Chapter 4470

A lively figure jumped into view. Jenna placed two cups of hot tea in front of the two. She was wearing a red dress and had makeup on. Sitting in the single sofa in the middle, she said somewhat embarrassedly: "Sorry, I didn't know a homicide had occurred. Should I go change my clothes?"

"What time did you rehearse until?" Schiller asked.

"Past one." Jenna said. "Amanda was looking for me earlier, and I was delayed for a few hours. By the time I went back, they had almost finished practicing. I could only practice urgently. Fortunately, my dance partner was willing to cooperate."

"What did Amanda want with you?"

"It's very strange," Jenna said. "She said Bruce suddenly approached her, wanting to renovate his parents' graves. I can't think of any reason for him to hand this matter over to the Federal Shield to handle. But he just intends to let Amanda help."

"What are you responsible for doing?"

"Security work." Jenna said. "For big shots like them, moving graves also requires rituals, to comfort the spirits or something. I need to follow the whole time on that day. It's said to be responsible for security work, but I feel like I'm just there to support the scene. Having more people will make it look more solemn."

"Is this worth finding you separately?"

"Not separately. People from the FBI were also called; they are going too." Jenna paused, closed her makeup mirror, and then said, "Although we all say privately that Amanda is crazy, if Bruce gave her a large sum of money, then maybe we can get a bonus. Moving graves is moving graves."

"What about Barry? Has he gone back already?"

"No, he's still working overtime. Should I call him over?"

Schiller nodded. Jenna sent a message to Barry. Soon Barry rushed over. After he took off his coat, he was also in formal wear underneath. The color of his tie clearly matched Jenna's dress, but Schiller didn't point it out.

"Good evening."

Barry waved his hand, refused the tea Jenna handed over, and then said: "I've already had two cups of coffee, I really can't drink anymore."

"There's a case..." Schiller talked about Chick's suicide, then looked at Jenna and said, "Tell us about your roommate."

"Perlota is a very biased person." Jenna said. "To put it bluntly, she's too protective of her own. As long as it's someone she likes, she will believe whatever they say. So I can only say, what she thinks she knows is true, but it's not necessarily so."

"Chick's dance partner is indeed very suspicious." Barry said. "Does he have an alibi?"

"Not really." Schiller said. "Chick died in the middle of the night. At that time, most people were sleeping at home. Brainiac said Milos didn't leave his room. The surveillance cameras didn't capture him going out."

"Isn't that very conclusive evidence?"

"The premise is that he has to be an ordinary person without superpowers." Schiller said. "Moreover, if he is smart enough, it's not impossible to deceive Brainiac. You should know that."

Barry nodded. Having worked at the FBI for so long, he also understood that even in the Brainiac era, it could only stop the vast majority of ordinary people from committing crimes. And some criminal geniuses with a flash of inspiration still had loopholes to exploit.

It's just that it's impossible to complete serial murder cases like before and then disappear. Since Brainiac took power, those serial killers who had been arrogant for more than half a century had almost all been caught. It might be fine if they didn't act and stayed hidden, but once they acted, even if this case could succeed, they would inevitably be caught afterward.

That is to say, most of the cases appearing now were the last dance of serial killers. And even for newly debuted evil geniuses, as long as they couldn't hold back and acted, being caught was the inevitable outcome.

"It could be him." Jenna said. "Milos is not a good person. He had long wanted to break up with Chick. But he also knew it was very ungentlemanly to do so on the eve of the dance. So, he used the excuse of Chick being scolded by the professor to propose the breakup. Essentially, he also wanted to push the responsibility onto Professor Fries. Or rather, he induced Chick to make a scene, because that way he could stay out of it."

"Undoubtedly, Perlota was also an accomplice. Before they broke up, she was already flirting with Milos. She instigated Milos to break up at this time just to humiliate Chick. Because she heard that Chick had also stood Milos up many times, she used this method to retaliate against him."

"So who do you think has the biggest problem in this relationship?" Schiller looked at Jenna and asked.

"I think it's still Milos." Jenna said. "He is fickle, and he does things very indecorously. No matter what, he should have waited until after the dance to break up."

Schiller, however, shook his head and said: "The biggest problem is Chick's mother. She controls Chick too strictly."

He turned to look at Victor again and said: "I don't know if you noticed. When Chick was talking to you, he was full of the shadows of other people. To be precise, the shadow of a strong, dogmatic, and even unreasonable woman."

Victor was stunned. Of course, he hadn't noticed before, but now that Schiller pointed it out, it seemed something was wrong.

As Chick's mentor, Victor understood this boy. He was usually a bit careless, very shy, not good at socializing, and definitely not the kind of strong and extroverted personality.

At that time, Chick acted so determined and agitated that Victor only thought he was stimulated and had lost control of his emotions, which was why he acted differently than usual. However, his state really didn't seem like something he could burst out himself, but rather like some kind of inadvertent imitation.

"People's performance during emotional outbursts has traces to follow," Schiller said. "There are usually two sources: cognition and imitation. Or it can also be said to be cognition and non-cognition."

"Some people, when emotionally agitated, can recognize their situation. Or rather, precisely because they deeply recognize their situation, they feel emotionally agitated. Their emotional outburst comes from their cognition."

"And some people are the exact opposite. Precisely because they cannot recognize their situation, their emotions are at a loss, showing a kind of unreasonable trouble without any direction, just like going crazy without any reason."

"This isn't necessarily two types of people; it could also be different states of one person. He might feel like collapsing because he recognizes certain things; he might also have an emotional outburst because he tries his best but cannot recognize certain things."

"In a cognitive state, people's emotional outbursts usually express themselves. They use their own methods to express their collapse. This is because the things they recognize input tangible things into their consciousness, which gives them material to express."

"For example, when you find out someone lied to you, you feel very angry. You will go to reason with the other party, or find a way to point out their mistakes in front of everyone. Even if you cry and make a scene, you will try every means to express their malice and your innocence."

"However, in a non-cognitive state, because they cannot recognize how things are, there is no tangible thing output into the mind. They have no one to blame, so they have no way to express their sadness in their own way. At this time, they usually choose to imitate."

"That is to say, only emotional outbursts in a cognitive state are real outbursts, while outbursts in a non-cognitive state are more like a performance. They don't know what happened, they only know they are very sad. But because they don't know what happened, there is nothing to output, yet they want others to know they are sad, so they can only perform a series of performances. And the essence of performance lies in imitation."

"Due to the lack of inner driving force brought by cognition, they can only show their emotions more exaggeratedly by imitating the appearance of others' emotional outbursts. And Chick's behavior clearly has an exaggerated performance nature."

"Whether it's hanging himself in the lab or very firmly demanding an apology in front of you, it's not because he really has any reason to output to you. He just wants to show how uncomfortable he is in front of you and others. And such a performance definitely doesn't come from his own personality, but must be imitating others."

"In order to make their performance more real and more lethal, people usually choose certain vested interests to imitate. That is, someone has used certain ways of emotional outburst to oppress or gain benefits from him. He has been forced to retreat like this, so he learns this method. Because he knows better than anyone what can be gained by doing so. So of course he will learn it."

"This is why, many times people often sigh that dragon slayers also become dragons. Some victims of violence also use the same violent behavior to hurt others. And this inheritance usually takes place within the family. Many people explain this as a curse of genes, but in fact, it is precisely non-cognitive imitation behavior that will naturally select vested interests around them to imitate. Chick is exactly like this."

"He has been strictly controlled by his mother for many years. His mother may have used methods like faking suicide or forcing him to apologize in public to manipulate him more than once. So when he wants to use emotional outbursts to manipulate others, he will prioritize this method. Because he knows how powerful it is. Because under such oppression, he chose to retreat every time. So he thought we would be like this too, and would perform like this."

"But you didn't." Jenna said. "He will find that your performance is completely different from what he used to."

"No," Schiller said. "Actually, it's the same. When he faked suicide, his classmates and professors still found ways to save him. Mrs. Edson sympathized with him and kept speaking for him. This proves that this trick worked."

"Even including Victor and me, we made concessions to a certain extent. We didn't even pursue compensation for the equipment. Victor was even willing to apologize to him privately. Although I exposed him and clarified the pros and cons to him, I didn't blame him excessively. At least up to us, his performance was successful."

"But there's always a time when it's not successful," Barry said. "If it were me, I wouldn't pay attention to him. Making an operational error yourself and breaking the equipment, it's already good that I don't make you pay for it, and you still want this and that. Who does he think he is?"

"Of course, he hit a wall very soon," Schiller said. "Because I went to find Headmaster Savant. He would absolutely never compromise with such a person."

Victor looked at him and said with some surprise: "You went to find the Headmaster? God, my annual evaluation is completely hopeless."

"Only Headmaster Savant can deal with them." Jenna nodded and said, "He has a psychological shadow about being suppressed; no matter who he talks to, he must occupy the dominant position. Any threats, judgments, or behavior of viewing him as an object from a high position will seriously trigger his stress response."

"I suggest Headmaster Savant contact Chick's mother." Schiller continued.