Chapter 1577: Fishing Day (Part 6)

Shiler and Natasha arrived near the nearest ice hole. Shiler put down the chair, reached out and pointed to the seat for Natasha, and crossed the ice hole himself to set up another chair.

Natasha sat down on the first chair, and while untangling the fishing line, said, "Sure enough, grouping with you is correct, Doctor. This group of people has been completely overwhelmed by the joy of fish taking the bait, with no gentlemanly spirit at all."

"You have to be tolerant of these gentlemen who don't have time to fish all year round occasionally showing their wild side." Shiler walked to the side, picked up his fishing rod, and then took off his gloves to start organizing the fishing line.

Natasha's eyebrows seemed to be lowered as she adjusted her fishing rod, but in reality, her attention was on Shiler's hands, especially the veins that occasionally appeared on the back of his hands when he exerted force to pull the fishing line.

"Ma'am, what do you think about fishing and hunting?" Shiler asked as if he had just found a topic, while hanging the bait.

"That depends on what form they take." Natasha had already hung the bait and was fixing the rod at this time. Her hand movements paused, as if she were recalling, and she said, "The beauty of fishing lies in waiting, while the beauty of hunting lies in the chase."

"Usually speaking, I prefer to move, to keep the initiative in my own hands." Natasha shrugged her nose lightly, and when the pulling of her lower lip lifted, a bit of wild ferocity was revealed from her plump and beautiful appearance.

"Or rather, chasing the smell of blood makes me feel excited, passing through streams and bushes, finding every trace that might exist, and finally capturing the dying prey, dismantling them, and turning them into my own energy. It's so primitive and barbaric, but it makes adrenaline soar."

"Which step makes you the most excited? The killing?"

"No," Natasha shook her head and said, "I never deliberately torture prey, and I also find the screaming sound very harsh. I will end them quite quickly, stabbing into the throat with one knife, and I have no interest in the corpse."

But on the dried ink marks under this painting, such a line of words was written—"A great king, a father of the world, but the former is not the reason for the latter, nor is it an excuse."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Do I look very violent?" Yuan Shan leaned his body back, leaned against the back of the chair, and kept looking up at the fishing line trembling slightly in the wind at the top of the fishing rod.

"I wouldn't say that, but I would think that this process of whitewashing transforms violence into something else. The point is not in the bloody conflict, but in the indescribable excitement when you patiently arrange, meditate and wait, and finally gain a rich harvest unexpectedly."

"You let all of us be able to see you again in a state of not knowing and feeling nature, seeing a person named Shiler, rather than a kind of existence."

"But I don't provide emotional counseling."

"I am Shiler, obviously."

The beautiful female agent tucked her red hair behind her ears and said, "The key to his lack of interest in me is not in me, but in himself, or rather, in you yourself."

"Control over the lives of others is the highest control," Shiler summarized, and then continued: "When you hunt, the ignorant prey always has hope of survival, not knowing the approach of danger at all, but at a certain point, you know he is already dead. Such information and class gap make you feel superior."

"You look very civilized, too civilized." Natasha threw the cigarette case aside, blew out a puff of smoke, and said: "Even a bit too gentlemanly. If it were the doctor from before, he wouldn't care if I invited him, but would have gone to solve the confusion about family for Professor Charles and the others, or gone to joke around with those two guys whose heads are full of fish."

Shiler pushed his glasses again, as if wanting to find a suitable position for the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and then he had to say: "So, I am not a doctor."

"Are the vast majority of your prey male?"

Natasha showed a playful smile. Between the flow of her eyes, she seemed to deliberately imply her dissolute style, but since she said so, Yuan Shan knew that the point that impressed her must not be sex.

"What about the sexual aspect?"

By some strange coincidence, Loki took the book down, and then discovered that this book was different from the vast majority of books on the bookshelf. It was older, and the traces of wear were more obvious.

"Then, let's talk about fishing, Doctor." Natasha took the initiative to bring up another topic.

"There is also a small part of females," Natasha shrugged and said: "Few are out of personal preference, the vast majority are for mission purposes."

"Never will be a great king, but I love my brother and father, more than the throne."

Loki's eyelashes trembled, and her thumb pressed a fingerprint on the first page with force. Then she hurriedly used magic to wipe away the trace, looking left and right with a guilty conscience, as if worried about being discovered.

"People often say that an angler is fighting with his own patience. Fish are never our opponents. As long as you have enough patience, they will always take the bait."

Loki opened the first page of the book, where a line drawing of the All-Father holding thunder and leading all gods was drawn. Odin looked very heroic, as always.

"For the vast majority of us, they are just consumables for pastime, but there are a few who impressed me."

"We are all like this, aren't we?"

"Ha, yes, it's that multiple personality thing again." Natasha spread her hands, took out a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, and said: "What do you represent? Violence?"

Then, she opened the next few pages and found Thor's drawing, on which a comment was also written: "Will be a great king, but I might prefer to be a good brother and a good father."

Loki felt her heart beating like a drum. She flipped through a few pages quickly, found her name, and saw a sentence on it.

Natasha didn't look nervous at all. She flicked the ash, lowered her head and smiled, then looked at Shiler with that smiling look and said: "Compared to seeing the real you—Shiler Rodriguez—disasters don't count for anything. The disasters that descended on me in the past didn't let me see the true face of any great thing... Want a cigarette?"

"That's not entirely a good thing, ma'am," Yuan Shan unscrewed the cup lid and said: "When nature shows its power to let you see it, it means some kind of disaster is about to happen."

"Then what did I look like before?" Shiler asked with interest, leaning back on the chair and looking at Natasha's face.

"Then who are you?"

"Do you think it's better to focus your attention on great things? Or is it not?" Shiler turned to take the thermos cup from the bag, as if asking casually.

"If I have to say, when I gradually master their traces, I can imagine that their chances of survival are getting smaller and smaller. The power of life and death is gradually being held in my hands as I advance. This sense of control fascinates me."

"You can't get any confusion, sadness, or anger from me that you expect to see in others. I accepted everything reality gave me so straightforwardly, and could even find some fun in it. We are the same kind of people, so you are interested in me."

"That's really rare," Natasha suddenly laughed brightly, squinting her eyes at Shiler and saying: "I've never heard of any psychologist saying that. Isn't it that most patients do emotional counseling?"

"Don't joke," Natasha blew out another puff of smoke, staring tightly at Yuan Shan's eyes and saying: "For the craziest lunatic in the universe, the pleasure that the flesh can provide is not one ten-thousandth of the excitement brought after those complex plans of yours are completed."

In Shiler's bedroom on the second floor of the Hell's Kitchen psychological clinic, Loki's fingers stopped on the spine of a book on the bookshelf. The name of the book was "Complete Book of Norse Mythology."

"Why do you think the doctor before wasn't interested in you? Do you think your charm isn't enough to move him?"

"A... thing," Natasha slightly retracted her chin, thinking while saying: "Like nature, existing by my side, but rarely realized. All the sides of you I've seen are only a small part of the whole, and the rest is too vast, instead occupying any attention."

"But this is me accompanying you all to fish, not you all accompanying me to hunt," Natasha immediately regained the initiative, and she said without giving an inch: "You have to be more straightforward, let me appreciate the charm of fishing, otherwise I can only rely on the bragging of Nick and Steve about their harvest."

"More views on emotions."

"Very correct, Doctor," Natasha smiled and said: "A quite violent way to obtain pleasure. Perhaps this is also the reason why I can carry forward the name Black Widow."

"The fish has taken the bait."

"But it often requires some exquisite philosophical thinking," Natasha suggested: "Choosing the right rod, choosing the right bait, and also needing a location with just the right time."

"I'm not sure, but at least you look better now," Natasha pinched her chin with her thumb and index finger, and looked at Yuan Shan with a scrutinizing, even staring gaze without any taboo.

That question sounded a bit suggestive, but Natasha was very clear that Shiler was good at burying the truth under words full of red herrings, and it was definitely buried more than a thousand feet deep.

"And now, what makes me a bit uncertain is..." Natasha lowered her eyelids, took the cigarette out of her mouth, rested her wrist on the edge of the chair, tapped the end of the cigarette lightly with her finger to shake off the ash, and then said: "Some focus that I've never felt in you is returning, making you more like a normal person."

The conversation between them was a bit like playing chess, one move after another, just because it was too smooth, and there was no awkwardness like in a turn-based game. It sounded like small talk.

"That's right," Shiler nodded and said: "That is the interesting part of fishing. Everything is completed in the early stage, and when it comes to the conflict part, everything is hidden under the water surface. I prefer to call it civilized violence."

"Doctor, you seem to be hinting at something all the time," Natasha looked into Shiler's eyes and said: "Have you also buried many truths under those thousand feet of words?"

"What do you want to hear?" Shiler asked.

"Interesting," Natasha evaluated this point of view, and then continued: "Is violence after being whitewashed by civilization no longer violence?"

Shiler saw the look Natasha projected from under her red hair. The gaze wasn't really flickering, and the invitation wasn't really an invitation. He was just about to speak when the fishing line at the top shook violently.

"Compared to hunting, I prefer fishing," Shiler looked up at the fishing line shining in the sun and said: "The hunter understands the prey, while the angler understands himself."

Start fishing!