No Batman Incident (Part 3)

After the apple had danced countless times, Hugo finally couldn't hold back any longer. This was a completely incomprehensible space of consciousness!

From God's perspective and with Schiller's explanation, this compositional relationship is not complicated. To put it simply, it is actually a concrete manifestation of Schiller.

For example, the "Tower of Inversion" represents Schiller's process of perspective-taking, "The Realm of Self-Control" represents his choices when faced with temptation, the nameless block theater represents his way of entertaining himself, Boredom Plaza... basically, it represents boredom.

These thoughts and emotions are common to everyone. If we were to substitute these thoughts into an ordinary person, they would likely be similar. For example, the process of learning knowledge might be embodied in a library, and the process of self-reflection might be embodied in a meditation room, and so on.

But this is only from the God's perspective. If a time traveler were suddenly thrown into these rooms, he would be completely confused and wouldn't know what was going on.

Hugo possessed ample professional knowledge, and he knew that this should be a concrete manifestation of Schiller, but he couldn't understand at all what these things actually represented.

From his perspective, he was first transported to a hospital full of mad Doctor, then subjected to various forms of torture, and finally woke up in terror.

After waking up, he found himself in an office, where a voice inexplicably instructed him to detonate a bomb, which then startled him awake again.

I found myself kidnapped by a green-haired, C-shaped block figure, and this time the power was cut off before I could even wake up.

Then I was transported to a void space and watched an apple dance over six hundred times.

If this story were written into a literary work, many readers would surely comment that this stream-of-consciousness structure is still a bit premature for carbon-based life forms.

If the first scenario can be understood as a manifestation of Schiller's obsessions with his work and problems in communicating with patients, the second scenario can be barely understood as setbacks encountered at work and daydreams while slacking off, and the third scenario can be reluctantly interpreted as some childhood fantasies...

Hugo couldn't even imagine what an apple dancing over six hundred times represented.

What does it actually represent?

What else could this possibly mean?!

What the hell does this fucking represent?

Hugo gave up, or rather, he had given up hope.

This is quite normal. Anyone who watches an apple with arms and legs perform all the classical music and dance music in the world, including ballet and opera pieces, would probably have similar feelings. It's not so much that they're overwhelmed with emotion, but rather that they've gained a profound understanding.

But before he despaired, there was one last thing he could do, Hugo hadn't forgotten. He still had a machine button that could influence people's emotions, bringing to mind their deepest fears.

Finally, Hugo didn't forget his line: "Let me see what you fear most?"

The moment he pressed the button, the whole world went silent. Everyone in the audience turned to look around and found that nothing had happened.

"Did your experiment fail? It seems the gateway to the deeper consciousness hasn't been opened."

"No... perhaps it's already open, but..." Schiller stood up again and led everyone to the theater entrance, where he opened the doors—outside were high-altitude clouds.

An irresistible gust of wind rushed in, but Victor still took a look from the side and noticed that the door had been transformed into the shape of an airplane window, and there was a clearly visible airplane wing outside the window.

"Is flying your biggest fear?"

Schiller shook his head, and then the others saw that the clouds were starting to thin out, the plane was gradually descending, and the city below was growing larger and larger. The plane flew lower and lower until it finally landed smoothly.

"And then?" Evans asked, somewhat puzzled.

"What I'm afraid of isn't flying, but the plane landing smoothly."

"If one day I feel a turbulence and wake up from a dream to find myself sitting in an airplane seat, it was all just a dream I had during the flight..."

Schiller shook his head and said, "... That would be terrible."

Everyone else didn't understand what he meant, except for Jack said, "What an amazing and wonderful dream! But next, you have to get up from your chair, get your luggage, say hello to the flight attendants, and then get off the plane. Where are you going next? I don't know, but it'll probably be doing some mundane and boring things..."

"A person who is afraid of ordinary life, but pretends to be an ordinary person..." Jack clicked his tongue and said, "Well, that's kind of funny..."

"But it's nowhere near as funny as someone who's afraid of bats but pretends to be one, hahahahahaha!"

Just then, a rabbit hole appeared in front of them. Schiller said to Jack, "Stop laughing, get to work, and don't forget our deal."

"You don't expect me to jump down that rabbit hole, do you?" Jack asked Schiller. The two stared at each other, and finally, Schiller snapped his the Snap.

In an instant, Jack's clothes transformed into a blue and white Lolita dress. The Joker glanced at his outfit, then continued glaring at Schiller, Schiller glared back at him, saying, "Isn't this outfit suitable for the rabbit hole? Which version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are you watching?"

Evans covered his eyes, seemingly finding Jack's outfit extremely offensive, and said, "Whichever one of you is crazy, if you don't get him out of here right now, I'm going to go crazy!"

"Why isn't it a rabbit that jumps down the rabbit hole?" Cobblepot asked. Victor replied, "That's what I emphasized to you before, the importance of reading. I have a gold-bound copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I'll give it to you later."

Jack and Schiller were still at an impasse when Schiller finally said, "I'll tell you a joke, and then you jump in, how about that?"

What joke are you planning to tell?

"The rabbit jumped down the rabbit hole first, then Alice jumped down the rabbit hole, the bat jumped down the Batcave first, and then who jumped down the Batcave?"

"Hahahaha! It's Jack! Jack jumped into the Batcave too! It's me! Of course it's me!! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"

Jack burst into maniacal laughter, then ran toward the rabbit hole and plunged headfirst into it like a diver.

"I don't understand what's wrong with you guys. Is that rabbit hole a passage to your deeper consciousness?"

"That's right..." Schiller said, watching Jack disappear down the rabbit hole.

"Then why did you let him jump in?"

"Where is this?" Schiller asked, and before Victor could answer, he answered himself, "This is my consciousness space, but in essence, everything that happens here is like a dream."

"If we compare the first layer of my dream to the earth's surface, then the 330 layers above it are like the buildings on the ground, while what lies below the surface is like the basement."

"Not only do the buildings above ground have many floors, but the basements also have many floors. This expert is not only good at going up, but also at going down."

"Why go down to the next level?"

What do you think is at the very top of my Mind Palace?

Hmm... if we follow this theory, then the very top should be the real world, right? Once you climb to the top, you can control your body and move around in the real world?

"That's right. So what do you think is at the very bottom of the basement?"

Victor narrowed his eyes, and the other two also began to ponder the question. Cobblepot asked, "Is there really a bottom?"

"Of course there is. As long as you dig deep enough, you will eventually reach the bottom."

"So Jack went to help you dig a basement?"

"He not only had to help me dig a basement, but after we got to the bottom, he also had to help me... throw shit there."

As their consciousness gradually dissipated and the dream began to fade, Victor shook his head wearily as their consciousness returned to their bodies. He turned his head and saw Schiller sitting behind a table, holding a globe that was still spinning when it was placed on the table.

This scene looked somewhat familiar. Victor even looked around, but found nothing unusual. Schiller, seeing his actions, said to him, "This is one of the aftereffects of lucid dreaming. After waking up, you may doubt that you are still dreaming. But I can tell you, this is indeed the real world."

Evans and Cobblepot both stood up from the sofa and stretched their stiff bodies. Only Jack, lying on the single sofa, remained asleep.

"What you told us in your dream was true? Jack went down into your subconscious and dug deep? What did he find? What exactly did you mean by that? It's just..." Victor paused, but still didn't say the somewhat vulgar word.

"When you want a fish to surface, besides using bait to lure it, there's another way..."

What is that?

"Pour shit into his house."

Cobblepot gave a look of sudden realization, clearly recalling some past events, before the expression turned into disgust and a touch of pity.

The other two were somewhat confused, but they didn't press the matter further.

After the others left, it got dark again. Schiller sat on the sofa as usual, reading a book and listening to music.

Before long, he felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him. Schiller took out the energizing potion he had prepared and poured it into his mouth, but the drowsiness began to deepen until he could barely keep his eyelids open.

A voice seemed to whisper to him from the depths of his being: Sleep, sleep, go to sleep...

Schiller's response was, "I won't sleep, I won't sleep."

Go to sleep... go to sleep...

No, I'm not sleepy, I won't sleep...

"You're sleepy! Go to sleep!"

"I'm not sleepy at all! I can last at least another 20 hours!"

"But I can't hold on any longer!!!" the voice roared.

In an instant, Schiller's vision went black. When he regained consciousness, he saw a pale, thin man in a long robe staring at him with furious eyes.

Schiller seemed to have expected this. He stood up from the sofa and asked, "Excuse me, are you 'The Sandman' Morpheus?"

"That's right, I am Morpheus, you..."

Schiller interrupted him, opened his arms, and said, "Morpheus, I'm here to negotiate."

There was an awesome party in Gotham today! All the coolest people were there, and we did so many cool things. But guess who we didn't invite to this party?

That's you! Batman!