Shiller sat on the bed in his dark and chilly cell, holding a black umbrella in his hand. He didn't search for any evidence at all; his sole purpose for leaving was to retrieve his umbrella.
The process of being taken away was not worth mentioning; it was just a car stopping in front of him, someone telling him to cooperate or die. Shiller chose to cooperate, and it seemed that they didn't notice anything peculiar about the umbrella. They just placed it by the passageway on this floor after locking him up in the cell.
After retrieving the umbrella, Shiller kept sitting in the same spot. Soon, the elevator stopped on this level, and a group of people came down, cursing and swearing. Quickly, someone was thrown into the neighboring cell.
The two cells were separated by a wall, and Shiller couldn't see the other person's appearance, but he could guess who it was. Before he could speak up, the person turned over and said,
"Were you also captured by them? You must believe me, I'm not crazy. They want me to admit I'm mentally ill so that my testimony would be invalid, but you must believe me, I really haven't lost my mind! I saw what they did!"
"Who are you?" Shiller asked.
"I... If I tell you, maybe you won't help me." The voice that came from the other side was female, and she sounded young, with a distinct Gotham accent, likely a local.
"Just say it," he urged.
"My last name is Richie... but I have nothing to do with that mob boss named Richie. To be precise, we're distant relatives, but he's never helped us, and I've never been involved in any mob dealings. You must believe me!"
The person on the other end emphasized trust repeatedly, which likely meant that few, if any, had believed her in the past.
"Richie..." Shiller repeated the surname, feeling some familiarity, but it seemed to be from a long time ago.
"Yes, I'm somewhat related to that gangster family, but that's not important. What's important is that my sister was killed by them! Because she witnessed their devilish acts, they murdered her!"
"Who are they?" he asked.
"Of course, the people who kidnapped you!" The other person raised her voice, "Before they brought you here, someone must have made contact with you, don't tell me you don't know who they are!"
"I truly don't know," he replied.
The person on the other side seemed frustrated, pounding the ground and then saying, "Everyone calls me crazy, but only I know I'm not! They slandered me just to get me into an insane asylum! That way, my sister's death and their vile acts would never come to light!"
From her choice of words, Shiller could tell she was well-educated, at least knowledgeable about grammar, indicating she came from a decent background, which matched what she said about being from a branch of the gangster families.
"I might not make it out alive, but I think you must be very important to them. If possible, you must expose them, or else more children will get hurt!"
"Children?"
"Yes, they are a gang, a gang that specifically... specifically harms children! My sister happened upon them once... and they ended up killing her! She sent me a distress signal before her death, so that's how I know..."
"How did she send you a distress signal?"
"Use text messages!"
"The text message?"
"It was deleted when they discovered me."
"You didn't conduct a private investigation, did you?"
"I just want to know what really happened to my sister! She wasn't allergic to endive at all! I saw her eat that dish more than once at home, how could she possibly die from an allergic reaction?!"
"It seems you have really gone mad," Shiller said calmly. "Perhaps you never truly knew your sister, and all this is just your fantasy."
The other party no longer spoke, but the feeling conveyed wasn't one of dejection; she seemed to have no intention of giving up.
Sure enough, after a while, Shiller heard the sound of a lock being picked across from him, and the lock was quickly opened, but the person went out for a round and then came back.
Shiller wasn't surprised at all, because there was actually nothing on this floor, or rather, places that might hold clues were inaccessible to ordinary people, and the elevator couldn't be started. If that wasn't the case, he wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to bring the Scarlet Witch over.
In order to make the kidnappers confuse Barbara and Wanda, Shiller had put in a lot of effort. Fortunately, the two of them looked very much alike, with a similar build and more importantly, they both had long red hair. As long as one didn't get too close, they could easily be mistaken for the same person.
Shiller first went to the police station, drawing all attention to Gordon, just as he had told Gordon. The behind-the-scenes manipulator would think that Shiller, a scholar, couldn't delve deeply into the investigation, but Gordon, a police chief who had been in Gotham for many years, posed a much bigger threat.
Because they had no scruples, once they understood Gordon's heavy-handed approach, they would pin their hopes on kidnapping his family to force him to compromise; naturally, they would arrange for people to surveil the vicinity of Gordon Manor.
Their surveillance aimed to determine how many people were inside Gordon Manor and what the defense forces were like. So, Shiller hired a courier to deliver a package to Gordon Manor.
According to Shiller's understanding, Wanda was a restless person. Shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, tending to the yard, and receiving packages were all done by her alone. Not only did she not feel tired, but she also enjoyed it, the epitome of a natural-born housewife.
As expected, once the package was delivered, Wanda came out to get it herself, giving the watchers an impression that at that moment, Mrs. Gordon was the only adult in the manor.
In their view, people who lived in such a manor wouldn't personally come out to get things if there were others in the house. Since she came out for the package herself, it must mean that there was no one else.
The moment this information was passed back, the behind-the-scenes manipulator would immediately realize it was a good opportunity to strike, so they would order their subordinates to act.
The behind-the-scenes manipulator wasn't from gangster families and didn't have their own team of hitmen. Or rather, the team wasn't just made up of professionals. Tasks like surveillance were usually handled by local thugs.
The local thugs were from the area; they had seen Barbara coming and going from Wayne Manor before she had the child. But precisely because they were low-level hoodlums, even if you gave them ten times the courage, they wouldn't dare to approach the home of the local police chief. So, even if they saw Barbara, it was from far away, they couldn't see her face clearly, and could only confirm she was a redhead.
Wanda was also a redhead and happened to walk out of the manor. When the kidnappers arrived, the hoodlums naturally pointed them towards Wanda, saying she was Mrs. Gordon.
As they were figuring out how to break into the manor and kidnap the person, Wanda herself came out.
The saying "strike while the iron is hot" certainly applied here, as this bunch didn't waste any time before kidnapping Wanda on the spot.
After all, who else could the red-haired beauty living in Gordon Manor be? Even if she was not Mrs. Gordon herself but a sister or sibling-in-law, they still had to save her.
However, what they didn't anticipate was that not only was Wanda in no way related to Gordon, but she was also the Scarlet Witch, and what's more, she had evolved from an angry woman to a wrathful mother, her powers reaching a terrifyingly new height.
The words Shiller had said to Wanda were meant to provoke her to seek out the truth. To an ordinary person, the security measures here might seem tight, but to the Scarlet Witch, it was all a piece of cake—there was nowhere she couldn't go.
Even though Shiller also had no idea what these people were hiding here, he could imagine that it was something utterly mind-polluting.
Wanda must have been furious. She might just erase them all from existence and blow this wretched place sky-high—that would be best.
Then everything would be settled once and for all, and Shiller wouldn't need to run around in the scorching heat anymore—he could go home and enjoy the air conditioning in peace.
However, Shiller sat there waiting and waiting but saw no action. He noticed a flash of red light, but there were no screams, no buildings collapsing, and it seemed like no one had vanished.
What was going on? Could the Scarlet Witch have changed her nature?
Shiller waited a good while, and when nothing happened, he sighed internally. These Marvel folks were unreliable; none of them followed the script! In the end, he'd have to take matters into his own hands!
"Do you want to take revenge for your sister?" Shiller suddenly asked.
Miss Richie next door immediately fell silent. After a while, she finally said, "Did you know? My mom has mental issues. She went completely mad when I was about five, and my dad died in a mob shootout. My sister practically raised me; otherwise, I wouldn't be so obsessed with uncovering the truth."
"Believe it or not, I'm determined to avenge her," Miss Richie said with a tone of sorrow and anger, "but I can't even lay eyes on that damn man—I know it was he who, in collusion with others, slandered me as a mental patient... "
Miss Richie went round and round with the same story, making Shiller think that she probably suffered from anxiety and compulsive behaviors, but that actually wasn't important.
Shiller could feel that she was one of those rare individuals who never despaired—stubborn might be a less flattering way to say it, but she was someone with an iron-willed determination.
"I can help you get out, and I might even find someone to assist you, but you have to promise me one thing."
"What is that?"
"Before that, let me ask you a question, how do you plan to take revenge?"
"Of course, I'm going to kill that bastard!"
"Is that all?"
"What else?"
"Did you ever see your sister's body?"
"No, they didn't let me see it at all," said Miss Richie, her tone laced with sadness. "I don't believe she died of an allergy. I asked for a forensic re-examination, but nobody would listen to me."
"Where is her body buried?"
"I don't know; no one would tell me."
"Can you find something your sister left behind? Something she always kept with her would be best."
"Of course, I have her favorite stuffed teddy bear. She used to sleep with it all the time when she was little. It's just a pity that after she got married, that scoundrel wouldn't let her take it, so it stayed at our home."
"Good, after you leave, take this toy to Arkham Asylum and find Doctor Brand—he'll know what to do."
"What are you planning?"
Shiller was silent, and Miss Richie, tapping on the wall panels, said, "Don't be silent; don't treat me like a madwoman."
"I'm just worried you'll think I'm the mad one."
"I won't. Even if you end up not being able to help me, I'm already grateful that you're willing to talk to me like I'm a normal person. It's been a long time since I've had a normal conversation."
Shiller could sense that Miss Richie's mental state was indeed a bit abnormal. She displayed clear signs of excitement, spoke quickly, and her speech was unclear. Her trembling voice also hinted at emotional distress.
Shiller suspected that she might indeed have an inherited mental illness, though not yet manifested, which is probably why Williams was initially willing to allow him to meet her. No regular psychiatrist would rule out the possibility that she was mentally ill.
"Brand will conduct a séance for your sister."
"A séance?!"
"Yes, don't you want to know the real cause of your sister's death?"
"I... "
"If you don't know, how can you understand the pain she suffered before she died, or talk about avenging the murder?"
"...Okay, I'll do it," said Miss Richie through clenched teeth. "How am I supposed to leave this place now?"
As soon as she finished speaking, she felt something stretching out from the bars next door. Miss Richie hurried over to the railing to look down and saw a black umbrella.
"Take this umbrella with you, and go, Miss."
Miss Richie left, and Shiller knew he couldn't stay much longer either. Sure enough, a group of people came in a hurry soon after to take Shiller out.
After they realized Miss Richie had disappeared, they asked Shiller, "Where's the nutcase?"
"How should I know."
"You're right next door to her!"
"I'm next to her, not in her room."
"Do you know how she got out?"
"She probably picked the lock."
"But she can't operate the elevator!"
"Then I don't know. If I did, I would have escaped too, and you wouldn't still see me here, would you?"
They seemed at a loss for words, opened the cell door, and took Shiller out.
When they took Shiller away, it seemed they completely sealed the bunker, welding the doors shut—it looked like they were determined to prevent anyone from getting in.
Shiller was taken to a basement in the crematorium.
The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Williams again. Williams was scrutinizing him carefully, soon showing a look of disappointment—Shiller figured it was probably because he hadn't shown any fear of being kidnapped.
Shiller could have shown it, but he simply couldn't be bothered to perform, so he just sat there with a blank expression, having a stare-down with Williams.
"I suppose you know what my presence here means," Williams seemed to intend to intimidate Shiller further.
"It means you want to silence me. As long as I've seen your face, I'm definitely not walking out of here today, so don't bother trying to persuade me to do anything for you. Either way, it's death for me, and I won't be doing anything."
Williams was evidently taken aback, not expecting this line of reasoning from Shiller, but he also felt Shiller made a lot of sense.
However, Williams quickly contorted his facial muscles on purpose, baring his teeth and making a ferocious face as he said, "But there are different kinds of death. Some people die swiftly, but others might die in agony."
"Are you trying to make me die in agony, like those children?"
Williams's face suddenly turned from red to pale.
"You might say I don't have evidence, but psychoanalysis doesn't need evidence. You might call me crazy, but the entire field of psychology wouldn't think so. You might say it's useless since I'm a dead man, but the task you want me to do involves contacting another living person. How do you know I won't tell her the conclusion?"
"I could burst her eardrums, how would you..."
"You didn't use your mouth to tell me that you're a pedophile and a sadist. How did I know?"
Williams was completely speechless. Shiller had blocked all his arguments, and anything he said now would just make him look stupid.
"Whatever, you'll be dead anyway."
"I don't suppose you'd mind chatting with a dead man, so how do you plan on killing me? What kind of death do you think is fitting for me?"
"I will carve out your heart."
"And then what, put it on display in a museum? Like those children's bones you collect?"
Williams finally showed a hint of fear on his face as he said, "How on earth did you know? Can you really read minds? Is that even possible in this world?! It can't be!"
"Since I'm already a dead man, I don't mind telling you that mind reading really does exist in this world. The perfect concealment you thought you had is laughable to them."
"So what? What if they see? Without evidence..."
"You might be underestimating mind reading. Or more accurately, it's not just mind reading because it can write as well. It can alter the consciousness of everyone remotely."
"Stop talking nonsense, that's impossible!"
"Indeed, I'm lying to you, scare you did it?"
Williams's face changed from pale to a bloated red, and he turned red from his head to his neck to his arms, looking like a cherry bomb about to explode.
"I have a class tomorrow morning," Shiller suddenly said.
"But you won't see tomorrow morning's sun."
"If I don't show up for my class tomorrow morning, my students will realize I'm missing because I'm always on time."
"But they won't be able to find you."
"Ordinary students can't, but among the graduate students I lead... never mind, there's nothing to be proud of. The messes they get into are the main reason they can't finish their theses. I can't encourage that kind of behavior."
"You're truly insane." Williams didn't seem interested in wasting more words on Shiller and took out a gun.
"A gun? That's your plan?" Shiller showed a look of disappointment and said, "You think I should be shot to death?"
"No, you'll be a suicide."
Shiller sighed and said, "No one will believe I killed myself with a gun because my gun skills are poor, and I've never purchased any handguns."
Williams suddenly froze, his belief in such Americans shaken, and he instinctively said, "Aren't you a Gothamite?"
"It doesn't matter what you think; I never use a gun when I kill."
"What did you say? You kill people?"
"You heard wrong."
"I didn't; you just said..."
"So what? You have no evidence, plus you've already pointed out I'm a Gothamite. Is that so strange?"
Williams felt he really couldn't continue this conversation with Shiller. He was about to explode.
"I'll bury some second-rate bones near your house. The moment you die, you'll appear to have committed suicide out of guilt. In the eyes of the public, you'd be the despised pedophile and abuser."
"Did you get rid of Amanda's entanglement?" Shiller suddenly asked.
Williams's action of loading his gun again halted, and Shiller suddenly started laughing, "Of course you haven't because no one knows where those bones in the lake came from."
The smile slowly disappeared from Williams's face, and with his small eyes sunk in fleshy folds, he stared at Shiller and said, "You know?"
"Framing someone is nothing new. If you die, then you'd be the mastermind behind the largest case of submerged bodies in the lake in history."
"Are you framing me? Were those people killed by you??!"
Williams felt he had found the truth since Shiller's house, despite its inconvenient location at the innermost part of the neighborhood and its only advantage being near the lake, wasn't cheap.
"You...," Williams suddenly had a realization and said, "How could you possibly have killed that many people?! There must be hundreds!"
"There were just over a hundred fished out." Shiller's tone was as calm as if discussing what to have for dinner.
"Which of these two cases do you think is more important?" Shiller asked as if genuinely puzzled, "Federation law is strict on child protection. How many children did you kill? Judging from the shock in your voice just now, it can't be over a hundred, right? Being framed for this could ensure I'd be locked away for good."
"But superpower cases are more complex," Shiller continued, "Yes, it's a superpower case because Amanda needs a big superpower case, so it must be a superpower case."
"If a superpower user massacred so many people and sank all their bodies in the lake, would he be jailed? I really don't know, but I've heard that Florence ADX Supermax Prison also detains such superpower criminals. The government keeps them around for the day they might be useful."
"How to describe the environment there? It's harsh. To call it a superprison is to understate it – it's more like a torture device since only the toughest superpower users are held there. The use of somewhat inhumane punishments doesn't really matter since anyone living there would have a rich and fascinating life."
Williams's expression grew darker and darker. Even he could understand Shiller's implication, as he picked up his gun and stepped to the other side of Shiller, saying, "You want to pin this case on me?! How could you possibly..."
"If you look it up, you'll find that Amanda was my student."
"That doesn't mean she'll listen to you..."
"I've killed so many people already, do you still expect me to have any moral bottom line? Have you heard of hypnosis?"
"Stop talking nonsense, hypnosis is impossible..."
"You still think there's no such thing as mind reading technique, then how did I see through you?"
Williams felt his heart sink to the bottom, and Shiller looked at him and said, "You planned to frame me later than I planned to frame you, after all, because it was you who bought the land first, and only later did you encounter me."
"You've been wanting to frame me since then?!"
"Please, do you know how long I've waited? Those bones were bound to be discovered someday. The best news I've ever heard was new residents moving in, and even better news was that your lake was closer to me."
"Also." Shiller finally leaned forward, placing his hand on the table and staring at Williams, "You too killed someone on the construction site. You just haven't had time to dump the body into the lake. In this kind of weather, even if you bury it four meters deep, it might not be effective. How long do you think you can keep it hidden? Once it's discovered, who do you think threw those bodies into the lake?"
"You..." Williams could only utter a single syllable before he was unable to speak. Looking back, he indeed noticed various things that were off.
The most suspicious thing was that Shiller had never opposed his building the resort.
It had been said before that the land was actually community public land. Other community residents had protested, meaning we may not use it, but you can't either, and a resort with lots of people would pose a great danger to their privacy.
Yet as the resident closest to the resort, Shiller had never expressed any objections, even when I cursed the relatives' kids staying at his place on the first day, and he didn't react at all. Those kids, who looked like they were up to no good, didn't lash out in retaliation either, which was just not normal.
In the recollections, Shiller's visage gradually twisted, as if he saw me as a fat sheep, almost too eager to have me continue wandering around here, to stay here a bit longer, the closer to the lake the better.
Because as long as the resort construction continued, he could pin this earth-shattering case on me!
Williams felt himself break out in a cold sweat.
Williams spoke in a more measured tone, "Since we are of the same kind, perhaps there's no need to make things so stiff between us. Why don't we talk, go about our own business, and not interfere with each other, how about that?"
"It seems that's all we can do for now." Shiller also seemed to choose to compromise, saying, "Causing trouble for each other is meaningless. In your years in Gotham, you must have encountered many people like me. We really don't care about what others have done, right?"
This statement truly shook Williams because in his years in Gotham, he indeed encountered too many serial killers. These people didn't meddle in others' affairs; as long as one wasn't their target, they couldn't care less to give one a glance. This bunch of lunatics only focused on their own worlds.
Williams finally laughed and said, "Indeed, it seems I was a bit rash, Professor. When we both have secrets to keep, we can indeed live in peace."
Shiller stood up and turned to walk toward the door, seemingly not minding leaving his back to Williams, nor caring that Williams had a gun, which finally put Williams at ease.
However, his caution still made him walk to the door with Shiller, holding the gun. Just as they reached the door, he saw a shadow flash by his side, followed by two handcuffed hands appearing over his head in front of his eyes.
As Shiller slowly tightened his arms, he didn't feel excited. He just remembered years ago, in a dimly lit room holding a necktie, asking a child, "Do you know how to subdue someone stronger than you?"