After leaving the ward, Shiller called for Raven, and the two prepared to drive ho together. However, upon reaching the ground floor, they found Victor waiting at the entrance.
"Is the principal okay?" Victor asked with so concern.
Shiller shook his head and said, "He does feel sowhat depressed, but he should recover soon."
"That's the advantage of having a master psychologist," Victor said with a smile, then turned to Raven and asked, "I've never heard that you had a brother, is she your brother's daughter?"
"She's my distant niece," Shiller replied. "Distant enough that there has been no contact for at least three generations."
"Is she going to the sa high school as Dick and the others?"
"Yes, they've t before and get along quite well. Oh, right," Shiller turned to Raven and said, "weren't you going to have a dinner gathering? When are you planning to go?"
"It was supposed to be today, but I can actually..."
"Which restaurant? I'll take you there."
Raven ntioned the na of a restaurant not far from Gotham University, and Victor gestured to Shiller, saying, "You go on and rest, I'll give her a ride since it's on my way."
Shiller nodded to Raven and left. Raven sighed and followed behind Victor. Victor looked back at her and asked, "What's wrong? Did Shiller give you a telling-off?"
"Quite the opposite, I did sothing wrong, but he didn't bla . I just feel weird about it," Raven said, clearly in a bad mood, her usually vivid red hair looking sowhat dull.
In the sunlight, Victor squinted as he opened the car door for her and said, "Maybe what seems like a huge issue to you is really nothing to us."
"I peeked into his fridge, which led to a minor explosion. Now his house is a ss, and I guess the housewarming can't happen on ti. He's probably rushing back to write letters," she said.
"Well, that does sound like the sky is falling," Victor said, but with little surprise or anger. He spoke as if joking, "It's hard to imagine how Shiller is going to clean up the house. I hope he manages."
Shiller drove back to the house, finding the police, the police car, and the caution tape had all vanished, most likely due to Roy's decisive actions, leaving Clay probably overwheld by now.
Entering through the gate into the yard, aside from so additional footprints, there was no significant issue. The real problem lay inside the house.
There were many dirty footprints on the porch of the room, mainly from the police, so still with traces of blood, as the forensics cops had been there too, piecing together a body.
After pushing open the front door, aside from the previous furnishings that were scattered on the floor in disarray, the most important thing was the fridge was broken, and the kitchen too dirty to cook the food for the housewarming.
Opening the back door revealed an even worse state in the backyard, with a large pit at least half a ter deep at its center. The barbecue and football assembly parts from the previous table were blasted apart, with many parts looking charred, hidden amongst the grass.
Fortunately, the second floor was unaffected. After being busy for an entire day and night, Shiller felt tired and had to go to sleep, even if he couldn't stand the state of cleanliness downstairs.
Almost the mont Shiller's head touched the pillow, he fell into a deep sleep, the deepest sleep he'd had in a long ti.
In his swirling dreams, Shiller saw fragnts of his childhood again, but this ti the protagonist was not him or the doctors and nurses he was often in contact with, but those familiar strangers who always appeared in his mory but never interacted with him.
The cleaning lady would always pass by his room at 3 p.m., dragging the floor at the doorway while talking to a young Shiller.
At that ti, Shiller didn't understand her, or rather, he wasn't listening at all; he was imrsed in his own world, completely detached from reality. But the plump lady didn't seem to mind whether he understood or not; she would always talk about how old he was, whether he had eaten, and how the doctors said he had been doing well.
Around 6 p.m., a skinny old man would co to collect the trash, stopping his cleaning cart at the doorway to pick up the rubbish bin, tossing the bag and its contents into the cart, and replacing it with a new trash bag.
Shiller usually didn't produce any trash; the rubbish bin in his room was for the visiting doctors and nurses to dispose of miswritten sticky notes or snack packaging.
The trash-collecting old man would comnt on everything, then lant how much better life had beco, how snacks could now be eaten as als. He had once tasted a cookie of his grandson's and ended up drinking several large glasses of water due to its sweetness.
At 9 p.m. when the lights went out, a security guard would make his final round of the floor. He would gently knock on the door and open it a crack, sticking his head in with squinted eyes, already small, and speak to Shiller in a tone used for coaxing children, saying it was ti to turn off the lights and go to sleep.
These people ca every day, like clockwork, gradually becoming a part of Shiller's daily routine, yet he had never interacted with them. They one-sidedly looked at him and spoke, while Shiller never responded.
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Shiller, with his mory far exceeding that of an ordinary person, managed to rember the actions, expressions, and words of these people. For a long ti, he didn't understand what they were doing, but as his ntal condition improved and he learned more about common knowledge, he began to grasp that these individuals were the ones keeping the institution running smoothly.
But in reality, Shiller didn't really know what "normal" ant. His ward was always clean, the corridors were never dusty, the garbage in the bins was never left overnight, and he had never encountered any danger.
As he grew older, he also had many interactions with such people: janitors cleaning the university, garbage truck workers, and parking lot security guards that were everywhere.
Often, they would exchange a few words with Shiller, mostly praising his academic achievents, envying his exceptional talents, and complinting him on a future that was certain to be successful—as if the path he had chosen was incredibly difficult and success was hard to co by.
It was as if they themselves had no ability to choose this path, which is why they chose to live life as janitors, garbage workers, and security guards.
It wasn't until Shiller was an adult and independent that he realized things were not that simple. To him, being a janitor ant cleaning, being a garbage worker ant dealing with trash, and even being a security guard ant patrolling—all far more difficult than engaging in academia.
Being a tiny screw in the machinery of a massive institution was actually very hard, precisely because of the low rank, small size, and lack of power. No one would listen or believe when you spoke, making the work especially difficult.
Even as just a university student, when he had outstanding grades and could benefit his supervisor, his superior would seriously consider his proposals. Even if he didn't consider them, Shiller had ways to make him think about them.
But Shiller had encountered several instances where a toilet door was broken or a faucet wouldn't run, the janitors would complain but no one attended to it.
If asked, these small screws could only respond, "I'm just a cleaner, if the managent doesn't get it fixed, there's nothing I can do."
For Shiller at that ti, "there's nothing I can do" was like a horror movie; he had never been in a position in his life where there was nothing he could do. Even if temporarily incapable, he at least had a plan to achieve his goals eventually.
Indeed, he had a way to manage anything. Not to ntion fixing a toilet door or a faucet—if he had special reasons for missing an exam or failing it, and if he had only one day left to deal with it, he still had a solution.
Dr. Anatoli, however, had a different view. He believed Shiller needed to try accepting that sotis "there's nothing I can do," because only once he acknowledged this could he see from another angle how people form connections with one another.
Later on, Shiller gradually ca to understand how these ordinary people always saying "there's nothing I can do" managed to survive in society.
When a toilet door was out of order, they'd go to the office to borrow a piece of paper, put up a sign, or simply ask for help to block the stall with a broken door and turn it into a storage room.
If a faucet was broken and they couldn't wash mops, they'd take turns going to restrooms on other floors to fetch water, establishing a cooperative model of division of labor—one mopping, the other fetching water.
This was how they managed to get by—seemingly very simple, but to Shiller, it was exceptionally difficult.
If it were him, he'd consider knocking out the superior and dumping him into the stall with the broken door, letting the superior experience firsthand the severe consequences of a malfunctioning toilet door.
Setting aside legal and moral concerns, this approach was actually much more complicated than that of ordinary people. First, you had to identify the target person, find the perfect timing to act, avoid surveillance caras, and construct an alibi.
Listening to the inactive superior cursing in the restroom stall was indeed amusing, but this pleasure couldn't make up for the energy and ti spent. It was more like Shiller was looking for compensation after an unnecessary loss of energy and ti, akin to "at least there's sothing entertaining to watch."
Essentially, Shiller just couldn't bring himself to walk up to the nearest office, knock on the door, take a piece of paper from the desk, and simply tell the administrative staff sitting there, "I need to borrow a piece of paper."
After waking up, Shiller sat on the edge of his bed, tidying his hair, and then sat there for a long ti until the setting sun cast a sowhat blinding golden light through the gently billowing window sheers, dissolving into the room's silent atmosphere.
There was so much to do, Shiller thought. If he were to leave his room now and go down a few flights of stairs, he'd be faced with a pile of troubles he couldn't begin to address. If he were to choose between opening the front or the back door, his troubles would double.
And these troubles would lead to more troubles, like a cascading series of falling dominoes. If he couldn't manage to tidy the house right away, the housewarming party planned for tonight wouldn't take place.
If the party couldn't proceed as scheduled, he would have to rewrite the invitations, informing everyone of the changed date and apologizing to them.
To ensure these letters were delivered successfully, he would need a postman, but at this point, the postman must have already beco fertilizer.
The post office was persistently understaffed, and new employees would have difficulty delivering so many letters at once. If not all the invitations reached their destinations before the event, and people showed up thinking the party was still on with food and drinks in hand, Shiller would be forced to refuse them at the door and apologize.
Then, when he tried to send invitations again, he might face rejection from these people, as he hadn't managed everything properly and they had made a futile trip, filled with disappointnt.
Shiller slowly lay back, leaning against the pillow, and reached into the nightstand for a cigar, but found it uncut and the cigar cutter was nowhere to be found.
Shiller had no choice but to put the box back, stand up, and pour himself a glass of water. Just as he finished pouring, he heard noises at the door.
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