Chapter 1145 Professor (Part Seventeen)

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Bruce was deep in thought.

This was not the first time he had received a perspective from Schiller that was quite unusual and strange, but also seemed to have a lot of reason behind it. However, this time the perspective was particularly unusual.

In the normal human worldview, laziness is considered wrong, but Schiller is now telling him that if a person has no laziness, they may become even more terrible.

In fact, Bruce knew deep down that he had the symptoms Schiller was describing, and although he had improved to some extent, they were still present.

The most typical example was that from a young age, Bruce had often felt that when he had achieved a certain level of success, an inner voice would tell him that there was nothing to be happy about, that it was just a trivial accomplishment.

But at the same time, another voice would tell him that he was a unique genius unlike anyone else, that his achievements surpassed everyone, and that he was a great person unprecedented.

At a very young age, Bruce felt puzzled by this, and even suspected that he might have a bit of a split personality.

Why was there a force constantly suppressing his excitement, while another force was making him overly affirm himself?

Even as an adult, Bruce had not found a clear answer.

And by now, he almost never felt happy about any of his accomplishments, and he had come to genuinely believe that he was a unique genius.

Although this was indeed the case, when he thought about the process that led to these two results, these two mysterious forces, where did they come from?

Bruce placed his hands on the table, leaned forward, and looked at Schiller, saying, "Are you saying this is because I don't know how to be lazy?"

"The inertia of the human brain is stronger than you can imagine," Schiller said, staring unblinkingly into Bruce's eyes. "I think you must have read a theory that humans can be domesticated."

"The brain is the same way. When you constantly exercise a certain way of thinking, it will become stronger, with faster reactions and greater execution power."

Bruce nodded. This was not some deep and obscure knowledge; even people who had not studied psychology had heard of it.

For example, the development and training of the left and right brain, and the majority of human body organs. Within a reasonable range of exercise, the more they are used, the stronger they become, even if it leads to vitreous deformation caused by excessive eye use, which is also the result of strengthening through exercise.

"If you only keep executing things and gaining successful experiences, your brain will only process similar emotions, leading to two results. One is what I mentioned before - long-term depression, irritability, and violence, as well as excessive arrogance and narcissism."

"The other situation is that when faced with sudden failure, your brain, unable to process negative emotions, fails to balance them, leading to excessive pessimism and mental illness."

"That's why many people think some depression patients, who were originally smooth-sailing, suddenly became depressed over a small matter. Or successful people who suffer a setback are more likely to develop mental illness, because their brains are not good at handling the negative emotions of failure, leading to deep and heavy emotions that cannot be balanced, becoming chronic over time."

Bruce lowered his head and thought for a few minutes, then looked up at Schiller and said, "So how did you acquire the trait of laziness?"

"It took me a few years to piece together the trait of laziness from various negative personality traits, creating a mishmash of a character," Schiller said, touching his forehead as he recalled. "At the time, my attitude towards psychological treatment was not much better than yours, and in most cases, I just faked it."

"The way I approached the psychologist's homework assignments was similar to your attitude towards my papers - rushing to finish it the night before the deadline, just trying to get something turned in."

Bruce looked at Schiller's face, and now he understood why Schiller could always tell which students had written their papers the night before.

Because he had been through the rain himself, so he tore apart the students' umbrellas, right?

"But later, I realized that the doctor was right, and that certain parts of my brain had completely rusted from lack of exercise. I had to find a way to get them moving."

"So I started very carefully constructing the personality trait of laziness, but it was actually quite difficult," Schiller shook his head. "It was completely counterintuitive. I didn't naturally feel any mysterious resistance, so I had to imagine having that resistance and then intentionally let things fail. It was really hard."

"It wasn't until I came to Gotham that this personality finally took shape as a distinct trait."

"And because this city is indeed full of crises, I did mess up some things, experiencing failures more frequently, which actually helped me build this personality trait."

Schiller started ticking off his fingers as he spoke, "Catwoman stealing the symbiote-containing Diamond Bottle, Green Lantern causing a ruckus at the psychiatric hospital and making me lose an office, the destruction of the Central Roundabout causing a traffic jam, the Court of Owls messing up my car during a holiday trip, getting seasick and stranded on an island on vacation, your helicopter engine blowing up my tower, Bat Cat and Pikachu blowing up my house..."

Bruce covered his forehead, feeling that the sliver of sympathy he had just felt for Schiller must have been an illusion. He hadn't realized that Schiller's life over the past four years had been as eventful as his own.

"Anyway, through my deliberate indulgence, although the people who caused these incidents all experienced a little mishap, the failures became real failures, and I didn't bother to try to recover from them."

"During this stage, the trait of laziness gradually evolved from a mishmash into an independent trait with the ability to act independently. And the next turning point happened recently."

"The Pride that was once divided into two halves is gradually becoming one again, and the most powerful Greed has also gained even greater power. But ironically, this process has been the greatest failure for both of them. They have suffered a great blow."

Hearing this, Bruce gradually furrowed his brow. He carefully thought it through - the original Schiller was also a born psychopath, so he also had the traits that other born psychopaths had.

The thing that could breach their defenses the most was not to debate with them and persuade them, but to completely ignore and not care about them.

The things Pride had done, the arrangements he had made, were actually completely ignored by his friends. For him, this was indeed a huge blow.

"The negative emotions generated by their failures can be used to reshape the personality trait of laziness. But at the same time, they have also gained greater power, able to enhance the strength of the personality trait fragments. And that's how true laziness was born."

"And the reason I say I am mediocre and ordinary is that from then on, I have acquired all the traits that ordinary people should have," Schiller leaned forward, staring into Bruce's eyes.

"For the current me, thoughts and emotions are like a puzzle that I can no longer control, that precise machine. I can't shield what I want to shield and keep what I want to keep."

"When I do certain things, I also feel inexplicable resistance, making me want to give up. And after giving up without achieving the result, I'll think, 'If only I hadn't given up.'"

"At the same time, I've also lost most of the foresight that comes from precise calculations and rational judgments. In simple terms, I've lost the ability to twist and turn a thing a hundred ways, and I'm just taking it one step at a time like an ordinary person."

"What's the benefit of that?" Bruce asked, utterly perplexed. "You went to so much trouble to turn yourself into a weakling?"

Schiller shook his head helplessly. "Have you really listened carefully to what I said before? Do you think ordinary people live a harder life than you, so they're all weaklings? Is it possible that ordinary people are actually much happier than you?"

Schiller sighed deeply, as if facing a rotten piece of wood, and stood up, leaning on the desktop and looking at Bruce. "I ask you, why did you become stronger?"

"To save the world?" Bruce answered a bit uncertainly.

"Then what can you gain by saving the world?"

"I don't want to gain anything," Bruce said, sounding a little more firm.

"No, you want to be happy," Schiller looked into his eyes. "So why can't I give up my ability to save the world and directly exchange it for happiness?"

Bruce pressed his lips together, clearly disapproving. He raised a question, "If you become an ordinary person, how do you plan to deal with the serial killers that keep coming?"

"I've already said, don't imagine ordinary people as fools. As long as they don't have special mental illnesses and their abilities don't exceed a certain limit, they are all ordinary people. Aren't there detectives among ordinary people?"

"Are you sure a detective can take down two serial killers in three nights? Maybe not just two." Bruce looked Schiller up and down.

"If only your imagination was as rich when you're writing papers," Schiller rolled his eyes.

With that, he stood up, went to the telephone on the cabinet, picked up the receiver and dialed. Schiller spoke into the phone.

"Commissioner Gordon, I've recently learned that there are serial killers targeting me, and I hope to get police protection... Oh, I see. Okay, I'll go to the Gotham Police Station to discuss this in more detail."

As Schiller hung up the phone, the morning light was just streaming into the room, and a newspaper boy ran past the door, tossing a fresh newspaper through the delivery slot on top of the cabinet.

Schiller casually picked up the just-delivered newspaper, unfolded it, and walked back to Bruce. Bruce pointed to his left hand and said, "You got ink on your hand. Aren't you going to wear gloves?"

Schiller snapped the newspaper shut, tilting his head and looking at Bruce over the top of his glasses.

"Getting your hands dirty can be washed off... A random fact."

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 1146 Professor (Part 18)