RNP Chapter 2703 Hollywood Rhapsody (61)
Chapter 2703 Hollywood Rhapsody (61)
Chapter 2703 Hollywood Rhapsody (Sixty-one)
The ashes in the fireplace jumped heavier than usual. When the flames leaped, they not only brought light, but also brought constantly shifting shadows, which made people feel warm, but also made the wind coming through the window gaps colder.
The silver needle used to knit a sweater seemed to be stitching up some almost forgotten wounds. Those days that could not be avoided had no room left to break open and bleed, leaving only black scabs as heavy as ash.
"...I don't know if you've ever heard of the term detachment member. It sounds like a position in the Boy Scouts, and it is. They prefer to let children do this, watching them numbly drag the bodies out of the gas chamber and burn them without any regrets."
When the sound of the lighter being turned on rang out, the red-haired woman had already put down her knitting needles. The man who was talking turned his head, and his wife smiled at him and said, "I think I can take this opportunity to go upstairs and sleep for a while, right?"
"Okay, Magda," he said. "When you wake up, freshly dried daisies will appear by your bed. Have a sweet dream."
"That must be a terrible memory for you." Schiller took the cigarette from his hand and called him by his current name, "Magnus."
As the smoke rose, the young Magneto leaned back in his chair and said, "When this happens early enough, it's a regular life, not a disaster. Only when you get out of that environment will you realize that you are hurt and bleeding."
“Is this your experience?”
"Yes, I don't think it's cruel. For me, walking into the gas chamber and carrying away the bodies was a job in exchange for food. There was no evil meaning other than that. All the cognition that characterized this behavior as evil came after I left there."
"You don't feel evil, and you don't intend to repent."
“I didn’t even pray.”
"But you are still pursuing a God, but you don't want him to save you from a certain situation." Schiller took a puff of cigarette, tried to spread the newspaper flat on the table, picked up a paper cutter, and cut out the useful parts.
"Is that what you think?" Magneto asked, "Spending three hours every day begging God to save you."
“Most believers are like this.”
"That means you're not."
"What do you think of me?" Schiller asked.
"You have an obvious 'God complex'." Magneto said: "It's never about waiting for help, but about controlling everything."
"So we are very similar."
"I'm not that extreme." Magneto exhaled smoke gently, searching for his daughter's heartbeat among the noise of the magnetic field that surrounded him all the time. This beautiful music made him feel at peace.
"You are a lunatic, there is no doubt about it, because no normal person would believe so firmly that he has the right to judge others like you do."
"Because I killed them?" Schiller raised his eyebrows at Magneto and said, "Do you think those who are chasing you should not be killed?"
"I mean you like to turn people into lunatics," Magneto said. "You find people with such potential, approach them, tell them you have the method to completely end their suffering, and they will become crazier than anyone can imagine."
"Very good," Schiller commented, "but you can't say it's evil, because if I were a giant bait, I would only attract my own kind, just like you."
"Do I look special to you?"
"Of course." Schiller looked into Magneto's eyes and said, "As a child who grew up in a concentration camp, your sense of good and evil and right and wrong was distorted from the beginning. How does it feel to know that what you witnessed is actually the most evil crime in the world?"
"I am very sad."
"No, you are not sad at all," Schiller said. "You are not even afraid, you are just excited because those sinners who offended and defied God so much never received the punishment they deserved, and since that is the case, neither will you."
Magneto's Adam's apple moved, and then he spoke in a dry voice, "I can't deny this. I prefer to call the moment when I realized that what they did was a crime the 'Death of God', because I have seen so many cruel things, and God has never appeared."
"So I say we are very similar." Schiller looked at the fire in the fireplace with eyes that were far less cold and even gentle than his and said, "When I had no basic concept of this world, I didn't think that everything some people did to me and others was cruel. I just knew that I lived like this."
"But one day, I came to a completely different environment, where everything was different from what I had experienced, and another group of people told me that I had a tragic past. Only then did I realize that some things could be called cruel."
"But I'm not sad about this at all. I just feel excited because they can treat me so cruelly without paying the price. Then I can treat others the same way. Secular rules and laws are not worth mentioning to me. If there is no retribution on the mystical level, then no one can stop me."
"Does cruelty bring you pleasure?" asked Magneto.
"No, it just makes me feel free."
Magneto frowned, and a trace of pain finally appeared on his face, which had always been serious and indifferent.
"Freedom, yes, freedom. The environment of the concentration camp would not awaken me to any other views. I would feel that this is how the world is, and everyone is the same. But there is always a voice telling me that I can disobey them and do things outside of their arrangements. That would make me feel genuinely happy. I don't know if this is my nature."
"What do you want to do besides the arrangement?" Schiller asked sharply: "Find a dagger and stick it into their chest, smash their heads, or take out their livers..."
"No... I didn't want to do this." Magneto said with some difficulty: "Because I didn't know that what they did was cruel, so I didn't hate them, at least at that time."
"That only proves that you don't want to do these things out of hatred, at least not entirely out of hatred."
"You sound very empathetic." Magneto sensed something was wrong. He looked at Schiller and said, "Have you also been to a concentration camp?"
He stood up, drumming his fingers on his knees, and said, "You've never told us your story since you saved us."
"Maybe it's just a story. Who can guarantee to tell you the truth?"
"Maybe what I said is just a story." Magneto said, "Maybe everything in the concentration camp is made up by me, but if you are willing to take the time to make up a story for me, it can't be said that this is unfair."
"I am a little special." Schiller said very succinctly, "but not in the way you are special. Some people realize that I am powerful and they think I can be a good weapon."
"You know I can't be the only one with this kind of plan, so if you insist on describing it as a concentration camp that's fine. Generally speaking, it's similar to you, but I entered there earlier."
"It means you have even less knowledge of the world." Magneto seemed to understand a little bit. He said, "At least I still had a good time with my parents. Although their death brought me such a strong impact that I have some amnesia, I can still remember some fragments occasionally."
"I have almost no such experience," Schiller said. "I grew up in an orphanage since I became conscious. If I have to say there are fragments of memory, it's probably that someone broke into the orphanage one day, and then there were blood, screams and gunshots."
"I'm very sorry."
"You're not sorry at all." Schiller said bluntly, "You lack the ability to empathize with such trauma. It's just that social common sense requires you to be polite."
Magneto remained noncommittal and did not answer.
"But unfortunately, there are only a few special people where I live. Or, you could say, I am the only one who is truly special."
"What's so special about it?"
"Born strong."
Magneto snorted softly, with some disdain, but it seemed that it was not directed at Schiller, but more at the "them" he mentioned.
"Powerful and controllable usually don't go hand in hand." Magneto said, "Otherwise every country could use mutants as weapons, and there would be no need to spend so much time researching atomic bombs."
"Not that powerful," Schiller said. "You can think of it as a society with only ordinary people. I don't have any special abilities, but I am stronger than ordinary people in all aspects."
"Sounds interesting." Magneto turned and looked at Schiller and said, "Does such a place exist?"
"Of course." Schiller nodded, flicked the ash off his cigarette and continued, "At that time, they also believed that there were similar mutants in the world, but in fact there were not. However, they felt that if there really were, their actions would give them the upper hand."
“Why do they think so?”
"Maybe it's because of me," Schiller said. "They don't know I'm an isolated case. They think I'm the beginning of a phenomenon and there will be more and more people like me. But why they are so sure is still a mystery."
"Did they arrest a lot of people?"
"They are all children. They think that in order to become as powerful as me, they need to stimulate their potential. And I can also become unprecedentedly powerful by stimulating my potential, even stronger and more concealed than an atomic bomb."
"I can imagine." Magneto clutched the cigarette in his hand and said, "Many people, such as our current neighbors, these well-off Germans have very limited imagination of cruelty. In their eyes, Auschwitz is already hell, but it is not actually the case."
"It was more like a mass killing station. Not many people had the time to torture the prisoners. They just drove them into the gas chambers in large numbers, turned on the switches, and then there were only corpses on the ground. Many times there were no screams of pain, but mostly of fear."
"This is a very efficient practice. Everyone does their job in their position. There is no deliberate cruelty. It seems like they are just completing their work. This is probably the main reason why other adults do not think they are guilty. This process is alienated and looks like real labor."
"I will write down what you said, I hope you don't mind." Schiller said, "In return, you can also write down what I said, maybe it will be useful one day."
Magneto sneered.
In Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Charles was looking at his cell phone, his head far away from the screen and his face had a complicated expression.
The noise coming from the phone finally made Eric unable to bear it. With a bang, a book knocked the phone out of Charles' hand. Although it did not hit Charles' hand very cleverly, he still turned to look at Eric with a little dissatisfaction.
"If you don't let go of that noise maker, I'm going to implant it into the latest version of the brainwave amplifier so that you can watch short videos 24/7."
"Come on, Eric." Charles complained quietly. He touched his bald head and said, "Have you watched the latest variety show? Students are watching it all the time. Mrs. Weiss told me that the probability of students staying up late has more than doubled because of this show."
"Stark's collection of stupid things?"
"It's Stark's Romantic Wedding Trip." Charles picked up the phone and said, "Logan and the others are watching it too, and they kept asking me if I, as someone of the same generation as Schiller, have any information about Schiller."
Eric frowned slightly, but the complex thoughts that flashed through his mind could not be hidden from the psychic user at all.
Charles turned his head suddenly, looked at him with bright eyes and said, "Don't tell me you have."
(End of this chapter)