Chapter 4480: Blackest Night (15)

"Edward, are you okay?" Schiller walked up and shook hands with a thin young man, then said, "How have you been feeling lately?"

"Uh... not bad." Edward nodded continuously. Judging from his behavior, he was still somewhat abnormal, but his linguistic logic was much better than before. He said, "Mrs. Miller gave me a leather notebook. She said I could record my riddles and then publish them for me. That way, people all over the world could see the riddles I write. She said they would all be able to guess them, but I don't think they can."

"You can try," Schiller said, "but if you let people all over the world guess, they will definitely be able to guess most of them. Correspondingly, the ones left over that aren't guessed must be the best riddles."

"It's not like that," Edward retorted. "A riddle is only a good riddle if it can be guessed by someone. If so many people in the world can't guess a riddle, it means there's a problem with the riddle. There are many smart people in the world. If they can't understand me, who else can?"

Schiller looked at Edward with some surprise. It wasn't because of his line of reasoning, but because he was actually able to speak such a long string of logical sentences. This proved that his condition had begun to improve.

The two of them entered the ward together. Edward said, "I'm very glad you could come to see me, Professor. Have you seen Cobblepot lately?"

"No, he's busy with factory matters," Schiller said. "I'm not sure if he's gone to Krypton. Perhaps I can have him send you a postcard."

"He went to an outer planet? Can't I go?" Edward scratched his face and said, "I want to go too, but Brainiac probably wouldn't allow it. It must be very interesting there. I could think of a hundred riddles about the universe."

"You can go," Schiller said. "I was just about to talk to you about this. You can't stay in the hospital for this recent period of time. However, you can choose where to go yourself."

"Why can't I stay in the hospital anymore?"

"Do you like staying here?"

"Of course. Mrs. Miller is very good to me, and so is Dr. Brand. The doctor even gives me riddles. But the riddles he gives are too strange. There's too much theological knowledge, and I can't guess them. But it's very interesting."

Schiller gently stroked Edward's back and then said, "There might be danger in the hospital. So you need to leave here temporarily. Besides the hospital, are there any other places you want to go?"

"Can I go find Cobblepot?"

"Of course. I can help you ask him. But if he's on an outer planet, would you go find him too?"

"Mm." Edward nodded.

Schiller picked up his phone and said, "Brainiac, check where Cobblepot is. If he's not on Krypton, temporarily transfer him to Krypton, and then let Edward go find him."

"Why?" Brainiac asked.

"It will be safer this way," Schiller explained with rare patience. "I roughly know what the mastermind wants to do. It's not wise to keep patients here, especially Edward."

"What I asked was why only Edward."

"Because he is special enough," Schiller said. "His genius intellect will attract a certain type of person, which will put him in danger."

"Okay, I understand, I will arrange it right away."

Quietly closing the ward door, Schiller turned his head and saw Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller was as usual, her hair combed meticulously, holding a watering can in her hand.

"Oh, Dr. Rodriguez! Long time no see, are you okay?" Mrs. Miller smiled.

"I'm not bad, how about you?"

"I had already retired, but I ended up being rehired. You bunch of clumsy doctors are always causing all kinds of messes, even Brainiac gets a headache from you all, and in the end, he had to invite me back."

"Yes, you are the most indispensable one here." Schiller made way for her and then said, "Is Dr. Brand in his office?"

"He is, go find him."

Schiller went upstairs and arrived at Brand's office. Brand was still sitting in the office studying pathology. Seeing Schiller arrive, he raised an eyebrow and then said, "You came later than I imagined."

"You should be glad; this is because I didn't treat you as the prime suspect." Schiller sat opposite him, pointed upward with his finger, and then said, "What is going on with this?"

"You don't know yet? You didn't go flip through your own memory bank?"

"I flipped through it; I know who the killer is, but I don't know the principle," Schiller said. "Did he tamper with the sun, or the Earth?"

"Preliminary estimate is the sun," Brand looked at Schiller and said. "That is to say, along with the darkness comes extreme cold. Have you all prepared?"

"That has to be asked of Brainiac; what I want to know is how he did it. The Justice League should be guarding the sun, right?"

"I don't know either, but I can roughly guess." Brand spun the pen in his hand and then said, "He chose the location of the channel releasing the power of death on the sun and accelerated the sun's decay, that is, making our star transition rapidly to the black dwarf stage. No light, no heat, just like a corpse."

"Rapid transition? But it didn't go through the red giant and white dwarf stages."

"It's just decay, not acceleration," Brand shook his head and said. "Death is a necessarily directed result, but the process doesn't have to follow scientific laws. I can only say it's fortunate it didn't follow scientific laws, otherwise the expansion period of a red giant would have directly swallowed the Earth."

"That would have been simpler instead." Schiller lowered his eyelids, not knowing what he was thinking, and said, "Was there no warning when he took action?"

"Usually speaking, yes," Brand said. "The Justice League might have thought he would tamper with the Earth, but didn't expect him to target the sun directly. But as long as the speed of decay is fast enough, what does it matter even if there is preparation?"

"It seems he has learned enough lessons from that previous universe." Schiller shook his head and said.

"That's right. He should already know that the core of the White Lantern power resides in the Earth's core. Tampering with the Earth is easily countered. It's better to directly control the lifeline of human civilization—the sun."

"I mean, it seems that Superman from that universe caused him huge trouble. This is the main reason he targeted the sun. Otherwise, igniting a gas giant would also have been possible."

Brand nodded and said, "That is indeed the case. It's just that the energy he can use is limited; spending so much effort targeting the sun proves that his layout on Earth won't be too large."

"This shows that he thinks he has grasped the lifeline," Schiller's fingers tapped lightly on the table. "What could it be?"

"He also suffered quite a loss at Batman's hands." Brand reminded him.

"Cat Getan has already shown signs. Three murders in one night, that's not a small number." Schiller sighed lightly and said, "Enjoy your few moments of leisure; there's a tough battle to fight next."

"Rodriguez walked out of the gate of Arkham Asylum, the snow falling heavier and heavier, landing on his shoulders and under his feet. The dim yellow light from the window cut him into a projection on the opera stage. I stood by the car watching him, seemingly sinking into his thoughts. This gave me a bad premonition, because I discovered he might be thinking about me. I admit I didn't make any contribution tonight, but instead needed him to comfort me. If he encounters any trouble, I should try my best to solve it for him, because he treats me the same way. But next, he still made me doubt if my ears were malfunctioning. 'Freeze Cat Getan, Fries.' My jaw almost dropped. But his expression was so serious that it made me unable to question whether he should return to the hospital to check his mental state."

Schiller opened the car door and sat in, Victor immediately sat in the driver's seat, and then said, "I'm having auditory hallucinations, right?"

"You're not," Schiller said. "If you feel you are, I can repeat it to you again. Freeze Cat Getan, Mr. Freeze."

"Give me a reasonable reason," Victor said. "Of course, I know, the experience of this night is indeed somewhat ups and downs for me. Since the Dark Ages passed, I have rarely stayed up such a night. However, this is obviously not enough to crush me. Just like you said, I still have Nora. It's still too early to destroy the world now."

"On the contrary, you are saving the world," Schiller said. "Dense ice can insulate internal and external heat exchange, right?"

"It must be a complete, solid block of ice; holes or cracks won't work. But usually, there won't be any," Victor said. "I still have confidence in this aspect."

"The sun has gone out." This sentence from Schiller earned a sudden brake, and his head almost bumped.

Victor turned his head to look at Schiller, and Schiller said, "Latest news, someone has made the sun fall into decay, directly entering the black dwarf stage. You should understand better than I do what kind of disaster this will lead to."

Victor looked like he was about to faint, closed his eyes and hung his head back, then gritted his teeth and said, "Who did it?"

"Nekron. I know you don't know him, but that's not important. What's important is that he also has a layout in Cat Getan. And we can't deal with the extreme cold disaster brought by the sun going out while dealing with his endless conspiracies. So, while the sky isn't too cold yet, freeze Cat Getan."

Victor restarted the car, drove all the way forward, and then complained, "This reminds me of that joke about whether beer should be room temperature or frozen. The inside of the freezer is actually warmer than the outside."

"Undoubtedly, Cat Getan will be like this next," Schiller turned his head to look at Victor and said. "In fact, if possible, I hope you can freeze the Earth, but this is obviously unrealistic; it's too much pressure for you. So let's take care of Cat Getan first."

"Insufficient raw material reserves," Victor explained. "Obviously, among all the contingency plans I've made, there isn't one that requires freezing the entire Earth."

"That is to say, if the raw materials were sufficient, you could do it."

"Of course, and it would be very simple. It might even be simpler than freezing a city, because there's nothing in the outer layer of low-Earth orbit, and Earth's gravity can be used to maintain the stability of the protective shield. But for Cat Getan, I'll have to study how to dig three feet into the ground."

"At the time, I didn't approve of clearing the dense ice underground," Schiller said. "It would come in handy one day, and hasn't it come now?"

Victor accelerated, and soon arrived at the Cryogenics Laboratory of Cat Getan University. Obviously, even if it was freezing a city, his pressure wasn't small; he shouted at Brainiac, "Mrs. Brainiac! Prepare a few trucks for me! And call all the people from the Physics Department. This is a big project!"

Schiller frowned and then said, "Didn't freezing Cat Getan before only require throwing something?"

"That was destructive work," Victor explained while busy. "We worked so hard to build the city into what it is now, of course, we have to break as little as possible. Both above and below ground. This requires very precise calculation and implementation..."

"Okay," Schiller nodded and said, "Next is your home field, Mr. Fries. It's my turn to be your assistant."

"Don't," Victor refused flatly. "I don't want the whole world to see what I'm thinking when I'm freezing Cat Getan..."

"This is necessary," Schiller said. "My chapters can help you get rid of the identity of a mad scientist and turn you into a compassionate hero..."

Victor stopped what he was doing, rested his hands on the table, and then said, "Alright, Mr. Assistant. Now go help me turn on the lighting power for the storage room, thank you."

"Alright, Mr. Mad Scientist."

?? In the end, Cat Getan was frozen. ===== CHAPTER 4481 =====