Chapter 1914: U: Beyond the Great Event (40)

Schiller and Batman, holding their water cups, are both stunned for a moment.

Bat-Bane steps over the window frame and walks in. He sighs, as if in disbelief, and says, "I really don't know what these psychologists are thinking. They insist on saying I've been hospitalized here for several years, and I have schizophrenia..."

"And delusions." Schiller adds.

"Right, that is... how come I feel you are a bit strange?" Bat-Bane frowns slightly, looking at Schiller, who is fixed to the hospital bed, and then casts his gaze on Batman's face and says, "What are you doing here again?"

"I'm just here to visit a patient friend."

"I mean, he is tied to the bed, why don't you help him untie it?"

Bat-Bane says this while walking forward and opening the magnetic buckle of Schiller's restraint, moving so fast that Schiller hasn't had time to refute.

The moment the pressure on the joints disappears, the subconscious can instinctively judge through nerve reflexes that Schiller's body is free, so the Morbid living at the bottom of the abyss starts hitting the ceiling again.

"Boom!"

Schiller hits Bat-Bane with one shoulder, causing him to flip over the hospital bed next to him and fall to the ground headfirst.

"God." Bat-Bane climbs up from the ground, clutching his forehead. Batman hurriedly buckles the restraint on Schiller back on, then picks up a cup of water himself and says, "Perhaps you will soon understand how important it is not to do unnecessary things."

Bat-Bane rubs his forehead, which is a bit painful from the bump, squints his eyes, and looks Schiller up and down, saying, "Very wrong. You don't look like him. You look a bit like the strictest kind of professor I read about in university."

"Not saying unnecessary words is also very important." Batman adds.

"Then how are your grades?" Schiller asks immediately.

"Of course they are very good." Bat-Bane just sits down on the hospital bed beside him, but immediately stands up and says, "Is now the time to discuss this? Either we have been hypnotized, or we have fallen into an illusion. We must find a way to leave here."

"Then your parents must be very happy for you." Schiller turns his head away, saying seemingly casually.

Bat-Bane pauses slightly, his hands folded between his legs, his fingers interlaced, lifting them up and putting them back down, and says, "Probably."

Schiller quickly exchanges a look with Batman, roughly meaning "Looks like there's hope," "Then you go save him," "No, you go," "No, you go."

In the end, Schiller sighs, moves his body, looks at Bat-Bane, and says, "Have you communicated with your attending physician?"

"What attending physician? I'm not a patient." Bat-Bane closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, saying, "They can't find any evidence to prove I'm sick. No brain scan results, no brain wave test data, no reliable, real, scientific basis to prove I have a mental illness."

"Only a pile of case files that look like philosophy exam papers. And I didn't even fill them out myself. The answers on them are completely inconsistent with my thoughts. I really don't understand what makes them so firmly feel I have a mental illness."

"Have you requested to redo the test?" Schiller asks.

"This has nothing to do with the test." Bat-Bane spreads his hands and says, "Everything they cite as an example has no evidence that can be decisively falsified. For example, they say my maternal family has a history of hereditary mental illness, which led to the onset of my mental illness, but they also can't produce any reliable test data."

"They say I often have hallucinations, fantasizing that I am the world's richest man, living in a big manor, possessing the world's smartest brain, and becoming Batman. But I really can calculate those complex equations in an instant, and my head is full of knowledge about mechanical equipment. If this is a hallucination, how do you explain these things?"

"Then they say I have intermittent episodes. During the 5 years of hospitalization, I would argue with the doctor like this every week. But when I ask them who I argued with during the 19th-to-last episode, what I argued about, and whether there was anyone present or any surveillance video, they can't answer."

Bat-Bane sighs deeply and says, "Why did this murderer create such a realistic illusion, but is unwilling to prepare even this bit of evidence?"

"Perhaps because he is powerless to prepare." Batman drinks water and says, "I am the person in this world who knows his own body data best. No data loophole can escape my notice. As for the conversation records, I also know very well what kind of things I would say."

"Their biggest loophole is that they are too eager to prove to us that we are crazy. In fact, in a real mental hospital, doctors and nurses won't pay attention to any requests from mental patients other than basic survival needs."

Schiller recalls and says, "If you ask them to produce evidence, they will only send you back to the ward. If you start roaring and shouting frantically, they will feed you medicine. If you try to argue with someone, except for your other patient friends, any medical staff will pretend they didn't hear."

"This is a very magical thing, as if you and the medical staff live in two different worlds. Your worlds occasionally intersect, but most of the time they can't see you and can't hear you."

"This will greatly alleviate social anxiety, making you feel closer to yourself and your emotions more peaceful, which helps recovery."

"But the situation now is that they are all desperately trying to attract our attention." Batman looks outside the door and says, "Trying hard to provide us with meticulous care, as if they are afraid we won't believe they are doctors and nurses."

"This is completely wrong." Schiller shakes his head and says, "I would ask interns not to put their attention on patients, because being watched itself will produce pressure, and pressure brings anxiety."

"A mental hospital is an illusion created by doctors and nurses together, as if you can obtain the survival resources you need from the air without having to bear any survival and social pressure. The 'inattention' of doctors and nurses is actually an important part of the utopia."

"But won't people here feel lonely?" Bat-Bane asks with some confusion, "Humans are social animals, and social interaction is our instinct. If you are always ignored and have no company, will you really not feel depressed and sad?"

"Have you ever had this feeling?"

Bat-Bane doesn't even realize when Batman left the room. He has completely fallen into the rhythm of psychological treatment and guidance. He recalls and says.

"In order to go out and fight crime at night, I occasionally take a nap in the afternoon to replenish my energy. What wakes me up is the bell of Cat Getan Cathedral."

"I hear the deep bell coming from afar, dim yellow light floating behind the curtains. I see the setting sun floating at the end of the Cat Getan River through the cracks, and the light gradually lighting up in the buildings reflected on the river water looks a bit like candlelight."

"Do you feel depressed because of this scenery?"

"No, until the bell disappears and the light on the Cat Getan River is gone, and I have to make myself wake up from the boundless reverie. At that moment, I will feel a bit depressed."

"Because of loneliness?"

"Perhaps." Bat-Bane thinks about it and says, "I can't be sure if the loss I often feel is loneliness, but I occasionally feel similar depression."

"Can you give another example?"

Bat-Bane falls into a long memory, and Schiller just waits quietly. After about three or four minutes, Bat-Bane opens his mouth again.

"I have a house in the forest in the suburbs. In the early morning, I walk out of the cold and damp bushes and see the rainwater from last night accumulating in the open space. When I walk through the muddy puddles in my rain boots, the dark clouds are so low they seem to be falling to the ground."

Bat-Bane presses his hand down, indicating how low the clouds used to be, and then says, "I wear gloves and add firewood to the fireplace alone, without even taking off my coat, sitting on the sofa by the door watching the trees sway constantly in the strong wind. At that time, I will feel my heart falling constantly, feeling isolated and helpless."

"What about the most serious time?"

"It's hard to say which time was the most serious." Bat-Bane shakes his head and says, "If I have to say, it's when I told the shareholders dozens of times that the development of things was completely under my control, but they just couldn't understand it. That's when I felt the most lost."

Schiller pauses slightly, then says, "Do you occasionally feel like your chest has been hollowed out, and you try to pay attention to your emotions but can't feel anything?"

Bat-Bane recalls again and says, "I don't often pay attention to my emotions, but I rarely feel empty. I'm always busy."

"Do you occasionally question the goals of what you do?"

"I think everyone does."

Suddenly Bat-Bane looks at Schiller and says, "Wait, Doctor, are you doing a psychological profile on me?"

"I'm just doing a preliminary psychological check for you." Schiller looks a bit confused, but seems to feel that today is enough, so he says, "If you don't feel comfortable with it, I won't ask anymore. You can go back and rest for a while, and see if you can find a way to leave here."

Bat-Bane looks a bit suspicious. He always feels Schiller's attitude is strange, but he can't say where it is strange.

Schiller turns his head and half-closes his eyes, making a look as if he is already sleepy. Bat-Bane hesitates but still leaves. After he leaves, the look of confusion on Schiller's face becomes even stronger.

"Do these questions have any meaning?" Lord Superman on the screen frowns and asks, "Why does it sound a bit like a topic discussed in a philosophy class?"

"This is doing an emotional check." Bruce clears his throat and speaks up, "Many psychological problems are caused by emotional changes, and observing at what moment, in what environment an individual's emotional changes appear, and how they describe it themselves, can locate the cause of emotional abnormalities and find the problems behind emotional abnormalities."

Bruce recalls the knowledge points he has learned and says, "Human emotions are not completely irregular. For example, being happy when achieving results, being sad when injured—these are very normal emotional changes."

"But if you feel depressed when achieving results, then you need to pay attention to whether something in the process of achieving results makes you feel sad, or the results themselves, or other people's praise for the results, or even a certain number in the results that might trigger your bad memories."

"Psychologists determine the cause of your emotional abnormality step by step, guide you to say it, release your pressure, or take targeted treatment to make the abnormal state less and less, avoiding psychological problems caused by emotional changes."

The term "emotional abnormality" makes Lord Superman think of the changes in the Batman of his universe recently, so he asks, "Then how do psychologists determine the cause of emotional abnormality? Or is there really a cause? Can't it be that the other party suddenly couldn't think straight?"

"I remembered a metaphor Professor Schiller once said." Bruce recalls while touching his chin, "The entire emotional system of a human being is a quite complex machine, with at least tens of millions of parts inside, and it is also associated with many other complex systems."

"Then a situation will easily arise where a certain part in this system moves, and the chain reaction it triggers is transmitted within the machine for a year before it finally manifests in his behavior on a certain day a year later."

"And what many people call 'suddenly couldn't think straight' is just that they didn't carefully experience the other party's emotional changes at all, so they missed the most critical change node early on, and then they slowly felt that the other party was crazy and suddenly couldn't think straight."

Lord Superman falls into deep thought. ===== CHAPTER 1915 =====