Chapter 4870: Wondrous Shadows, Marvelous Drama (Fourteen)

If an ordinary person's eyes can convey emotions at a level of 1, then Stark's current eyes can convey emotions at a level of 10. And that's just his everyday state; if his emotions fluctuate greatly — say, extreme grief or joy — when he fixes someone with that gaze, the reading might well hit over 100.

This creates a problem: even an ordinary person's empathy organs would be overwhelmed by the emotions transmitted through his eyes during eye contact, let alone those mental cases already on edge.

To put it in metaphorical terms: an ordinary person's gaze is roughly equivalent to a flashlight — at most it dazzles the other person's eyes for a moment, whereas Stark is a laser cannon — whoever he hits dies.

"They also did victim profile analysis," Shiler said, lowering his eyelids. "Many of the selected victims had very spirited eyes."

"Not that they were pretty, or simply had large eyes — it's more that the emotions their eyes revealed were clearer. This actually requires a certain talent; not everyone is skilled at conveying emotion through their gaze. Some people are born with naturally dull eyes, while others are more lively. Those who got entangled with serial killers mostly had very vivid eyes, or possessed a unique temperament."

Stark seemed to understand a little. Serial killers are already in a state of empathy overload; at such times, people with more expressive eyes transmit emotions that are more easily amplified by them, naturally making them more likely to attract their attention.

Imagine: a person with large but lifeless eyes suddenly looks at you — even if they're genuinely staring at you, it's easily mistaken for spacing out. But a person with flowing, bright eyes suddenly glances at you, and you'll definitely wonder what that look means — do they like me or hate me?

By the same logic, if you want to avoid being targeted by a mental case, or feel someone's off but temporarily can't escape sharing a room with them, the best method is actually to completely avoid eye contact. Never keep staring at them just because you want to figure out what's wrong with them — that's very likely to trigger empathy overload and persecutory delusions.

Though demanding victims restrict their own behavior isn't fair, fairness isn't as important as life. No one can peer into another's thoughts, so there's no way to know if someone's mental state has reached a critical point, whether the terrible world they fantasize about has been heated to the ignition temperature. For self-preservation, it's best to yield.

"Also," Shiler continued, "among the victims, those the killers described as 'carefully selected,' 'watched for a long time,' even 'I really liked him' or 'I didn't actually mean to kill him that soon' — those victims shared another commonality: their emotions were also unstable, mostly anxiety or depression sufferers."

"Why is that again?" Stark asked.

"Because psychopaths feed on human suffering," Shiler said. "The process is already very clear. They see the gaze of someone skilled at conveying emotion through their eyes, and from that gaze they read how broken that person is. Those painful emotions are like the scent of blood, attracting hungry vultures..."

Stark shuddered. He finally understood what they were really talking about.

One could say Stark was lucky. When he was younger, he was a tech nerd, spending every day with computers and machine tools, obsessively immersed in mechanical engineering. And Howard didn't stop him, didn't force him to socialize, which meant Stark encountered few people, ensuring his safety.

Later, when he grew a bit older, his parents' death caused him immense pain, and he chose the simplest path: self-destruction, numbing himself with hallucinogens and addictive substances. This almost completely destroyed the spirituality within him, and indulging his desires was a fatal blow. Excessive indulgence in primal desires makes a person look like a beast — not wild, but a near-ugly savagery.

Stark in that state couldn't even be accepted by Obadiah, who'd watched him grow up; Obadiah felt he was beyond saving, and only Pepper still held a sliver of hope, though at some point she too nearly gave up.

That misanthropic, self-loathing state couldn't attract psychopaths. Psychopaths aren't scrap collectors — no matter how broken Stark was, no one would like a junkie who spent his days in a stupor, babbling nonsense.

And by the time Stark came to his senses, he had also grown older in years; from appearance to temperament, he rapidly matured. More importantly, his social circle solidified, so he simply didn't meet new people. Coupled with his own formidable strength, even if some people had ideas, they lacked the guts — naturally he never felt the sensation of being targeted.

In his youth, he used debauchery to completely cover his shining points; in middle age, he used strength to guard his shining points — thus perfectly avoiding the covetous gaze of psychopaths.

But by a twist of fate, now he's wearing a young face and clear, spirited eyes, and because of his previous anxiety attack he appears slightly weary and broken — he perfectly matches a psychopath's preferences. Even if they're not psychopaths, just ordinary people, they're easily drawn to this type of person — no wonder the crew gasps every time they see him.

"So you're saying my charm has nowhere to go?" Stark laughed bitterly.

"You currently have a face perfectly suited for horror movies," Chris declared with finality. "You have a pair of eyes that can instantly pull any audience into fear and anxiety."

"How did things turn out like this?" Stark was utterly helpless. "My lighthearted, warm coming-of-age movie — why is it gradually turning into a horror film?"

"That's not entirely your fault either," Chris kept his tone perfectly level. He originally wanted to look at Shiler, but quickly shifted his gaze to Strange. "Would you mind taking off your glasses? Mr. Strange?"

Strange had been wearing glasses, reading an intern's submitted report on his personal terminal. Hearing Chris call him, he instinctively looked up. Who knew Chris would suddenly cry out: "Don't move!"

Strange froze there, but having worked with Chris for a long time, he'd developed a conditioned reflex — when the director shouted "Don't move," he truly didn't move.

Because he'd been looking down, when he looked up he didn't fully raise his head, just directed his eyes upward. His glasses had slipped a little, so now his entire gaze was looking forward over the top of the frames.

Stark had merely been following the direction of Chris's gaze, but when he saw Strange's eyes, he still jumped in fright.

Strange's gaze held a focused indifference — no emotion at all, yet extremely focused. Whatever he looked at seemed like a piece of meat on a chopping block, carrying a "clinical" coldness.

Stark had truly never seen this kind of gaze from Strange before, because normally he avoids eye contact. The two of them bickered three sentences out of every two, and when trading insults they deliberately avoided looking at each other. Even when occasionally discussing scientific and magical technical issues, they'd follow each other's gaze to look at an experiment or notes — using that gaze on inanimate objects was fine, but on a living person it was eerie.

If he looks at dead people and living people both like they're dead, it's hard to say whether it's because he's looked at too many dead people, or because he wants to turn living people into dead ones too much. Thinking of this, Stark scared himself into another shudder.

"Exactly, that's the gaze," Chris said, looking at Strange. "Your gaze has the feeling that in any era or style of detective novel, the audience would instantly lock onto you as the culprit."

Stark couldn't hold back a laugh. Originally he felt Chris's evaluation of him was a bit offensive — after all, victims in horror movies don't fare well. But compared to the sole designated culprit candidate, being a corpse wasn't unacceptable.

Stark is actually someone very persistent about right and wrong — like when he spoke with Shiler earlier, he firmly opposed viewing things from a serial killer's perspective, and like when he insisted on shutting down the weapons division. He has resistance to playing villains, so if he had a face that looked very much like a killer's — one that might be misunderstood — he'd rather look like a victim.

Strange didn't care at all; he simply pushed his glasses back up: "The world is vast and full of wonders — perhaps in some universe I am a detective."

"What a joke, that's me." Stark perked up again. He said to Chris, "If we're shooting a mystery film, can I play the detective? I feel like me as a detective would have great contrast. How about it?"

Chris didn't answer him, instead turning his gaze to Shiler's face and speaking bluntly: "I think this gentleman is more suited to be the detective."

Shiler raised his wine glass to cover his mouth and said with a smile: "There are two Sherlock Holmeses on set already — what ability do I have? Director?"

Chris's gaze at him, however, was bright and spirited: "You playing the detective would be the greatest contrast."

"You're not planning to have him play both detective and killer, are you?" Strange said without turning his head. "That would definitely be a terrible movie."

"No, I want to play multiple twists," Chris said. He looked at Shiler and continued, "You are someone who can reveal a specific temperament to a specific target — even reveal different temperaments to different targets at the same time. Those who think you're a detective can easily discover the detective temperament you possess, while those who think you're a killer can just as easily see the danger in you. That is precisely your uniqueness."

These words stunned Stark. He still remembered when he first saw this Shiler — everyone else thought nothing was off about him, only Stark felt something was wrong at first glance, nearly scaring himself half to death.

Put that way, others see Shiler as harmless, while only he could sense the pressure — this isn't his own problem, but a certain ability of Shiler's.

"A good actor's standard is a thousand faces for a thousand people, but that's aimed at the transmission end — they use their performance to disguise themselves as another person. But you're different; you can control the receiving end, deciding exactly what kind of you the audience receives." Chris said, looking at Shiler.

"Is this some kind of superpower?" Stark pressed.

Chris shook his head: "I don't know either, but I don't think it's a superpower. Actually, ordinary people with a bit of training can do it too — he just does it exceptionally well, utterly natural."