Chapter 3035: Dense Shade of Green Trees, Long Summer Days (33)

Miss Richie left, and Shiller knew he couldn't stay much longer either. Sure enough, a group of people came in a hurry soon after to take Shiller out.

After they realized Miss Richie had disappeared, they asked Shiller, "Where's the nutcase?"

"How should I know."

"You're right next door to her!"

"I'm next to her, not in her room."

"Do you know how she got out?"

"She probably picked the lock."

"But she can't operate the elevator!"

"Then I don't know. If I did, I would have escaped too, and you wouldn't still see me here, would you?"

They seemed at a loss for words, opened the cell door, and took Shiller out.

When they took Shiller away, it seemed they completely sealed the bunker, welding the doors shut—it looked like they were determined to prevent anyone from getting in.

Shiller was taken to a basement in the crematorium.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Williams again. Williams was scrutinizing him carefully, soon showing a look of disappointment—Shiller figured it was probably because he hadn't shown any fear of being kidnapped.

Shiller could have shown it, but he simply couldn't be bothered to perform, so he just sat there with a blank expression, having a stare-down with Williams.

"I suppose you know what my presence here means," Williams seemed to intend to intimidate Shiller further.

"It means you want to silence me. As long as I've seen your face, I'm definitely not walking out of here today, so don't bother trying to persuade me to do anything for you. Either way, it's death for me, and I won't be doing anything."

Williams was evidently taken aback, not expecting this line of reasoning from Shiller, but he also felt Shiller made a lot of sense.

However, Williams quickly contorted his facial muscles on purpose, baring his teeth and making a ferocious face as he said, "But there are different kinds of death. Some people die swiftly, but others might die in agony."

"Are you trying to make me die in agony, like those children?"

Williams's face suddenly turned from red to pale.

"You might say I don't have evidence, but psychoanalysis doesn't need evidence. You might call me crazy, but the entire field of psychology wouldn't think so. You might say it's useless since I'm a dead man, but the task you want me to do involves contacting another living person. How do you know I won't tell her the conclusion?"

"I could burst her eardrums, how would you..."

"You didn't use your mouth to tell me that you're a pedophile and a sadist. How did I know?"

Williams was completely speechless. Shiller had blocked all his arguments, and anything he said now would just make him look stupid.

"Whatever, you'll be dead anyway."

"I don't suppose you'd mind chatting with a dead man, so how do you plan on killing me? What kind of death do you think is fitting for me?"

"I will carve out your heart."

"And then what, put it on display in a museum? Like those children's bones you collect?"

Williams finally showed a hint of fear on his face as he said, "How on earth did you know? Can you really read minds? Is that even possible in this world?! It can't be!"

"Since I'm already a dead man, I don't mind telling you that mind reading really does exist in this world. The perfect concealment you thought you had is laughable to them."

"So what? What if they see? Without evidence..."

"You might be underestimating mind reading. Or more accurately, it's not just mind reading because it can write as well. It can alter the consciousness of everyone remotely."

"Stop talking nonsense, that's impossible!"

"Indeed, I'm lying to you, scare you did it?"

Williams's face changed from pale to a bloated red, and he turned red from his head to his neck to his arms, looking like a cherry bomb about to explode.

"I have a class tomorrow morning," Shiller suddenly said.

"But you won't see tomorrow morning's sun."

"If I don't show up for my class tomorrow morning, my students will realize I'm missing because I'm always on time."

"But they won't be able to find you."

"Ordinary students can't, but among the graduate students I lead... never mind, there's nothing to be proud of. The messes they get into are the main reason they can't finish their theses. I can't encourage that kind of behavior."

"You're truly insane." Williams didn't seem interested in wasting more words on Shiller and took out a gun.

"A gun? That's your plan?" Shiller showed a look of disappointment and said, "You think I should be shot to death?"

"No, you'll be a suicide."

Shiller sighed and said, "No one will believe I killed myself with a gun because my gun skills are poor, and I've never purchased any handguns."

Williams suddenly froze, his belief in such Americans shaken, and he instinctively said, "Aren't you a Gothamite?"

"It doesn't matter what you think; I never use a gun when I kill."

"What did you say? You kill people?"

"You heard wrong."

"I didn't; you just said..."

"So what? You have no evidence, plus you've already pointed out I'm a Gothamite. Is that so strange?"

Williams felt he really couldn't continue this conversation with Shiller. He was about to explode.

"I'll bury some second-rate bones near your house. The moment you die, you'll appear to have committed suicide out of guilt. In the eyes of the public, you'd be the despised pedophile and abuser."

"Did you get rid of Amanda's entanglement?" Shiller suddenly asked.

Williams's action of loading his gun again halted, and Shiller suddenly started laughing, "Of course you haven't because no one knows where those bones in the lake came from."

The smile slowly disappeared from Williams's face, and with his small eyes sunk in fleshy folds, he stared at Shiller and said, "You know?"

"Framing someone is nothing new. If you die, then you'd be the mastermind behind the largest case of submerged bodies in the lake in history."

"Are you framing me? Were those people killed by you??!"

Williams felt he had found the truth since Shiller's house, despite its inconvenient location at the innermost part of the neighborhood and its only advantage being near the lake, wasn't cheap.

"You...," Williams suddenly had a realization and said, "How could you possibly have killed that many people?! There must be hundreds!"

"There were just over a hundred fished out." Shiller's tone was as calm as if discussing what to have for dinner.

"Which of these two cases do you think is more important?" Shiller asked as if genuinely puzzled, "Federation law is strict on child protection. How many children did you kill? Judging from the shock in your voice just now, it can't be over a hundred, right? Being framed for this could ensure I'd be locked away for good."

"But superpower cases are more complex," Shiller continued, "Yes, it's a superpower case because Amanda needs a big superpower case, so it must be a superpower case."

"If a superpower user massacred so many people and sank all their bodies in the lake, would he be jailed? I really don't know, but I've heard that Florence ADX Supermax Prison also detains such superpower criminals. The government keeps them around for the day they might be useful."

"How to describe the environment there? It's harsh. To call it a superprison is to understate it – it's more like a torture device since only the toughest superpower users are held there. The use of somewhat inhumane punishments doesn't really matter since anyone living there would have a rich and fascinating life."

Williams's expression grew darker and darker. Even he could understand Shiller's implication, as he picked up his gun and stepped to the other side of Shiller, saying, "You want to pin this case on me?! How could you possibly..."

"If you look it up, you'll find that Amanda was my student."

"That doesn't mean she'll listen to you..."

"I've killed so many people already, do you still expect me to have any moral bottom line? Have you heard of hypnosis?"

"Stop talking nonsense, hypnosis is impossible..."

"You still think there's no such thing as mind reading technique, then how did I see through you?"

Williams felt his heart sink to the bottom, and Shiller looked at him and said, "You planned to frame me later than I planned to frame you, after all, because it was you who bought the land first, and only later did you encounter me."

"You've been wanting to frame me since then?!"

"Please, do you know how long I've waited? Those bones were bound to be discovered someday. The best news I've ever heard was new residents moving in, and even better news was that your lake was closer to me."

"Also." Shiller finally leaned forward, placing his hand on the table and staring at Williams, "You too killed someone on the construction site. You just haven't had time to dump the body into the lake. In this kind of weather, even if you bury it four meters deep, it might not be effective. How long do you think you can keep it hidden? Once it's discovered, who do you think threw those bodies into the lake?"

"You..." Williams could only utter a single syllable before he was unable to speak. Looking back, he indeed noticed various things that were off.

The most suspicious thing was that Shiller had never opposed his building the resort.

It had been said before that the land was actually community public land. Other community residents had protested, meaning we may not use it, but you can't either, and a resort with lots of people would pose a great danger to their privacy.

Yet as the resident closest to the resort, Shiller had never expressed any objections, even when I cursed the relatives' kids staying at his place on the first day, and he didn't react at all. Those kids, who looked like they were up to no good, didn't lash out in retaliation either, which was just not normal.

In the recollections, Shiller's visage gradually twisted, as if he saw me as a fat sheep, almost too eager to have me continue wandering around here, to stay here a bit longer, the closer to the lake the better.

Because as long as the resort construction continued, he could pin this earth-shattering case on me!

Williams felt himself break out in a cold sweat.

Williams spoke in a more measured tone, "Since we are of the same kind, perhaps there's no need to make things so stiff between us. Why don't we talk, go about our own business, and not interfere with each other, how about that?"

"It seems that's all we can do for now." Shiller also seemed to choose to compromise, saying, "Causing trouble for each other is meaningless. In your years in Gotham, you must have encountered many people like me. We really don't care about what others have done, right?"

This statement truly shook Williams because in his years in Gotham, he indeed encountered too many serial killers. These people didn't meddle in others' affairs; as long as one wasn't their target, they couldn't care less to give one a glance. This bunch of lunatics only focused on their own worlds.

Williams finally laughed and said, "Indeed, it seems I was a bit rash, Professor. When we both have secrets to keep, we can indeed live in peace."

Shiller stood up and turned to walk toward the door, seemingly not minding leaving his back to Williams, nor caring that Williams had a gun, which finally put Williams at ease.

However, his caution still made him walk to the door with Shiller, holding the gun. Just as they reached the door, he saw a shadow flash by his side, followed by two handcuffed hands appearing over his head in front of his eyes.

As Shiller slowly tightened his arms, he didn't feel excited. He just remembered years ago, in a dimly lit room holding a necktie, asking a child, "Do you know how to subdue someone stronger than you?"