"Thomas Elliott!" Bruce called his name, let go of Rhomann, threw him on the ground, and rolled forward swiftly. Before Thomas who had just climbed in through the window could land, Bruce had already punched him in the chin.
Thomas had a prosthetic leg newly fitted. He didn't have much time to adjust to his false leg. Just as his toe touched the ground, his chin was hit hard and he couldn't balance himself, falling straight back.
Bruce stepped forward again, grabbed his hair, dragged him into the room, and then forcefully slammed his head against the wall.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
When Bruce let go, he stood there taking a deep breath. He looked at Thomas who was laying on the ground with a bloody face and murmured in a low voice, "Textbooks say that violence relieves stress... The textbooks are right."
He touched his nose with his hand, turned around, and continued dragging Rhomann towards the door. But just as he opened the door, he saw Mrs. Miller with wide eyes.
Bruce hesitated, considering what to do, but Mrs. Miller quickly stepped back, pointed to the hallway, and said: "Go straight, turn right, and you will find the emergency exit. The key is under the doormat."
"Thank you, ma'am."
Mrs. Miller watched as Bruce dragged the body away, while she adjusted the teacups on her tray. Bruce paused for a moment and looked at Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller, looking down at him said, "Don't worry, I've seen many doctors in my life. Many of them dissect bodies in their offices, perhaps because they aren't required to follow the rules of an operating room there."
Bruce pursed his lips, feeling embarrassed about his initial surprise and shock. He dragged Rhomann to the emergency exit and then returned to drag the other two in.
By then, Mrs. Miller had put the tray on the tea table and, looking at the shattered glass, as she walked out, pointed to the window and said, "I will have someone come to fix it."
Bruce shook his head and said to her, "It might be best not to, at least for now…"
"Bang! Crash!"
Bruce clenched his fists and looked towards the window. Another shadow climbed in through the window.
Bruce lowered his head, took a deep breath, and forcefully opened his hand. He walked quickly to the sofa, picked up the scalpel he had left there earlier, ran to the window, and stabbed it into the hand of the shadow which was gripping the window frame.
Ignoring the ensuing screams, Bruce pulled out the scalpel, punched the intruder's nose, and without watching the figure fall, he turned and walked back into the room.
Mrs. Miller, standing by the door, watched his series of actions. When Bruce turned back, she gently shook her head and waved Harley into the room.
Harley seemed unwilling to leave, but as Mrs. Miller's brow rose higher and higher, the girl could only lower her hands, sigh, and follow Mrs. Miller out.
Before Mrs. Miller left, she left a message, "I will have the newspaper boy deliver breakfast and the newspaper tomorrow morning."
Bruce stood there with his hands on his hips, looking at the mess in his office, and sighed deeply.
What he didn't know was, this disaster had only just begun.
For the next week, Bruce hardly had a chance to leave his office. Except for eating and going to the bathroom, he was fighting with the serial killer every moment.
Bruce felt that his understanding of Arrogant Schiller was somewhat superficial.
At first, he thought that his professor had him fight so many horror murderers in his dreams because he foresaw the day he would have to face Morbid Schiller.
But now he realized that was not the case. No matter how perverted Morbid Schiller was, he was just one person. Arrogant didn't need to make Bruce face so many serial killers at once. And since he did so, this meant that he probably foresaw today's situation.
For the entire next week, Bruce used the skills he had learned in Dreamworld to fight against the serial murderers who came one after another.
Bruce felt as if he was trapped in a weird space where there was nothing but serial killers.
But this space didn't seem to affect reality, or at least it didn't affect Schiller's reality.
This psychologist was still seeing patients as usual. Faced with blood stains all over the floor, Bruce, who was covered in blood and looked extremely haggard, he acted as if he saw nothing, maintaining his routine of writing medical records, reviewing treatments, and making rounds.
When some faint morning light filtered through the window without glass and filled the room, Schiller, dressed in a dark red suit, sat on a single sofa reading the newspaper, with the food the newspaper boy had delivered that morning in front of him.
Across from him, Bruce, who had barely slept in the past seven days, was also gobbling up his food.
The room was split in two by the coffee table. On one side was Schiller, dressed in a spotless suit, every button correctly fastened, his tie straight, flipping the newspaper unhurriedly.
On the other side was Bruce, looking terrifyingly haggard. Ever since he had returned from the slums, Bruce had retained his half-long hairstyle, but his hair had gotten wet during his fight with the serial killer in the washroom. As a result, strands of wet hair were clinging to his forehead.
Seven or eight days without shaving lent him a rough stubbled chin. Combined with his ravenous expression, he looked like a complete vagrant.
Shiller gently closed his newspaper, lifted his eyelids to look at Bruce, and asked, "How much longer do you plan to stay here?"
Bruce paused his chewing, his eyes sunk deep within his brow, staring directly at Shiller before saying, "Until you give me an invitation."
"You know, Arrogant once said, you're a stubborn breed." Shiller shook his head lightly and said, "This kind of obsessive personality could send you spiraling into an abyss, preventing you from making rational judgments about your current situation."
Bruce just looked at him silently. Shiller bowed his head to fold the newspaper, and continued in a self-absorbed manner, "This morning, when I brought you a plate of vegetable salad, you felt surprised."
Shiller lifted his head, scanning his office, and said, "In an enclosed environment, facing an adversary you cannot resist, standards always plummet. This is a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. The more obsessed you are, the deeper you get pulled in."
Bruce closed his eyes, lowering and tilting his head, various illusions flashing before his eyes.
Objectively speaking, if his psyche hadn't been tempered steel, he might've already slipped into another abyss, just as Shiller had described.
Shiller placed the folded newspaper on the coffee table, its corner crossing the line in the middle, stabbing into the other half of the space, like a knife plunged into Bruce's body.
"Tomorrow at 9 pm, the banquet will begin on time, all my friends will be there, and tonight at 11, I shall go out, you should understand, you can't stop me. Don't waste your efforts," he finished.
Having said that, Shiller rose, turning to walk towards the rest area. Bruce squeezed a sigh from his throat, leaned on the sofa backrest, lifted his arm, and covered his eyes.
His current disheveled state had nothing to do with his fight against the serial killer or any restless nights, the pressure Shiller placed upon him was simply too heavy.
Afterward, Bruce bent his upper body forward, leaning on his elbows, and covered his face with his hands.
He remembered, during his time in the slums, he had shared a room with Shiller too. The circumstances then were hardly different from now.
He had always known from textbooks, that confined spaces intensify the emotions transmitted from others. And when he was trapped in a confined space, the pressure would multiply.
Immense pressure coupled with a powerless situation would trigger the body's self-defense system. Since they can't change others, they adjust themselves. People's thoughts automatically downgrade their standards to get along with others in return for short-term comfort.
Shiller's words just now had almost shattered Bruce's already thin defenses.
Bruce had almost burst into tears this morning when he saw the two plates of pure vegetable salad that Shiller had brought in.
Bruce's rationality told him that this was far from normal. However, most of the time, rationality proves ineffective for normal people, let alone controlling a lunatic.
So Bruce sat quietly on the sofa. The changing light and shadow behind the floor-to-ceiling window revealed one Bruce image after another.
Some stood by the window, punching the serial killer who had tried to climb in. Some bent down and dragged the fallen killer out the door, others knelt down to clean up the broken glass.
Countless shadows came in and out of the room, with only one unique figure, holding a wine glass, standing by the door in the corner of the room, silently watching everything. That was Shiller.
In a very slow motion, Bruce turned his head, through countless shards of space and time, and met Shiller's eyes.
With a faint crack, the illusion in front of him shattered. The second Bruce regained consciousness, he found himself soaked in cold sweat. Shiller, who had just come out from the rest area, glanced at his watch and hurried towards the office door.
Bruce abruptly turned his head towards the window. The morning light had long been replaced by bright moonlight. He then turned his gaze to the clock hanging on the office wall. It was 10:52. Only eight minutes until 11 o'clock.
Shiller's hand was already on the door handle of the office. When he put strength into his arm to turn the knob, the entire office seemed to freeze.
Bruce, unaffected, stood up, walked behind Shiller, and said to him, "You cannot go out to murder, Professor."
The door handle didn't stop turning. Standing in place, Bruce vigorously shook his head and said, "No, this won't work."
Next, he stepped forward and reached out to touch Shiller's shoulder. But in an instant, he felt the world spin and found himself lying on the floor. Shiller towered over him, a blood-stained boning knife in his hand.
Non-existent pain jolted Bruce awake, with Shiller having already cracked the door open.
Bruce got up, walked swiftly to Shiller's back. Shiller, after pushing the door open, didn't leave immediately. Instead, he stood outside, turned to look at the Bruce behind him. His closed eyelids and desolate grey eyes were like an ultimatum.
Bruce opened his mouth slightly, and said:
"You don't have to go out anymore."