A figure walked into the ward, and Xi Wana looked at Raven in shock. Raven shook her head, walked over, sat down next to Shiller, and reached into the gift bag to grab an apple.
"Weren't you abducted?"
"Who could abduct me?" Raven snorted coldly and said, "I ran away on my own, it almost scared me to death."
"Who asked you to go through my fridge?" Shiller said with a frown, looking at her. "I warned you."
Raven, with a grimace, didn't reply but began to sit there munching on the apple. It took a while before she languidly said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to, I was just too curious."
Shiller sighed.
In fact, after seeing the signs of an explosion in the room, he knew that Raven must have run away on her own.
And that was indeed the case. Shiller had gone to the post office, leaving Raven alone at home, an environment much safer than the middle of the night. Raven wanted to check what was in the fridge again.
She had never been this curious before, but for some reason, something kept urging her to open the fridge, making Raven feel incredibly restless.
Her intuition was always accurate, almost never wrong. Raven felt there was something off about that fridge, so she quietly opened the fridge door while Shiller was away.
But before she could even pull open the freezer drawer, police cars started driving into the neighborhood one after another.
Raven was terrified. She hadn't forgotten what they had done the night before. She didn't bother with the fridge anymore and quickly ran to the living room to check if any traces had been left behind.
Worried about being caught, Raven wiped everything down with telekinesis at lightning speed to ensure no fingerprints or such would be left behind.
But what was harder was psyche-building, as she couldn't lie and would probably have a hard time deceiving the police. At that moment, she already had the idea of fleeing.
Anyway, these cops wouldn't be able to find her if she ran, because she didn't need to walk out like ordinary people—a teleport would do the trick. As long as she didn't have to face police interrogation, she should be able to keep from being found out.
Raven thought about it; the postman was simply asking for it. She wasn't any superhero and didn't need to risk herself for him.
Her teleportation would make some noise and wasn't suitable to perform indoors, so Raven thought of running to the backyard. But while running, she passed the fridge again and thought since she was there, a quick look wouldn't hurt.
So, she steeled herself and pulled open the freezer drawer.
For long-term storage of reindeer meat, Shiller had asked Bruce for an Angel Feather and had it stuck to the back of the freezer drawer. It did a fine job suppressing a demon's power, but if the drawer was opened, it would no longer work.
So, when Raven pulled it open, disaster struck. Already tense and emotionally unstable, the moment she opened the drawer, a powerful evil force immediately threw her to the ground.
Raven instantly realized what kind of meat was stored in the fridge. She was utterly terrified, unable to control the surging power within her, feeling it on the verge of breaking loose.
The leaking power made a mess of the living room, but Raven couldn't care less about that anymore. She hurried to the backyard, setting off her teleportation before her powers went haywire.
But because her powers were already somewhat uncontrollable, the teleportation was rather loud and blew a hole in Shiller's backyard.
Raven thought the outbreak of power would be tremendous, and the closest deserted place was New Mexico. After a teleport to New Mexico, she sat waiting for the explosion of power but found that the disruptive force within her gradually calmed down.
Raven couldn't fathom why, and in her perplexity, she tried telekinesis and magic, causing a lot of disturbance, just to release the restless power inside her as soon as possible.
But after half a day of magical bombardment, there was no sign of power erupting from within her; instead, it became calmer and calmer.
In the end, Raven had no choice but to teleport back. She arrived just as the police were leaving, and Shiller was cleaning up to head to the hospital.
Neither of them had eaten anything. On the way to the hospital, they stopped at a random restaurant. While eating, Raven recounted her experience to Shiller, who deduced that the previous power fluctuations were entirely due to Raven's nervousness.
Once in New Mexico, she knew that no matter how much she exploded, there would be no issue, so with her nervous and anxious emotions gone, the power naturally calmed down.
Raven thought it was unlikely. She told Shiller about her past experiences of losing control of her powers with just a bit of excitement but then thought about it. Lately, she'd been often happy without any power fluctuations. Maybe she was like Shiller said, letting her emotions flow naturally without repressing them, thus avoiding outbreaks of power.
After hearing everything, Xi Wana sighed, his gaze falling on the umbrella lying next to Shiller.
"There's only one thing I don't understand," Shiller said. "Who killed Mr. Piero? Was it you?"
Xi Wana shook his head and said, "Of course not, why would I kill him? I don't even know the guy."
"But that day when I was on my way home from working late, I felt someone following me as I was about to reach home. He followed me to near my house, and I thought he was a robber, but he didn't make a move for a long time."
"After a while, I heard noises in the backyard, and then it's pretty much the same story I told the police. I saw a figure climbing over the yard wall, and a bunch of plastic bags thrown into the center of my yard."
"Is that all?" Shiller asked, looking at Xi Wana with a trace of confusion.
Xi Wana hesitated, but finally said, "I can't be sure, when I just got home, it seemed like I heard motorcycle noises on the street, but at that time, my attention was all on the tracker, I don't know if I heard wrong."
Shiller nodded his head, turned to look at Raven, who had finished gnawing an entire apple. She shook the apple core in her hand, stood up, and walked out the door to throw away the trash.
As soon as the door to the ward closed, Xi Wana revealed a nervous expression. He stared intently at Shiller and said, "What exactly do you want, give me back my powers."
"Are you sure you can control them?"
"What if I can't, they're mine!"
"The things in the fridge are mine too," Shiller said. "Didn't I still generously let them be opened?"
Mentioning the things in the fridge, Xi Wana felt a chill to the bone, cold sweat slid down his neck to his back as he stared dead at Shiller and said, "...you madman."
"Stop fussing over these foolish issues, you know what the main reason is that you can lie here."
"You don't understand, in my eyes is..."
"It's not about your eyes," Shiller tried hard to suppress his impatience. He really didn't understand how someone who had been doing so well in ordinary society could become so foolish once they touched upon these things.
It was as if someone could score over 700 in the college entrance exam, but once back in junior high, they couldn't even do the simplest equations.
Were the jobs Xi Wana handled at the school not much more difficult than dealing with the seven deadly sins in his eyes? Was he truly going against the natural order?
Shiller even began to doubt himself.
But for the sake of his bright future, Shiller still had to make things clear.
"You're a good principal, Mr. Xi Wana. Right now, nearly everyone at Gotham University holds hope for you, thinking you can pull them out of the mire of life, or at least get them closer to the shore. Do you understand?"
Xi Wana looked down at the flower in his arms again, pursed his lips and said, "I think you already know, my coming here to be principal was actually only for..."
"What you were here for is irrelevant. You are the best principal Gotham University has ever had, and Gotham University can't afford to lose you as its principal."
Xi Wana was even more confused. He said, "Is the principal really that important? I haven't really done much, isn't this just the most common administrative work?"
"Then why do you think no one at Gotham University has done the most common administrative work? Should I tell you that there are at least four potential psychopathic killer professors in this school, three of whom have practiced it? Should I tell you that there are at least a dozen potential psychopathic killer students here, even I don't know how many have practiced it?"
Xi Wana swallowed hard.
"Then, they..."
"Do you think psychopathic killers don't need to eat?" Shiller said. "Except for those students lucky enough to be born into super-rich families, everyone needs to earn money, pay back student loans, pay rent, buy groceries and cook. The economic crisis makes it harder and harder for them to do all this."
"They hope for someone to improve all this, and you are that person. Perhaps in a normal university, you're merely doing your duty, but the fact that you dare to do your duty at Gotham University and do it well means you can already be called a good principal."
Xi Wana opened his mouth, then glanced again at the umbrella, which indeed had the mysterious text and patterns he had seen before.
"What did you mean by 'speaking authority' you mentioned that day?" Xi Wana asked.
"The literal meaning," Shiller thought about the academic scholarship he was about to receive and patiently explained, "I know your work at Gotham University is just a guise. You want the power inside Raven."
"Firstly, I must tell you, you cannot possess that kind of power. It's not because of me or her hindering you, but because Raven has a very troublesome and dangerous father. You wouldn't want to provoke him, and with your abilities, you wouldn't be able to handle the consequences of provoking him."
Xi Wana frowned deeply. He hated when people said he lacked ability, even if it was true.
"Secondly, as you've seen, two completely incompatible powers won't make you stronger. Instead, they will cause you to lose control over both and leave you with nothing."
"But if it wasn't for you..."
"If it wasn't for me, the stuff in your eyes would soon break free from your control, and someone would come to punish you. It might just be the person you hate the most."
Xi Wana fell silent. He did not know how Shiller knew, but he admitted that Shiller was stating facts.
For some time before this incident, he had felt some things starting to spiral out of control. Because of this, he had not used the power in his right eye for a long time, and he tried as much as possible to suppress the powers, preventing them from leaking out.
"He will say to you, see, I told you you're not fit, you've eventually messed everything up. I did those things to you back then because I foresaw this future. Now everything proves I was right back then. I am the one who is just, what do you have to resent?"
"Enough."