Chapter 4915: There Is No Batman Here (Twenty)

Shiler's plan was executed very successfully. Since the subway station was outside Gotham University, it couldn't be considered a headquarters area, and the lock wasn't as difficult as the one inside. Although Ethan didn't have lock-picking tools, he fiddled with it and still managed to open it.

When Shiler looped back, he was already waiting in the passage. Shiler tossed him the gun, then said: "I suddenly remembered why my marksmanship isn't good anymore."

Ethan raised an eyebrow, Shiler shook his head and said: "I'm not American, I took up the path halfway, I've been to the shooting range a few times, but shooting is really a test of strength."

Ethan laughed and said: "Can you imagine? The day before yesterday I was still seeing patients, and the next day I was in Afghanistan. At that time, I didn't even know you had to disengage the safety before firing."

Shiler glanced at him and said: "You practiced on the battlefield?"

"Of course," Ethan nodded and said, "I'm not a military medic by background, purely a case of being forced into it, but I managed to pull through."

"Really?" Shiler asked without turning back.

"What?"

"Did you really pull through?"

His voice echoed in the underground passage, the sound waves of the reverberation spreading layer by layer, like the aftermath of a bombardment, making Ethan's silence seem somewhat abrupt.

"You could actually leave, right?" Shiler's tone remained like casual chat, "At the critical moment, you didn't need to sacrifice yourself to fulfill Tony Stark. He wasn't a hero back then, nor did he show any signs of wanting to become one. He doesn't deserve you giving up your life. You just found an excuse to want to stay there forever."

Ethan let out a long sigh: "Not entirely true. I don't deny that Tony back then was just a playboy, arrogant and conceited, unwilling to listen to advice, and being kidnapped was purely his own fault."

"But during his time at the base, his growth speed was astonishingly fast. It seemed like under the immense pressure of death, he was forced to unleash all his abilities to survive, but in reality, the belief that sustained him to survive and leave this place was to put an end to all this wrongdoing."

"He realized our presence here was a mistake, and the weapons and equipment of Stark Industries appearing here were also mistakes. I think the same way. At this moment, choosing death out of guilt is cowardice; only by leaving alive can one change something."

"I'm glad I facilitated his departure, because he is the one who can truly change something, while I am not. I think after I return, I should be able to hear the news of him shutting down the weapons division."

"Indeed. But what we need to talk about now isn't him, but you." Shiler said, "No matter how noble the righteousness, it can't erase your self-destructive tendency. Did all this only start after you came to Afghanistan?"

"I was suddenly thrown onto the battlefield with no adaptation process. This meant that just to preserve myself, I had to give my all. Among the souls I killed with my gun, there must have been innocents, or perhaps all were innocents. How could I convince myself that all this was someone else's fault?"

"Your post-traumatic stress disorder from war is more severe than others'." Shiler sighed.

"If I were a trained veteran, perhaps I could accurately assess the situation and determine whether the person in front of me posed a threat. But I wasn't. Back then, I only had one thought: to survive. I was jumpy at shadows, anyone I thought could threaten me would be eliminated by me. I did survive, but..."

Ethan chuckled: "That intense will to survive gradually turns into numbness, and then you start wondering why you should live at all. In fact, I can't find a reason. There's nothing urging me to keep living. I'm not Tony Stark, I can't change the world with a few commands. I'm not that important."

"Then what's your relationship with Stark?"

"If I died, I would definitely become an indelible shadow and regret in his life. But I didn't die. Perhaps he would be grateful to me and look after me, but we two could never become friends."

"Why do you feel that way?" Shiler said.

He recalled a bit and found that the Stark of that greedy universe actually wasn't that close to Ethan. Stark remembered his favor and tried to meet his demands as much as possible, but they indeed had little private contact, and the closeness of their relationship couldn't compare to that between Stark and the Avengers.

"Stark is an idealist, so he also needs comrades and partners who share his ideals." Ethan said, "But I no longer want to kill, I don't want to kill anything anymore. I'm tired of all the fighting. I'm destined not to walk too far with him."

Shiler nodded: "You're a bit jealous of him."

"Indeed," Ethan lightly sighed, "Do you know? A freshly arrived, pampered playboy from New York, after being kidnapped, accepted reality in about half an hour. Besides letting out a miserable scream when he first woke up, he negotiated with them without his voice trembling."

"While I, in the first two months here, suffered from water and soil incompatibility, constantly having diarrhea and fever, was escorted and transferred by the troops, forced to fire the first shot, then had a month of nightmares. Seeing soldiers massacre civilians, I didn't dare say a word. Just seeing desert camouflage made me dizzy and nauseous uncontrollably."

"Some people are born heroes." Ethan said, "Too bad I'm not."

"Actually, I should tell you, if you facilitated Stark, you could also be considered a hero. But the harsh reality is, if you didn't help him, he should also be able to escape. So I say this is your self-destructive tendency, not self-sacrifice. You should know this yourself, right?"

Ethan recalled the situation then and said: "Indeed, he might just have suffered a bit more, but he wouldn't die."

"Do you think he knows this?"

Ethan froze slightly, he said: "He's smart, even if he didn't react at the time, later thinking about it he would understand."

"But he wouldn't think your sacrifice was meaningless." Shiler's voice still echoed in the underground passage, "He might be shocked, but soon he would understand why you wanted to stay there forever. Most importantly, he knows who the culprit is, which will make him more determined to make changes."

"Why say this?" Ethan said.

"Because there's a significant difference: if he merely felt grateful for you sacrificing your life for his survival, that gratitude wouldn't be enough to firm his resolve. But if your death made him understand your pain, made him realize what shaped your tragedy, from which arose anger, sorrow, reflection, only then would he truly decide to become a hero."

"He isn't changing because he doesn't want to be kidnapped again, but because he doesn't want your tragedy to happen again, doesn't want some people to be able to snatch a doctor who can't even fire a gun and throw him onto the battlefield to experience this, to end up staying there forever, only then does he go from a playboy to Iron Man."

"There has never been any innate hero. Your experience is how he was prompted to change, ordinary people are how heroes are shaped. If they couldn't learn anything from witnessing your suffering firsthand, then even if he were calmer and smarter, he wouldn't become a hero."

Shiler stopped walking, looked at Ethan and said: "If you couldn't learn anything from the souls under your gun, you wouldn't be a hero either. Conversely."

Ethan stood there dazed. His thoughts seemed to have drifted far away, those images he had always hidden deep in memory, afraid to look back, surged up all at once: a woman holding a baby and weeping, a thin corpse in robes, that puddle of blood beside a car tire...

Shiler's voice sounded again in his ears: "Often, a person's self-destructive tendency isn't due to insufficient love, but insufficient hatred. Death can etch the greatness of love, but only the living can avenge hatred."

Ethan slowly clenched his fists. He recalled that night in the cave when he asked Stark why he so wanted to go out. He had thought Stark would say he still had family and friends, or that he still had a wonderful life unenjoyed.

Many would answer that way. The reason to live is that beyond the life-death boundary, there are still many loved ones waiting for them.

But for someone who already wants to rush toward death, love can sometimes be a burden. Precisely because he loves them, he can't let them down. Yet continuing to live, even just existing, would certainly disappoint them. So people develop the idea of "letting loved ones suffer short pain rather than long pain," and then keep running wild on the path of self-destruction.

But hatred is different. Hatred requires no responsibility. People often say "bearing the burden of hatred," but precisely because they bear no expectations, they also need no worries, and instead turn all negative emotions into swords, thinking only of how to hurt others most deeply. Humans are always good at this.

"Someone must pay the price for this." Stark said that.

This sentence sounds truly lofty, like a kidnapped rich magnate full of resentment, blaming, blaming his enemies, blaming his unreliable teammates, pushing all responsibility onto others, holding his breath, wanting to go out and give them a good lesson. So at that time, Ethan couldn't understand it.

But now it seems, Stark's "someone" refers not to people, while "for this" refers to people.

Ethan drew a deep breath. Was it that he didn't hate enough? Or was he afraid? Were those so-called "even if I go back, I can't change anything" facts? Or just his self-consoling excuse?

"Thank you, I never thought about these before." Ethan said.

"No need." Shiler said, "Everyone has the right to escape, as long as you can convince yourself. If you died, no one would bring up the past. But since you're still alive, those excuses you used to convince yourself to rush toward death will one day become useless."

Ethan gripped the gun, revealing a bitter smile: "I know. They're about to catch up to me, even in dreams. I thought letting them punish me like this was the only choice, but now it seems, perhaps I can still try to run faster in reality."