PFC Chapter 4513 The Darkest Night (41)
Chapter 4513 The Darkest Night (41)
Chapter 4513 The Darkest Night (Forty-One)
Then Schiller and Hugo talked for a long time, seemingly engaged in a heated debate. Now we could see some of their lip movements. Victor was certain they were discussing something like "love."
“Is this some kind of buzzword?” Victor said. “Brainiac and I discussed this yesterday, and he said he wanted to fall in love with Lucy.”
“There’s always a reason why something suddenly becomes popular,” Schiller said meaningfully.
The atmosphere in the room reached a fever pitch, then suddenly, Schiller took a step back. The door opened, and another figure walked in. It was a pale, strong man with a full beard, but his face was unfamiliar; Victor didn't recognize him.
"Who is this?" Victor leaned closer to Schiller and asked.
“Jerita, a corpse collector, is also a victim of Hugo. However, Hugo is also his victim.”
Victor paused, his hand holding the binoculars still, and then asked, "What do you mean?"
"This guy used to collect corpses for the mob and had necrophilia. He contracted a sexually transmitted disease due to unhealthy sexual behavior, was recently killed, then resurrected, and then killed again..."
“Wait a minute.” Victor interrupted Schiller, put down his binoculars, poured himself a cup of hot tea, and said, “Let’s not get to the point now, let’s get to the details.”
Schiller briefly told Victor about Gérita. When he heard that Hugo was researching Gérita, he only frowned slightly. But when he heard that Gérita might have been the one to collect Hugo's body, he spat out a mouthful of hot tea.
“You mean… he… he… he might…” Victor went through every gesture he could think of to describe something that was hard to describe, almost like he was performing a hand gesture dance.
"Most likely, yes." Schiller nodded.
Victor was speechless; this was all too advanced for Gotham. Moreover, it had a strange, almost fatalistic feel to it. Logically speaking, while necrophilia might be a niche hobby, it wasn't a big deal in Gotham—after all, he only bothered corpses, making him relatively safe among the perverts. But the strange thing was, the mastermind appeared, and the corpses suddenly came back to life. It was truly bizarre.
"Then do you think he would like a moving corpse?" Victor, true to his Gotham roots, immediately began to ponder academically. "Would a necrophiliac like a resurrected corpse?"
"Whether he liked it before was uncertain, but now I'm afraid..."
Victor slowly lowered the binoculars, stared at Schiller with wide eyes, and said, "You don't mean to say that this junior employee... he..."
Just as Victor was about to perform the hand gesture dance again, Jeretta suddenly roared. The sound was so loud that they could barely hear it. But Victor wished he could plug his ears, because what she was saying revolved around two words—"beauty" and "love."
Interspersed throughout were phrases like "why," "by what right," "we," "they," "you want," and "I want"...
Up to this point, it's still bearable. If you ignore their gender, circumstances, and quirks, it's simply a tale of love and hate between a fervent pursuer who feels betrayed and a victim who isn't exactly a good person. They could even be considered a pair of star-crossed lovers.
But when Jeretta started describing certain details of certain things, Victor really couldn't stand it.
"vomit--!!!"
He put down his binoculars and began to gag, kneeling on the ground next to the heater. Realizing he couldn't hold it in any longer, he canceled the barrier, ran to the edge of the roof, and started vomiting, almost bringing up his internal organs.
After he finished vomiting, he found Schiller still there, watching the spectacle with great interest. He couldn't help but lean against the ice wall and say, "While I can understand your hobby, I suggest you go see a doctor."
Schiller waved his hand and said, "You don't understand. The key is not these sensational contents, and Hugo didn't break down because of these things—after all, it's hard to say whether he even had the memory of that time."
"...Why is that?" After saying this, Victor wanted to slap himself. This damn curiosity! Couldn't he just ignore this ridiculous spectacle?
“Hugo was actually a very inconsistent person,” Schiller said. “He believed he could control everyone’s thoughts and emotions. He was proud of this ability and thought he was naturally superior to others and should be the god of the psychological and spiritual realm.”
"So he recklessly used others as experimental subjects for research, because in his view, these people were nothing more than inferior life forms, like lab rats. He was superior to them, so he could manipulate them at will."
“He conducted all sorts of experiments on them. For example, he would disrupt their normal thinking, give them all sorts of suggestions, or make them more extreme in a certain aspect of their personality—like injecting drugs into mice and observing their reactions.”
"He's not omnipotent. There are things that might be beyond his control, but that won't really harm him. It's like being bitten by a white mouse; it might hurt a little, but it won't be fatal. Even if the white mouse has some bacteria, it's not difficult to deal with. As a higher life form, there's always a way."
"But in all these experiments, there was one forbidden area he could not touch—love. He could make people more insane or more cowardly, more excited or more indifferent, but he never tried to make anyone fall in love with him."
“Well, that makes sense,” Victor said. “Who would expect a lab rat to fall in love with itself?”
"That's precisely where his contradiction lies. If he doesn't need the love of lab rats, then why does he want the same social status as me?"
Victor paused for a moment. Schiller said, "Hugo wasn't entirely indifferent to the opinions of ordinary people; in fact, you could say he enjoyed being adored. He wanted others' praise and admiration, he wanted people to genuinely love him to the point of obsession, to be deeply captivated by him, and to follow him from the bottom of their hearts."
“…That does sound a bit off,” Victor said. “He sees himself as a different kind of being from everyone else and wants to manipulate them like props. But he also needs the adulation of these props. Isn’t that a contradiction? I don’t expect my desk to like me.”
"That's exactly right. He believed that his constant experimentation on test subjects was academic research. But in reality, it was a compulsive behavior stemming from a psychopath, aimed at proving his superiority. Each time he manipulated the thoughts of ordinary people, it made him even more convinced of his superiority. This is the main reason why he kept repeating this process."
"The reason he fell into this compulsive behavior is because he had no other way to prove that he was truly superior. Since no one loved him and no one admired him, he could only repeatedly hypnotize himself by unrestrainedly displaying his abilities: I am good enough, I am excellent enough, I am naturally superior to others."
“There is a type of workaholic in this world who, due to a lack of emotional support, constantly needs to prove themselves in their work, even to the point of being blind and pathological. They are usually very extreme in the workplace, especially in areas where they are confident. They typically refuse to communicate or discuss, and resolutely refuse to cooperate, insisting on doing things their way. Only by suppressing everyone in this way can they prove that they have a foundation and that they are worthy of being loved. This is precisely because, aside from all of this, they have never been truly loved by anyone.”
"The reason Hugo targeted me like this is because he had to prove that he was the number one in this field, because he had no other way to anchor his existence."
Victor nodded and said, "That sounds like a lot of sense. But conversely, if you're truly popular and loved, there's no need to rush to prove yourself."
“You could say that,” Schiller said, glancing around the room again. “Hugo’s problem was that he used the guise of academic research and experimentation, but in reality, he didn’t produce anything. He had the ability, but no visible results. This isn’t to say he lacked ability, but rather that he simply didn’t put his heart into the research. His research on those experimental subjects was more about satisfying his own desires, which is why the process outweighed the result.”
“If that’s the case, then his talent must be very good.” Victor thought for a moment and said, “After wasting so many years, his level is still quite good after his return.”
“This kind of thing doesn’t require effort,” Schiller said, shaking his head. “The vast majority of mind manipulators are born that way, and it has little to do with training or practice.”
"What does this have to do with Jeretta?"
“That’s where it’s interesting. I created a true fanatical follower, the kind Hugo wanted—a psychopathic fanatic who loved him unconditionally, followed him, and couldn’t live without him.”
“That’s true…” Victor still couldn’t bring himself to say something against his conscience. While they were both so devoted to Hugo that there was no need to rank them, Jerita was clearly not the kind of follower who could offer any benefit. His mad love, no matter who it was poured out on, usually only brought trouble.
"You think his weakness lies in Jerita's lack of skill?" Schiller seemed to have read Victor's thoughts again. "But that's not the case. If you listened carefully to what Jerita said..."
"God, can I even listen to what he's saying?!" Victor was on the verge of collapse. He said, "Then what's the point of listening at all?!"
"Even what you've heard is enough. It's not hard to see that his love stems from sex. That's the key point."
Victor gave a complicated look and said, "If I were Hugo, I'd probably feel disgusted too..."
Schiller shook his head again and said, "The problem is that Gérita is sexually perverse. That is to say, his love is directed at Hugo's corpse. He doesn't even like Hugo's body, but his corpse."
“While Hugo was alive, Gerrita never expressed any love for him. He may even have hated Hugo because Hugo used him for experiments. But as soon as Hugo died, he fell in love with him. Even now that he has been resurrected and become a moving corpse, Gerrita has become his fanatical follower. He doesn’t love Hugo, but Hugo’s death.”
"Stop talking," Victor said, clutching his neck. "I feel... nauseous!!!"