The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 3018 Mercury Notes (4)

Chapter 3018 Mercury (IV)

Bruce was driving towards the hospital when he received a call from James Gordon. He heard Gordon say on the phone.

"You're finally back, Bruce. Come to the police station right away. There's a strange case here. You have to come and take a look."

"Come on, Gordon, I've only just got back...Okay, how weird is that?"

"One of the prisoners we captured earlier died tragically on the prison van that was being taken to the court. Someone left a line of strange characters on the wall of the van. We are short of experts who are proficient in code-breaking. You'd better come and take a look."

Bruce turned the steering wheel helplessly and drove towards the police station.

When he arrived, the young police officer at the door wanted to stop him, but the old police officer waved to him and let him go. He walked all the way to the spacious backyard of the police station and found a prison van with a court logo parked there. Gordon and his subordinates were standing there.

"Oh my God, you're finally here." Gordon wiped his forehead and said, "You don't know how much pressure I had to go to Schiller when a case happened during your absence. Even little Jenny couldn't comfort my heart."

"I haven't congratulated you on the birth of your daughter yet." Bruce walked up to Gordon and hugged him, then said, "I'll send you the 20 sets of children's slides I prepared for Elsa. She'll always need them."

Then Bruce turned his eyes to the prison van. As soon as the door was opened, he smelled a strong smell of blood. The body had obviously been taken away for autopsy, but there was no marking of the body's location.

"It's hard for me to explain to you where the bodies were." Gordon shook his head and said, "If I have to say, they were basically everywhere in the car. The head was placed on the left seat, the two arms were hanging here, the two legs were placed there, and the abdomen and chest were scattered on the floor."

“It’s a work of art, right?”

"I guess so." Gordon thought about it carefully and said, "But it doesn't feel like there's any special meaning. If I have to say, it's a kind of innocent bad taste, like throwing toy parts around."

"I feel like you'll soon be able to be the group leader," Bruce said.

"So may I ask why I know so much about serial killers?" Gordon snapped. "Why should they place their art around police stations and courthouses?!"

"If it was in the past, I might have seen it as a provocation, but this case is different. I can't see the details. Maybe you have to call Schiller."

"I've already sent him the photos and stuff, but he's in the hospital, so I don't want to bother him too much. I hope he can send back good news. That's the main reason I came to you."

Gordon pointed to the side of the prison van. Bruce had already seen it. There was a line of characters written in blood on it. It was not very long, only 6 letters, but there was no pattern.

However, what is special is that there is an Arabic numeral 4 written at the end of this line of letters, and it is larger than other letters, which seems to be a hint.

"I've never heard of such a serial killer in Gotham. He could be from outside the area or he could be a new generation."

"You mean there will be similar cases again?"

Bruce nodded, and Gordon thought for a moment before saying, "I don't know if you know this guy, but he was the mastermind behind the child abuse case a while ago. His name is Nygma, and he's also a candidate for mayor."

“Is it popular?”

"Before, it was as hot as summer weather, but later, due to some incidents, the media thought he had symptoms of mental disorder and he was not trusted by the public. It was not until he was arrested that he completely lost his qualification to run for mayor."

"Do you have any talent in finance?"

"Yes, I'm not sure who is behind him. It could be a Jewish consortium, but it could also be those families in the west."

Bruce thought about it carefully and said, "This is not a complete clue. If nothing unexpected happens, there should be three more cases. These letters will form a code together. Only then will I know what this code points to."

"Can the murderer be caught?"

"I'm afraid it's difficult. I'm more inclined to believe that this is a budding genius. Although his methods are still a bit immature, they are not something that ordinary police officers can deal with."

"Then let me ask it another way. Does he want to go to jail?"

Bruce looked at Gordon in surprise. Gordon shook his head and said, "Don't look at me like that. Many of the serial killers I caught before fell into the trap themselves. In order to avoid being caught by the FBI, they would rather come to Gotham to go to jail."

"At the moment, it seems that there is none, so you'd better pass this case on to the FBI before they leave."

"How do you know I won't get to the bottom of this?"

"Because this guy obviously deserves it, and if I'm not mistaken, the next few victims should be similar. For moral reasons, you hope they can go to jail, but for personal reasons, you hope they can get a stronger punishment than jail time."

"Your behavior analysis is really getting better and better."

"Don't mention this when I'm about to meet Professor Schiller."

The two smiled at each other, and at this moment, Gordon's cell phone rang. After he answered the call, his expression became a little serious.

After hanging up the phone, he said to Bruce, "You guessed right. The two cases were discovered at the same time. There were 6 letters left at the scene, but no numbers. Do you want to go to the crime scene to take a look?"

"No need. I need the victim's information, activity tracks, and social circles. Otherwise, it will be useless to look at it any more. Send me the remaining 12 letters and I will decipher the code as soon as possible."

Gordon didn't stop him from leaving, because he knew that Batman had to rely on evidence to solve cases. Behavioral analysis was a subject from the past, and one had to combine and summarize past clues to get current answers. A fresh crime scene could provide inspiration but not much, so he had to rely on Schiller for guessing.

Gordon arranged to send the photos of the crime scene to Schiller. Although the psychic power of the photos was not that strong, it was enough to give some clues. Then he asked someone to send the photos of the letters and various information of the victims to Bruce. With the cooperation of the master and apprentice who are proficient in psychoanalysis and behavioral analysis respectively, I believe there will be results soon.

Schiller was sitting on the bed looking at photos. The ultraviolet lamp above his head kept his body temperature at a more comfortable level, but he still needed to get nearly 4 hours of sun exposure every day to have enough energy to move around.

He placed the photos of the three victims on the three corners of the table and compared them one by one. After looking at them for a while, he called Gordon and said to him.

"Nygma's body was cut into many pieces, but the process of cutting the body did not contain any anger. He was very rational and used this behavior to express a meaning."

"What do you think that is?"

"There was a man who had divided him like this, and he felt as if his spirit had been torn into pieces, just like Nygma's body, with pieces to the east and to the west, unable to be put together. He felt pain and confusion."

"and then?"

"The second person, the one who was stuffed into the oil barrel and roasted, symbolizes that something is coming together, that someone has built a framework for him and is squeezing his spirit inwards."

“Is this good?”

"Yes, because in the first case, he expressed that he felt mentally torn apart. This kind of compression is benign. Although the process is not without pain, he still feels that he is being pieced together, and some people are desperately trying to restore him to normal."

"At the same time, the flames don't just express warmth. I prefer to call it a new life. He believes that his soul has been reignited. In this process, he abandons any previous relationships and chooses his family."

"Damn it, how did you know that?"

"Do you want me to explain it to you?"

"No, no, no, just keep talking."

"Okay, but I still need to explain a little bit in case you don't understand the third one. Most people hate crowds and prefer bigger houses and more spacious cars. When humans are in a normal mental state, they prefer a spacious environment, but sometimes they are afraid of the open space without shelter."

"This comes from the instinct of our ancestors. The original intention of building houses is to shelter from wind and rain and resist wild animals. Therefore, for living space, the best size is moderate. Too big and empty or too small and crowded will make people feel uncomfortable."

"But once people's mental state becomes abnormal, it will be reflected in the change of their attitude towards living conditions. Some people begin to yearn for the wilderness, want to sleep under the sky, and pursue the unobstructed open space to relax their body and mind."

"When patients express this wish, I understand that their spirits are being squeezed. Various invisible pressures are constantly pushing their spirits inward, causing huge friction between the thoughts in their brains in a very small space. This friction consumes their spirits, so they begin to seek to have their bodies in a wider space."

"There are also some people who start wanting to hide in extremely narrow gaps, wanting to have a secret base, or even wanting to crawl into bed and never come out again."

"This is more common in some children, and their mental states have one thing in common: overexposure."

"Parents with strong control desires will make them feel that they are being monitored, and their spirits are flattened and crushed until every detail is exposed to others. This makes them begin to seek physical shelter, hoping for a space that can completely cover and seal them off, and pursue the pursuit of being the only one in this space."

"So, stuffing a body into a narrow oil drum proves that the murderer also had a history of being overly exposed mentally. He had always wanted to hide in a space like an oil drum, not wanting to be monitored by others, and not wanting his mental state to be exposed."

"Professional psychotherapy for this situation will give patients a certain amount of mental pressure to refocus their overly scattered attention. This is a completely different treatment method from the first type of patient and will break many people's stereotypes about psychotherapy."

"Yes," Gordon replied, "I always thought that psychotherapy is when a psychiatrist lets people imagine a vast wilderness, and imagine themselves flying freely in the beautiful grassland."

"This may be true for the first type of patients, but for the second type, such an empty environment will only make them feel more panicked."

"So you ask them to imagine dark and crowded conditions?"

"Guiding patients to imagine and observing their reactions is a test, not a treatment. For mental illnesses that cannot self-regulate, medication is the first choice. Secondly, if it were me, I would choose to give the second type of patients something to focus on."

"For example, doing handicrafts, painting, knitting, the patient must have a certain interest in it. Most importantly, let them make a schedule, but the specific content of the schedule is entirely up to them."

"They can even spend two months preparing materials and then one day to complete the work. For artists, this is completely unbalanced because it does not take two months to prepare materials and most of the time may be wasted. On the other hand, completing the work in one day is too hasty and the result may not be satisfactory."

"But in psychotherapy, it's important to constantly emphasize to patients that they have control, that they can do this, and that how they make their schedule is based on what they want, not what the doctors, nurses and bystanders want."

“I think I understand a little bit, and maybe this will make them understand that if they choose not to finish, it’s just a choice, not a failure.”

"Yes, because most of the time no matter what choices they made in the past, they would be regarded as failures. Returning the choices to their original meaning is the best way to enhance their sense of self-control."

“But what if the work they produce doesn’t satisfy them?”

"That's the next step. They need to completely abandon the standards that were set for them in the past and find their own perspective."

(End of this chapter)