PFC Chapter 2822: Demonic Restricted Area (8)
Chapter 2822: Demonic Restricted Area (8)
Chapter 2822: Demonic Restricted Area (XVIII)
Shiller walked over and flipped through the books, and found that most of the books on the shelf were about world history and economics, which was very consistent with Thomas's personality.
Schiller didn't know much about the Thomas of this universe, but he had come into contact with another Thomas, the old man in the Flash Universe.
Simply put, Thomas Wayne is the product of the Wayne family's elite education. He received elite education, but did not fully accept it because he was actually a very rebellious person when he was young. He never liked reading very much, and even less did he like any economic career.
The Wayne family has always trained him to be the heir to the group, but he refused to study finance and economic management and insisted on studying medicine. After graduating from medicine, he had to go to the battlefield. In other words, he came back to get married and take over the family property when he was old and had enough fun.
Schiller did not find any medical-related books on the bookshelf. It seemed that Thomas in this universe might not have any experience studying medicine, but instead went through a full set of elite education processes and directly took over the Wayne Group.
On the desk, Schiller found some annotations to a report, which seemed to be about the renovation of Gotham's groundwater system. Because the groundwater system had been in disrepair for a long time and the drainage was poor, several major families took the lead in a project to renovate the sewer.
Thomas's opinion was that it could be repaired, but the major families must share the cost and the results. He would not be a sucker and pay all the money and then be scolded.
Then came some trivial matters of the group and various financial statements, which I basically just read over without leaving any comments.
There was nothing on the table, so Schiller began to rummage through the drawers. He remembered that Thomas had the habit of writing a diary, because on the battlefield he needed to count supplies every day and record the recovery of the wounded. After he came back, he kept this habit, but he didn't know if Thomas in this universe had the same habit.
Schiller found a locked drawer at the bottom. After prying open the lock, he actually found a diary, but it only had a few pages written on it. It seemed that the diary had not been written for a long time, and the handwriting was a bit sloppy, which did not seem to be consistent with Thomas's academic level.
"I had that dream again. I feel like all of this is God's punishment for me. He has abandoned me. Otherwise, why would that monster keep appearing in my dreams?"
"I swear, I didn't know it was true. I didn't know that monster was really capable of doing all this. If I knew, I would never agree to it. I don't think I agreed to it. I was almost dead at that time. My thoughts didn't count, just like no court would accept the testimony of a mentally ill person..."
"He said I promised him, yes, that's true, but I was dying at the time, I just wanted to survive, I don't know what happened, I didn't mean to, God, save me."
"He came again today and seemed very disappointed in me, but I can't possibly do what he said. I can't possibly believe in the evil god. That would bring my family into an abyss of no return. Even if he comes again today, I will still reject him."
"He didn't come today, where did he go?"
"It's been almost five months and he hasn't come again. I believe it's just my PTSD hallucination. It must be like this."
"So he didn't come..."
The last sentence made Schiller's heart skip a beat.
Thomas was obviously very anxious when he wrote these words, even panicked. The words were incoherent and the handwriting was very sloppy. It felt like he was just venting something.
Through these words, Schiller could infer that Thomas seemed to have agreed to a condition of the evil god in exchange for his survival, but after he survived, he did not fulfill his promise. The evil god came to him every night, but he continued to refuse.
The evil god disappeared for a while, but later came back. However, Schiller was a little confused by what Thomas wrote, "It's not that he didn't come."
But if combined with Martha's situation, Schiller could guess something. The routines of these evil gods are similar, just like loan sharks and debt collectors. If you refuse to pay back, they will harass your family.
The evil god may have returned, but he did not go looking for Thomas, but for Martha.
Of course, there is a possibility, and Schiller believes this possibility more. That is, combined with his previous speculation, Thomas may no longer be Thomas. The evil god took away his soul and replaced him, but he himself did not know it.
And when he knew it, it was too late.
This conjecture was confirmed when Schiller turned to the last page of the diary, where a few words were written very sloppily.
"Martha, if you see me, don't believe it's me. Resurrection has always been a hoax. The real me is dead. Don't believe it... don't believe it... don't believe it..."
It seems that Thomas, who wrote these words, has realized that the evil god's so-called salvation and resurrection of him is just a scam, and the one who was resurrected is not him at all, but a monster with his consciousness and memory.
Then there is an explanation for Martha's mental illness symptoms. Just like the old Godfather Falcone, the people closest to her were replaced, but no evidence could be found.
You just feel that he is becoming more and more weird. He seems exactly the same as the person in your impression, but also very different. You can't help but start to wonder whether you are crazy or the world is crazy.
There is no answer to all the doubts about this person's identity. Everyone thinks that you are thinking too much. His attitude is as good as always, so you can't find any fault with him. But when it is quiet and no one is around, he will stand at the head of your bed and stare at you.
In this way, the timeline of things is straightened out.
Thomas may have met with an accident. In a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, he was tempted by the evil god and agreed to the evil god's conditions in order to survive. But in fact, everything was a scam. The one who survived was not him at all, but the source of pollution that retained his memory, or at least a part of Nyarlathotep.
Thomas was gradually replaced until he became a complete monster, and Martha was aware of this, but could not find any evidence until Martha Wayne became pregnant.
Martha may have noticed that the child was abnormal, but in that era, it was difficult for her to escape Thomas's surveillance and have an abortion on her own. Maybe she also held out a glimmer of hope and was unwilling to kill her own child, so she could only confirm and pray over and over again.
But unfortunately, all this was not her hallucination. The existence of the evil god was real. When Martha was on the verge of mental collapse, she saw Thomas' true face.
She couldn't accept all this, so she went completely crazy.
But again, a mother's power is almost endless. It is very likely that Martha faced the monster head-on, and may even have communicated with him and reached a deal, buying herself some breathing time.
Using this time, Martha made arrangements. She used the power she obtained from the evil god to pollute the hotel and the manor, but temporarily sealed the pollution.
Later, little Bruce was born. By that time, Thomas and Martha had been completely contaminated by the power of the evil god. They were no longer his parents. Little Bruce had the blood of the evil god and was raised by the evil god, so he became so weird.
Schiller speculated that the evil god might not have expected that he could not defeat the power of the will of the DC Universe, and Batman's parents were destined to die, so the two puppets might have died when they were supposed to.
After the death of his parents, the pollution in little Bruce did not erupt on time, and Nyarlathotep's arrangements were almost wasted. However, he could not accept this, so he later entangled little Bruce again.
Schiller also roughly guessed what Martha's back-up plan was, and his eyes fell on the file report of Gotham's sewer renovation project.
Jerome and Peter found the door leading to the underground third floor. In fact, it was not a puzzle at all. The door was hidden in the inspection room of the bathroom in the underground parking lot on the underground second floor.
It was only when Peter pointed out that he didn't see any sewer maintenance facilities on the entire floor that they remembered to go to the bathroom to check.
Peter's uncle is an electrician. He is very knowledgeable in this area and knows that a hotel this big basically needs a separate room to maintain everything, such as the main distribution room, and the same applies to maintaining the sewers.
Generally speaking, this kind of room is located at the bottom, so that it is easier to check the condition of the sewer. Sure enough, the two of them found a downward passage in the inspection room of the bathroom.
However, the appearance of the third underground floor was beyond their expectations. To be precise, there was no third underground floor, only sewers. After going down, they saw the typical appearance of a Gotham sewer.
Peter felt a cold and damp atmosphere surrounding the place all the time. The water under his feet didn't feel like water, but more like some kind of mucus, which could be pulled into threads when he lifted his feet.
He rubbed his arms, feeling a little cold. Jerome looked around and said, "I think we should go this way. The wind is blowing from this side."
Peter looked over there and didn't see anything unusual. To prevent himself from getting lost, he left spider silk on the wall as a mark, and the two of them walked in the direction where the wind was coming from.
Along the way, Peter discovered that the sewer water was flowing towards the hotel. He remembered Dr. Soship's conjecture that the sewer water might be the source of the toilet water.
So the toilet water has been trying to break through the hotel's defenses? But how did the water in the sewer become so abnormal?
They continued walking forward and turned a corner. There were still dense waterways in front of them. It looked like there were many twists and turns, but when they walked past them, they found that most of them were dead ends. There was only one way to go on, like a simple version of a maze.
The two kept walking forward until a ray of light appeared in front of them, and they thought they were almost reaching the ground.
But after gradually getting used to the light, what appeared before them was not the exit, but a tall, dark ancient city.
Above the gate of the ancient city there is a lifelike owl sculpture, its bright eyes staring at the long-lost visitors.
Ten million words!!!!
I started writing the book on January 2022, 1, and it took me two and a half years to finish 18 million words! !