence that anyone died directly from the attack of the Death Force; all the victims were killed by the undead."
“No wonder you’re so bold,” Brand said. “You think the power of death can’t kill you in the spiritual realm. But what about Novi?”
Brand leaned forward again and said, “I must remind you. A person who can revive the brain and then forcibly stimulate physical activity through willpower must have a very strong will. Her memory has been altered, and she sees you as an irreconcilable enemy. Once she sees you, she will definitely attack you. That is her home turf.”
“If it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t have called you all here.” Schiller remained calm. “The problem I need to solve is how to successfully regain my true memories amidst the interference of the power of death and her pursuit.”
“I still think my plan is better.” Jonathan crossed his legs. “Get the power of death out of your mental realm first, then you can focus on dealing with that little guy.”
“But if you don’t control the dosage properly, causing her to become too excited, Novie’s attack power will also become very strong,” Schiller said.
"I can't control the dosage?!" Jonathan jumped up and roared at Schiller, "How dare you question my professional competence?! Did you use that fear gas sparingly?!"
“So you knew that?” Victor said, somewhat surprised.
“I committed murders to iterate on the formula for the fear gas, so what difference does it make who tests it?” Jonathan sat back down in his chair, arms crossed, and said angrily, “You should be more worried about this ice-cold brain not being able to control the temperature…”
"Jonathan Klein! Are you looking for a beating?!" Victor raised his gun again. "That's technology I developed for Nora. If I couldn't control it properly, would I dare freeze Nora?!"
“Can you two be quiet for a moment?” Schiller said. “I also think this plan is good. But controlling the dosage and temperature is key. You two need to align the data yourselves.”
“Then, Brand…” Schiller turned to look at Brand, “let’s abandon neuroscience. Let’s get into the real professional field.”
“Okay, go ahead.” Brand turned off the projection screen.
"What do you think is the key point... Don't tell me you don't know. Scammers understand a person's psychological weaknesses better than anyone else."
Brand stroked his chin and said, "If you really want me to tell you, I'll tell you that the experience at Wayne Manor was key. How do you think Novi viewed all of this?"
Schiller frowned slightly. He wasn't a witness and didn't know the details. The truth was probably only known to Bruce. But Bruce's psychoanalysis was utter garbage; he certainly didn't know what Novie was thinking at the time.
“Then let’s work backward from the result.” Brand clearly understood Schiller’s dilemma. He said, “Bruce has always felt guilty about this. Does that prove that Novi resented her? At least she said or did something similar before she died.”
Schiller pursed his lips and then said, "Bruce is a very good person at feeling guilty, even now. That's because his basis for guilt isn't what others show, but what he himself did. Once he feels he's wrong, he'll feel guilty even if others show they don't mind."
“Oh, introspective, and self-centered,” Brand said, shaking his head. “That makes things complicated. You can hardly get any useful information out of him.”
“I’m not inclined to ask him,” Schiller said. “His description would be very subjective. I can guess what he’d say. It would just be that the little girl was pitiful and he was completely wrong. Perhaps Batman is calm and restrained most of the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an emotional person at heart.”
Brand sighed and said, "Alright, let's try to find a seemingly viable path among these dead ends. Is Stockholm syndrome possible?"
“You know I can’t cross that moral line,” Schiller said.
Brand rubbed his forehead and said, "Or you could find a younger personality type? New Jersey supports the Romeo and Juliet Act."
"What, Black Pharaoh, haven't you seen my juvenile form in the tower? It's not Romeo and Juliet, it's just Alien vs. Predator."
Brand wiped his face and said, "What about the breakdown therapy? Anyway, she's not really a child, so it's okay to be a little rough, right?"
“I have no experience in this area,” Schiller said honestly. “I’m not actually going to abuse children, and I’ve never used breakdown therapy to treat any child. How would I know where the reset point is?”
“Oh, yes,” Brand said. “It is indeed very difficult to control. In this situation, a breakdown of reason can really lead to brain death.”
“Then there’s only one way left,” Brand said, straightening up. “Exhaustive search. Let’s guess where the key is.”
“She wanted to live,” Schiller said. “Her will to live must have been very strong. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have seen the kind of situation you described, where she used her willpower to control a corpse that shouldn’t have woken up.”
"Of course. But the question is, what motivated her to live? Was death too painful? Or did she have some other goal?"
“I think it’s the latter,” Schiller said. “But it’s hard for us to guess why she wanted to live. It could even be just eating something or doing something small that we can’t guess. That might be the biggest motivation for her to live.”
Does she have any good friends?
"It's impossible to investigate now, but I suspect not. It wasn't an environment where people could help each other. Everyone was numb, like walking corpses."
"In that case, it's unlikely that they would live for some small goal. Their understanding is far too shallow. Not only have they not received an education, but they don't even know the most basic common sense. Their thinking has been completely trapped in the way they are abused."
"That's not entirely true. She was taken back to Wayne Manor and still saw some things happening outside."
What in Wayne Manor could possibly appeal to her?
Schiller shook his head and said, "From our perspective, it's really hard to imagine. After all, we weren't children who suffered such abuse..."
“Aren’t you?” Brand said in surprise. “I’ve heard quite a bit about the Black Pharaoh…”
You mean my childhood?
As soon as Schiller finished speaking, Jonathan and Victor, who were studying the data nearby, perked up their ears. Judging from Jonathan's darting eyes, it wasn't hard to tell that he had already imagined hundreds of thousands of words of his tragic ordeal.
"What controlled the body back then was the current pathological state."
"which one?"
"No, they were one entity back then. The tower appeared after that."
“Alright, you don’t need to say anymore,” Brand stopped him. “If you keep going like this, I’ll start to empathize with the abused researchers.”
“You might think that I want revenge because they treated me badly. But actually, whether they treated me well or not, I'm the same. I'm a mental patient, and this is something I can't control.”
"And then what happened?" Brand asked, somewhat curiously. "Couldn't his subsequent actions be considered revenge?"
“It’s not that it’s not,” Schiller said after thinking for a moment, “but more than that, being away from doctors finally allowed me to let myself go.”
Brand looked somewhat speechless. He had just opened his mouth when Schiller interrupted him, saying, "Don't even think about complaining to the doctor. I know you've contacted him. In fact, it's been good for my mental state; otherwise, I might not have been able to adapt to life in Gotham so quickly."
“Let’s get down to business,” Brand emphasized. “You can’t empathize with Novi either?”
“You know that psychoanalysis and empathy are different, and I can’t really be considered an empathizer.”
“Then let’s go find one,” Brand said.
Schiller frowned slightly again. He said, "I have a student who is a very gifted empath. But I can't let her empathize with Novi, because she's very likely to feel the part that Hugo fabricated. That would cause her serious psychological harm."
"Baseness is the passport of the base, nobility the epitaph of the noble." This is all Brand can say. Schiller may not have been morally upright, but he was certainly a teacher. This limited his actions, making him somewhat hesitant.
“I’ll ask Jenna,” Schiller said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be about empathizing with Novi. Maybe someone else will do.”
A dozen minutes later, Jenna appeared in the classroom. When she walked in and saw the people in the room, she froze.
"Come in, miss. There are no corpses here."
Jenna still shuffled in reluctantly: "Of course I know you're not zombies, but I'm afraid it's still uncertain whether a corpse will suddenly appear later."
“We’re just having a normal academic discussion. Okay, miss, tell me what you see in Jason.”
"Jason? Jason Todd?"
"Yes. Especially his childhood."
Jenna frowned deeply. She seemed a little nervous. Schiller could only reassure her, "This isn't a paper presentation. Actually, I need your help, ma'am. We have a plan..."
Schiller briefly explained to Jenna what they were going to do. Jenna's expression visibly changed. Before she could even utter a word of protest, seeing the determination in Schiller's eyes, she fell silent.
“Okay, let me think about it carefully,” Jenna said. “This is much more important than a paper presentation. I have to be as accurate as possible.”