Chapter 4815: Little Devil in Charge (Thirteen)

Akto Manor is a landmark building in East Hampton, and can even be said to be the oldest manor in this area. Even when the beaches of Long Island had not yet been developed, this manor already stood on the coastline. Almost every Hampton resident's childhood memories include this strange house.

Akto Manor is located at the northernmost corner of the North Beach of Long Island. This is a hillside, backed by mountains and facing the sea, with an open view. To reach this manor, one needs to drive up the mountain road for about ten minutes. Along the way there are no residences, the entire hillside is empty, with only this manor.

However, the east side of the manor borders a cliff, and below the cliff is the sea. Standing on the cliff's edge, one can faintly hear the echo of the tide, but inside the house it is very quiet, and one can almost only see the blue sky and white clouds outside the window.

The scale of Akto Manor is also not smaller than that of Viscount Manor. In fact, because it alone occupies this hilltop, the external space is very spacious. Walking out from the side gate of the garden on the east side, all the way to the end of the eastern cliff, there is a very beautiful lawn. Although winter has already replaced it with artificial turf, one can still vaguely imagine the lush prosperity of spring and summer.

The backyard is slightly smaller than that of Viscount Manor, but behind it there is a piece of natural forest. Long Island has a high forest coverage rate, and wherever one looks, there is greenery, but most of them are deliberately planted landscape plants. However, the back mountain of this manor is a rare undeveloped forest, a paradise for birds and insects.

Although the manor was originally built a long time ago, in the hands of several owners, it has undergone modernization. On the west side there is a large swimming pool, and using the height difference of the terrain, it has been made into the currently most popular infinity pool. Because the terrain is high enough and it is located to the west, one can see the sunset.

The front yard is even larger than that of Viscount Manor, obviously leveled later to make a large square, with shrub hedges and fountains. At the same time, the underground of this square is a huge garage, prepared for holding large banquets.

Dracula walked around the manor with Greed. Greed also had to admit that this house was really great, perfectly meeting all his needs. It would be even better if it were not in East Hampton.

They stood in front of the infinity pool on the west side, from here they could overlook East Hampton, and even see part of West Hampton, and also see Stark Manor. Although driving from here to there is a bit far, the straight-line distance is close, which also makes it convenient for Stark to come over in his mecha.

"The kids will definitely love this pool." Stark looked at the infinity pool and said, "We can hold a pool party at sunset, and my home videos will have several more episodes."

Greed's brows also gradually relaxed. Earlier, Dracula's opening offer could be described as lion's big mouth, and at that moment he even wanted to turn around and leave. However, Stark stopped him and let him take another good look at this manor.

The problem is, this manor is really good, fully deserving this price. Dracula even sold it at a bargain; under the current tight situation of luxury homes in New York, he could raise the price by another thirty percent without problem, and sooner or later someone would buy it.

However, Greed still felt that there might be fraud in this. He looked at Dracula and asked: "This house is so good, and cooperating with us is not necessarily the choice, right?"

What he meant was of course to go find the nobles of the Xia Empire. This manor could completely become their foothold, both quiet and spacious, and able to overlook all of Hampton. Dracula raising the price by a few more percent, even asking them to help him immigrate, they would also agree.

"I also don't want to hide it from you, this house does indeed have some problems." Dracula said.

"What problems?" Greed said with an unsurprised expression.

"This house is haunted."

"What?"

Everyone looked at Dracula, but Dracula remained calm, and he said: "This house has always been entangled by ghosts, so ordinary people simply cannot live in it. Even if not ordinary people, if they cannot get along harmoniously with the ghosts, they will eventually be driven away by them."

Everyone looked doubtful, and at this moment, Greed recalled Nick's ghost theory that he had previously proposed. He briefly said it, but Dracula shook his head and said: "Ghosts also come in many different kinds, the kind you mentioned is ghosts. And what is in this house is poltergeists."

Poltergeists are actually a unique mystical phenomenon believed in Europe and America, referring to the fact that some abnormal sounds often occur inside the house. This is different from ghosts; poltergeists are usually regarded as "mischievous spirits." Many people believe they have no independent consciousness, but are merely affected by magnetic fields and cause chaos inside the house.

A more scientific explanation is that many American houses are wooden structures. The wallboards of wooden houses easily harbor some small organisms inside, or simply due to age and disrepair, they are prone to produce abnormal sounds. Moreover, many areas in America have strong winds; once a howling gale blows, passing through the pores of the wood, it will produce some ghostly wailing and wolf howling sounds. In times when science was not so developed, people thought this was haunting.

However, because the world of Marvel has magic, ghosts are truly existent, and poltergeists may also be truly existent. Therefore, Greed did not rush to express some atheistic views, he only asked: "Why can't we drive them away?"

"Because they do not exist." Dracula said, "They are not some kind of substance or energy existence, but more like a mental phenomenon appearing in your senses."

Upon hearing this, Greed was no longer bored, and he said: "So it is a kind of collective hallucination?"

Dracula nodded and said: "Yes. And, not only this house, but the entire Hampton area's aura is not very good. I don't know how you explain this with so-called science, but in my view, this is a regional curse."

"Will it make people mentally abnormal?"

"Sort of." Dracula nodded and said, "There are many such places in the world, I have seen quite a few, and some are even very fierce. Even the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj have gone there several times, but similarly could not do anything about it."

"Even Kamar-Taj can't handle it?" Stark frowned. Although he and Strange always bicker, he must admit that those sorcerers are quite capable, and for anything related to mysticism and energy, there is nothing they cannot handle.

"Because the problem is not only in the environment, but also in people." Dracula seemed unsure how to accurately describe it, and said: "I don't know how you explain collective hallucination, but in my view, this can be called guilty conscience. If the people in a place have relatively high mental pressure, they are very prone to this problem."

"Then is their high mental pressure related to you?" Natasha asked, squinting her eyes.

"Oh, don't wrongly accuse me." Dracula slightly raised his head, "Vampire activities indeed put great pressure on humans, but I never live together with my kin. If only I alone, how much could I eat? I refer to this area, which is not just one or two streets, but an entire community, even an entire city. You have also heard quite a few related rumors, haven't you?"

Greed and Stark exchanged a glance. Greed thought for a moment, then said: "Maybe it is collective unconscious."

"What do you mean?" Stark asked.

"There is a theory," Greed paused for a moment, then said, "It is not the current mainstream view, and is also easily seen as a conspiracy theory. But some believe that all humans come from the same ancestor, we share the same gene sequence. These not only act on our bodies, giving us identical body structures, but also on the spirit, giving us identical primitive instincts."

"That is correct," Natasha said, "After all, the things that now frighten most people are pretty much the same, and after feeling fear, the reactions are also pretty much the same. So we indeed possess the same instinct."

"Yes, but this theory emphasizes that the shared primitive instinct makes us, when feeling fear, produce some kind of mental connection, called collective unconscious, also called collective subconscious."

"This sounds like Jung's theory, right?" Coulson thought for a moment and said.

"Yes. However, what I want to say is a theory derived from this theoretical foundation, namely how collective unconscious, under certain specific conditions, simultaneously influences the conscious minds of the same group of people at the same time. This usually manifests as collective hallucination or collective hysteria, which you should have heard of."

Several people nodded. Although this sounds a bit unscientific, in fact, just from official media reports, or from hearing personal experiences from people around, there are quite a few. In fact, the most famous example is the Mandela effect.

In this world, a group of people, at the same time, suddenly think of the same thing that is completely inconsistent with reality, this is called collective hallucination.

Strangely, collective hallucination does not necessarily occur in geographically close areas, and may even occur in places far apart. Especially in the era when the Internet and communications were not developed, two people who had never met in their entire lives suddenly thought of the same thing, with time and content being quite close, even the depicted objects looking exactly alike. Such things are not just one instance.

Many are indeed viral marketing conducted in the early stage of Internet development, but many experts have also conducted experiments and found that such phenomena do indeed exist. And the currently more reliable explanation is Jung's theory of collective unconscious.

Such legends are very popular in the West, and even, the settings of DC's Dreamland and Marvel's Dream Dimension, etc., are derived from this legend, believing that humans possess a shared subconscious and also share dreams. The comic "Sandman" has also been influenced by this theory to a certain extent.

"You mean, the collective unconscious of this region has gone wrong, causing people to share the same hallucination?" Greed asked.

"You got it backwards." Dracula said in astonishment, "It is they who first had the shared hallucination, which then led to problems with this land."

Greed looked at him, and Dracula continued: "People growing up on this land all have the same obsessive ambition, which affected the land's aura, and then generation after generation were affected by this morbid aura, becoming increasingly obsessive."

Stark revealed an expression of sudden understanding, and said: "This also cannot be explained from a scientific angle. I mean not psychology, but from sociology and common sense."

"The houses built here in the past were all made as vacation villas, because transportation here is inconvenient, only the scenery is beautiful. Poor civilians would not come here to build houses; only the rich would choose here, and those who have houses here are either rich or noble."

"The upper class itself has its own set of rules. During America's rise, social mobility was still relatively frequent, and it was easy to see upstarts like Averfs. Even if relying on fraud and deceit, as long as one raised some startup capital, it was not impossible to make a fortune. So at that time, this set of rules was not so strict, just like Emily could marry Averfs."

"But, with the passing of the prosperous economic era, social classes have almost completely solidified. And the upper-class people, in order to maintain their status, will desperately block the upward path, and the method is to make the rules increasingly complex and perverse, so as to block outside those like Averfs who want to rise through fraud and deceit."

"Under such circumstances, everyone must follow that absurd set of rules, and from childhood. This is of no benefit to physical and mental development, and over time, naturally one will develop mental illness, and then appear some strange hallucinations."