PFC Chapter 4489 The Darkest Night (7)
Chapter 4489 The Darkest Night (7)
Chapter 4489 The Darkest Night (Seventeen)
"Oh my goodness!" Nora hugged Jenna, who had bumped into her, and called out in a raised voice, "Miss! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Jenna shook her head, the golden lines between her feline eyes shining brightly in the dim corridor light. She ran past Nora into the lab, and Nora didn't even have time to stop her.
"Don't go over there, miss. There might be something wrong inside..."
Jenna pushed open the door, and a blast of cold air hit her face, almost freezing her, even though she was an alien who could survive in temperatures tens of degrees below zero. Nora's last word had barely left her lips: "...Cold."
But this was clearly no longer just a matter of being cold, because Jenna saw Professor Schiller inside the ice sculpture, along with Victor's students. Jenna was horrified, but Schiller winked at her.
It wasn't cold inside the dense ice; the temperature just didn't change. Schiller could even speak, which was precisely why he was frozen inside. Jenna realized this almost immediately.
So she immediately swallowed her long speech, smiled at Victor, and said very politely, "Good evening, Professor Frith. I brought you coffee."
Victor looked up, finally showing a hint of relief. Jenna placed the coffee on the table beside her, then glanced at Schiller. Victor seemed to understand what she was thinking, so he waved his hand and said, "Get him out of here."
Jenna shook her head and said, "Sorry, my brother isn't here. I don't have superpowers, so I can't get rid of him."
“But there’s no secret information, I just figured out the connection between these cases.” Jenna took a few steps back to the door, took a few breaths of warm air, and then said, “The problem lies in the South District.”
"What do you mean?" Victor asked, looking up at him.
“Chik died in the South District.”
That's because he lives in the South District.
"Perlotta also came back to life in the South."
That's because she has to pass through the South District to get home.
"But you can't deny that both cases happened in the same area."
"But there were only two cases in the sample."
“The samples from other areas are zero, so two cases are enough,” Jenner emphasized. “This can’t possibly be a coincidence, believe me.”
Victor nodded and said, "Okay, if, as you say, the key to these cases lies in the South District, what useful information can we glean from that?"
"Why the South Campus? Of course, there are more shared villas here, which is a good place to take advantage of the situation. But don't you find it strange? The murder happened in the South Campus, but Gotham University was the most affected. This is probably not a coincidence."
Victor thought for a moment and said, "I also think that it's a bit too targeted that all the dead are Gotham University students. But I can't figure out who he's targeting. Could it be me?"
“On the surface, it certainly seems to be you,” Jenna said. “Especially with Chick’s death, it’s easy to think that you drove him to his death, which would damage your reputation. And he certainly did; at least you’re feeling a lot of pressure and anxiety right now…”
“Alright, we can skip the mind-reading part.” Victor glanced at Schiller in the ice and then said, “I don’t need another broadcaster of my mental state, or do you also want to go into the ice to calm down?”
“No, no, no,” Jenna quickly took two steps back and said, “I didn’t mean that at all. I just wanted to say, what good would it do to affect your mindset?”
"Could I freeze Gotham? No, wait a minute, could it be because the sun has gone out and my dense ice is practically the only way to retain Earth's heat?"
Jenna nodded and said, "I'm afraid that's the case. The mastermind behind this chose to target you, probably to interfere with your actions. However, in the section on emotions and stress, Professor Rodriguez mentioned that stress is transmitted layer by layer. For example, some acts of domestic violence occur because family members are under too much pressure in society, so they choose to release that pressure at home. It's not that this behavior is right, but it's very easy for it to happen."
Victor nodded; it was indeed quite common. Some people are obsequious and subservient in society, but act like lords at home. It's more accurate to say that because they are at such a low social level, societal pressure is passed down to them, and they then pass that pressure down to their powerless family members.
"You mean my stress will pass on to others? To whom? Nora? That's unlikely, isn't it?"
“That’s certainly impossible; Mrs. Frith can be ruled out first.”
"...Could it be Schiller?"
“Of course it won’t be him directly.” Jenna shook her head vigorously. “If that were the case, you should go see a doctor at Arkham Asylum.”
“I think I understand now,” Victor said. “Pressure is passed down layer by layer, and I might be passing that pressure on to my students.”
“Especially Milos,” Jenna pointed out. “He’s responsible for 80% of Cheek’s death. Not just you, but the other students will do the same; they’ll treat Milos as the murderer. Even if Brainiac doesn’t have evidence that he instigated the murder and can’t be convicted, he’ll still have a hard time going on.”
"so……"
"The mastermind will use the same trick again and try to make Milos commit suicide, preferably in your office or in front of you. This will further shake your emotions and increase the pressure until it is passed on to the students."
"But what would happen? Even if I put pressure on my students, I can't just kill them outright."
“The key lies with Professor Rodriguez,” Jenna said. “Although he puts a lot of pressure on his students, that’s a special case. There aren’t many good people studying psychoanalysis, so of course they need to be strict, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good professor. He has always valued his students.”
“Oh, I see.” Victor suddenly realized, “If I take out my stress on the students, Schiller will definitely not stand for it, and he will find a way to stop me. In any case, the two of us will become adversaries.”
Jenna nodded and said, "Actually, these are all rather clumsy methods. The simplest way is to make Milos's death inextricably linked to you, for example, by causing a lab accident that froze him to death, which would be attributed to your carelessness. That way, an irreparable rift might be created between you and Professor Schiller, because you killed a student, and there might even be more."
Victor vigorously wiped his face twice, then said, "I won't. Maybe I will feel a lot of pressure, but I won't pass that pressure on. I'm not that kind of person."
Victor paused for a moment before continuing, "If I really get so stressed that I break down, I'll freeze the Atlantic Ocean or turn the moon into an ice ball. In any case, I won't take it out on the people around me."
“That’s the problem,” Jenna said. “He thinks you would do this because he doesn’t know you. He thinks you’re a normal, ordinary person and doesn’t see the crazy side hidden in your mind and spirit…”
With a "bang," Jenna was frozen solid as well. Nora walked in and said, "Alright, Victor. Why do you always think I can't accept that you're crazy? Would a normal person choose to freeze his dying wife?"
“It doesn’t matter what kind of person I should be,” Victor said. “I’m just showing through my actions what kind of person I am not.”
“But that will only make you look more like that kind of person,” Schiller in Ice said. “It’s a bit ridiculous to try to stop people from calling you crazy in such a crazy way.”
With a "crack," the ice split open. Victor waved his hand and said, "Consider it helping me practice my marksmanship, Rodriguez."
"Alright, let's get down to business," Nora said. "So, Miss Jenna, do you think the killer was trying to sow discord?"
"Yes. Targeting Victor is just one part of the plan; he probably really wants to target Professor Rodriguez."
"Why?" Victor asked. "Schiller shouldn't have played a significant role in the plan to extinguish the sun, right?"
“I’m afraid I can’t easily conclude that the professor won’t play an important role in a certain plan,” Jenna said, shaking her head. “But I do feel that it’s not out of pragmatism, but rather has a bit of personal grudge involved.”
“If you put it that way, I can understand,” Victor said. “He has far too many personal grudges against him.”
“But not many people would use this method,” Jenna said. “This is clearly an attempt to emotionally attack the professor, not like someone who studies physics and chemistry, but more like… a colleague?”
Victor observed Schiller's expression; he didn't seem surprised, so he became a little angry and looked at Schiller, saying, "You guessed it a long time ago, didn't you?"
"You're angry and I won't tell you?"
Victor thought he would explain, but Schiller changed the subject: "Who told you you don't have mind-reading abilities? If you did, wouldn't you have known by now?"
Victor, enraged, raised his freeze gun again, but Schiller retorted with an aria: "I feel a little ashamed because my way of venting stress was to play detective games with Schiller Rodriguez. It wasted so much time and energy that I didn't realize immediately that the killer was targeting Schiller. Although it didn't have any serious consequences, I'm still terrified. I'm not sure if the madness lurking deep in my soul that I keep denying will really push things to the point of no return, and anxiety will turn into panic. Just when I need my talent to save the world the most, I'm starting to hate it. God is a good screenwriter."
Schiller was frozen again.
However, the person inside the dense ice could still speak. He continued, "I know you still have reservations about the plan to freeze Gotham, otherwise it would have been frozen by now. So I was thinking, wouldn't it be more efficient if I refused to play the detective role-playing game from the beginning, until you were driven mad and froze the whole earth? Of course, this is also a reason to end the game without being too awkward. I found one for you, not bad, right?"
Victor shattered the ice that was freezing the students, waved to them, and said, "Come on, meet at the Gotham Center roundabout."
He led a group of people out in a flurry. Jenna looked at Schiller, who was still in the ice, and said, "Professor, isn't it a bit inappropriate to constantly provoke someone who has the ability to freeze the entire Earth?"
“This is my nature, Miss Jenna,” Schiller said. “It would be inappropriate to provoke you so abruptly when someone has the ability to turn a transport vehicle into a can of tomato and tuna, but I don’t care, because you can’t break through the dense ice, just as I know he froze me to protect me from your claws…”
With a "crack," the ice on Schiller shattered. Victor, who had already left, poked his head in and said menacingly, "Now it's your turn to be my assistant, hurry up and get to work!"