In a spacious and bright doctor's office, rkel sat in front of Schiller, who was buried in writing dical records. rkel frowned and asked, "So, you an I am in your dream now?"
"Correct. Now, can you tell exactly what's going on?" Schiller replied.
rkel's deanor was quite different from his usual mature and steady appearance as a young butler serving in the Manor. He appeared calm and amiable, always talking about the weather and carrying a unique British humor. In short, when you see him, you can easily associate him with the most typical British butler.
But now, when he frowned and squinted his eyes, a sharp temperant spread from him, making it hard not to associate him with certain professions related to agents or soldiers.
"If I don't tell you, can't I leave here?" rkel asked.
Schiller shook his head and said, "No, you can't stay here for too long. If a person stays in a dream for too long, their body's functions will be affected, just like a plant that has been asleep for years, and their muscles will atrophy."
"I an, will you let leave here?" rkel asked again.
Schiller nodded and looked into rkel's eyes, then said, "I hope you can understand one thing. I spent money and ti to find a butler who can take care of the Manor for ."
"But when I was away, you rummaged through my things and ended up here. So please don't say that I imprisoned you. This is entirely your own mistake, and I am the victim."
rkel seed to want to say sothing, but Schiller interrupted him before he could speak.
"I don't care what your political stance is or what other purposes you have for doing this job. But I hired you to do your job well."
"I hope I don't have to remind you of how many things you ssed up during this ti."
rkel always frowned, and Schiller saw that he was completely clueless, so he continued, "rkel, you haven't been here for long, but during this ti, you forgot to deliver food to the newsboy, ruined two newspapers while ironing, broke a button on a custom suit, almost broke a decoration on my desk, and left a deep scratch on the teak bookshelf with a handcart. These losses are more than three tis your commission."
"I hope you think about why I haven't fired you yet, even though I know you're a Soviet spy and you're clumsy."
rkel widened his eyes, and he also wanted to know why.
If, as Schiller said, he had already noticed sothing was wrong when rkel got off the train, why did he still hire him? And why didn't he fire him even when his work was not going well?
It was the winter of 1988, and those familiar with history might know that the situation during the Cold War was very severe. During this ti, no normal Arican was willing to have any relationship with the Soviet Union.
"Are you making a statent to ?" rkel asked.
Schiller sighed and covered his forehead with his hand, saying, "I guess you haven't received much training, or you're simply a self-taught spy."
"I won't even ntion how you used spy tactics in front of a newsboy to handle a cigarette butt."
"I can also ignore the fact that you did nothing for a long ti after coming to my Manor because you didn't dare to take risks."
"I can even not ntion how you opened my personal mail without judgnt and didn't get any important information.""When you adopt a radical attitude in this situation and demand that I speak clearly, it doesn't add to my pressure, it only exposes your guilt," Schiller sighed and said. "I guess you're a pure British person, but you got involved in so cause because of certain ideological education."
"Now, what occupies most of your mind is still ideals and struggles. I can't say that this is wrong, but obviously, you seem to have simplified things too much."
rkel frowned and stared at Schiller, saying, "No matter how you slander , I won't shake my attitude."
"Okay, let's change the topic. What mission did you co here to execute?" Schiller asked.
rkel remained silent.
Schiller propped his face with his finger, slightly tilted his head, stared into rkel's eyes, and said, "When you were in the Manor before, you didn't like to look directly into my eyes. Actually, you should know that this is not out of politeness, but because there is sothing in your eye contact that cannot be hidden."
"This is actually a very interesting phenonon. All the Marxists I know have different eye contact from others."
"Do you know any other Marxists?" rkel finally couldn't help but ask.
Schiller suddenly changed the topic and said, "Since you ca into my dream during this ti period, it ans that you should have started from the third floor of the Manor and worked your way down, finally touching the bottle on the bookshelf. Did you find anything else?"
"Do you have anything to be found?" Schiller showed a rather helpless expression and said, "Your thinking is completely imrsed in the work of an agent, to the point where you don't even realize how stiff your use of language is."
"You need to understand one thing, rkel. You must have more doubts than now, and you must have more questions to ask than ."
"If you want to get answers to these questions, you must first answer my questions. Do you think the answers you want to know are not worth revealing so information in exchange?"
rkel stared at Schiller's eyes in silence, seeming to confirm whether this was another trap. But in the end, he spoke, "I can't guarantee that I will answer every question."
"Okay, one question for one question. If you can't answer, I'll move on to the next one."
Schiller played with his pen in his hand and asked, "Did you find anything in my Manor?"
rkel paused, and his expression beca sowhat vivid, as if recalling sothing unpleasant. He said, "I can understand that for safety reasons, you locked every door in the Manor. Okay, if it's for safety, then you can give each door a different lock, and it's understandable that different locks correspond to different keys..."
"But why did you hide every key in different places, design a puzzle for each key, arrange several clues for this puzzle, and crack several codes to get these clues, and go to the library to flip through several books to get these codes..."
rkel raised his finger to cover his eyes, and his tone revealed deep helplessness. "That's why I ca into your dream at this ti. I spent most of the night solving these damn puzzles."
"He... am I crazy?" Schiller muttered in confusion.
"What?" rkel asked.
"Nothing, did you solve it?"rkel gave Schiller a resentful eye contact and said, "After spending several hours, I finally opened the door and ended up here the mont I touched that bottle."
"Don't be upset. I recently updated the puzzle library on the second floor of the room because soone gave a pretty good hardcover edition of 'The Adventures of Sherlock Hols.'"
"If you opened the doors in order from south to north, then you should have at least finished the first two puzzles. I think that's the most impressive part. What about you?"
"Is this the second question?" rkel asked.
"Co on, don't be so boring. It's just a casual conversation," Schiller waved the pen in his hand and lowered his head to look at his dical records. He said, "You always try to gain the upper hand with a dominant attitude at every crucial mont. It's probably because you're in a vulnerable position and lack a sense of security."
"You see, every action and expression of yours reveals a lot of information. It's not just about putting on a cold face with a show of dominance that can deal with ."
rkel's eyes remained fixed on Schiller. In fact, he felt sothing strange because the Schiller in front of him seed unusually patient.
Actually, rkel knew that his current attitude couldn't be described as lacking a sense of security; it could even be said that he was sowhat fearful. During his ti working at Schiller Manor, he had spent a lot of ti with Schiller and knew what kind of person he was.
rkel had never studied psychology, so he didn't know the professional terms for certain conditions. He could only sense that Schiller was sowhat neurotic, with many stubborn and rigid habits, and his temper was sowhat inscrutable.
He would invest a great deal of ti and effort in so peculiar and useless things, such as putting a different lock on each door, then setting up hundreds of puzzles to protect the keys. He would also spend a lot of ti polishing those peculiar collectibles like umbrellas, an Earth globe, a telescope, and glasses, among others.
But at the sa ti, he appeared very impatient with many important matters. For example, he would read the newspaper during breakfast without fail. If either breakfast or the newspaper arrived late, he wouldn't start.
He strongly resisted breaking his routine, but he would often go out in the middle of the night.
When he spoke, he was always direct and to the point, hardly considering the feelings of the listener. He would also make a big deal out of so very ordinary communication, intentionally letting people know that he had seen through the essence of their inner thoughts.
This temperant, which was very different from ordinary people, made rkel feel that he was a bit crazy.
And now, the Schiller in front of him seed perfectly normal, almost too normal.
When rkel decided to put on a tough stance, he actually had no intention of leaving here alive. Based on his understanding, his mysterious employer wouldn't have the patience to listen to the usual rhetoric used in interrogations by agents.
rkel also didn't know how long he could hold on in this kind of communication.
Originally, his expectation was that whether he could leave here alive or not, as long as he didn't reveal the secret in his heart, it would be considered a success. He never anticipated that he would still have room for negotiation.
Schiller's change of attitude had no logical basis, so rkel could only assu that Schiller was in a good mood at the mont, which made him relax a little and try to seize more opportunities to save his life, preferably by obtaining so intelligence.
"Well, it seems like you're not interested in chatting right now. So, you can ask your first question," Schiller said.
rkel swallowed and gradually relaxed his body, focusing his attention on his thoughts. He looked into Schiller's eyes and asked, "How did you manage to do it?"
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