Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4392 - 3485: Midnight Sons (47)

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Dan lay flat on the ground, gasping for breath. No matter how many times he called out in his mind, the Spirit of Revenge remained as silent as if it were dead, showing no sign of wanting to respond to him. Even Lady Francis was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did you take them?" Dan muttered softly.

"I know you've been getting close to that psychiatrist lately. You should take this opportunity to have him look at you," Johnny said, leaning against the wall. "If you keep going crazy like this, you're really gonna end up dead."

"I'm not crazy, everything I said is true!" Dan struggled to turn over, wanting to get up from the ground but failed. The wound on his hand hurt too much; the moment it touched the ground, the muscle contracted instinctively, causing him to fall back down.

"I'm not saying you're lying," Johnny said. "The Spirit of Revenge can discern lies and judge a person's deepest sins. If that's the case, why doesn't the Spirit of Revenge inside you support you?"

Dan was speechless, lying on the ground, lost and dejected.

"You've uncovered useful information faster than anyone. Iron Man might still be tuning his gadgets, Spider Man hasn't finished his shift, Moon Knight is gazing at the moon pondering life, and I haven't even begun assembling my crew. You're ahead of the game."

"But it doesn't matter. Dan, this isn't a race to see who reaches the finish line first. Just like you can't win a hurdle race by knocking all the obstacles over and being the first to cross the finish line—that's not victory, it's madness."

"But if I can find clues faster, I can capture the behind-the-scenes manipulator!"

"Why do you want to capture the behind-the-scenes manipulator?"

"Because they're doing bad things! Or they might be about to do bad things, and we need to stop them."

"Why do you need to stop them?"

"Because... because they might kill a lot of people."

"So you're saying you're stopping them to protect the potentially endangered people. But your foolish and reckless actions might cause more harm. What's the point of your efforts then?"

Johnny squatted down, licking his molars, and sighed: "The superheroes you know are not more alert, not smarter, and don't know how to uncover the truth better than you. If they truly couldn't compare to you, you'd be the one calling the shots now, but you're not."

"In your view, they hesitate and are overly cautious. Clearly possessing great strength yet unable to make decisive moves; able to solve problems once and for all, yet always delaying. What do you think is the reason for this? Because they're evil? Foolish? Avoiding responsibility?"

Dan shook his head blankly. From his expression, it was clear that he had never seriously thought about this question.

Johnny stood up, flicked ash from his cigarette, said nothing, shook his head, and turned to leave.

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Dan lay there for a long time, during which he heard no sound from anyone. Neither the Spirit of Revenge nor Lady Francis, not even his own voice.

It wasn't until he felt raindrops from the sky that Dan slowly turned over. He took out his phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

"There seems to be no problem with the signal frequency. We might need to get a sample to dismantle and find the key," JARVIS said, looking at the readings on the computer screen. "Wanda, you should come back. Don't engage with Miles anymore; I suspect his mind might have been influenced."

Wanda looked at the message from JARVIS, feeling a bit unwilling, but still put away her phone and joined the crowd leaving the community college after class.

As she stepped outside, Wanda felt some wet droplets falling on her face. Looking up, she found the night sky already filled with dark clouds—it was raining.

JARVIS, who stood up from the computer, also noticed the weather change. The autumn rain in New York was quite chilly, and Wanda, not fully recovered, absolutely couldn't get wet in the rain.

JARVIS hurriedly grabbed an umbrella and ran outside, turning to say to Shiller, "Doctor, the USB is in the second drawer to your left, just plug it into the computer to copy the data. I'm going to pick up Wanda."

Shiller also stood up, waved him off to hurry, then went to the drawer to get the USB. Although JARVIS hadn't found any issues in the signal from this batch of teaching equipment, the probability of others finding problems was low too, but it was necessary to preserve the evidence—might be needed for the trial.

While copying data, Shiller's phone suddenly rang. He answered the call with a frown.

"What? Where are you? Okay, I'm coming right over."

After hanging up the phone, the data transfer was also complete. Shiller unplugged the USB, grabbed an umbrella, and drove toward the Bronx.

Unfamiliar with the terrain, Shiller made several turns before finally finding Dan, who was drenched like a drowned rat, at the mouth of an alley.

Shiller looked at the mud-covered puncture wound on Dan's hand, inhaling sharply. He bundled Dan into the car and drove towards the nearest hospital.

Dan, however, seemed unfazed by the pain, gripping tightly onto the car door handle with his injured hand. Seeing him in the wrong state, Shiller increased his speed. After all, no matter how powerful the Spirit of Revenge, it couldn't cure tetanus.

At the hospital, Dan was rushed to emergency. Doctors and nurses gasped at the wound. The nail had pierced in at an angle, the wound was large, the blood already dried, even the wound edges seemed hard to pry open.

Dan was taken in for a tetanus shot. Shiller found Johnny's number in the phone book but hesitated to call—figured Dan probably wasn't in the mood to see his brother now.

After much hassle until midnight, Dan was finally moved to an observation ward. Shiller walked over to sit by his side, intending to summon Lady Francis to ask what happened, but despite calling for a long time, there was no response.

Now he was more convinced that Lady Francis hadn't been revived. The ghost they all saw was likely a figment of Dan's imagination, influenced by the power of the Spirit of Revenge inside him, which made it visible to everyone.

When Dan's state was good, naturally, Lady Francis's was too. But now with his mental state so poor, the imaginary companion naturally couldn't appear.

Though it's rare for imaginary companions to be one's elder, Shiller had seen such cases and wasn't surprised. He was only curious why Dan, who seemingly grew up happier than Johnny, was more prone to obsess. It just showed that environmental influence theory wasn't always accurate.

When the nurse called Shiller inside, mentioning Dan's temperature was a bit high from getting caught in the rain, he had muddled sleep after the vaccine shot. Shiller sat beside the bed waiting until he woke up.

"You're finally awake," Shiller said, pouring him a glass of water and adjusting his bed to a higher position to prevent him from falling back to sleep. Under such circumstances, excessive sleepiness was not a good thing.

"Thank you, Doctor," Dan seemed to regain clarity and appeared to have a lot on his mind.

"No problem. Did you encounter the mob? Did they attack you?"

Dan slowly shook his head, touching the wound on his cheekbone and inhaled sharply but firmly shook his head again.

"Doctor," Dan suddenly turned to Shiller and said, "You know a lot of superheroes, right?"

Shiller nodded, looking at him calmly. He didn't know what Dan was going to say, but he had a hunch.

"Why do I feel like superheroes aren't as heroic?" Dan asked.

"What do you mean by 'heroic'?"

"Like... fighting evil, combating crime, uncovering and stopping the villains' schemes and all."

Shiller lowered his gaze and asked, "Do you think they haven't done that?"

"No. I've seen the news, I know they've stopped many crimes. But... but when I got involved, I realized they don't seem to fight crime like that."

"How do you think they fight crime?"

"They should identify criminals first, arrest them, and after finding them, beat them down, then lock them up. Isn't that how it's done?"

"You think they're not doing that now?"

"Yeah. I feel like they want to, but they just seem... somewhat powerless."

"Powerless?"

"Yes. That's why I said they aren't as powerful as I imagined. They clearly know something is off in the Bronx, yet they seem to only investigate privately."

"What do you think they should do?"

"Of course, take more efficient actions."

"Like?"

"For instance, Iron Man has a lot of mecha; he could send robots for investigation. Captain America is influential; he could hold a press conference and rally others to help investigate. Moon Knight knows magic; he could use magic for investigation..."

"You're wondering why they don't do that, right?"

Dan nodded, saying, "That way we could find the behind-the-scenes manipulator faster, stop his plot, and prevent others from getting hurt."

Shiller paused slightly, intertwined his fingers resting on his lap, then said, "What you're really puzzling over is this: from your perspective, doing things this way makes sense. But you're not a superhero. The superheroes haven't done that, yet they're still superheroes. Why is that?'

"You've attributed it to you not being as powerful as them, so another puzzle arises. They're so powerful, doing things your way would yield better results, yet why don't they follow what you suggest?"

"Dan, your contemplation and puzzlement aren't unusual. Many people share your doubts. But you're luckier than most because you've met me, a psychiatrist with many superhero friends."

"Without meeting me, these doubts might have forever remained unanswered. But since we're sitting here chatting, even if I can't give you a satisfactory answer, we can use superheroes as a common topic to discuss your queries."

"So you're not perpetually hitting a wall, nor has the whole world turned its back on you. You're not always unlucky; meeting me was indeed a good thing. Relax a bit, okay?"

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