Zatanna cocked her head, looking at Batman and said, "Exactly, the entrance marker is conspicuous. If we check every room, won't we be able to find it?"
Batman recalled the architect's blueprint he had seen in his mind and said, "Forget about whether there are other secrets in this building or how to handle the ntally ill Shiller who has been chasing us. Do you know how many floors and how many rooms are in this building?"
"How many?" asked Zatanna.
"If that map was accurate, there should be 9 floors in this building, each floor having at least 10 patient rooms. Counting the functional rooms, storerooms, and tool rooms, we would have to check at least over 100 patient rooms to possibly find the way out."
"That doesn't sound like too many." Zatanna shrugged and said, "It's not like a skyscraper with hundreds or thousands of rooms, besides, the room structure here is quite simple. Just push the door and take a look, no need to go in. Checking 100 rooms should only take a few hours, right?"
"Then we may have to consider...always on the run..."
Batman just started, suddenly stopped speaking, because the three of them heard a "da da da" sound at the staircase. After a mont's pause, the three of them started moving forward in unison.
"Honestly, can't we try to beat him?" Constantine said as he ran, "I think the three of us should be able to handle it, right?"
"Indeed, there is a possibility of success." Batman replied while running, "But you have to consider the consequences if we fail."
"The Shillers in the Thought Palace, who knows where they went to, but they could return at any ti. If we get tied up and the majority of Shiller's army finds us, can you guess the consequences?"
Just as Constantine was about to speak, Zatanna said, "We can't outrun him! Get ready to enter the fire ring!"
Once she was done speaking, she waved her hand. In front of her appeared another circus fire ring, which the three leaped into one after the other. The fire ring disappeared and they reappeared in another vacant room. Zatanna panted and said, "My teleportation distance is getting shorter and shorter, it's consuming too much energy, at most, I can only do this three more tis, or I might not have enough magic to teleport..."
anwhile, Batman started talking, "I think your thod has so rit, we do not have the ti to slowly look for clues."
"The Exhaustion thod might co in handy..." As he said this, Batman walked over to a table next to a bed in the room, took a notebook from a biscuit tin, flipped to a blank page, and started sketching the map of the building.
"The map I saw earlier depicted the structure of the patient room area. Simply put, this building has a C-shape, with stair exits at both ends and patient rooms in the middle."
"Since the building is quite old, the structure of each floor should be fairly similar. But there was a note attached to the map indicating the shower area is on the third floor and the canteen is on the first floor, likely to help new employees navigate."
"When I ca to this space, I was born in the very patient room where Shiller was. There was no exit, aning, Shiller didn't resist returning to his room. So, the chance of him resisting returning to soone else's room would be comparatively small."
When he finished saying this, Batman marked an 'X' on the architectural structure he just drew and continued, "If the probability of the patient room is relatively small, then the probability of other functional rooms will be larger."
"Firstly, the consultation room is not the right exit, which ans similar treatnt rooms are probably not the goal."
"How can you be sure that if the consultation room you found is not the correct exit, then none of the others are?" Constantine asked, looking at the blueprint in the notebook.
"We are not trying to infer the correct location in one go, but assigning a priority order by probability and starting from the most plausible locations. This is the correct way to use the Exhaustion thod."
Without waiting for the other two to respond, Batman began speaking.
"Based on the clues we have, Shiller's treatnt record ntioned that after each episode he gets taken to the observation room. This is a room other than the consultation room that is explicitly associated with Shiller, hence, I believe it has the highest probability and should be regarded as the first priority."
"Secondly, besides the observation and consultation rooms, other living spaces such as the canteen, shower area, activity area, reading room, study room etc, are placed second."
"The consultation has proven not to be the correct answer; other rooms similar to it in function like the treatnt room, prep room, etc, are ranked third."
"The patient rooms that hold the most quantity but have the least likelihood are ranked fourth."
"We should search in this order so that we can find the exit room as fast as possible."
Zatanna took a quick glance at Batman and then turned her gaze away, saying, "Bruce, you've changed a lot."
"Alright, now is not the ti for sentintal talk." Constantine glanced at the map drawn by Batman and said, "Let's try this approach. I have a feeling that sothing is not quite right."
He was correct, since the removal of the weakness item from this mory space, which was the straitjacket, the entire space had grown increasingly eerie. There used to be so rooms with lit lights on each floor, but now, everything was subrged in darkness.
Just then, the three of them heard a familiar "tap tap" sound. Zatanna widened her eyes and exclaid, "That's impossible. My teleportation distance is at least four floors. How could he possibly catch up so quickly?"
"I told you, sothing is not right." A faint light emanated from Constantine's hand. He added, "Either he has quickened his pace, or he has acquired so tracking abilities. Let's scramble while he's still on his way."
After saying this, they rushed out of the room again only to find nurous tentacle-like objects stretching out from the dense darkness in the pitch-black corridor. They were the restraints from the straitjacket and now looked liked hands of devils extending out from an unfathomable abyss.
Constantine waved his hand brusquely and a magic shield materialized, effectively guarding the two incoming straps. Zatanna stepped back two paces, prepared to use her fire circle for teleportation, but Batman stopped her and told Constantine, "Do not linger. We should shake him off first!"
Constantine fired off several streaks of light, forcing a montary pause in Shiller's offensive. The trio launched into a frantic run down the corridor. Only when the "clatter" sound of tal hitting the ground disappeared, did their pace slow down.
"Judging by the annotations next to the map, the observational room should be on the top floor. Currently, Shiller is on the lower floors. We should head up and look first." Batman advanced towards the staircase. They arrived at the topmost ninth floor and found the so-called observational room at the end of a corridor.
It was an entirely black room. Of course, all the rooms were extrely dark at this point. But what set this room apart was the absence of any windows. There was only a tiny observation exit on the door.
The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of vinyl. The lights were round safety lights embedded in the ceiling. The only furniture in the room was a chair, fixed in the center. There were tal rings on it to fasten the straitjacket.
In the darkness, Batman seed to see Shiller, dressed in a straitjacket, secured to the chair, looking up at the ceiling light.
At this mont, a feeling of sympathy washed over Batman that he had not felt before, as if he was glimpsing into his future in another tiline.
A person born to madness is a pitiable creature. Their view of the world diverges from the norm. In order to assimilate into a conventional society, they must break their own bones, strip their own skin, drain their own blood, and rebuild everything about themselves.
Compared to them, those who live peaceful lives, never having experienced insanity, are undoubtedly very fortunate.
Thus, when an ordinary person allows themselves to descend into madness, it's like they are carelessly discarding and trampling upon sothing that others yearn for but cannot have.
At this mont, Batman finally understood why Shiller had always harboured hostility towards him.
If those mories were true, then perhaps they were living out the old saying: a madman strived to beco ordinary, while an ordinary man abandoned sanity to beco a madman.
Batman noticed that when Shiller sat on the chair gazing at the ceiling light, he seed to be looking at the moon.
Perhaps at that ti, Shiller never thought that one day he would encounter a bat who, discarding the moon, was hell-bent on plunging into the abyss.
Batman suddenly found the answer he had been searching for — what Shiller feared the most.
Those Gotham incidents orchestrated by Shiller, always lurking in the shadows but sohow always advantageous; the murderous maniacs that appeared in his dreams; the tily appearances and disappearances of the Joker; the words Shiller spoke in the church ...
Batman didn't know whether Shiller initiated these events, chose these words, and forced him to learn, all because he didn't want another lunatic in a straitjacket gazing at the moon in this ludicrous world.
Perhaps, if one day Batman were to laugh out loud due to insanity, not only the Joker, but also a certain mad yet ordinary person would feel nauseous and crumble.
The answer resonated in his mind, but it disappeared as soon as it had appeared, leaving no profound impression in his mory.
It was very unlike what he had initially imagined, that even if the world fell apart and his soul crumbled, he would safeguard this answer in a secured place to prevent himself from forgetting it.
The hard-earned answer passed by lightly, like a piece of crumpled paper tossed away in a parabolic trajectory, abandoned in a corner.
Before turning to leave, Batman cast one more glance at the chair.
In a place hidden from Zatanna and Constantine's sight, the Batman concealed in the darkness mustered all his facial muscles and exerted great effort to conjure an awkward smile.
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