PFC Chapter 4198 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (5)
Chapter 4198 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (5)
Chapter 4198 A Guide to Roaming the Galaxy (Part 5)
The next morning, Schiller woke up to the noise again. He squinted and went to the window, drew back the curtains, opened the window, and saw a small blue figure jumping and wagging its tail in the crowd, with a girl in a pink uniform standing next to it.
"Servant Gwen!" Schiller called to him, "Come on up here!"
Soon, Gwen Strikes back, carrying the shark-dog Jeff. Jeff was clearly having a blast; he was panting with his tongue lolling out as soon as he was put down. Gwen Strikes greeted Schiller cheerfully, "Good morning, Doctor. I received your email—Gwen Strikes, the universe's strongest mercenary, reporting for duty!"
“Okay, ma’am, come in.” Schiller smiled at him and said, “I’ve called you here because I have a job offer. The pay is very good. You can consider it.”
“Great, I’m short on cash right now,” Gwen said with a shrug. “Tell me, what kind of order? I’m sure I can…”
Before she could finish speaking, she saw someone leap up onto the balcony behind Schiller. Instinctively, she drew her gun and aimed, then heard a scream: "Oh, wait! Don't shoot! You disgusting pink imposter!"
Schiller turned around and saw Deadpool jump in, but his words got him into big trouble. With a "bang," a shot hit Deadpool, but luckily Gwendolyn didn't fire a real bullet, but an Easter egg.
However, this was good news only for Deadpool, not for Schiller's office—the Easter egg had exploded, spilling paint all over the floor. Schiller sighed helplessly.
"Stop hitting me!" he said. "Clean the floor before you leave!"
Gwen Strikes back, sticking out her tongue, but still put her hands on her hips and said to Deadpool, "Watch your mouth, I'm not some imposter. Besides, pink is the prettiest color in the world, wearing all black is disgusting!"
"A good man doesn't argue with a woman," Deadpool snorted. "I'm here to take orders."
"What? You're here to take orders too? Don't try to steal it from me!"
"Who's taking it from you? I earned it through my own skill..."
“Alright, quiet!” Schiller said. “This job is for both of you, which means you have to work together. However, the price is very high, and we can settle in gold and vibranium. If you’re not willing, that’s fine too; I can get Deathstroke to do it…”
"No, no, no!" Deadpool quickly said, "My cousin is busy. I heard them say the other day that for some reason, a lot of Batmen are eyeing their swords. If he comes out to take orders now, he might get caught. It's better not to bother him."
“However, to cooperate with this little girl…” Deadpool glanced at Gwen Stacy, pouted, and remained silent.
"I'm not a little girl, you bastard! Don't force me to expose your past!"
"Stop pretending to be mature. You deliberately dressed up like me just to attract negative attention. You've taken away my fans and traffic!"
"You talk like you have a lot of followers. Don't think I don't know that you act like this every day, spouting 'fans' and 'traffic' that cartoon characters wouldn't understand, isn't it just to attract attention? If I were a psychologist, I would tell you that the cause of your illness is—you are forever out of place!"
“Alright, Gwen!” Schiller emphasized slightly, but then turned to Deadpool and said, “Gwen didn’t mean to copy you; it was just a misunderstanding. When she was ordering her uniform, the tailor mistook a word she said for your name, so he made a uniform that looked similar to yours. That just shows you’re popular—any tailor would know what you look like, wouldn’t they?”
Deadpool, who had been in a daze, snapped out of it upon hearing this and nodded vigorously, saying, "Yes, I am very famous! Otherwise, you wouldn't have become so similar to me. Besides, knowing that you look a lot like me, the fact that you don't change your uniform means you are also a fan of mine."
Gwen made a vomiting gesture, but for Schiller's sake, they didn't continue arguing. So Schiller spoke up: "Alright, let me tell you about the mission. The galaxy will be very busy lately. We need to carry out a series of exploration and construction projects, and the three great empires will definitely try to sabotage it. Just defending here won't be enough, so I need someone to cause them some trouble."
"Smashing things? That's my specialty!" Deadpool said. "But I'm telling you, let's not bring that little brat along, and that dog too—are we expecting him to dress up as a shark and scare the robots?"
Gwen glared at him again. Schiller shook his head and said, "No, both of you must go together. This is the Lord's request."
"Okay, okay, whatever you say," Deadpool said, waving his hand.
"Do you have any other questions, ma'am?"
"I really don't want to do missions with this guy, but for the money—okay. But I really can't bring Jeff along, that's too dangerous, he might get beaten up. Do you have any pet boarding facilities around here?"
"Even if they did, they probably wouldn't agree to foster a long-legged shark. But if you don't mind, you can leave him with me for a while. He was having a lot of fun just now, wasn't he?"
"Great! Jeff, stay here and eat on time. Don't go to the beach and scare people, okay?"
Then she stood up and said to Schiller, "Jeff eats meat and also needs some dog food as treats. You can deduct the cost of his meals from my payment. Of course, you'd better keep a close eye on him; if he breaks anything, I might not be able to afford to pay for it..."
Schiller nodded, took Jeff from her, patted his head, and then, still holding Sharkdog, began explaining the mission to them: "Recently, the Spartan Emperor has opposed the implementation of certain provisions of the security regulations of the three great empires in his territory, which has angered the Skrull Empire's general. They've been reinforcing their troops there, probably wanting to teach Sparta a lesson. What you need to do is go and cause trouble in their camps, the bigger the better, understand?"
“I guarantee the mission will be accomplished!” said Gwen.
"Hmph, you stole my lines! But I want to say—I guarantee I'll complete the task!"
"I guarantee, I guarantee, I guarantee the mission will be completed..."
"I guarantee it, I guarantee it, I guarantee it..."
"Alright, go on." Schiller waved his hand, shooing them both out, and then went to buy dog food for Jeff.
The reason for bringing Gwen and Deadpool along wasn't that we expected them to have some earth-shattering plans or disrupt the cosmic order, but rather that the two of them together would definitely cause a big stir.
Deadpool and Gwendolyn, though they may seem similar, are actually two completely different people and would find it difficult to get along. Their understanding of the world and their methods for changing it are drastically different.
It seems that Deadpool is a very unreliable person. He has no self-control and dares to say anything. He always makes a fool of himself whenever he appears, and he doesn't even let go of stale jokes about toilet humor. Although he says he wants to join the juvenile rating system, he has not made any progress in his actions and is always doing things that cannot pass the censorship.
Many people find Deadpool's story incongruous at first glance, as his personality seems completely at odds with his past experiences. Deadpool is a veteran, and although his mutation granted him immense immortality, it was a tragedy for him, and he shouldn't seem so lively and quirky.
But after watching many Deadpool stories, you'll find that his core is indeed tragedy. All his seemingly unacceptable quirky behaviors are actually more like a performance, a means for him to pursue something.
According to him, he wants to gain popularity because only popular characters won't disappear. He says this all the time, and his actions seem to revolve around this goal.
However, a deeper analysis reveals a contradiction with his overall personality. Does Deadpool really not want to disappear?
Perhaps so. Everyone has a will to survive, and everyone wants to live. But Deadpool is often in a state where he can't die. No matter how many injuries he suffers, no matter how serious they are, he can always recover.
Some people have a strange behavior: the more they hope something will happen, the more they will emphasize that "it is impossible." This is a kind of compulsive thinking, forcing themselves to lower their expectations in order to avoid disappointment.
"Excessive denial" always reflects the deepest desires in a person's heart. This represents fear, and fear comes from projecting oneself onto others, worrying that the same thing will happen to oneself, but it also represents the awareness that one may have some trait that will bring about the same outcome. This causes panic and makes people repeat it over and over again.
Deadpool isn't entirely like that, but his repeated emphasis on popularity does reflect that mentality to some extent. He knows he'll die because he lacks popularity, and that kind of death is a complete death—not a near-death experience followed by a recovery, not a fatal injury followed by a bout of activity.
If an ordinary death couldn't bring him eternal peace, then fading away completely with the loss of his popularity was the best ending he could find. Perhaps hidden within the fearful image he constructed for himself was a subtle expectation, one he himself was unaware of, of "ending it all completely."
From a behavioral perspective, he also constantly emphasizes that he is not the kind of monster that others perceive as never dying; there is something that can completely kill him, and he will also face death, therefore he is the same as them.
Deadpool possesses an abnormal view of death distorted by his unique physical condition. His constant repetition about popularity is an attempt to promote this idea, and the reason he promotes this idea is that he wants to be accepted by people.
Immortality seems like an incredibly powerful superpower; no one would want to live forever. But people's attitude towards those who actually possess this ability is often not one of envy. Especially since Deadpool paid a heavy price for this superpower, just like his life story—a complete tragedy. The absence of death is a unique kind of disability.
So Deadpool, like a disabled person, keeps telling others: I'm just like you. I don't lack anything more than you. I will die too, just in an unusual way. I'm not a crippled monster; I'm just like you.
His repeated emphasis on this stems from his desire to fit in. Whether it's proposing startling arguments that people don't understand or engaging in bizarre behavior, it's all about attracting attention. Only those who crave belonging and social connection seek to attract the attention of their peers. The more one desires a sense of belonging and love, the more extreme this attention-seeking behavior becomes.
Deadpool definitely wanted that. He kept emphasizing that he was normal, and he wanted to tell everyone that he was a funny and normal person, not a weird monster.
Unfortunately, the most appealing dark humor in Deadpool stems from his inability to fit in. He's always spouting incomprehensible nonsense, always being silly, always failing, always recovering from his injuries, and always getting back on his feet.
The last person to share the same core spirit as him and be revered as a paragon was Don Quixote. People mocked his absurdity, yet also fell in love with it.
The tragic element in comedy is like the string of a kite. Without that thin string, anything floating in the sky can no longer be controlled and becomes useless.
But no one can say that the string is the kite's savior, because the string's existence only benefits the kite's owner. Perhaps, without the string, the kite can gain true freedom. Without an audience that enjoys absurd dark humor, Deadpool's tragedy can truly end—there is no other way. That's precisely what makes it a tragedy, and that's precisely what makes it so captivating.
(End of this chapter)