Chapter 2196: Battle of the Two Cities! (Part 74)

"Isn't it my weakness that I have never been firmly chosen?" Constantine asked.

"Bruce Wayne should believe it." Constantine heard Schiller answer like this, which sounded equivalent to "Think again."

"Do you think this is wrong?"

"Perhaps."

Constantine really couldn't help it anymore. He poured a large mouthful of wine and then said: "I have already paid the price. You can't always let me ask you. Shouldn't it be you asking me some questions and then giving accurate answers?"

"That's the way other Schillers do it."

"Then what would you do?"

"You ask, I answer."

Constantine felt very confused. He placed his hands on the desktop and leaned forward. Despite this, he couldn't see Schiller more clearly across the long table, but just to show his urgency, he had to do so.

"You can't perfunctory me. If there is no basis, how can you ensure your analysis is correct?"

"If you want a basis, then go find Bruce."

Constantine was really frantic.

"If there is no basis, isn't it just guessing?"

"I am."

The stunned Constantine saw Schiller finally slowly straighten up from the back of the chair. Constantine originally thought this was a precursor to his serious analysis, but Schiller just picked up the wine bottle and poured more wine into the glass, and leaned back on the chair, squinting his eyes.

This made Constantine suspect that he didn't ask at the right time. Schiller looked like a large beast digesting food. Mages digest moose meat, Schiller digests mages. What a wonderful food chain.

Driving these unrealistic associations out of his mind, Constantine had to be more straightforward.

"Give me a reason why you do this, let me believe you don't intend to perfunctory me on the answer. It doesn't need to be scientifically reasonable, as long as it can convince me."

"I'm afraid I'm not good at this."

Constantine witnessed Schiller's ability to talk nonsense with his eyes open again, but he still said: "Let's hear it."

Schiller adjusted his posture and sat up slightly. Obviously, he had extremely relaxedly accepted the impact of alcohol on his brain. Although the tipsy state made him look more lazy and mysterious, if he became serious in this situation, Constantine could only be a good piece of bacon.

"Do you know the difference between me and Arrogance in psychology?"

He finally asked a question! He finally asked! Constantine almost cheered in his heart, so he shook his head and said very excitedly: "I don't know, can you tell me?"

"I lack theoretical basis more than he does."

"Ah?"

Constantine couldn't imagine, because in the few scenes where he had seen Arrogance make judgments about someone's psychology, Arrogance performed as if he had received divine revelation, and this was by no means his own feeling alone. The expressions of everyone present were the same as Constantine's.

Constantine couldn't imagine how else there could be no theoretical basis.

"So you'd better not expect me to give any explanation for my judgment. You ask, I answer, absolutely accurate, without omission."

"Narcissist" was the only label Constantine could put on the current Schiller, just like a gambler saying "I win every bet."

"Then let's try." Constantine said unconvinced: "What is the correct judgment standard?"

"If you think it's wrong, it's wrong."

"No refund?"

"Full compensation."

This made Constantine look like a gambler himself, as if he were testing whether he could control himself not to point out Schiller's mistakes, thereby obtaining compensation.

He could always point it out, because Schiller was analyzing him now. Even if it wasn't, who didn't have flaws to pick in their words?

"You have to guarantee that you can't be too short and perfunctory, and you can't go around in circles." Constantine habitually blocked all paths and said: "Perfunctory words like 'pretty good' or 'not bad' must never appear, and you can't repeat known facts."

"I guarantee it will be brand new and substantial enough until you are satisfied."

Constantine was really shocked.

"Are you sure you're not drunk?" He instead began to question this point, even carefully looking at the wine in his hand. His years of drinking experience told him that this bit of wine wouldn't even make a child drunk.

"How many questions can I ask?" Constantine asked anxiously.

"Unlimited times."

This must be some kind of manipulative trick to gain his trust, Constantine thought. Just like you use constellations to tell fortunes, no matter what you tell, you will apply it to yourself. But in fact, it's just some general words that refer to the public, or flattering words that people are instinctively willing to use on themselves. It must be like this.

But Constantine still decided to try.

"Then let's start with that question." Constantine swallowed and thought, saying: "If not being firmly chosen is not my spiritual weakness, what is my weakness?"

"Before that, let me ask how your empathy ability is."

"I think it's pretty good, what do you think?"

"My answer might be very abstract."

"What is my weakness?"

"The sunset after the rain stops must be beautiful, but the rain will never stop."

Constantine was silent for twenty minutes because of this.

A bolt of lightning struck the first half of a rotten person's life. From then on, those memory scenes that most Constantine couldn't even name, those feelings that were blurry and broken even to himself, finally had a description that couldn't be more appropriate.

Constantine believed it.

"How should I overcome my weakness?"

"Go to bed early and get up early, eat nutritious food, and exercise appropriately."

"You mean 'can't overcome it'?"

"I am giving suggestions as much as possible."

"That is, can't overcome it."

Constantine hesitated for a moment and then asked: "Do you think there is a need to overcome this?"

"This is an overly broad question. It needs to be viewed comprehensively from all the experiences of your first half of life. I can start talking now, but perhaps you can use questions to learn some key points in advance."

Constantine looked forward to every answer having such an effect, but he also feared this point.

There was no doubt that if he let Schiller start talking by himself, he would not get any more such maxims. That would be a hearty spiritual analysis on a psychological level. But if that were the case, why didn't he go find the professor who was easier to talk to?

Constantine didn't want to admit it but had to admit that he preferred this kind of answer. Even if there was no basis and no principle could be said, it was like guessing purely based on intuition, but at that moment, he saw his own heart's blood on the cold sword.

Constantine swallowed.

"What was my childhood like?"

"The foundation that makes you hold expectations for the sunset."

This was an answer that exceeded Constantine's expectations. He had lived in a mental hospital, and all the doctors were saying that the lack of attention and abuse he received from his father, and his terrible original family, were the root of all the tragedies he encountered.

"Why do you say that?" He couldn't help asking.

"That was the only moment in your life when you could sit on the lawn in front of the house and watch the sunset."

The answer was astonishingly simple, but it struck a memory in Constantine's mind like an incredibly precise harpoon—he was bathed in an orange-red ocean, watching the sunset light cast the grass into a color he still could not describe to this day.

"What else?" Constantine wanted more.

"You don't like the sunset, you're just curious why the Creator made its color so similar to blood, your father's blood."

Constantine's fingers froze.

The fragments of memory were completed. On the grass, blood flowed along the gaps in the soil. He didn't need to look back to know that the blood had soaked the doormat, and inside was an arm.

"If only it were really the same." Constantine murmured to himself in a low voice: "It's not that similar either."

"But I saved my father." He said again.

"Are you trying to say I'm wrong, or do you want to change this into another question?"

"If you are wrong, do we end?"

"No, it's just that the contract is not established. You can continue to ask, and I will still answer truthfully."

It was simply adding fuel to the greed of a gambler, but Constantine decided to remain honest because he hadn't recovered from the shock yet.

"Why did I save my father?"

"His death will be the first rain in your life."

Constantine felt a moment of suffocation.

Many doctors had made judgments about him, saying he was a strange and crazy born bad seed, just like those juvenile murderers. If they weren't bad enough, they wouldn't do it. If they did it, it proved they were bad enough.

When he was hypnotized to tell his past, the conclusion doctors usually reached was that John was worried about his murder being discovered, John was afraid that he would have no one to raise him after losing his only close relative and would be sent to a welfare home, and John decided to let his father make a will before sending him on his way.

This was people's usual guess, because the whole logic was like this. John Constantine didn't kill his father in a desperate impulse.

He contacted magic, learned magic arrays, spent a lot of time gathering materials to practice on animals, and carefully arranged the magic array after gathering all the elements—if he had any intention of repenting at any point in time, his father wouldn't have fallen. Isn't this enough to show that he is a cold-blooded lunatic?

Constantine himself was often confused about this.

"Was I bewitched?" He asked.

"No."

Schiller's firm answer made Constantine feel terrified.

"You are looking forward to a world without your father, but his death also makes you painful." Schiller said slowly.

"Your whole life is doing things like this—sacrificing a beautiful future at the cost of weakening your current pain, so the rain will never stop."

Constantine fell into a long silence again, while Schiller drank his wine cup by cup.

"Do you think I am such a person?" Constantine asked.

"Too mediocre." Schiller answered. Constantine asked again with some disbelief, and Schiller added.

"I mean, this kind of self-contradiction is too common. Most humans spend their whole lives doing things like this. Whether it's not studying hard before an exam or committing crimes at the risk of sanctions, it's essentially the same."

"Then what is different about me?"

"Your tolerance for pain is much stronger than others, too strong." Schiller said: "Long-term weakness and pressure are not enough to crush your spirit, and they don't even wear away your anticipation of a beautiful future. You can endure it completely."

"In that case, should I endure until the arrival of a beautiful future? Did I take the wrong path?"

"You can't endure it."

"Why?" Constantine was even more confused by this self-contradictory statement.

Schiller said his tolerance for pain was strong, so shouldn't the correct approach be to endure and then exchange it for a better tomorrow?

Schiller, however, scanned the scene on the table, leftovers, severed limbs, everything was so decaying and strange.

"You are feeling happy." Schiller looked at the corpses on the table and said: "Because this group of people finally got their retribution, because they finally went to the position they should be in—in short, died tragically here."

"You are not only happy to see this, but even ecstatic, but in fact, it's not because of their suppression of you for many years—but because you are the only one left in the magic world."

"You are the same with your father. You didn't save him because you loved him, but because everyone he loved, sought, and joyfully looked forward to being born had already died, died in your hands. He only had you left."

"So you chose to walk in the rain, making yourself the biggest tragedy in their lives, until they desperately realized that they only deserved to have you."

"Your existence is indeed a kind of natural survival of the fittest. Smart people choose death between you and death, because you slowly drown all the fools with your rain."

"To avenge the injustice heaven gave me?"

Schiller shook his head.

"To satisfy your arrogance, which is no different from these mages. The sunset is beautiful, but if it doesn't make a unique response to your appreciation, you let the rain keep falling."

Schiller looked into Constantine's eyes and said.

"They are greedy for power, while you are greedy for the artistic aesthetic of the person you have chosen towards you. For this, you would rather live yourself into a form that is easier to give birth to art—a thorough tragedy."

"This is not a performance. You invest everything for this, using your strong pain tolerance as your advantage, silently enjoying the artistry that some people realize from your tragic life, which makes you feel satisfied every time you think about it."

"Then what about you?" Constantine also stood up, his hands on the table, his body leaning forward, "Do you view all this as art?"

"Too much."

"What?"

"There are too many Constantines."

Constantine opened his eyes wide.

Schiller shook his wine glass lightly and said: "The most unique artistry of tragedy lies in the fact that similar darkness in a society guides each different soul to a different ending, which reflects the subtle differences in everyone's pain, extremely subtle and very wonderful."

"But if darkness guides many people in one direction, disciplining them to become the same, art loses its uniqueness and becomes dross that is tasteless to eat."

Schiller shook his head gently and said: "So I lift you up and end your tragedy, because you are too close to me, and I hate being drowned. I would rather pay for a ticket to go further away to watch." ===== CHAPTER 2197 =====