In Schiller's Tower of Thought, the Arrogant Room is large and spans two floors. The first floor is the living area and work area, and the second floor is the rest area.
Bruce often moved around on the first floor, so he stepped into the door of the room with ease, kicked the carpet he had just stepped on back straight with his heels, and let the other edge of the carpet get stuck perfectly on the threshold, and then stepped forward.
Schiller came to the bookshelf, took out two books and put them on the table. He walked into his workspace without looking back. After putting on his glasses, he flipped through a stack of documents and said.
"I'm not sure why you are suddenly interested in psychoanalysis, but I have to remind you that psychology is a very young subject, and the masters who founded the sect you are familiar with are not historical figures."
“If you expect historical sages to provide you with the wisdom of the ancients like masters of mathematics and physics, you are overthinking.”
"Are you one of them?" Bruce sat on the sofa, and then he saw two cups on the coffee table. The degree of dryness of the remaining red wine stains in the cups showed that the previous person had just left, so he asked: " Do you have guests before me?”
Schiller paused while flipping through the documents and said, "This has nothing to do with the topic you came here for today."
"Who is he? Greedy?"
"No, a friend from far away."
Schiller came over and placed the pile of information he had found in his memory bank in front of Bruce. Instead of sitting down, he walked to the desk in the work area and began to pack away the things on it.
Bruce squinted his eyes, and he saw that on Schiller's desk were half-folded envelopes, neatly stacked letter papers, seals, and candles for baking wax. This proved that Schiller was giving someone a message before Bruce knocked on the door. write a letter.
"What are you doing at Monsanto?" Schiller asked, flattening the creases of the freshly folded envelope with his fingertips.
"Don't change the subject, why do you have a guest other than yourself?"
"The dream world is a vast world, and anyone can come and go here. Maybe they suddenly discovered this tower during their journey, so they came in to sit, and I happened to be free to entertain them."
"Another Batman?"
"Bruce." Schiller stood in front of the table, his fingertips still pressed on the envelope, but he looked up at Bruce and said: "I was originally happy that you took the initiative to ask me for study materials, but now it seems that I am happy that you are here." I still have too much expectations for my enthusiasm for learning in psychology."
"Besides red wine, what else did he give you?" Bruce leaned on the back of the sofa and turned to look at Schiller and asked.
"Half a mysterious equation, do you want to see it?"
"No interest, that sucks."
Schiller cleared the table and walked out from behind the desk. He sat across from Bruce, but Bruce suddenly showed some hesitation for some reason. He seemed to weigh it in his mind for a long time before asking: "Tell him about Thomas." Yet?"
"He should have seen it long ago."
"He saw everything." Bruce stared at Schiller's eyes with his blue eyes and said: "About me, about you, about Thomas, about this Gotham we are in, but I know nothing about him. Known.”
"Are you accusing me of hiding something for him?" Schiller didn't look angry. He just took the two cups aside so that there was no obstacle between him and Bruce.
Then he leaned forward, put his forearms on his legs, clasped his hands together and said: "You can understand it this way, he is another me, and he should have been you in the future."
"Someone told me about this...can I get a glass of water?"
Bruce stood up, went to the cup holder against the wall, picked up a cup, and then came to the side of the island and poured himself a glass of water from the kettle. He did not return to the sofa to sit down, but stood on the island. Behind him, there seemed to be something on the island as a barrier separating him from Schiller.
"In the future, I will be a completely logical lunatic, just like you, and you don't want me to be like this, so what about him?"
Bruce put the cup down. He rarely spoke for such a long time to anyone else, but the countless high-pitched talks and arguments that had occurred in this room over the past few years made him very accustomed to his voice constantly echoing in this space. among.
"If he says he doesn't want me to be him, then he's regretting it, which means he's not completely self-consistent. And if he says he wants me to be him, then you shouldn't be so compatible."
"You successfully found a loophole in logic again." Schiller maintained his original posture, turned to look at him, and said, "Like a good detective, as always."
"You are very interested in the way the two of us get along, but what I can tell you is that to a certain extent, these are two mentally ill patients with similar interests. Therefore, we will not get along like this one day, and we will never get along like this. There is no such need.”
Bruce saw that Schiller's eyes were still calm, just like they had done countless times when they discussed academic issues. There was a vast ocean in those gray eyes, so calm that it seemed there would never be any waves.
As a result, Bruce also calmed down, looked at Schiller, and then said: "You talk to him as an equal, but you always manipulate me. Compared with him, I seem to have less armor. What is that?"
"Why don't you go find it yourself?"
Bruce suddenly seemed a little irritable, and he put down the cup more firmly, making a soft clang sound.
Schiller stood up, walked to the other side of the island, put his hands on the table and said, "I know I shouldn't have any expectations for your morbid enthusiasm for learning. I wouldn't have given you any hints before. of."
Bruce looked up at him.
"But you really don't have to have a knife in your neck anymore."
Schiller poured himself a glass of water, and Bruce took a deep breath and sighed. He seemed to be impatient with his next words, so he said very simply: "First, then, then, and finally I... …I’ve said it many times.”
"Well, I think you should try a different perspective, like going from the manipulated to the manipulator."
"You should know that manipulating others is evil, right?"
"You are evil enough."
Bruce paused for a moment and then suddenly laughed, his chest rose and fell rapidly, and then he looked at Schiller and said, "This is the only place where I am better than him, right?"
"It is also the most critical point." Schiller picked up the water glass, raised it towards Bruce and said, "This evil comes from me, it is my honor."
"Okay, what should I do?"
Schiller shook his head and said: "That's the end of the hint, but based on my superficial knowledge of mathematics and physics, the half of the equation given to me by another Batman may be related to some underlying rules of the universe."
Watching Bruce's back hurriedly out of the door, Schiller showed a smile.
"So, it was you who hinted to Bruce from the beginning that he would make such a plan and put it into practice in a hurry?" Constantine said after listening to the whole process.
Then he sighed: "You actually used another Batman to stimulate him?...Well, our Bruce is not completely innocent, always young, never long-term memory."
"I don't mean to boast, but it's completely different to deceive others or use violence to coerce others." Schiller put down his glass, took another drag on his cigar, and said, "I like to show my cards right."
"Then seeing how other people, even if they see through your tricks, have no other choice because they can't control the emotions aroused by you, and can only be helpless and confused by you leading them to the path you want them to take, you Enjoy it, right?"
"Partly so."
"So evil."
"This is only true for smart people." Schiller shook his head and said: "For stupid people who are not smart enough, there is no helplessness and entanglement, only happiness, such as that stupid girl Amanda."
"She never thought about the reason why she put me in jail, implanted me with nanocontrollers, and constantly offended me, but I still kindly provided her with strategies to subdue dangerous criminals."
There seemed to be some emotion in Schiller's expression that a certain rare animal was so rare. He tapped the wall of the cup with his finger and said, "You know what? For people who are stupid enough, relying on me is There is no need to pay any price, the mental pain I often bring to people, as long as they can’t feel it, it doesn’t exist at all.”
"For example, Amanda, who was eager to vent the pain and anger caused by her life experience on Elliot, I provided her with a legitimate strategy to put Elliot in a special holding cell for torture. She I just thought it was good.”
"I recommended Deathstroke to my colleague Bane, and she readily accepted my choice. I said Gallardo would be a good bait, so she used her connections within the FBI to recruit Oliver who had just left. Gallardo, who escaped from the chase, was thrown into the designated cell."
"In all the process, she did not see any clues from any link, thinking that she was the one who planned the plan, and gained great satisfaction and happiness in this illusion."
Schiller showed a smile, pinched the wine glass with the pale knuckles of his other hand, took a sip of wine and said: "This is what I said, fools love any savior they can count on, and only smart people want to kill gods. .”
"It's pretty good, isn't it?" Constantine shrugged and said, "Being manipulated by someone much smarter than you is not a completely bad thing. At least Amanda is happy now."
"Most smart people suffer from their long-term vision." Schiller slowly exhaled smoke and said: "For short-sighted people, what will happen tomorrow will always be a mystery, and they will naturally be fully enthusiastic about today's happiness. Focus.”
"But the suffering of smart people is not unreasonable. Who can guarantee that what comes tomorrow will be a good thing? If a fool has no use value when bad things happen, those short-term happiness will cost him ten times and a hundred times. "
Constantine raised his eyebrows, drank the good wine in the glass like cheap whiskey, coughed twice, and then said: "Do you think Amanda will suffer revenge from Bruce? But in the end he listened By the sound of your voice, I should understand that Amanda is just a tool."
"Of course he understands." Schiller stood up, walked to the nearby wine cabinet and picked up a bottle of wine, which showed that this conversation was far from over.
Constantine sighed in his heart. Just as Schiller said, the manipulations from Schiller are all obvious, but they are irresistible. He wants to get up and leave now, but how can he refuse those in Schiller's private collection? Where's the good wine?
Schiller sat back on the sofa with the wine and wine knife. He opened the wine knife and said, "Theoretically, Bruce doesn't need to argue with Amanda."
"But alas, along with the evil, Bruce's tolerance also comes from me."
