Chapter 3439: Midnight Sons (49)

The hospital night was very quiet. Schiller gently closed the door of the ward and came to the corridor. He waved at the nurse on duty who poked her head out from the nurse station, and stood alone at the window in the corridor to open his phone.

The state of the public opinion battlefield was still not optimistic. Many news items related to Roxxon were noisy and chaotic below. The accounts of the few comments Schiller had browsed were all banned, which should be the means taken by Nick.

But this clearly wasn't a clever method. This group of people changed to a platform, posted the page where they were banned, and the comments below were a pile of conspiracy theories, as if the whole world was persecuting Roxxon.

Schiller knew Nick had material in his hands. If he chose to report it now, he should be able to turn the tide, but he didn't choose to do so, presumably still wanting to see Roxxon's reaction.

A day and a night passed, Dario Agger should have woken up. Facing the current situation, he would definitely take measures. And from the measures he took, one could see what preparations he had made for his next plan. Nick wanted to wait for him to make a move, and then come with a trick of pulling the firewood from under the cauldron.

Just as Schiller was browsing the trends of the news platform, he saw a keyword rising at a speed of more than ten places per refresh, quickly climbing to the top of the news search list—"Dr. Schiller enters Roxxon Energy Industrial Building".

Schiller's fingers paused. He clicked on the news and discovered it was a video, filming his figure entering the Roxxon Energy Industrial Building.

He recalled the scene at the time; it should have been when he was going through security, filmed by someone standing behind him to the right. At that time, he happened to turn his head, so his side face was filmed in the video.

The whistleblower claimed to be an employee of the Roxxon Energy Industrial Building and also a fan of Schiller, and happened to see Schiller come to their company when going to work today, so he filmed it by the way.

However, the writer of this news broke that Schiller entered the Roxxon Energy Industrial Building at a time close to the building fire. Although it wasn't explicitly pointed out, it also carried some hints.

Schiller knew that this fire of Dario Agger's accident would definitely burn to himself, but he didn't expect Dario to choose to cut in from this angle.

This wasn't a clever angle. Using the leaked video to hint that Schiller was related to the building fire, but Schiller didn't have the motive to do so. And as everyone knows, he is a psychologist and doesn't have that kind of power.

Sure enough, there were many fans of Schiller below the news clarifying for him, saying that this news was purely nonsense. Even if Dr. Schiller went to the Roxxon Energy Industrial Building a few hours before the incident, that was just a coincidence, and it couldn't be said that the doctor had anything to do with this matter.

Below, although there were also conspiracy theories, they were all refuted by fans with evidence. Coupled with the good impression Schiller had previously given the public, this hot search, besides the position being relatively high, didn't cause very widespread discussion.

Until a well-known news commentator published a blog post on his private account—"Is an ordinary psychologist really that ordinary?"

It was a fan backstage who sent it to Schiller, and only then did Schiller see this article. When he clicked into it, this article already had hundreds of thousands of views, and there were thousands of comments.

This article was roughly saying, how could a psychologist who can get so familiar with superheroes be an ordinary person?

This news commentator analyzed the details of Schiller's interaction with superheroes from various angles, and anyway, everywhere showed that superheroes didn't just treat Schiller as an ordinary psychologist. They were completely in that kind of "superhuman gathering" way of getting along.

His argument was also very interesting. Generally speaking, it was saying that when a person with superpowers gets along with an ordinary person, they will have a feeling of being cautious. It's like an elephant wanting to play with a meerkat, it must control its strength well to avoid hurting its little friend.

He flipped through many traces left by superheroes in the media and analyzed their detailed actions to prove that this situation indeed existed.

For example, when Captain America takes photos with fans, he will try his best to avoid physical contact with them; when holding a child, the muscles of his arms are also very tense, clearly controlling his strength.

Just from this point, what he said also had some truth. Superheroes are indeed more restrained when facing ordinary people, and are even more cautious when treating friends whose physical strength isn't that high.

For example, in the small clinic, if Peter wants to drag Steve to play games, he will directly go up and drag Steve over. But if it were Ma Te, he wouldn't do that.

Because the physical fitness gap between the two is too big. Maybe Peter uses a little force, and Ma Te's arm will be dragged out of the socket, so he generally won't do that, but will only use language to invite him. If physical contact is necessary, they will also try their best to leave some strength.

Superheroes have no such self-awareness when getting along with Schiller. Peter often rushes into the clinic like a cannonball, rummaging through the kitchen like a headless fly looking for snacks, or squeezing over to flip through the refrigerated layer when Schiller is flipping through the frozen layer of the refrigerator, and reaching over to take the seasoning bottle when he is frying eggs.

Due to the existence of gray fog, not many people can bump into Schiller, so they naturally don't have this worry.

Such habits, after being recorded by the lens and magnified, indeed look a bit too relaxed compared to how superheroes treat other ordinary people.

Ordinary people won't feel anything if they don't look carefully, but if a behavioral analysis expert stares at it frame by frame, they can still see some problems.

Now that it's exposed, it only shows that Dario Agger indeed has two brushes, or that he was prepared early on, feeling that he held the handle.

However, the second half of this article was a bit bizarre. The conclusion drawn by this commentator through the above analysis was—Schiller might be a mutant.

His reasoning process was roughly: if Schiller were a gene-modified person like Captain America, or technology changing life like Iron Man, then he wouldn't need to appear as an ordinary person at all. Anyway, the people around him are all super-powered people, he doesn't need to hide it.

Then since he appeared as an ordinary person, it shows he doesn't want to expose the fact that he has superpowers. But if obtaining superpowers using ordinary methods isn't a shameful thing, then his choice to hide it must be because the way he obtained superpowers or the superpowers themselves need to be hidden.

Then the identity worth hiding might only be a mutant.

Because of the discrimination that has always existed, the vast majority of mutants in society whose appearance has no obvious abnormalities will choose to hide their mutant identity. Those mutants who abstractly act on the internet are a minority after all, and most people still pursue a stable life.

The vast majority of mutants are "you don't ask, I don't say". Even if they are discovered one day, it's because you didn't ask, and you can't blame me for hiding it.

Even a perfect mutant like the Scarlet Witch, who has almost no weaknesses, holds an evasive attitude toward her identity issue. Unless asked directly, otherwise they will only close their mouths and not answer, or be vague.

So if someone has superpowers but isn't willing to show their superpowers, then he is indeed very likely to be a mutant.

Afterward, this commentator treated Schiller being a mutant as a given fact to carry out subsequent inferences, mainly speculating what superpowers he has.

The subsequent reasoning was very logical. Since you are a psychologist, you must have used your superpowers to obtain your current professional status, then your superpowers must be related to psychological treatment, maybe it's mind-reading.

Then this commentator made another irresponsible speculation at the end of the article, anyway, saying that Schiller might have used his mind-reading to obtain secrets from many patients, and then used this to profit, and so on.

Schiller continued to flip down, and the comment section was noisy again. But unlike the previous smooth situation, this time Schiller's fans were a bit unsupported, which can be said to be retreating steadily.

Because the behavioral analysis conducted in the first half of this commentator was still relatively reasonable, the evidence given was also very sufficient, basically able to convince most people who clicked in.

And his subsequent irresponsible speculations, although without any evidence, were very consistent with the public's stereotypes. This kind of article is very easy to be praised as a professional speculation with evidence, then spread wildly, and finally be regarded as a new bible in a certain circle.

The speed at which this article spread was indeed faster than Schiller imagined. Half an hour after Schiller saw this article, the keyword "#Schiller#Mutant" hung on the first place of the hot search.

And it wasn't the first place on one software. Mainstream media platforms, news platforms, and short video platforms all climbed to the first place.

Schiller just opened the chat software and saw messages pinging and ponging in the filming group pulled for filming the documentary before.

First, Steve shared the original URL of the article, then Peter shared a video. Natasha sent a confused expression, screenshotting the hot search discussing whether Schiller was a mutant.

Behind it was all crazy laughing expression packs.

Schiller sent a series of angry little red faces in the chat bar. Others not only didn't stop, but the expression packs were sent more and more.

Schiller set the group messages to do not disturb. Just as he was about to exit the chat software, an invitation to join the group was sent over. The inviter had Professor X's avatar.

Schiller thought he had something to do, so he clicked agree. As a result, as soon as he was added in, everyone was sending those welcome expression packs. Schiller looked closely and saw the group name written "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters Alumni Group".

Good good good, this is also joining the mutant big family. Schiller sighed helplessly.

It just so happened that he found an old acquaintance among these people who were fighting pictures, and that was Harley who was truly impersonating a mutant, and she was laughing the most crazily, almost catching up to the real Harley Quinn.

Schiller remembered that he seemed to have really impersonated a mutant before. It can only be said that it's not that there is no retribution, it's just that the time hasn't come yet.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3440 =====