The moment they saw the gigantic broccoli, the trio stood there dumbfounded. Zatanna was the most puzzled by the current situation. She even ran towards the broccoli in disbelief.
This enormous broccoli was akin to the World Tree described in many literary works, with its sky-scraping height and lush leaves and branches. Up close, its massively thick stem would probably take hundreds of people to encompass.
Zatanna really couldn't fathom how to confirm if it was genuine broccoli or not. All she could do was lean in and take a whiff. Then she displayed a disgusted expression, coughed twice, backed up two steps and declared, "It's definitely broccoli. From childhood, whenever this stuff appeared on the dining table, my dad would try every trick in the book to get me to eat it..."
The most severely injured Constantine also staggered over and said, "How should I describe this? It's within reasoning but beyond expectations. I once heard Shiller's friend Victor tell a story about a time they were dining in a restaurant. Shiller stormed into the kitchen and shot the broccoli..."
Zatanna raised an eyebrow in confusion and said, "Really? Although broccoli is hard to eat and I've disliked it since childhood, would someone really shoot a vegetable?"
Constantine shrugged and said, "You've been away from Gotham for too long."
Batman, after spending a moment recovering his strength, also stepped forward and looked up at the trunk of the broccoli.
In truth, he wasn't averse to eating broccoli. Batman doesn't finick over food. However, he was aware, that theoretically, some people might not dislike certain vegetables due to pickiness. The genes of the human race are fascinating, and have evolved to a point where eating certain vegetables would induce different taste sensations.
"Shiller once mentioned he was severely allergic to broccoli," said Batman. "I'm not sure if his allergy is psychological or physiological. If it's the latter, then this can explain it."
Zatanna, utterly drained, wanted to lean against something, but the impact from the colossal broccoli somewhat inhibited her. With the last of her strength, she distanced herself from the broccoli's trunk, sat on the ground, took a deep breath and said, "Are we really going to use a piece of broccoli to deal with the professor? We can't possibly throw broccoli at him, can we?"
Zatanna envisioned the scene and made a disgusted face. "Oh my goodness, I can't do this. It's way too mean to throw broccoli at someone. My God, if anyone did that to me, I'd go crazy!"
"Unfortunately, someone may have really done this before." Batman spoke, turning the attention of the other two towards him. He asked, "Do you guys remember the 'special countermeasures' mentioned in the medical records?"
Batman pulled out the cookie box again, extracted the patient records and pointed at them. He said, "Look here. Every time Shiller had an episode, it was mentioned in the medical records that specific measures were taken…"
"If Shiller's strength is truly 2~3 times my own as Constantine suggests, then it's practically impossible for a normal person to subdue him without harming him. Yet, every time they implemented these specific measures, they would immediately take him back to the observation room."
"Don't tell me these "specific measures" are broccoli?" Constantine revealed an absurd expression, saying: "They wouldn't have actually encircled him with loads of broccoli to immobilize Shiller, right?"
"Hard to say." Batman imagined the scene and pursed his lips, as if trying to suppress any other expression.
"But not every personality of Shiller is afraid of broccoli. Initially, when Victor and Shiller were dining together, he did see Shiller eating broccoli. This implies that he may possess personalities that are not afraid of broccoli." Batman slightly furrowed his eyebrows as he explained.
"Hold on, if we are seeing the thing he's most afraid of in this answer room and he has other personalities that aren't afraid of broccoli, doesn't this mean that we've been rotating in one of his personalities the whole time?" Zatanna got up from the ground, frowning. "How is that possible? Haven't we been traversing and jumping through memories?"
"You haven't really been in the Tower of Thought, so you don't know its structure. There are many layers in the Tower of Thought, and to access between the layers, one must take the elevator. Without the permission of the elevator operator, it is impossible to cross layers." Batman had a clear understanding of this matter.
Zatanna was just about to open her mouth when a familiar voice suddenly echoed from above: "How did you get here?!"
"How did you get... Oh my God! Get out! Leave that room! How can you get so close to that broccoli?!!"
Upon hearing the familiar voice of Professor Shearer, Batman did not move away from the broccoli as instructed. Instead, he moved with lightning speed to the thick trunk of the broccoli and pressed his back against it.
As expected, the next second, Shearer's figure appeared in the room. Dressed in a suit and holding an umbrella, he looked at the three people standing next to the broccoli with a puzzled expression.
"How did you get here? The intruders I sensed in my room earlier... were you?!"
But Constantine was even more astonished than him. He said, "Shouldn't you be fighting with All Things Green right now? How are you here?!!"
Unexpectedly, Shearer's expression immediately darkened. As they stood facing each other at a distance, time began to rewind.
Like a movie being rewound, the figures of the three detectives stepped out of the room. They flew backward through the passageways they came from, returned to three different memory spaces, and then retracted all the way back to the Spirit Realm.
At the time they decided to delve into Shearer's soul, Shearer was indeed confronting All Things Green.
He stood in the center of the green chamber, in front of Pamela, holding up his umbrella as he addressed All Things Green, "So it's you. I didn't expect that the first decent opponent I would encounter... would be the embodiment of plants…"
"I guess you went through all this trouble to try and coerce Pamela,"
"First, using the rainwater to poison Gotham, creating the illusion of mutant plants, then personally setting up the scenario in which her classmates abandon Pamela, even wanting to use her as bait."
"From this incident, we see just how ugly human nature can be. The classmates who usually laugh and jest with her not only fail to help her in a critical moment, they even want to harm her. But the plant that are usually silent and reticent, would not harm her. When contrasted, who would a common college woman choose?"
"You wanted to exploit this contrast to break through Pamela's psychological defenses and turn her into your willing agent. However, unforeseenly, she still didn't choose you, thus you had to fabricate memories within her memory space to deceive her into signing the pact."
A complex emotion of doubt came from All Things Green after hearing these words. Apparently, the people in front of them were not a single consciousness, but a consolidation of many. At this moment, Shiller heard a female voice filled with doubt, "...What are you talking about?"
"All I can say is, you make excellent use of the human weaknesses. If Pamela were just a typical college woman, you probably would have accomplished your goal a long time ago."
"No," said All Things Green. "I meant, what you just said... That plan, what was it? What do you mean I utilized the rainwater to infect humans and plants, and then what's that about creating some sort of event?"
"Your denial tactics are very juvenile." Shiller stared at the ivy in front of him. "Feigning ignorance is useless. You should pay more attention to the curse on you."
The responses from All Things Green grew increasingly confused. It wasn't pretending—it truly was confused. The fact was, it didn't plan any scheme; it was merely passing by, hoping to gain an advantage.
All Things Green indeed set its sights on Pamela early on, but Pamela wasn't the only choice. There are many entities that together comprise All Things Green, such as the Tree Committee and The Queen of May, and this time, The Queen of May, who oversees the vines, was the one eyeing Pamela.
Even for The Queen of May, Pamela wasn't the only choice. Their tactic in choosing agents broadly spread the net to catch as many fish as possible—cultivating multiple targets at once and then selecting the best agent among them.
The reason why The Queen of May was just passing by is that when the plants in Gotham city began to mutate, The Queen of May was the first to sense it.
The Queen of May originally just wanted to take a look and see what was going on, but then found out that one of the agents she had once chosen, was in danger.
She is not a human, she doesn't feel sympathy for humans, but she highly values Pamela's potential and does not wish to lose a candidate for her agent. Therefore, she controlled the vines to save Pamela, and at the same time, entered her psychological world, hoping to reach a pact with Pamela.
Simply put, The Queen of May was there to take advantage of the situation. She had just come across Pamela in a vulnerable state. After entering the psychic world, she found that Pamela's potential was even better than she had expected, and instantly wanted to confirm the placement, but unexpectedly, she faced resistance from Pamela.
The Queen of May does not really understand the human tactic of temptation, nor does she think a mere human being can resist her will, which is why her approach seemed more like kidnapping than recruiting.
From Shiller's perspective, however, all of this seemed very much like a conspiracy. As he once said, he's not sure whether the other side is so despicable, but he is.
Shiller is accustomed to take advantage of human weaknesses and set them up. So, as an observer, after seeing all the events playing out, he naturally suspected that All Things Green was the culprit.
Besides, if he were in the position of All Things Green and wanted to coerce Pamela into becoming his spokesperson, what would he do?
For humans, trust and security are important emotional supports. If he wanted Pamela to wholly lean towards the plant side, then he would need to first shatter her trust in her fellow humans, making her feel unsafe in human society.
Then, replace the feeling of safety she derives from her own kind—humans—with the ones that protected her—plants—in a moment of crisis.
From Shiller's perspective, the logic behind this setup is very clear. He would do the same.
Also, the motivation was quite clear. Shiller knew that in the comics, All Things Green had once tried to make Poison Ivy Pamela his new spokesperson, but that effort was rejected by Pamela.
This fact proves two things: first, Pamela indeed has the potential to become the spokesperson for All Things Green, which values her highly.
Second, if the candidate refuses very firmly, then All Things Green cannot adopt too forceful a means, and cannot simply take control of the other party.
Therefore, the motivation emerges: it is certain that All Things Green set a trap because Pamela consistently refused to become its agent, thus using tainted rainwater and seemingly mutant plants to put Pamela into danger and break her down psychologically.
In short, Shiller situated himself in the place of All Things Green and found it perfectly normal to plan out such a scheme—one as intricate as steamed dumplings served for vinegar.
But The Queen of May was bewildered. She was just passing by, hoping to seize a good deal. How did she become the main culprit?
Schiller had always been skeptical about the existence of this 'will of all things' within DC, as their emotions were relatively weak. In other words, the tactics Schiller was best at might not work so effectively on them.
As such, whenever they appeared, Schiller would naturally be on high alert and ready to apply physical therapy at the most opportune moment.
Schiller and the Queen of May were speaking different languages, with Schiller thinking the Queen of May was evading responsibility, and the Queen of May not even knowing what was going on. The tug of war between them yielded no results, and in the end, it was the Queen of May who retreated first.
The candidate was reluctant to serve as an agent for the time being, and there wasn't much that could be done. Moreover, the madman on the other side had cursed her, meaning she now had to leave immediately and find a way to get rid of Constantine.
The Queen of May had certainly heard of Constantine's formidable reputation and knew that getting involved with him wouldn't lead to anything good. She didn't want to be besieged by a bunch of demons and angels one day.
In her haste to rid herself of the curse, the Queen of May didn't want to linger. She started to withdraw her vines, planning to leave Pamela's psychic space and leave this place.
However, Schiller wasn't going to let her leave so easily. When the vines began to disappear from the room, he looked at Catwoman and said, "I'll send you back first, then I'll chase after her."
"Wait a minute." Catwoman interjected, "Are you saying that the chaos in Gotham is actually caused by these vines?"
Schiller slightly furrowed his brows, replying, "We can't be sure yet, but there's a high probability. After all, ever since the chaos started, there's only been one stranger that has showed up here."
"If she really came for Little Pa, then I should stay here with her. If this strange being decides to return to kill, I can protect her." With that, Catwoman walked towards Pamela and helped her up from the chair.
Schiller did not try to persuade her further, because he also didn't know if All Things Green would return. So he said to Catwoman, "The being that corresponds to All Things Green is called All Things Red, which represents all the animals in the world."
"You are a human who calls herself a cat, so you should be able to attract the attention of All Things Red. If something seems amiss, you can enter the Kingdom of Dreams through dreaming and seek the aid of Dream God Morpheus to connect with All Things Red."
The reason Schiller said this was because All Things Green, All Things Red and the Rot formed a balance as the three elemental forces of life. If one were to grow strong, it would swallow the other two, leading to constant friction between them.
All Things Red had once transformed into a black cat with green eyes. As one of the protagonists, Catwoman should be able to attract its attention if she tried, which could then be used as a backup plan to counterbalance All Things Green.
Having said all this, Schiller turned to leave, but Catwoman stopped him, "You plan on chasing All Things Green alone?"
At this moment, a somewhat weakened Pamela stood up and said to Schiller, "Professor Shearer, it's really too dangerous for you to take such a risk alone. During the psychic connection, I realized that it's not just one person facing us. It's really dangerous for you to go there alone."
Schiller noticed that Pamela's tone was always a bit cold, her facial expression rarely changed, but that didn't mean she was angry. It was more likely that her emotions were not adequately conveyed through her facial expressions.
Schiller laughed a little and shook his head, "I'm not alone."
After a while, many versions of Schiller were lining up on the first floor of his Thought Palace, the line leading to the main gate of the Palace, and from there, to the ladder next to the Ship of the Netherworld.
Superego, holding a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, inspected every Schiller that passed by, marking his notebook and stamping it, then tore off the page and handed it to the Schiller standing in front of him, saying, "You've passed, get on the ship."
In the center of the queue stood Schiller of DC, dressed in a black suit. In front of him was Marvel Schiller, wearing a white lab coat. The DC Schiller sighed, "All Things Green should've come earlier, back when we didn't have to undergo physical tests before deploying."
Marvel Schiller shook his head, "The physical tests do make some sense. Ever since we let many personalities roam free, the administrators have found that many of these personalities are mentally unstable, and once let loose, they are difficult to retrieve."
"Oh well, it doesn't really matter. As personalities that often rise to the top, would we really fail the physical tests?" Marvel Schiller shrugged his shoulders, "We're the ones doing all the work, while those guys don't have to worry about commuting or working, and they even get to go out and have fun occasionally. Honestly, I'm a bit jealous."
DC Schiller gently caressed the handle of his umbrella, "As one of the traits of rising to the top, we don't seem to have any privileges... Oh, it's your turn now."
Marvel Schiller turned towards Superego, who took one glance at him, handed him a piece of paper without saying a word, and gestured for him to get on the ship. Then DC Schiller stepped forward, locking his gaze with Superego. After a one-second stare-down, Superego finally said, "You did not pass."
DC Schiller was stunned, "…What did you say???!?" he asked in disbelief.
"I said, you didn't pass the physical, so you can't go on this mission."
DC Schiller immediately widened his eyes, "Are you hearing what you're saying? This is my plan! And I can't go?!"
"Whoever initiated the plan is irrelevant. If you didn't pass the physical, you are not going." With an indifferent wave of his hand, Superego said, "Move along now, don't hold up the next person."
"But why... why did I fail the medical examination?" DC Schiller asked in confusion: "I'm one of those who have surfaced to the superficial layer of personality traits, there is no one more stable than me."
"You?" Superego looked him up and down again and said: "You're sleep-deprived."
DC Schiller's eyes widened, but soon, the Schiller behind him had already crowded up, pushing him out of the line, leaving him only to stare blankly beside Superego.
Watching one Schiller after another board the Ship of the Underworld, until the last battle member embarked, the ship set sail towards the unknown horizon, leaving only DC Schiller alone, gazing at the distance lonelily.
DC Schiller sighed, walked back to the high tower, and began to mumble to himself: "He just wants to retaliate against me. Last time the Dream of a Thousand Cats got scared and pulled the entire high tower into the Kingdom of Dreams, rendering them homeless. He's really petty."
As he shook his head and walked towards the elevator, he pressed the button for his room's floor, intending to go back and rest for a while and wait for good news. However, the elevator suddenly stopped halfway.
DC Schiller stepped forward with the tip of his umbrella and pressed each floor's button only to find there was no response. He then pressed the emergency call button. His own voice came from the microphone: "The elevator is undergoing maintenance, you wait a moment."
Schiller inside the elevator held his forehead. He suspected that the administrators were deliberately opposing him, but he had no proof.
As a result, he could only sit down, lean against the wall of the elevator, stretch one leg straight, bend the other leg with his hand resting on his knee, and fiddle with his umbrella.
After waiting for a good two to three hours, the elevator finally restored its function, and DC Schiller was able to return to his room. But as soon as he returned, he found several uninvited guests in his room.
Following the trail they left behind, Schiller discovered that they went into the one room he least wanted to visit. However, to figure out what was going on, he had no choice but to go to that one room that scared him the most.
Schiller looked at Batman, Constantine, and Zatanna across from him, full of rage. He took a deep breath and said, "Which one of you is going to explain to me why you guys are here?!"
Batman first glanced at Schiller who was standing still at the door, then turned around to look at the broccoli behind him, then looked at Schiller again, before finally saying, "We just trespassed by mistake."
Schiller was about to take a step forward, but then hesitated for a second, stood still, and beckoned them over, saying, "You come here."
The three of them seemed to understand the subtlety here. Zatanna, Constantine, and Batman, tightly hugged the tree trunk of the giant broccoli, and refused to take a step forward. Constantine said, "You come here first."
"You come here first."
"No, you first."
"No, you first."
The three of them obstinately refused to take a step forward, Schiller also adamantly refused to approach the giant broccoli, resulting in a stalemate.
In the end, Schiller could hardly bear to stay in this room any longer. He pointed his umbrella at the trio and said, "I don't care why you came here, but right now, I want you to get out!"
"Er, can we leave?" Constantine asked tentatively, but before Schiller could answer, he immediately sent a signal to Zatanna. Zatanna's hands lit up with magic. Before they left, they heard Schiller's roar:
"Get out!!!!!!"
Suddenly, they were back on the rooftop of a large building in the Spirit Realm. Constantine plopped down onto the ground, panting and saying, "I can't believe we actually escaped. Thank God, thank the broccoli."
Batman also seemed somewhat surprised. Normally, this kind of thing would definitely not have a peaceful ending, considering Schiller's tolerance. It's impossible for him to let them leave unscathed after they trespassed into his room without reason.
Zatanna was the most exhausted. After casting the last teleportation spell, she could hardly move. Konstantin tried to help her, but she glared at him. Batman, seeing Zatanna's state, said, "I'll take you to a safe place to rest."
"If what you say about the Curse of Evil really exists, I'll investigate the root cause and solve it. After all, I'm also a Gothamite, it's my duty to protect this place." Batman helped Zatanna up, Constantine stood behind them and rolled his eyes before saying:
"I won't disturb you two then, I have to go meet those foolhardy Black Magician. After all, the fog shrouding the Spirit Realm won't exist for much longer. Once the fog dissipates, they'll definitely wreak havoc in the city."
Constantine shook his head, saying, "They may be a bunch of short-sighted fools, but at least they could hold back a lot of demons. If we just let them enter Gotham like this, they'll definitely all die here, then I'll be in trouble."
Batman glanced back at him, seeming not to believe what he said. But in the end, he didn't say anything, holding Zatanna, he turned around and left.