Chapter 1585

"You said you can paint, then what kind of paintings do you usually paint?" Natasha asked while fiddling with the fishing line in her hand, as if looking for something to talk about.

"I paint all kinds of subjects, but most are charcoal and pencil drawings, because cleaning up pigments is a bit troublesome, so I prefer sketches with large areas of blank space."

Natasha nodded, and then Schiller continued: "I happen to have paper and charcoal sticks. Can I have the honor of inviting you to be my model?"

"You'd better not expect me to stay here quietly for a long time," Natasha shook her head and said: "I have long passed the age of not eating, drinking, or sleeping for romance. Do I look like an old lady?"

"Still the same sentence, we are all remnants of the past. Keep this posture and don't move as much as possible. Ten minutes is enough."

Schiller took out a sketchbook from his luggage bag, wrapped the charcoal sticks with a tissue, and started drawing on the paper.

Before ten minutes had passed, Natasha saw Schiller hand over the sketchbook. She said with some surprise: "So fast?"

Schiller's speed of painting didn't make Natasha have high expectations for the level of this painting, because in the eyes of a layman like her, paintings should be drawn longer to be more detailed, and the level should be higher. This kind of ten-minute sketch was inevitably a bit sloppy.

But seeing the portrait on the paper, Natasha was stunned. The beautiful female face outlined on the paper was not sloppy at all. The hair was black blocks, so it set off the cheeks to be exceptionally bright. The shadows were charcoal powder rubbed open, initially thick, but finally had a kind of gray transparency, very much like the shadows under the light.

There were very few colored parts, and a lot of blank space, but under the high-intensity contrast of light and dark, the light sensation was set off more and more strongly.

"God," Natasha said with some shock: "You actually paint so well!"

"This is an excellent way to fool laymen."

Schiller's words made Natasha couldn't help but look at him. Schiller smiled and continued: "Actually, the details are far behind. Using strong light and dark to shape the volume will make the impact of the picture very strong, and the vast majority of laymen who don't possess professional knowledge can only feel the impact of the picture."

"Quite impactful," Natasha looked down at the painting again, but even if she carefully distinguished, she really couldn't see what details were missing. After all, she had never studied art, and her memory of the works in the exhibition halls she had seen was not very clear.

The first feeling this painting gave her was "like," and the second feeling was "beautiful," and these two feelings were enough for ordinary people without professional knowledge to judge this painting as a professional work.

"Look at this," Strange flipped through a piece of draft paper and showed it to Stark next to him. Stark's pupils contracted the moment he saw the painting, as if he had seen strong light.

That was a female portrait with a quite strong light sensation. Large areas of charcoal powder shadows made the blank area in the middle like a beauty's face at noon. The features were hazy, and the details couldn't be seen clearly, but it was quite atmospheric.

"Schiller shouldn't be able to paint, right?" Although Stark asked a question, he used a positive tone. He recalled and continued: "I asked him to help me draw auxiliary lines for a parts diagram, and he drew them crookedly."

"Aren't you good at drafting?" Strange looked at Stark and then at the painting: "How is the level of this painting?"

"Industrial drafting and this are two completely different things, or rather, two opposite extremes. Industrial drafting requires complete precision, which is no different from mathematical calculation, but art pays attention to atmosphere rendering. The more hazy, the more it can arouse association, the better."

But Stark still looked down at the painting and said: "In my opinion, this painting has achieved it. Although he didn't draw the features very clearly, it still makes us feel that this model is a beauty."

Strange flipped through another piece of draft paper, and then it was another portrait of a similar angle. He flipped through several sheets in a row and found that they were all like this: strong light sensation, hazy portrait, and atmospheric beauty, but the model was completely unrecognizable.

"This should be drawn by the original Schiller, right? His dream lover," Stark simply sat on the ground, started flipping through those paintings one by one and said: "Is he going to commit suicide for love?"

But just at this time, Strange found an unusual test report on the side of the bottom of the box. He took a look and said: "Brain area scan... Schizophrenia pre-check? Did the original Schiller have schizophrenia?"

Strange rummaged in the box again and found more paintings, but this time the style of the paintings became a bit weird.

Originally, they were all black, thick, long hair or black backgrounds setting off white faces, making the models in the paintings exceptionally sacred. But the folded painting in Strange's hand was completely reversed. The hair was sparse, outlined with a few strokes, the background was completely blank, and the features were depicted in great detail, but each organ was covered with thick shadows, with only a tiny bit of blank space.

"Who is this?" Stark squinted at the painting in Strange's hand. He could see that the female's features were not black, but there was too much ink on her face, and the whole face was covered by shadows.

They compared the two styles of paintings and found that the hairstyle and face shape were basically the same, just the painting method was different. Strange continued to look back and found that the paintings behind were becoming more and more weird.

The originally hazy features gradually became clear, sometimes revealing content, sometimes looking cruel and bloodthirsty, but many times they also carried a kind of weird tenderness or temptation with a bit of desire.

"He probably really has some mental problems," Strange looked at the paintings and said: "This might be a hallucination he saw when his mental illness broke out, otherwise it's hard to explain why the painting style changed so suddenly, and why there are so many expression details."

"Artists are all crazy."

"The problem is he is not an artist, he is a psychiatrist."

Stark had nothing to say. He stared at those weird paintings and felt a bit creepy, so he folded them all and put them back into the box, stood up, and re-entered the bedroom.

There was a desk in the bedroom. Stark walked to the desk and flipped through the books on the shelf, his eyes fixed on the name of one of them—"How We Walk Towards Death."

Stark's fingers slid across the spine of the book. Strange came behind him, stared at the names of those books and said: "Even if death education is an indispensable part of life, is the number of times death is mentioned in this book too many?"

"Maybe he wanted to commit suicide long ago," Stark said silently, his tone slightly sad: "In any case, a suicide who is tortured to madness by mental illness is worth sympathizing with."

"Is it really mental illness?" Strange seemed to have thought of something. He walked back to the living room at high speed, stood in the center of the room, closed his eyes, and magic spread from around him.

"What are you doing?" Stark asked.

Strange didn't respond. After a few minutes of silence, he slowly opened his eyes, looked at Stark with a serious face and said: "There is a breath of death remaining here."

"Yeah, after all, he can be considered dead..."

"No, not that death, it's the real 'Death'," Strange turned around and looked at the room and said: "The breath is very, very thin, it should have been a long time."

"That goddess?" Stark asked with some surprise.

"Don't tell me you don't know. Death will entangle certain specific existences, making them see hallucinations similar to dream lovers, and then make them provide more death for her. Thanos is one of them."

Strange knelt on the ground again, took out the paintings from the box, and said: "According to Loki's description of his experience, Thanos once mentioned that he had seen a beautiful woman in several nights guiding him to a desolate and deep country. She said that would be their love nest, as long as he could keep her appointment."

"Death seducing Schiller??!"

Stark said incredulously, but soon he seemed to react: "Wait, I have always felt something was wrong, about Schiller's strong interest in death."

"Why does he have to negotiate with death every time, regardless of big or small things? Obviously there are thousands of methods simpler than that..."

Strange looked around the surroundings again and speculated: "The original Schiller might have been influenced by death and chose to commit suicide to keep her appointment. That is to say, the first person the later Dr. Schiller met was not me, but Death."

"This also explains why he has such a great interest in death at all times, and even used a part of his soul to keep her appointment several times... My God, are they dating?!"

Strange slowly narrowed his eyes. In fact, anyone who has experienced several of Schiller's big plans can find that he has a different interest in death, completely exceeding the scope of interest that should be had in studying a god.

Here, both of them fell into a blind spot of thinking. The preconceived impression that Schiller couldn't paint made them feel that the paintings appearing in Schiller's former residence could only be left by the previous Schiller. Combined with wine bottles and drugs, it was easy to introduce all this into the conjecture of a down-and-out and crazy artist.

Thinking of certain small details that had been suspicious for a long time, it was easy for people to have the idea of "Look, I said something was wrong."

Humans are quite good at bringing their current situation into various descriptions that are actually inaccurate. It is the same principle as Baidu seeing a doctor and starting with cancer, and it is the same as feeling that those adjectives are incomparably suitable when doing emotional tests.

"We have to go find Loki and ask," Strange thought for a while and said: "Only she has more dealings with Thanos. We should go and ask Thanos whether what is drawn in these paintings is Death."

At this time, Luo Ji was still flipping through the sketchbook in Schiller's bedroom, but she suddenly heard a faint thunder coming from her side. Luo Ji, as if she were used to it, sighed helplessly, closed the sketchbook in her hand, and looked at the balcony. Sure enough, Thor was standing there.

"Why are you still here?" Thor stretched his head in from the balcony window and said: "Frigga is looking for you everywhere. You are the protagonist of that ancient blind date plan of hers."

Speaking of this, Luo Ji was even more helpless, and Thor waved his hand outside and said: "How does that saying go? Mom is always right. You should know that running is useless, right?"

He only remembered to see where this was after he finished speaking. Thor took two steps back, looked at the building, saw the familiar door, and said with some surprise: "Isn't this Dr. Schiller's clinic? Where is he? What are you doing here again?"

"I came in to take a look."

Thor's reaction was faster than anyone else in this regard. The alarm bell in his brain rang instantly, and he didn't even care about the image of the God King, climbing up from the balcony window at the fastest speed.

First, he glanced at the neatly folded bedding, Thor breathed a sigh of relief, and then glanced at the environment that was still tidy. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, Thor's gaze fell on Luo Ji's face.

"What exactly are you doing here?"

"I came to visit, with permission."

Thor took two steps forward, his burly body squeezed Luo Ji so that she almost had no place to stand. His gaze crossed Luo Ji's shoulder and stayed on the sketchbook on the table.

Thor looked at Luo Ji, turned sideways, and was about to reach out to take the sketchbook. With a "pop," another hand pressed on the end of the sketchbook. Luo Ji turned her head and looked at Thor from the gap of her hair and said: "This is Dr. Schiller's personal item, don't move it at will."

"Then why did you move it?"

"I got permission."

Thor's gaze became more suspicious. He stared at Luo Ji's eyes and said: "Let go, let me see."

"No..."

"Let go!"