Chapter 1161: Professor (41)

"Thomas Elliot!" Bruce called out his name. He let go, threw Roman to the ground, rolled forward at high speed, and just as Thomas, who had flipped in through the window, hadn't yet landed, he punched him in the chin.

Thomas originally had one leg that was a newly installed prosthetic limb. He didn't have much time to adapt to his fake leg. Just as his toes touched the ground, his chin suffered a heavy blow, unable to stabilize his center of gravity, and he fell straight backward.

Bruce stepped forward again, grabbed his hair, dragged him into the room, and then smashed his head hard against the wall.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

When Bruce let go, he stood in place and took a deep breath. He looked at Thomas, who was lying on the ground covered in blood, and whispered, "The textbook says that violence can vent stress... The textbook is right."

He touched his nose with his hand, turned around, and continued to drag Roman out the door, but as soon as he opened the door, he saw Mrs. Miller's widened eyes.

Bruce hesitated, wanting to take some measures, but Mrs. Miller immediately took a step back, pointed to the corridor, and said, "Go forward, turn right, emergency exit, the key is under the door mat."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Mrs. Miller watched Bruce drag the person out while adjusting the position of the teacup on the tray in her hand. Bruce's movements paused, and he looked up at Mrs. Miller.

And Mrs. Miller looked down at him and said, "Don't mind it. I've seen too many doctors in my life. Quite a few people dissect corpses in their offices—perhaps because they don't have to follow operating room regulations there."

Bruce pursed his lips, ashamed of the fussing emotion that had just risen in his heart. He dragged Roman into the emergency exit, then returned and dragged the other two people in.

At this time, Mrs. Miller had already placed the tray on the coffee table. Looking at the broken glass, she walked out while pointing her finger at the window, saying, "I'll call someone to repair it."

Bruce shook his head, looked at her, and said, "It's best not to in the near future..."

"Bang! Crash!"

Bruce clenched his fists, turned his head to look at the window, and another dark shadow flipped in along the window.

Bruce lowered his head, took a deep breath, opened his hands forcefully, walked quickly to the sofa, picked up the scalpel he had dropped earlier, and then rushed to the window, stabbing the scalpel into the back of the hand the dark shadow was using to grab the window frame.

Ignoring the screams coming from in front of him, Bruce pulled out the scalpel, punched him in the nose, didn't look at his figure falling downstairs, and turned to walk back into the room.

Mrs. Miller, standing by the door, watched this series of his actions. When Bruce turned back, she shook her head gently and beckoned to Harley in the room.

Harley seemed completely unwilling to leave, but as Mrs. Miller's eyebrows raised higher and higher, the little girl could only drop her hands, sigh, and follow Mrs. Miller away.

Before leaving, Mrs. Miller left only one sentence: "I'll have the newsboy deliver tomorrow's breakfast along with the newspaper."

Bruce stood in place with his hands on his hips, looking at the mess in the office, and sighed deeply.

But what he didn't expect was that this disaster was just the beginning.

In the following week, Bruce didn't even have the opportunity to leave this office. Except for eating and going to the restroom, he was fighting serial killers every moment.

Bruce felt that his understanding of Arrogance Shiler was still a bit shallow.

At first, he thought that his professor letting him deal with so many terrifying serial killers in his dreams was because he had foreseen that one day, he would have to face Pathological Shiler.

But now he discovered that things were not like that. Pathological Shiler was perverted, but he was only one person. Arrogance didn't need to let Bruce face a situation where so many serial killers joined forces, and since he did so, it meant that he probably had foreseen today's situation long ago.

In the entire week that followed, Bruce used the techniques for dealing with serial killers he had learned in the dream world to deal with the serial killers who came one after another, endlessly.

Bruce felt that he seemed to be trapped in a strange space where there was nothing but serial killers.

But this space couldn't affect reality—at least, it couldn't affect Shiler's reality.

This psychologist was still seeing patients as usual. Facing the bloodstains all over the floor and Bruce, who was covered in blood and haggard, he acted as if he didn't see it, still writing medical records, reviewing treatment courses, and checking wards on time.

When the morning's somewhat weak sunlight spilled into the room through the window that no longer had glass, Shiler, wearing a deep red suit, sat on a single sofa reading a newspaper, with the food delivered by the newsboy in the morning placed in front of him.

And opposite him, Bruce, who hadn't closed his eyes for almost seven days, was also wolfing down his food.

The space was divided into two by the coffee table. On this side, Shiler was wearing an immaculate suit, every button on his cuffs fastened, his tie not crooked, flipping through the newspaper at a leisurely pace.

And Bruce opposite him was frighteningly haggard. Since returning from the slums, Bruce had kept the long-haired look, but the fight with the serial killer in the washroom earlier had wet his hair, which was now sticking to his forehead in strands.

Not shaving for seven or eight days had caused coarse stubble to cover his entire chin, and combined with his wolfing-down expression, he looked like a total vagrant.

Shiler closed the newspaper gently, raised his eyelids to look at Bruce, and asked, "How much longer do you plan to stay here?"

Bruce stopped chewing. His eyes, deep in his brow bone, stared straight at Shiler and said, "Stay until you send me an invitation."

"Do you know? Arrogance said you are a stubborn mule." Shiler shook his head gently and said, "This kind of paranoid personality might cause you to slide into the abyss, making you unable to rationally judge what kind of situation you are currently in."

Bruce just looked at him in silence. Shiler lowered his head, folded the newspaper, and said to himself, "This morning, when I brought over a plate of vegetable salad, you were feeling surprised."

Shiler raised his head, looked around his office, and said, "In a closed environment, facing someone you cannot resist, standards will always be lowered and lowered. This is a typical Stockholm syndrome. The more paranoid you are, the deeper you will be dragged."

Bruce closed his eyes, lowered his head, and then turned his head away. All kinds of hallucinations flashed before his eyes.

It could be said that if his spirit hadn't already been tempered through thousands of trials, he would probably have already slid into another abyss, just as Shiler said.

Shiler placed the folded newspaper on the coffee table. When a corner of the newspaper crossed the dividing line in the middle of the coffee table, it was like a knife stabbing into Bruce's body.

"Tomorrow night at 9 o'clock, the banquet will start on time. All my friends will be there. And tonight at 11 o'clock, I will go out for a trip. You should understand that you can't stop me, so don't do useless work."

After finishing, Shiler stood up and turned to walk toward the lounge. Bruce squeezed a breath from his throat, leaned against the back of the sofa, and raised his arm to cover his eyes.

His haggard state had nothing to do with his fighting serial killers or not sleeping or resting; the pressure Shiler brought to him was too great.

Afterward, Bruce leaned his upper body forward again, supported his hands on his elbows, and covered his face with his hands.

He remembered again that when he was in the slums, he had also shared a room with Shiler. The situation at that time was exactly the same as it was now.

He had long seen in textbooks that a closed space would make people feel the emotions transmitted by the other party more clearly, and when trapped in a certain closed space and unable to leave, the pressure would increase exponentially.

Huge pressure combined with a situation where one cannot resist would trigger the human body's self-protection system. Since one cannot change the other party, then change oneself. People's thinking would automatically lower their own standards to match the other party, in exchange for short-term comfort.

Shiler's few sentences just now had brought Bruce's heart defense, which had already been pushed to the edge, to the verge of collapse.

Because this morning, when he saw Shiler bring in two plates of very pure vegetable salad, he was almost moved to tears.

Bruce's reason told him that this was actually not normal at all, but many times, reason is not yet applicable to normal people, and counting on him to control a mental patient is even more unrealistic.

Bruce just sat quietly on the sofa, the light and shadow of the floor-to-ceiling window behind him changing. One after another, Bruces appeared beside him.

Some stood in front of the window, punching a serial killer who wanted to flip in; some bent down, dragging the defeated serial killer out of the room; and others knelt on the ground, cleaning up glass fragments.

Countless figures came and went in the room, and only one different figure, holding a wine glass, stood in front of the door in the corner of the room, quietly watching all this. That was Shiler.

Bruce turned his head at an extremely slow speed and, through countless fragments of space and time, saw Shiler's eyes.

With a "snap," the hallucination in front of him was defeated. When Bruce woke up, he found himself covered in cold sweat, and Shiler, who had just walked out of the lounge, looked down at his watch and walked quickly toward the office door.

Bruce turned his head sharply to look at the window. The morning light had long since disappeared, replaced by bright moonlight. Then he looked up at the clock hanging on the office wall. It was 10:52, and there were 8 minutes until 11 o'clock.

Shiler's hand was already on the office door handle, and the moment his arm exerted force to turn the door handle, the entire office seemed to be frozen by something again.

Bruce stood up, unaffected, came behind Shiler, and said to him, "You cannot go out to kill, Professor."

The door handle didn't stop turning. Bruce, standing in place, shook his head hard and said, "No, this won't work."

Next, he stepped forward, reaching out to touch Shiler's shoulder, but the next second, with a spin of the world, he found himself lying on the floor. Shiler looked down at him, holding a blood-stained boning knife in his hand.

The non-existent pain woke Bruce up. At this time, Shiler had already pushed the door open a small crack.

Bruce stood up and walked quickly behind Shiler. And after Shiler pushed the door open, he didn't leave immediately, but stood outside the door and turned to look at Bruce behind him. His closed eyelids and those desolate gray eyes were like an ultimatum.

Bruce opened his mouth slightly and said:

"You don't have to go out." ===== CHAPTER 1162 =====