On his way back to the apartment, Schiller could clearly feel someone following him. The enhanced vision granted by Spider-Sense allowed him to see what appeared to be someone watching him from the apartment building across the street.
The building opposite was constructed entirely of glass. The reflection in one small windowpane differed from the others, and Schiller noticed it keenly.
His decision to open a clinic in Hell's Kitchen had not been made on a whim. After several days of observation, he had basically figured out the routines of the residents in his apartment building.
Most of the people living there were office workers and elite white-collar professionals. Most were single, kept highly regular work hours, and had fixed social circles.
Living among people like that made it far too easy for agents to find weaknesses.
Hell's Kitchen was different. Although it was the largest gathering place for slums and gangs in Manhattan, New York, and even the entire United States, it had a dense population, heavy foot traffic, and plenty of strangers. Gangs of every size were entrenched there, tangled together in layers. It was the perfect place for an outsider like Schiller, someone determined to fish in troubled waters.
Life in a luxury apartment might have been comfortable, but it was not necessarily freer than Hell's Kitchen. Schiller believed that if he stayed in that apartment for a few more days, at least four or five households around him would turn out to be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. All sorts of people with unclear backgrounds would try every possible way to get close to him and pry information out of him—perhaps about himself, perhaps about Stark. That was how S.H.I.E.L.D. operated. They would never care whether you needed privacy.
Hell's Kitchen was also somewhat different from Gotham. Though it had countless gangs large and small, it was still less dangerous than Gotham.
There were more poor people, gamblers, and addicts there. No Scarecrow, no Joker, and no truly infamous supervillains.
Most people there were still ordinary people. Though guns and drugs ran rampant, the victims were usually ordinary people as well, rather than special individuals with superpowers.
Schiller planned to make it his first foothold in Marvel.
Stark worked with remarkable efficiency. Before long, he had found a way to persuade several council members to allocate a hospital slot and place it in Hell's Kitchen.
Some of the council members took the opportunity to loudly proclaim their kindness, claiming that New York would not abandon a single citizen. Yet they had never expected the hospital to actually open. After all, that was Hell's Kitchen—a place where even devils would be cooked.
Opening a hospital there? What a joke. Unless the hospital was built like a concentration camp, with tanks and cannons piled at the entrance and every doctor and nurse carrying a machine gun, it might have had a sliver of hope. Otherwise, all the medicine inside would be looted overnight.
But no matter how little the council members believed in it, or how numb the people of Hell's Kitchen were, a small psychological clinic was established there nonetheless.
As Manhattan's most famous and largest slum, its so-called eight blocks were merely a general designation.
In reality, the area covered far more ground than eight blocks. Dozens of streets crisscrossed in a maze, with roughly a hundred gangs interwoven throughout them.
Some said Kingpin was the boss of Hell's Kitchen, but that was not actually true. His business territory extended far beyond Hell's Kitchen. His criminal networks stretched across the eastern United States and even the East Coast.
His businesses covered the entire country. Hell's Kitchen might have been involved in some of his drug and smuggling operations, but he neither lived there nor kept watch over it at all times.
Daredevil, who had been born in Hell's Kitchen, was Kingpin's sworn enemy, yet they had rarely made Hell's Kitchen their battlefield. Spider-Man, who had clashed with Kingpin several times, was still just an ignorant high school student.
Kingpin's ambitions went far beyond unifying Hell's Kitchen. He did not care much about the trouble that broke out there, because every day brought shootouts, robberies, kidnappings, brawls, and disappearances. A little unrest meant nothing.
So when Kingpin, far away in San Francisco, heard that several of his men in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan had gone insane, he merely assumed they had taken too many drugs and paid it no mind.
Yet within Hell's Kitchen, a terrifying rumor gradually began to spread—they said that in the psychological clinic at the end of Ninth Tail Lane, on Mary Street, lived a terrifying monster doctor. Every gang member who came to demand protection money or extort him would soon run out in terror, only to go insane afterward.
At first, several gang bosses with reputations did not believe it. They had led their men inside. But before long, they acted as if they had encountered some monster, wildly fighting the air, struggling, screaming, fleeing, and weeping, as though possessed by ghosts.
The incident caused quite a stir. Nearly all of Mary Street had heard of it, and the rumors spread quickly.
One told ten, ten told a hundred. Everyone heard that Ninth Tail Lane was absolutely off-limits. There was a dreadful curse there that would make you see the thing you feared most, until terror drove you insane.
Later, when Schiller, who lived there, began going out, everyone heard that he was the clinic owner from Ninth Tail Lane. Only then did people learn that it was not a ghost at all, but an eccentric psychologist.
According to Schiller, those gang bosses had done too many shameful things. He had merely given them some friendly psychological counseling.
As for why they had gone insane? Perhaps evil had simply met its retribution.
The people of Hell's Kitchen would have believed that only if hell froze over. Everyone who lived there shared the belief that villains were the ones who got rewarded.
No one born in Hell's Kitchen would feel guilty. Crime was normal there, and criminals made up the majority. Guilty? Did anyone expect a person who had been selling guns and drugs, brawling, threatening, extorting, and gambling since their teens to possess any conscience? How could such a person feel guilty? Guilty enough to go mad?
Everyone who heard about it believed Schiller was a dark magician capable of cursing people.
Schiller had no intention of explaining. The Fear Gas he had brought from DC was indeed useful. Though it was only the earliest version, it worked quite well against ordinary people without powers.
Ever since discovering that he could travel between the two worlds while holding items in his hands, he had entertained the idea of becoming an interdimensional middleman.
Marvel and DC had different power systems, but there were so many things that could be sold between them. Naturally, there were also many things that could be exchanged to deal with each other's enemies.
For example, if Schiller used Fear Gas in Gotham, then once the news got out, Jonathan would surely recognize the symptoms in those patients as the effects of his own Fear Gas.
But how could Jonathan possibly know anything about Marvel? Naturally, Schiller would not have to pay any licensing fees.
After such terrifying rumors spread, almost no gangsters came to trouble Schiller again.
Of course, the consequence of getting along so well with criminals was that a superhero came knocking.
On a somewhat chilly night in Manhattan, Schiller had just brewed himself a cup of hot coffee. He tightly shut and locked the clinic door, ready to wrap up another day of slacking off, get some proper sleep, and continue bothering Stark tomorrow.
Just as he set his coffee cup on the table, he heard a crisp sound from the front door. When he turned around, he saw a tall man in a red bodysuit standing outside in the dim light.
Schiller turned back, picked up his coffee cup, and said, "You seem to be a little late, Mr. Daredevil."
"You know me, Doctor?" Daredevil asked.
"Of course I know you, Daredevil. You are quite famous in Hell's Kitchen," Schiller said.
"But you seem to have arrived here only recently," Daredevil said.
"But I am more familiar with your other identity—lawyer Matt."
Daredevil was clearly shocked. He had no idea how Schiller had seen through his true identity.
Before he could ask, Schiller said, "You achieved outstanding results at Columbia University, and your career after graduation went quite smoothly. You not only became a decent lawyer, but also seemed to open your own law firm. Matt, can you tell me why you became Daredevil? Was the pride of upholding justice as a lawyer not enough for you?"
"A lawyer, upholding justice..." Daredevil snorted. "Perhaps that is what you think. Yes, most people think that way. They believe lawyers should speak for justice and defend vulnerable groups, but in reality..."
"In reality? You think lawyers should not do that?"
"Of course they should. What I mean is..."
"You think you cannot do it as a lawyer, so you chose another path. But the things you cannot accomplish as a lawyer—do you think putting on a ridiculous bodysuit and mask will suddenly let you accomplish them?"
Daredevil said angrily, "My decisions are none of your business!"
"You know, the way you just spoke made you sound very much like a rebellious little boy," Schiller said.
Only then did Daredevil realize that from the moment he entered, he had fallen into Schiller's verbal trap. Schiller had controlled the rhythm of the conversation the entire time, not only exposing his real identity but also touching upon his deepest sensitivities. He took a deep breath, calmed down, and said, "I admit that you are a good psychologist, and that you are skilled at using little tricks in conversation. But I still have to ask: who exactly are you? What is your purpose in coming to Hell's Kitchen? Why did those people go insane?"
"You have too many questions. Tonight, I can answer only one. Obviously, I have worked all day and am already tired. You cannot disturb my rest. After all, I am not a gang member, nor have I broken the law," Schiller said.
"But you drove those gang members insane."
"You have no evidence."
"The police need evidence."
"Do you think you are nobler than the police?"
"Stop talking in circles," Daredevil said.
"If you had listened carefully to what I said, you would know where I came from and how I knew your identity."
Daredevil felt a headache coming on. He hated dealing with crafty opponents like this. It forced him to remain highly focused at all times. But because of the shock he had felt earlier, he had completely forgotten the conversation he had had with Schiller when he first arrived. When he tried to recall it now, his mind was blank.
But if he could not answer, he would look foolish. So he said nothing.
"Looks like you have already forgotten the conversation we had one minute ago. I truly did not know that becoming a superhero did not require a good memory," Schiller mocked.
Daredevil was secretly furious. He swore that from now on, he would remember every word Schiller said.
"Two years ago, I taught at Columbia University. I saw the list of outstanding graduates, and your name was on it, Matt. When you filled out your post-graduation plans, you said you would open a law firm in Kansas. Though I am a Psychology Professor, I knew one of your former teachers. In conversation, he told me that you had indeed fulfilled your dream."
"Stop changing the subject. What I want to know is how you knew Daredevil was Matt."
"Perhaps you have forgotten, but when you first started down this path, you wore the black-and-yellow outfit your father wore during his matches. After arriving in Hell's Kitchen, I went to watch an underground boxing match. By coincidence, the boss there seemed to have never changed the style of clothing the boxers wore, perhaps to save money."
"So I understood that Daredevil might have been born here and must have had some connection to underground black-market boxers. After investigating, I found that the gang members you killed were all connected to your father's death. Once I learned your father's identity, learning yours was naturally not difficult."
"Why did you investigate me? Are you feeling guilty because you have done something wrong?" Matt asked.
"Nothing like that. If you want to rent a house, you need to know who the landlord is, what he does, and preferably get along with him."
"I am no landlord here," Daredevil snorted.
"Oh, is that so? Then it seems I found the wrong person. I should go find Kingpin instead. Though it seems I have already become his enemy. I vaguely recall that among the gang members who came to visit me, someone mentioned that their boss was Kingpin."
"Kingpin? You have information on Kingpin?"
"Some, I suppose. Consider it rent. I heard one of his underlings say that their boss has become very impatient with a kid called Daredevil. He plans to find someone to kill you, that fly buzzing around him. So you had better be careful lately."
In the end, Daredevil hurried back to his base.
Only after returning did he realize that he had accomplished none of his goals that night.
He had neither learned who Schiller was, nor warned him to behave himself, nor found out whether he had any connection to those gang members.
He also had no idea what method Schiller had used to drive those people insane.
Matt slapped his forehead. He suddenly felt that Schiller's analogy had been correct. It was as though he had rented a house to a tenant of unknown origins, and that tenant had even paid the rent first. For the time being, he had no way to force him out and could only watch as he swaggered around Hell's Kitchen.
Before you continue