mtl008 Chapter 4518 The Darkest Night (46)
Chapter 4518 The Darkest Night (46)
Chapter 4518 The Darkest Night (Forty-Six)
Schiller didn't hesitate; he crossed the hall and headed towards the back garden. He figured he should allow enough time to observe Bruce before he found him. He wanted to know how they got along.
Soon, a figure appeared in the hall of Wayne Manor. Behind him followed another small figure. It was a very thin little girl. Because her body was so thin, her head appeared exceptionally large, slumping on her shoulders as if it were about to fall off. It was Novi.
Bruce's attention was completely focused on the little girl, so he didn't notice Schiller standing by the back door. Schiller stood there, quietly watching the two interact. But the more he watched, the deeper his brow furrowed.
Bruce was struggling to explain the situation to the little girl. He was telling her she was safe. But the little girl wouldn't listen and ran to a corner of the room. Bruce followed her.
At this point, Schiller had actually recalled seeing similar traces at Wayne Manor, and from this, he deduced that the little girl Bruce had brought back might have died from cardiopulmonary failure caused by stress. Now it seemed that this judgment was correct.
Bruce's actions were indeed unwise in some ways, but this was more likely due to his lack of understanding of children.
Many people know that pediatrics is also known as the "silent specialty." Children are very difficult to communicate with. They may not speak, and even if they do, it may not be correct, and even if it is correct, it may not be helpful. Therefore, treating children is actually quite similar to treating cats and dogs. You can't expect them to communicate effectively with you and solve problems through communication.
Let's not even talk about children; many adults also like to tell little lies when they see a doctor. Reasoning and questioning won't solve their problems. That's why doctors prefer to use professional equipment for examination. If we treated everything according to the patient's self-reported symptoms, we wouldn't be doctors, we'd be killers.
Bruce's biggest mistake was that he placed too much emphasis on patients' self-reports. He thought that problems could be solved through verbal communication and reassurance, but that was not actually the case.
However, such errors are almost inevitable. If someone has back or leg pain, a doctor can order various imaging tests to determine the cause. But how can imaging tests be performed on someone with mental health issues?
The fact is, even today, a super AI like Brainiac is helpless against mentally ill people. Many mental health issues still rely solely on patient self-reporting; other examinations are merely supplementary.
Of course, there are more accurate methods, but Bruce doesn't know any of them. This method of judging mental state directly, bypassing verbal communication, is called psychoanalysis.
It's fair to say that if it weren't Bruce, but someone else of similar age, the tragedy would have been unavoidable. Because they were too young, had never been parents, lacked experience dealing with children, and were only focused on identifying and solving problems. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and the end result was that it placed immense psychological pressure on Novi.
The only hope of turning the situation around is to have someone older handle it. Ideally, this person should be a good parent who was deeply involved in their child's childhood, or a relevant professional. Otherwise, it won't work.
Schiller stood behind the door, carefully observing Novi's state. He then realized that Novi's overreaction stemmed not only from Bruce's pressure but also from her fear of the new environment.
Schiller noticed a detail: as Novie ran towards the corner, she stepped on the rug by the fireplace. The instant she stepped on it, she made a very terrified expression and almost fell. She then scrambled around the rug before finally reaching the corner.
This was because carpets didn't exist in her previous environment. Floors were always hard, so she was terrified when she stepped on one. She didn't know what it was. Common-sense information, such as "floors can be soft," which had never crossed her mind before, flooded her brain. This influx of information, coupled with her already insufficient blood supply to her brain, left it with no energy to process and absorb it, making it unacceptable to her.
The constant barrage of messages overwhelmed her, causing her to accumulate more and more cached data, eventually crashing the host system. This made communication even more impossible for her.
Then Bruce took the little girl upstairs. Because Novi had a fever, Bruce sent her back to rest. But in reality, this didn't stop the information bombardment; instead, it accelerated the arrival of unfamiliar information.
The bed was soft, the blankets were warm, the fabric was smooth… all of this was so unfamiliar to her. This information lingered in her mind, further consuming system memory, which was almost completely full.
Seeing this, Schiller felt somewhat puzzled. Even information overload or system crashes wouldn't be life-threatening. On the contrary, clearing the mind of these stimuli could actually be beneficial for rest.
It's similar to lying in bed tossing and turning when you can't sleep, thinking about all sorts of things. The things you can figure out actually make you more excited, until you encounter something you just can't figure out, and then you stop thinking about it and fall asleep.
The human brain consumes a lot of energy. If the brain temporarily stops functioning, it can conserve a significant amount of energy. It seemed like things were going well, so why did it suddenly go wrong again?
Schiller saw Bruce talking to Dick on the stairs. Taking advantage of their inattention, Schiller went up to the second floor from the other side and then went to the little girl's room.
He only glanced at the door before he understood why—Novi had no intention of giving up thinking.
Even though her brain was severely lacking blood supply and her system was almost completely shut down, she didn't give up, and she didn't think, "If I can't figure it out, I'll just stop thinking about it." She kept trying to understand the things around her.
She was forcing herself to accept that the soft thing she was lying on was also a bed, that there were warm blankets and effective medications in this world. She was constantly processing the massive amount of information flooding into her brain in a short period of time, and even trying to analyze it.
She was trying to understand what the person who brought her back wanted to do, what her future would be like, and what she needed to do now. Her mind was constantly racing, so she just lay stiffly in bed, completely unable to fall asleep.
It's obvious that if she had given up long ago, thinking, "Whatever, I'm just going to die anyway," she wouldn't have responded at all and would have just been like a puppet, letting others manipulate her.
It is precisely because she is constantly trying to respond to the information being input, but her hardware does not support it, that she is crying and making a fuss, unable to rest when she should.
Perhaps this is the curse of the Gothamites, Schiller thought. They are too good at thinking, regardless of the time or place. Thinkers are always tormented; they simply cannot bring their brilliant minds to a complete halt in order to seek true peace.
They cannot accept their fate without awareness or feeling, like those numb, walking corpses. Their spines flow with sharp, piercing thoughts, constantly dissecting the world and themselves.
Novi's breathing became weak, for her body truly lacked the energy to sustain her thoughts. Yet, she continued to analyze everything: from their rescue, to being led back to Wayne Manor, to Bruce's whispers in her ear, to the soft bed and warm blankets…
Schiller couldn't take it anymore. He pushed open the door. But at that moment, he felt an echo from Novi's heart. In his eyes, the colorful lines representing emotions and thoughts bloomed like bellflowers. This made him freeze in place, then he turned and strode out the door, shouting, "Bruce!!! Bruce Wayne!!!"
There was no response. Bruce was standing right downstairs, but he couldn't hear Schiller's calls. Schiller immediately realized that something was separating him from this memory. Could it be the power of death?
No, Jack's judgment shouldn't be wrong. The power of death should have already left the mental realm. Moreover, if it is the power of death, it shouldn't just be isolated; it might be more aggressive, and the style of the entire memory fragment would change accordingly, becoming darker and more terrifying.
“Hugo Strange,” Schiller read the name aloud. “It must have been him.”
That makes sense, though. His goal is to prevent himself from breaking the deadlock, so he certainly wouldn't allow himself to interfere with Novi's memories so easily. Therefore, even if he figured something out, he couldn't reverse it.
In an instant, Novi stopped breathing. Fragments of memory shattered. After a blurry white light, Schiller found himself back in the moment he had just stepped into the realm of the mind.
He frowned deeply, because this was abnormal. Jack had directly transported him into this memory fragment. After the memory fragment collapsed, he should have appeared outside, not returned to the starting point—meaning he was very likely trapped.
As others have analyzed, this is Hugo Strange's trap. He somehow separated Schiller's spiritual body from Novi's spiritual realm, but then trapped him there, endlessly cycling through this process.
Schiller stood in the center of Wayne Manor's main hall, watching Bruce lead Novi in, neither of them noticing him. Schiller carefully observed Novi's condition again, while simultaneously contemplating his own situation.
Hugo must have a purpose in trapping himself here, which is simply to defeat or kill himself. But relying solely on the cycle won't work, since he can't interfere with memories, and the things in those memories can't interfere with him. There must be another deadly move.
The entire process was repeated once more, and Novie died again. The process was extremely fast, and Schiller couldn't interfere. Then came the third time, the fourth time…
The whole process was like a fast-forwarded movie, and Schiller was merely a bystander sitting outside the screen. He had no way to intervene and could only watch helplessly.
Just as Novi was dying again, Schiller noticed something different—the light was starting to dim.
Schiller stood once again in the center of Wayne Manor. He turned his head. The fireplace was still burning, but the flames were much dimmer than before, with only a few flickering embers remaining. The shadows cast on the wall, however, were thick and almost tangible. The sky outside the windows of Wayne Manor grew ever darker.