Chapter 2260: Cat Getan Music Festival (Part 8)

Just as they were talking about this, the restaurant waiter walked over and said with a smile, "We will start serving in 20 minutes. Please confirm your seats in 10 minutes, and we will serve the products according to the number of people."

Schiller nodded at them, then looked at Arthur and said with a smile, "It seems we can't make that rich guy bleed any more, but fortunately, it's less than an hour, so we'll count it as one hour."

Arthur also smiled at him.

"However, since it's an hour's consultation fee anyway, we can end this conversation as soon as possible, so you can still have some time to do other things."

Arthur didn't express any objection. He just sat there saying nothing, as if to say, you arrange everything.

"Of course, please don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to brush you off. In fact, conducting routine inquiries for patients is just a duty. You always have to give those who can't graduate from university the illusion that their consultation fees are well spent. I don't need this."

Arthur tilted his head.

"Your illness is cured, Arthur." Schiller's forearm rested completely on the table, and he leaned forward, looking into Arthur's eyes, saying, "From the moment you became the Joker, your illness was already cured."

"Your illness was never cruelty, violence, or madness; those are symptoms that only born psychopaths have, and you are an ordinary person."

"People often say that after one bad day, everyone has a chance to become the Joker, but the fact is that ordinary people, after one bad day, after many bad days, after many bad years, only want to commit suicide."

"Firmly holding the view that 'whoever's fault it is, it is not my fault' requires great courage and willpower, and even talent. Either you were born thinking this way, or it is almost impossible to hone this mindset later in life."

"Even if you show this attitude on the surface, deep down you must be constantly torn by extreme resentment toward yourself and society. Pouring all that resentment onto the latter is simply not something an ordinary person can do."

"In the first half of your life, your scales were tilted too far forward, just like every ordinary person. Although you would shirk responsibility and blame others and the social environment, you ultimately attributed it to yourself, starting to doubt yourself, tear yourself apart, and consume yourself."

"This is the root cause of mental illness for the vast majority of ordinary people. Their abilities leave them with too many things they can't do well, yet they don't have the firm willpower to push all their mistakes onto society, so they feel regret, frustration, and wavering, until they become depressed."

"Imagine, if there were an inevitable rule in this world that everyone who had a bad day would become the Joker, would this world still be as bad as it is now? Would they dare to be this bad?"

"It's just because there is no such rule that the vast majority of ordinary people who have had a bad day choose to hide at home and be sad by themselves. Even if one-tenth of people were bound to become Jokers and do what you did, humanity wouldn't dare to build society like this."

"That's why I said your illness is cured, because you finally threw the weights that were too heavy on yourself to the other side. You finally learned to push the blame onto others and attribute your own misfortune to society."

"You think it's not their fault." Arthur narrowed his eyes and said.

"Not entirely." Schiller replied very calmly, "You know you have committed mistakes unrelated to environmental factors. We all have, because this is almost inevitable. Whether it's an ordinary person or a genius like Bruce Wayne, it's impossible to be completely correct all the time."

"I have to admit, if you could truly perfectly choose every option unrelated to environmental factors, then perhaps your life wouldn't be like this. But this is an invalid assumption, because if your life is already some kind of tragedy, it's almost impossible for you to choose correctly."

"So, in the end, it's still their fault?" Arthur leaned his body against the back of the chair, leaving only one hand on the edge of the table.

"Yes, but a person's life is an extremely complex proposition. Your choices and society's choices are intertwined, forming the you of today. Objectively speaking, who is more at fault actually doesn't matter, and this is not within the jurisdiction of psychology."

"What we want to discuss is who you actively attribute your life's failures to. Most normal people would say, 'Although I'm indeed not that good, I can't entirely blame myself for being this bad now.' This is a relatively healthy thought."

"Although it's possible he is indeed very bad and the tragedy of his life is entirely his own fault, and it's also possible he is actually very good and not to blame at all, if he looks at this problem more neutrally, he can keep his mindset balanced to avoid falling into depression due to excessive self-blame, or having no objective judgment of himself due to excessive blame on the external environment."

"As long as you have that one moment of thinking, 'Why is everyone else fine and only I am this bad?' or 'Why am I the only one so incompetent?', it proves that the scales of your subjective attribution are tilted toward yourself. And if you think, 'My life is just like this,' or 'It serves me right to live like this,' it proves that the scales have tilted to an extremely dangerous degree."

Arthur looked away again. No one knew if he had ever really thought that for even a moment.

"And when you became the Joker, you killed the people who mocked you, told the world that no one cared about you, no one loved you, and that it was their indifference that made you who you are today, and you were going to take revenge on this unfair society—that proves your scales are finally balanced."

"Isn't that tilting too far to the other side?" Arthur asked again.

Schiller reached out as if he wanted to take a fountain pen from his chest pocket, then realized he wasn't wearing a doctor's uniform and there was no pocket on his chest, so he could only withdraw his hand and place it back on the table, saying:

"This must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. Besides starting from both moral and personal emotional aspects, one must also..."

"You said you would try to be brief."

"Then, just from social morality..."

"Don't talk about morality."

"Then, personal emotions..."

"No emotions either."

Schiller seemed a bit helpless, while Arthur finally started his counterattack. He imitated Schiller's posture, with his forearms on the table, leaning forward and looking at Schiller, asking: "How do you view my criminal behavior?"

"You know that formal psychotherapy is recorded, right?"

"Of course, but I don't..."

"I care."

Arthur was stunned for a moment, then suddenly reacted, looking at Schiller, staring straight into those calm and firm eyes.

"I am a doctor, and you are the patient consulting me. We should talk as little as possible about my personal views and talk more about your illness. You came here for treatment; it is for me to help you see yourself clearly, not for you to pry into me."

Arthur and Bruce, who was eavesdropping on the side, both frowned. Arthur was because of Schiller's attitude, while Bruce discovered that Schiller's Greed personality was more cautious in this regard. Was it because he was often in a place where social order was normal?

If it were Arrogance, he would say directly: I don't care at all that you killed someone. First, this person you killed has nothing to do with me; second, you, the person who did the killing, also have nothing to do with me.

Someone died in this world, but people are always dying in this world. Someone is going to jail in this world, but too many people are going to jail in this world. What is there to care about?

But Greed didn't express his opinion from beginning to end. Clearly, he was avoiding certain statements that touched upon law and morality, looking like he was accustomed to self-preservation under the law.

This is not strange either. In Cat Getan, dying doesn't count for anything. Even in the Cat Getan where Arthur is, there are dozens of homicides in public places every day, and people have long since become numb.

Murder isn't even a trendy topic here; it's just one of the daily conversational topics. A serial homicide with more than 5 victims can barely make the front page; only a terrorist attack with at least 200 deaths is likely to make the headlines.

So the people here don't care at all about talking about such things. Even if you said how many people you had killed in front of Gordon, he wouldn't arrest you based on that. After all, if he were to arrest people like that, Cat Getan might as well just be turned into one big prison.

But in places other than Cat Getan, especially those where social order remains stable and the law is highly effective—in short, in civilized society—people must be cautious in their words and deeds. Any opinion expressed about a murder case could become evidence in court later.

So, although these things have never disappeared and people are always talking about them, they always find the most appropriate attitude to subtly express their feelings while perfectly avoiding potential future accountability.

Arthur certainly reacted. He originally wanted to say that he didn't care about any recordings at all. He had already killed, and the court had already sentenced him; what could he not talk about?

But Schiller said he cared, which proved that if he really talked about the murder case from a personal perspective, it probably wouldn't be a view the law liked. And what kind of views does the law not like?

This kind of hint was too subtle, the attitude expressed was ambiguous and very delicate. You could say he said something, but in the end, he said nothing. You could say he expressed his view, but in the end, he had no view.

"You are very much like the lawyer who defended me before." Arthur evaluated.

"The behavior is worth praising, but I cannot agree with the professional level." Schiller shook his head and said.

Arthur felt again that he was hinting at something. Although it seemed to be saying that a poor murderer having a defense lawyer reflects the fairness of the law, my professional level is different from his.

But it also sounded a bit like: I feel you are innocent, so someone should have defended you; it's a pity he failed to exonerate the innocent you.

The difference between these two meanings is huge; they can even be said to be two completely opposite attitudes. The former stands on the side of the law, while the latter completely despises the law.

In this short sentence, one cannot find any evidence to prove which meaning Schiller actually holds. One can only say, just listen to it; once you hear it, you won't make a sound.

Arthur reviewed everything Schiller had said before and found that Schiller's words made a lot of sense. The analysis was very clear. The so-called emotional illness caused by subjective attribution and the balance theory were both well-founded and very easy for people to understand.

This gave two main conclusions: one is that Arthur is an ordinary person, and the other is that Arthur's illness is improving.

The method used was indeed psychoanalysis, accurately pointing out some frustrated thoughts Arthur had before becoming the Joker, from the ordinary person theory to gradually deepening into attribution theory. Even Arthur, as an ordinary person, could clarify where his problems lay and how to adjust through this psychotherapy.

This was an extremely normal psychotherapy session from a psychiatrist. The only problem was that it didn't quite look like Schiller.

It didn't involve any analysis of Arthur's personality; it could be said to be completely focused on the facts, finding the cause for the illness. He was really treating the illness seriously.

The problem is, when has Schiller ever treated an illness seriously?

Those words of his that seemed like psychological counseling were actually just a prelude to breaking others down. The therapeutic effect was just a freebie from watching others collapse because of what he said. People have long had a consensus: Schiller's psychotherapy is like the ticking sound before a bomb explodes.

So, he actually is a psychiatrist after all?! ===== CHAPTER 2261 =====