Chapter 245 Chapter 245 [VIP]
Megan's summer vacation is long enough. She doesn't want to spend all of it in the company, nor does she want to spend it all on courses. As for vacationing in the countryside, she is still happy to go there in the summer.
There are a lot of plans, but we still have to do it one by one. The first thing to do is to go back to Arkham Asylum.
Still returning through the hidden passage, Megan was no stranger to the high-risk area, wandering around with great energy. After a semester, many people in Arkham knew that she had her own exclusive toys, a small factory. It didn't seem like a big deal—after all, it was just the start-up phase, and it was too early to expect a return on investment. But it meant a change in Megan's identity—
From being the Joker's amusement, it turned into something truly valuable. After all, even the Joker was willing to coax her. For most of them, they had never observed the Joker's attitude towards her up close, but from the most superficial appearance, Megan could be used to control the Joker.
However, due to the intimidation of the Joker and the lessons learned from several previous cases, they are still waiting and watching. Last week, Black Mask seemed to be dissatisfied with the Joker building a factory in the East District. Even though it has not affected his gang business for the time being, this fierce and cruel criminal cares about face the most and cannot tolerate being "provoked", so he sent people to attack the White Bear Factory.
But the thugs he sent out were stopped by Killer Croc and his men.
So for the past few days, some mentally ill criminals in Arkham have been calculating how many connections that child has. You know, Killer Croc definitely doesn't like the Joker - no one here is willing to take the initiative to deal with the Joker, so they will never take action for him. Then it can only be for Megan, and Killer Croc once took care of this child, so the logic is clear.
Who are Megan's friends in Arkham? Killer Croc and Poison Ivy definitely count, which is great. Bane and Riddler also took care of the child, and although Scarecrow attacked her, they later played together. As for Penguin, he seems neutral at the moment. Two-Face is a deep-minded guy, he definitely won't be swayed by this child...
After careful calculation, you will find that it is not cost-effective to deal with her, so she is safe again for the time being.
Megan herself didn't know about these things. Anyway, her father was watching over her and would definitely not let the company be attacked, causing production to stop or other problems to arise. As for Arkham, no one would attack her directly.
She wandered around Arkham on her own, took a look at the greenhouse, and then went to find Mr. Freeze.
Mr. Freeze encountered some incidents last year. After the situation was basically settled, he upgraded the laboratory's security system again. The procedures and building materials were all upgraded. The only difference was the identity authentication. The identification conditions set for Megan were simple because they knew that she would come sometimes. She was still a child and could not do complicated decryption, so she only needed two authentications to pass through the door.
As soon as Megan entered the door, she put on the new antifreeze suit prepared for her by the Cryo-Freeze Man. It was not as bulky and wide as the common antifreeze suits on the market, and did not provide tight protection, but it was still a jumpsuit style and did not have a hood.
She simply put on the thin material and felt the warmth, with only her head exposed. She exhaled and exhaled white mist. She raised her hand, but it was still wrapped in the protective suit. So she curiously put her hand to her face and found that the surface of the material was not too cold.
The lab had a guest, so of course the owner would be notified. Mr. Freeze emerged from the deeper lab, holding a test tube emitting a pale blue glow. Megan walked over and greeted him, "Good afternoon, Victor."
Megan looked at what he was holding, put her hands in her pockets and asked, "What is this?"
She asked directly out of curiosity, because even if Mr. Freeze answered, she didn't understand those techniques, nor could she use them, let alone tell others about them. But when she was a problem child, she liked others to give non-perfunctory responses.
Mr. Freeze was obviously familiar with her character, and the face in the transparent mask smiled slightly. Except when he was angry because of his wife Nora, he was usually emotionally stable and devoted to his research. Besides that, in order to seek more possibilities to cure Nora, he studied mysticism and found peace in philosophy.
But even so, he no longer believed in God or fate, and only believed that the technology in his hands was the real and effective way to save Nora.
He always thought that his research was on the verge of success and would yield results soon, but after each technological breakthrough, he felt that there were still many problems and hidden dangers that had not been resolved. He was always worried, so he tried to do better.
What exactly should we do to be 100% sure?
He drifted in this hopeless yet seemingly hopeful torture day after day, just like stepping on a hamster wheel or a Möbius strip. He pursued the ideal in his heart and worked hard for that slim hope.
It seemed that every day was almost the same, because he repeated the same actions every day, causing him to ignore time. And one day, he saw a figure in Arkham that shouldn't be there. It was a young child. She shouldn't be in Arkham, and shouldn't be owned by the Joker.
But he soon discovered the problem with Megan and realized that she had not been abused. However, he still paid attention to the child out of compassion, and later they became familiar with each other.
Mr. Freeze patiently explained what was in his hand. Megan didn't understand, so she said "Oh". She explored the laboratory which was different from her memory. Fortunately, there were no dangerous equipment here, so Mr. Freeze didn't stop her.
Megan was playing here for no particular purpose. When Mr. Freeze finished packing his things and came out, he asked her, "Meghan, do you want to come for tea?"
Is there any meaning in drinking tea in a laboratory with a temperature below zero? But Megan is happy to do so, and Mr. Freeze also patiently entertains her.
Steam rose from the cup of hot tea on the table. In this calm and gentle atmosphere, Victor Fries asked the question that most people in Arkham were curious about, "Why did you build a factory?"
Meghan's answer was her usual response: "Because I want to reduce some of the suffering of people."
"So what makes you empathize with others?"
This was the question that Mr. Freeze was curious about. He looked at Megan lost in thought, as if he could not find the answer after thinking it over and over again. Finally, he said: "This world is so scary, and there are many people like me." There are many people who are suffering and fearing like her, but she has been isolated from most of the negative emotions by the pills, and should not have such a deep experience.
Perhaps Megan not only wants to save and help others, but also wants to build a spiritual defense for herself. She needs to find her own way and the direction she wants to go, otherwise the lost soul will fall into pain again after rebirth.
Megan thought, her father had already saved her, so she had to save herself.
…
Arkham Asylum was once Megan's incubator, and later her paradise.
She left Mr. Freeze and on her way back to the clown's cell, she met the Mad Hatter again. This short, ugly madman was jumping around in the corridor. No one knew what had gone wrong with him or what kind of delusion he had fallen into.
Everyone just thought he was funny, but it was a good thing he was crazy. If he was still a normal person, with his technology to create a mind controller, no one knew whether he would end up in a worse situation.
And Arkham, in a way, can be regarded as a 'concentration camp'. This group of special people are all imprisoned here and picked over like goods. They are used to 'cooperating' with others in exchange for their freedom. Many things here are clearly priced. Technology can be bought and sold, crime can also be a transaction, and even the scope of destruction can be agreed upon amicably.
The Mad Hatter is a madman, but there are many people who want to trade with him. However, the Mad Hatter is immersed in his own fantasy and has no time to deal with those people. His unique technology protects his personal safety.
He hummed the tune of Alice in Wonderland, as if he were at a dinner party where he was one of the protagonists. When he turned around, he suddenly saw a familiar figure. He saw that it was Megan, and greeted her without any meaning: "Hey, little Megan, but you are not Alice..."
"Why are you back? I heard you got a new toy, shouldn't you be excited?"
The Mad Hatter raised the brim of his hat to look at her. He had noticed that Megan was almost taller than him, but he was wearing thick-soled shoes, so his line of sight was still a little higher. He had long learned to comfort himself, especially since Megan had never laughed at him about this, so he soon stopped caring.
But he was indeed curious about that question. The Joker's factory must be for Megan, but what did she want it for? To make more money? But Megan didn't seem to care about that. Under the Joker's care, she had no worries about food and clothing, and she didn't have the strong desire for control and ambition like Black Mask and Penguin.
Especially since the Joker also asked people to manage the factory carefully, it is really hard to believe. It is almost like saying that the Joker has a deeper conspiracy, otherwise would he really fulfill the wish of a child who is not his biological child?
The Mad Hatter was suspicious, but he only asked about the factory. "What do you want the factory for? I guess you have an unusual purpose?"
Megan looked at Jarvis Tetch, whose expression still retained a hint of madness, and said, "I've heard about your past. You were very inferior and paranoid, and you went crazy because you couldn't get Alice." The Mad Hatter's face suddenly changed, revealing a fierce look, but Megan continued.
"You are convinced that you are the Mad Hatter, afraid that Wonderland will disappear, and you are constantly chasing after your imaginary 'Alice', kidnapping girls and brainwashing them into thinking they are Alice, so that they can participate in the tea parties you host."
"Jervis, do you feel pain when you are awake?"
He is like Sisyphus, and many people who live in the world and pursue something are like Sisyphus. They look at a goal, but what they actually pursue are illusions.
The soul is longing and crying out in pain, driving people to fall and move forward again and again. They firmly believe that there must be something waiting for them ahead, an existence in which they have placed too much emotion and effort. They firmly believe that as long as they move forward, they will be able to enter a happy and fulfilling home.
But when you are awake and realize that what you want cannot be obtained and recognize the distant and unreachable distance, will your soul feel pain?
The Mad Hatter, who was about to go crazy, calmed down. He stared at Megan blankly, as if looking at something very far away... the thing that he longed for...
Perhaps he saw something through her, but he was a little bored, feeling the huge dizziness brought by the inversion of consciousness. So did he know what he was doing? He was once full of talent, but due to inferiority and paranoia, he was immersed in the illusion he had woven for himself.
The future he was chasing was very far away, and the past was also very far away. Both ends were beyond his reach, so he became more and more obsessed with delusion...
He said, "Alice, walk into the rabbit hole, here is the perfect fairy tale kingdom."
Megan told him: "This is your pain, it's caused by you, you made the wrong choices, the wrong things, and it got out of hand."
The Mad Hatter is a classic example of a negative person. He was maliciously teased and ridiculed by others because of his height and appearance, but this only gave rise to greater malice. He killed someone out of jealousy, and then developed symptoms of schizophrenia and paranoia. He would never recover. He longed to swim across the river, but he knew long ago that fairy tales would never come true. He was just crazy. He was crazy.
"You are a very bad person, but this is your pain."
Megan doesn't easily stand on anyone's side, but she is too sensitive to pain, so she made a detailed analysis of the Mad Hatter's suffering. She said: "And there are many people whose suffering is caused by the outside world. Being exploited and oppressed is suffering, unfortunate fate, unequal treatment is suffering, poverty and powerlessness are also suffering."
"I want to stop their pain, even if it can only help them suffer a little less."
She has a big wish, but she has chosen the people she wants to help from the beginning. She will not do anything that is beyond her control, nor does she want to seek relief for the mentally ill criminals who are also trapped in Arkham. After all, this is not her responsibility, and she just wants to fulfill her own wish.
The Mad Hatter had long since calmed down. Perhaps he was still lucid, but he seemed a little distraught. "What a wonderful wish, Megan! I believe you can accomplish this. I wish you all the best."
He couldn't sneer at someone who was sincere. He turned and walked away, but he turned back and asked Megan, "Do you need my skills? Maybe I can give you some help?"
The Mad Hatter is a man who has long gone mad and done too many wrong things. When he looks back on the past, does he regret it? This is something he himself cannot explain, and he is entangled in extremely complex emotions. He knows that he can no longer go back, and he knows even more that he can no longer escape this nightmare. Perhaps he just doesn't want to escape it.
The world is both real and absurd. He feels pain and confusion, and mutters, "Walking into the rabbit hole..."
There is no pain here, only everything he has ever dreamed of.
Megan smiled at him and said, "I haven't found a toy designer yet. I want toy blueprints." She was not polite and just said what she wanted.
The Mad Hatter agreed.
He used to be a neurological expert, but later went crazy and became obsessed with "Alice in Wonderland", which filled his head with strange and fantastical scenes. It was easy for him to design novel, interesting, innocent and imaginative toys for Megan. He drew a stack of drawings in just a few days and handed them to Megan personally.
Then after this incident, they still had no extra interactions. The Mad Hatter acted crazy every day, and some mentally ill criminals in Arkham were keen to provoke him. They cursed and accused each other, and finally fought, attracting the guards.
So does the Joker know what Megan did and what she said to the Mad Hatter?
Who knows? Anyway, he didn't care about these things. After receiving the new toy blueprints from Megan, he directly ordered them to be delivered to White Bear. However, when talking about the subsequent profits, he asked, "Okay, dear, you have to tell me what you discussed with that dwarf. Give him a share of the profits, or buy out the blueprints with money?"
Now that you have established a company, you must know that taking blueprints from others and sending them to the company for mass production and sale is a commercial act. Matters involving interests must be made clear, right?
Megan sat in a corner of his cell, her hands tinkling, fiddling with something. She looked up with a nonchalant expression, "It's a gift from Jervis."
The clown smiled noncommittally.
Megan won't be staying in Arkham for a long time, and she has plans to play outside, but before leaving, she has studied for most of the semester, so it's time for a test, right?
Killer Croc taught her how to recruit subordinates, but Megan didn't want to set up a gang, and she wanted to recruit company employees, so this course was limited to word of mouth and paper talk;
Megan had already read the legal provisions and regulations Two-Face had found for her regarding economic behavior, pollution emissions, product indicators, etc. She didn't need to memorize them, she just needed to implement the relevant requirements. Megan must not break the law or produce counterfeit products. She had a firm belief in this regard, so the Joker would naturally help her keep an eye on it.
Bane taught her how to build one and told her many secrets about Gotham. It was an advanced version of the previous "Child Safety Manual". Even if it was useless at the moment, it might be useful one day. When that time comes, this knowledge will be crucial.
Scarecrow was once a psychology professor, and later branched out into neuroscience and pharmacology. So what could he possibly teach Megan? He'd already seen Megan wasn't interested in research, so he had no intention of teaching her anything about it, not even trying to teach her. He'd done a lot of research, so he was incredibly knowledgeable about all kinds of equipment, and he could tell which was better and which wasn't, so he recommended a reliable source.
But people like Two-Face, Penguin, Black Mask, etc. are not willing to take care of children and do not participate in this game of playing house.
So Megan's real teacher is the Riddler.
This extremely intelligent and arrogant guy certainly has the capital to be arrogant. He not only masters puzzles, but also many mathematical formulas, associative thinking and his imaginative mechanism design. Naturally, he also masters hacking techniques.
He taught Megan how to write code, then build the company's internal website, taught her how to build a firewall to block attacks and fight back, taught her how to use crawlers to retrieve information, and how to hack into data to illegally obtain permissions...
The Riddler was a genius in the universal sense. He taught Megan everything, legal or illegal. Of course, he considered tinkering with the process and actually did it, but how closely did the Joker guard Megan? He was warned before he could accomplish anything, and all his remaining programs were deleted.
How could the Joker not know that the Riddler was harboring evil intentions? They both knew it, but Megan, the little girl, might be ignorant, or she might pretend to be ignorant. After all, this was just a small matter for her, and the Joker would solve the problem for her.
When his methods were discovered, he told Megan clearly: "You know I'm a bad guy, and I don't get along with the Joker, so don't trust me too much, otherwise I might trick you out and sell you out." This is something he could do, so he told Megan without hesitation. As long as he had the chance, he would definitely try to target the Joker, and then Megan would become a flag that could be used.
But the Riddler really taught her something, so when Megan came back to check the results of her extracurricular classes, he was still in charge of this matter.
The Riddler hadn't set any difficult questions when he was giving the test. He was aware of his own personality and that his paranoia was incurable. If he were to argue with Megan, not only would he not gain anything in return, he would also face retaliation from the other parent. This wasn't worth it at all. As for why he wanted to teach Megan...
He closed the laptop in front of him and said to Megan with a clear fake smile, "I know what I can teach you, so your grades are not bad. They are considered acceptable to me."
What's wrong with holding onto a little old grudge? The Riddler wasn't just frank about it; he knew he had a worse control group. The setbacks he'd experienced with Megan weren't a big deal; instead, someone else had been humiliated and beaten, becoming a joke known to almost everyone in Arkham.
The Riddler was already satisfied, but he looked at the expression of the child opposite him, thought for a moment, and said, "I know the answer to the riddle you asked last time."
Megan looked at him intently, "What's the answer?" But there was a mischievous expression on her face, and she began to laugh a little.
The Riddler laughed along with her. "Because of a blind spot."
Arrogance is that leaf that always covers his eyes.
It was a boring little trick, but the Riddler, in a good mood, reached out his hand and made the gesture that Megan used to like to do - a high-five invitation. Then he clapped his hands together, picked up his computer, packed up his other things and left.
This 'final exam' was held in the library. Even though there were few people here, the environment was spacious and one could see what was going on inside from the door.
Arkham is full of mental patients and mentally ill criminals, but not many scum. In the past, there were disgusting people who came here under the pretext of mental illness, trying to escape legal responsibility like them, but those people had already died in various riots. Dirty and disgusting people are not worthy of being listed with them.
After he left, the notebook in front of Megan was still open, but she was in no hurry to tidy it up. She sat on the chair and swung her legs.
When the clown came to pick her up, she was squatting at the sink outside the library playing with water, putting her hand under the faucet and watching the water hit the back of her hand. Megan raised the back of her hand when she saw the clown coming.
"Dad, look! There are so many bubbles."
The water flowing out of the faucet, which was turned on to the maximum, was in a splashing state, mixed with a lot of air, and it formed many bubbles when it hit the back of her hand. Even after she took her hand out from under the water, the bubbles would still exist for a while.
The author has something to say:
Arkham Succubus! Well-deserved reputation!
Then I want to write a long review (quack) and exchange the long review for additional updates, but the additional updates may be delayed because I have some things to do in the New Year.
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