amaotonovel Chapter 4477 The Darkest Night (5)
Chapter 4477 The Darkest Night (5)
Chapter 4477 The Darkest Night (Part 5)
A vibrant figure came into view. Jenna placed two cups of hot tea in front of them. She was wearing a red dress and makeup. Sitting on the single sofa in the middle, she said somewhat apologetically, "I'm sorry, I didn't know there had been a murder. Should I go change my clothes?"
"How late do you rehearse?" Schiller asked.
“It was past one o’clock,” Jenna said. “Amanda needed to talk to me earlier, so I was delayed for a few hours. When I got back, they were almost finished practicing. I had to do some extra practice. Luckily, my dance partner was willing to cooperate.”
"What does Amanda want with you?"
“It’s strange,” Jenna said. “She said Bruce suddenly approached her wanting to fix his parents’ graves. I can’t think of any reason why he would entrust this to the Federal Shields. But he just wanted Amanda to help.”
What will you be responsible for?
“Security work,” Jenna said. “For such important figures, moving a grave requires a ceremony, to comfort the deceased and such. I had to accompany them the whole day. Although I was in charge of security, I felt like I was just there to make a show of things. More people would make it seem more solemn.”
"Is this really worth having to talk to you about separately?"
“It’s not exactly alone. The FBI has also been called in; they’re coming along too.” Jenna paused, closed her makeup mirror, and then said, “Although we all say Amanda is crazy, if Bruce gives her a large sum of money, maybe we can get a share of the bonus. Let’s move the grave then.”
"Where's Barry? Has he gone back yet?"
"No, he's still working overtime. Should we call him over?"
Schiller nodded. Jenna texted Barry. Barry arrived quickly. He took off his coat, revealing a formal suit underneath. The color of his tie clearly matched Jenna's dress, but Schiller didn't point it out.
"good evening."
Barry waved his hand, refusing the tea Jenna offered, and said, "I've already had two cups of coffee, I really can't drink anymore."
“There’s a case…” Schiller started talking about Chick’s suicide, then looked at Jenna and said, “Tell me about your roommate.”
“Perlotta is a very biased person,” Jenna said. “To put it bluntly, she’s too protective of her own. She’ll believe anything someone she likes says. So all I can say is that she thinks what she knows is true, but that may not actually be the case.”
“Chick’s dance partner is definitely a suspect,” Barry said. “Does he have an alibi?”
“Not really,” Schiller said. “Chick died in the middle of the night. Most people were asleep at home then. Brainiac said Milos didn’t leave his room. The security cameras didn’t capture him going out.”
"Isn't this very conclusive evidence?"
“The premise is that he has to be an ordinary person, without superpowers,” Schiller said. “And, if he’s smart enough, it’s not impossible to fool Brainiac. You should know that.”
Barry nodded. Having worked at the FBI for so long, he understood that even during Brainiac's era, they could only stop the vast majority of ordinary people from committing crimes. And for certain flashes of brilliance in criminal geniuses, there were still loopholes to exploit.
However, it's unlikely that they can complete a serial murder case and disappear like before. Since Brainiac came to power, most of the serial killers who had been rampant for over half a century have been caught. It might be better for them to stay inactive and lie low, but once they do, even if the case is successful, they will inevitably be caught afterward.
In other words, most of the cases we see now are the final act of a serial killer. And even for newly emerging evil geniuses, once they can't hold back their actions, their capture is inevitable.
“It could be him,” Jenna said. “Milos isn’t a good person. He’d wanted to break up with Chick for a while. But he knew it was wrong of him to do it on the eve of the ball. So, he used the excuse of Chick being scolded by the professor to break up with him. Essentially, he wanted to shift the blame to Professor Frith. Or rather, he instigated Chick to cause trouble so that he could stay out of it.”
"Without a doubt, Perrotta was an accomplice. She was already flirting with Milos before they broke up. She instigated Milos to break up at this time to humiliate Chick. She heard that Chick had also stood Milos up many times, so she used this method to get revenge on him."
"So who do you think is the biggest problem in this relationship?" Schiller asked, looking at Jenna.
“I still think it’s Milos,” Jenna said. “He’s fickle and acts very rudely. At the very least, we should wait until after the ball to break up.”
Schiller shook his head and said, "The biggest problem is Chick's mother. She controls Chick too much."
He then turned to Victor and said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when Chik was talking to you, he was full of the shadow of someone else. To be precise, the shadow of a strong, domineering, even unreasonable woman.”
Victor was taken aback. He hadn't noticed it before, of course, but Schiller's comment made it seem like something was amiss.
As Chick's mentor, Victor knew the boy well. He was usually a bit careless, quite shy, and not very good at socializing; he was definitely not the assertive, outgoing type.
When Chick appeared so resolute and agitated, Victor assumed he was simply upset and out of control, which explained his unusual behavior. However, Chick's demeanor didn't seem like something he could spontaneously produce; rather, it appeared to be some kind of unintentional imitation.
“There are patterns to how people behave when they have emotional outbursts,” Schiller said. “The sources are usually two: cognition and imitation. Or you could say cognition and non-cognition.”
“Some people are able to recognize their situation when they are emotionally agitated. Or rather, it is precisely because they are deeply aware of their situation that they feel emotionally agitated. Their emotional outbursts stem from their cognition.”
"Some people are the opposite. It is precisely because they cannot recognize their own situation that their emotions become disoriented, and they exhibit a kind of unreasonable tantrum without any direction, just like going crazy for no reason."
"This doesn't necessarily refer to two types of people; it could also be different states of the same person. He might feel devastated because he has come to understand certain things; or he might have an emotional outburst because he has tried his best but failed to understand certain things."
“In a cognitive state, people’s emotional outbursts usually manifest themselves. They express their breakdown in their own way. This is because what they perceive is tangible, which gives them material to express.”
"For example, when you find out that someone has lied to you, you feel very angry. You will confront the other person or try to point out their mistakes in front of others. Even if you cry and make a scene, you will try your best to express their malice and your innocence."
"However, in a non-cognitive state, because they cannot perceive what is happening, nothing tangible is output to their minds. They are blameless and therefore unable to express their sadness in their own way. At this time, they usually choose to imitate."
"In other words, only emotional outbursts in a cognitive state are true outbursts, while outbursts in a non-cognitive state are more like a performance. They don't know what happened, they only know that they are very sad. But because they don't know what happened, they have nothing to express, yet they want others to know that they are sad, so they can only put on a series of performances. And the essence of performance is imitation."
"Because they lack the inner drive derived from cognition, they can only exaggerate their own emotions by imitating how others express them. Chick's actions clearly have an exaggerated theatrical nature."
"Whether it's hanging himself in the lab or demanding an apology from you with unwavering conviction, it's not because he actually has any reason to give you. He just wants to show you and others how much pain he's in. And this performance doesn't come from his own personality; it's definitely an imitation of others."
"To make their performances more realistic and impactful, people often choose to imitate certain beneficiaries. That is, someone has used certain emotional outbursts to oppress or gain benefits from them. Having forced them to back down in this way, they will learn this method. Because they know better than anyone else what they can gain by doing so. So of course they will learn it."
"This is why people often lament that dragon slayers can become dragons themselves. Some victims of violence will also use the same violence to harm others. And this kind of inheritance usually happens within families. Many people explain this as a genetic curse, but in reality, it is non-conscious imitation that naturally selects those around them who benefit from it to imitate. This is exactly what happened to Chick."
"He was under strict control by his mother for many years. His mother may have manipulated him more than once by threatening suicide or forcing him to apologize in public. So when he wants to manipulate others through emotional outbursts, he will choose this method first. Because he knows how powerful it is. Because he always chose to back down under such pressure, he thought we would do the same, and that we would put on such a performance."
“But you didn’t,” Jenna said. “He will find that you are completely different from how he used to be.”
“No,” Schiller said, “it’s the same thing. When he tried to commit suicide, his classmates and professors still managed to save him. Mrs. Edson was very sympathetic to him and kept speaking up for him. That proves that the tactic worked.”
“Even Victor and I made concessions to some extent. We didn’t even pursue compensation for the equipment. Victor was even willing to apologize to him privately. Although I exposed him and explained the consequences to him, I didn’t overly criticize him. At least up to us, his performance was a success.”
“There will always be times when things don’t work,” Barry said. “If it were me, I wouldn’t pay him any attention. If you make a mistake and damage the equipment, you should be grateful if he doesn’t have to pay for it, let alone demand this and that. Who does he think he is?”
“Of course, he ran into a snag very quickly,” Schiller said, “because I went to Principal Sivana. He would never compromise with someone like that.”
Victor looked at him, somewhat surprised, and said, "You went to see the principal? Good heavens, my annual evaluation is completely over."
“Only Principal Sivana can handle them,” Jenna nodded and said. “He has a psychological trauma from this and would never accept such blackmail.”
Everyone else turned to look at her.