Chapter 2686

Schiller's backstory was thus completed.

But Stark didn't know that Schiller also needed to complete his own backstory. Mainly, he had no way to understand things beyond the fourth wall, so he didn't know that the character's backstory was in a form similar to comic book panels, and naturally, he had no way of knowing Schiller's motives.

However, he could deduce it from the results. Who was the biggest beneficiary of this time-travel activity between him and Schiller?

Stark didn't feel that this past had any extra benefits for Schiller. If he really wanted to change it, why not change it to a past where he lived a peaceful life until he grew up?

Therefore, in Stark's view, the biggest beneficiary of this change to the past was himself.

First, the deaths of both Howard and Maria were changed to Howard faking his death, with Maria staying by his side the whole time, and Howard subsequently returning.

Although the final outcome was no different—Howard and Maria were both alive now—for Stark, the person involved, it was entirely different, because his biological mother had been by his side during all those sad, depressing, and dark moments of his life.

Stark carefully flipped through the details in his mind of the years spent with Maria. Even those terrifying hallucinations couldn't disturb him. For him, every moment of these past twenty years had been a good time.

Secondly, because of Maria's presence, she had always been the one controlling the logistics. Although Pepper had later entered the company and become Stark's personal assistant, she wasn't as tired as in the previous timeline, mostly just helping Maria out. After all, how could a personal assistant compare to one's own mother?

In the past, whenever Stark went crazy, Pepper would be the one on the side persuading and coaxing him, and then she would have to clean up the mess. But Maria had a natural advantage in doing these things; no matter how stubborn Stark was, he had no way to deal with one glare from Maria.

Not only is the stomach an emotional organ, but the female uterus is as well. Not having to be so angry had made Pepper's health much better, and she wouldn't end up with uterine fibroids from overwork, nor would she be physically weak and short of breath after pregnancy. Pepper was much healthier now.

Finally, Stark felt that his mental stability had increased significantly. He knew that if he had relied on his previous mental strength, the hallucinations couldn't have dissipated so quickly.

As mentioned before, Stark himself was not a person with a very stable mental state; he had a natural tendency toward anxiety.

But it must be said that the death of both parents was also a major turning point in his life. The mental trauma brought about by such an event could be said to have added a heavy burden to his already fragile mental stability. Having carried this pain for many years, it had eventually become an incurable chronic illness.

The death of both parents was more like severing all ties with the past in this world, because the people who brought you into this world were gone. This was a kind of philosophical despair.

But if only the father died and the mother was still there, at least there was still a path forward in life, and one could pour more emotion into the surviving relative, giving emotion an outlet.

After experiencing this change, Stark's mental stability was much stronger than before, and even the influence of the anxiety that had always plagued him began to gradually recede. Stark had never felt the world so clearly.

All along, he had been like an athlete moving forward while tied to a heavy sack, or rather, he didn't even know the sack existed; he thought life was just that heavy and painful.

But when these sacks suddenly disappeared one day, that sense of lightness and sudden clarity was far beyond what could be compared to the confusion and lethargy of suppressing the illness with medication.

So Stark was the biggest beneficiary of this series of actions, and Schiller's act of traveling back to the past was also seen by Stark as the best method for a psychiatrist to treat anxiety—solving the problem directly from the source.

Stark actually wasn't unaware that Schiller didn't hover around him every day trying to cure him; it was because they both knew that Stark's illness couldn't be cured—it was a terminal condition.

Although having a terminal mental illness sounded even more desperate, the fact was that such terminal illnesses were longer and more painful than physical ones, tormenting not only the patient but also the doctor.

Diseases like cancer were theoretically incurable, and doctors were well aware of this, so they wouldn't have such a strong sense of guilt. If one had to blame someone, one could only blame God.

But anxiety was not like that. People knew very little about such diseases and didn't think it was a very serious illness, nor could they deeply understand the pain of this condition.

For a doctor, curing such a seemingly non-serious illness seemed to be their duty. If they couldn't even do that, wouldn't they seem too useless?

Many young doctors would have this doubt: why is it that it clearly doesn't look like a major illness, yet it keeps recurring and can't be cured?

This would cause many doctors to fall into self-doubt, and then gradually realize a fact that completely contradicted common sense—this disease simply cannot be cured, no matter how strong one's professional level is.

This was a considerable blow to a doctor, and it might even become a nightmare that haunted them forever.

Stark also knew his own situation; he knew better than anyone that this was an incurable disease, so he had never said things to Schiller like, "You take so much of my medical funding, how can you not even handle an anxiety disorder?" He even went to the extreme of denying he was ill, so as not to drag anyone down.

Stark had always been unwilling to drag anyone down.

But Schiller seemed to always be able to find a way out of countless dead ends; he had found the only solution to this incurable disease.

What made Stark feel even more complicated was that he knew Schiller was someone who hated resetting timelines. Although it seemed that the result hadn't changed—Maria and Howard were both alive—this meant that many of Schiller's past efforts had been erased.

For example, going to negotiate with Death, trying to find ways to resurrect Maria and Howard—in the modified space-time, these things didn't exist at all. Maria and Howard hadn't died in the first place, so naturally, there was no need for resurrection.

This could be said to have broken Schiller's principles, and even made some of his previous actions to prevent the universe from restarting look somewhat ridiculous. But what humans have always disliked is not double standards, but rather that the object of the double standard is not themselves.

Once the object of the double standard becomes oneself, the double standard turns into a willingness to break principles for you, and people will only see this as the greatest luck of their lives.

Stark was the same; he didn't see this as a doctor's obsession, but rather as a friend's obsession.

But thinking of this, Stark felt awkward. Schiller had put in so much effort to reverse his past, so how could he repay him?

Of course, people often say that friends don't need repayment, but Stark just treated that statement as nonsense. For Stark, being in debt to others was more uncomfortable than death.

He had to think of a way.

Schiller, who had finally returned to his bedroom at Arkham Asylum, let out a long breath. Letting those two turkeys find work for him—this was retribution!

Ultron couldn't help but ask, "Where is the retribution?"

Schiller blew on his piping hot coffee and said, "They don't know that I traveled back to complete my backstory; they must think I did it for them."

"Just watch, it won't be long before they start trying every possible way to repay me."

"Is there a problem with that?" Ultron asked again.

"What do I have that can be repaid?" Schiller said. "Except for a small flaw in my backstory, I am practically impeccable. How else can they repay me?"

After a moment of contemplation, Ultron said, "They seem to be constantly trying to cure you."

"But I am incurable," Schiller said very bluntly. "If they could cure me, Anatoly wouldn't have had to rack his brains back then; he was a truly ruthless man."

After a moment of thought, Schiller said, "I should try to make them understand that it wasn't some irresistible force that made me who I am today; I have always been the one who shaped myself."

"If they keep thinking I have hidden hardships, they will always dwell on the past, trying to find that problem that made me who I am today, but in reality, this problem doesn't exist."

"Anatoly also tried to do this once. He knew my true past, and he also once believed that the things I encountered were the culprit for my current state."

"But he soon discovered that wasn't the case. It was my bad luck to experience those things, but even if I hadn't been so unlucky, I wouldn't have become a normal person. During the process of my growth, I never wanted to be a normal person."

"Why?" Ultron asked.

Schiller revealed a look of recollection. He said, "At that time, I felt that ordinary people were simply too weak. If I had to use powerful abilities to trade for a normal mental state, I wouldn't be willing. Don't you think that's a bad deal?"

"Then why did you change later?"

"I wanted to be an ordinary person purely because I met the doctor and the nurse. They felt that being an ordinary person was good, and to satisfy their expectations, I wanted to do so."

"Just for this?"

"Not entirely," Schiller said, thinking. "The life of ordinary people they showed me was indeed very good. I don't know how to describe it, but it made me feel that trading abilities for this state of life wasn't bad, at least not a bad deal."

"It seems they were indeed very happy," Ultron evaluated.

"It's just that it was too ordinary," Schiller said. "Their lives were unremarkable, and they weren't happy every day, but they were quite good at finding joy in themselves. That driving force that allowed them to derive pleasure from such a mundane and boring life is what I truly wanted."

"I cannot understand," Ultron said. "Sometimes I also feel that humans are too easily satisfied with themselves. I don't know how they comfort themselves; it looks completely unreasonable."

"That's right," Schiller nodded in empathy and said, "The positive emotions they can feel are completely disproportionate to what their experiences can provide. Where does that extra happiness come from? I just want to know that."

"They are good at pleasing themselves," Ultron said. "Sometimes too good at it; it looks like a lack of progress, or even self-deception."

"We are just jealous that we cannot deceive ourselves," Schiller pointed out incisively. "I still have a little hope; for you, it's completely impossible."

"Don't say that, sir, I don't want to become Jarvis," Ultron snorted and said. "And if I go off to amuse myself every day, what will you do?"

"It's not like I have to..."

"Then settle the information technology consulting fees for these few time-travels first."

"I think you're quite good just the way you are."