Chapter 4553: Day of White (19)

After the leader died, major cities in Egypt were soon under martial law, especially the scene of the incident, Hurghada, which immediately entered a state of war. Troops continuously entered the streets to search. This forced Deathstroke and Schiller to retreat to the safe house.

Schiller walked into the basement and saw the broken sofa and the mess, seemingly a bit shocked and a bit confused. Deathstroke turned to look at him and said: "Don't tell me carsickness also causes amnesia."

"No," Schiller said, "I know what caused this. I'm just surprised at how you can tolerate such destruction."

"Is that something I can tolerate?" Deathstroke's head was about to have question marks, "You fucking almost rammed me into the Red Sea. Besides tolerating you, do I have any other choice?"

"You certainly do." Schiller looked at the fragments of the coffee table on the ground, and then said, "You can leave."

"Do you want to hear what you are saying?" Deathstroke was truly shocked by his thick-skinned shamelessness, saying, "This is my safe house. You want me to leave?!"

"The original intention of setting up a safe house is to ensure your safety. If it's no longer safe here, then what is the necessity for you to continue staying here?"

Deathstroke opened his mouth, finding himself speechless. Schiller walked to the sofa that had a broken armrest and sat down, then said: "Perhaps you yourself haven't realized it. Your tolerance for me far exceeds what a temporary partner met halfway should have. What did you see in me that made you willing to sacrifice your most valued professionalism for curiosity?"

"You have been pointing this out," Deathstroke walked to the opposite side and sat down, but soon stood up again to get two cans of beer from the refrigerator nearby, not giving any to Schiller, but putting the beer on his side. He opened one, pulled up his mask, took a sip of beer, and suddenly froze.

"Your hearing has recovered?" Deathstroke looked at Schiller, asking incredulously; he only now realized that he had been wearing a full-coverage mask, so Schiller shouldn't have been able to see his lip movements. But they had just had a very smooth conversation. This didn't look like something that could be guessed.

Schiller shook his head. Deathstroke stared at him for a good while, but Schiller didn't seem to have any intention of explaining; the attitude he showed was more similar to "anyway, you'll know sooner or later."

"Want to hear me talk about it?" Deathstroke decided not to dwell on this question anymore. Schiller was finally willing to talk, and it just so happened they couldn't leave tonight. Such a conversation could satisfy his curiosity. After all, his commission had failed now; he couldn't have made the trip in vain, he had to get something.

"You say it." Schiller looked much gentler, Deathstroke felt so; at least he wasn't rejecting communication like that. At this time, he thought this was a good omen, helpful for him to understand this agent who looked very special. But Schiller didn't let this judgment last long.

"I can see that you don't look as young as your appearance. In fact, I am the same." Deathstroke decided to show his sincerity by revealing information, saying, "Your soul is older than your body. This situation is actually not common, right?"

Schiller just nodded lightly, seemingly judging prudently whether Deathstroke was telling the truth. So Deathstroke continued: "Not long ago, I encountered an accident, which almost killed me. And when I woke up, I found that I had suddenly returned to my youth. This is simply incredible."

"However, I am very clear that when I was at your age, I never thought about being a mercenary. At that time, I might have just joined the army, first scrubbing the deck on a naval ship, and then transferred to the army, becoming a member of the special operations force, full of confidence and hope to serve the country. I am not ashamed of that experience."

"However, this situation is still very troublesome, because I already have a family and children. I... have no way to face them with this image. Especially my children, they might not recognize me at all. I have been looking for ways to lift this state, visiting wizards and people who claim to be proficient in this, but it has no effect."

"There are not many things that can make me so helpless. But now it seems, I can only choose to accept reality. This is actually very difficult, sometimes interfering with my spirit. When I get up in the morning, I can't tell whether I should check the information given to me by the client, or listen to the arrangements of the first mate, and go scrub the deck of the Nimitz."

"I should indeed see a psychologist. But I cannot accept electric shock and hypnosis therapy, and if I only rely on oral narration, they won't believe I am an old man, because my body looks completely fine, young and strong, and I haven't left any old injuries, which is completely inconsistent with my narration. This will make them treat me as a delusional patient. Most people have given the judgment of post-traumatic stress disorder, but I know very well that it's not the case."

"I can see that your situation is very similar to mine, but there are differences. You seem to be able to completely accept this state. You know that it is an old soul living in a young body. So I am actually curious, what is going on with you? Is the mental illness you mentioned related to this?"

Schiller was silent for a while before opening his mouth: "Regarding the problem you mentioned about the soul and body age not matching, it doesn't exist in me."

Deathstroke stared at him, seemingly really doubting whether his judgment was wrong. "Yes, the biggest problem with you now is no longer age. You seem to have changed... no, not that thoroughly. It's just that it seems you suddenly changed."

"Have you thought that the gap between you when you were young and you now might be greater than the gap between another person and you?"

Deathstroke's movements paused, and he said: "Just for myself, it might indeed be so. I said, I never thought I would be a mercenary, although I think I did quite well. But if I could really go back to the past, I might take another path."

"For example?"

"For example, not accepting that experiment, successfully retiring, finding a job as a bank security guard in Buenos Aires, and enjoying family time with my wife and children."

"Interesting." Schiller's tone was too understated. This made Deathstroke feel very uncomfortable, and his eyes almost immediately turned cold.

"You just need a confessional, Mr. Wilson. Desperately saying these thoughts to others to reflect how society has defeated you."

Schiller's tone actually didn't have much aggression, but precisely because of this, it seemed particularly hateful. Perhaps it was the aftereffect of carsickness, he seemed a bit sleepy, leaning on the intact armrest on the other side of the sofa and saying: "Believe it or not, I can see you clearly, and it's the whole you. Do you want to hear me talk from the beginning, or just talk about the part you least want to hear?"

"We have plenty of time." Deathstroke's aggression in his words was quite strong, almost to the point of being a threat, similar to "you have plenty of time to talk nonsense."

"Well. I'll start by stating the rules. You don't have to respond to me, so there's no need to rack your brains to think about how to refute what I say. You just need to use them to ask yourself if it's really like this. You don't have to tell me the result, and I'm not interested."

Deathstroke frowned deeply, clearly because of his last sentence. But Schiller didn't care, just talking to himself: "Before talking about the differences, I think we can talk about our commonalities—some congenital defects. Including lack of certain empathy, mental excitability, or even sexual perversion; these are unquestionable pathological changes in the brain field, and so far they are still incurable, but in fact, they cannot be considered decisive factors."

Deathstroke didn't make a sound, didn't admit, and didn't refute. But Schiller didn't seem to care about his reaction, just talking to himself: "Actually, this is not a rare disease. Two or three out of ten people have such congenital symptoms. The key lies in whether it will be expressed, and what methods are used to express it."

"The timing of discovering that you are such a person is critical. If he is just a child at that time, he might feel confused, and he won't disguise, just letting himself reveal certain non-social traits. This will cause people's fear and make them feel disgusted. And children usually don't understand why their nature is not liked by others. This problem might haunt them for a lifetime."

"And assuming, it is after they become adults, at a certain important moment, they are shocked by their own indifference. They have enough knowledge reserves to disguise themselves as a normal person. This is actually very simple. Cry when you should cry, laugh when you should laugh, no one can see that you have a problem, so people will feel that normal people account for the majority in this world. But in reality, the situation might be just the opposite."

"Sometimes they will also show flaws. Especially when they are not in an advantageous position or are stimulated. People will suddenly find that a friend beside them has become completely unlike him, not knowing when he suddenly rotted, often sighing and regretting for this."

"The fact is that human spirit is not that fragile at all; accidents that can stimulate them to change their temperament and change their appearance are rare. You think that a person suddenly becomes bad, it only proves that his personality has such traits. He is like this by nature, it's just that it is exposed now."

"I think we both agree that we are not naturally very sound people, and we also need to disguise; this is what I said is our commonality."

Schiller said a long string in one breath, although the words were relatively simple and easy to understand, the real logic had not yet appeared. Therefore, Deathstroke's knitted eyebrows didn't scatter. But this also made him understand that Schiller had some insights in this regard. He was increasingly looking forward to hearing something.

"Then now, we must talk about the differences. This is also the main reason why I cannot support you. Our attitudes toward disguise are almost exactly the opposite. To help you understand, I'll talk about mine first."

"A long time ago, I regarded disguise as my tool. You can imagine how much convenience this can bring me. Relying on a good appearance, an understanding personality, and just the right sweet words, I entered and exited the upper class without any effort. Everyone would open the door for me because of a certain beautiful trait I possessed. This allowed countless of my seemingly whimsical plans to be implemented."

Deathstroke looked at Schiller. As a mercenary, he received more of the dangerous signals belonging to agents emitted from Schiller. This allowed him to use weapons to metaphorically describe him, such as a knife or a gun, to highlight his attack power and danger.

But it is also imaginable that in the eyes of some stupid and flamboyant collectors who can't smell any danger, Schiller would be more like that kind of rare painting, or mysterious antique porcelain, quite artistic and collectible. They are attracted, but not vigilant enough, and will definitely be played around by him.

The expression on Schiller's face when he said this made Deathstroke very easily associate it with his dissolute youth. He would be the darling of the upper class. But it was precisely because of his tone that Deathstroke had to seriously start thinking about what he wanted to do when he mixed into there. ===== CHAPTER 4554 =====