Bruce averted his eyes and said, "It's not entirely because of that."
"Shiller's situation is really bad," Angela nervously fidgeted with her cup as she said, "You heard it too, he's not interested in defending himself."
"I know, I know, one should admit their mistakes, reflect on them, and aim to do better not to escape. As a professor often in a high position, admitting one's mistakes and reflecting on oneself is rare."
"But admitting your missteps should be done at an appropriate time. Isn't his admission now offering an opportunity to those who want to drag him into the abyss?"
Angela seemed very helpless, she shook her head quickly as she leaned back in her chair and said, "From a fair point of view, I shouldn't protect him, but this was already an unfair trial. He should've used his expertise more aggressively to protect himself, but it seems like he's given up the fight."
"I don't think he will go to prison, and even if he does, life in Gotham's prison is no different from the outside. But if an unjust verdict is truly pronounced and becomes part of public perception, he'll never be able to publish any results or be a professor again."
"I don't know if you can see, but he really values his educational career. He takes pride in being a teacher, in educating people diligently. Even though mistakes have been made, who afterall doesn't make mistakes?"
Angela kept rambling on, seemingly worried that Bruce wouldn't understand. Her interactions with Bruce were few, so she didn't know about Bruce's relationship with Shiller, assuming Bruce was just an ordinary student.
She sought help from Bruce thinking that the master of Wayne Enterprises wouldn't accept any damage to his reputation. Even if she hadn't mentioned it, Bruce was even more anxious than her.
If Black Mask Rhomann became somewhat extreme perhaps due to his innate lack of emotion and his upbringing, with the main error attributed to his father, then Thomas truly was a pure psychopath.
From what Bruce knew, the Elliot couple, Thomas's parents, were quite popular and gentle people. Their parenting was commendable, at least not fundamentally wrong.
However, Thomas was crazily infatuated with Batman and Bruce Wayne. He even murdered his parents and attempted facial surgery to look like him. Failing to retaliate against Batman, he began to retaliate against society.
This level of extremism wasn't something that could be changed by how much a university professor cared for him. Instead, it was a good thing that Shiller hadn't noticed him. If Shiller had found earlier that there was such a lunatic in Gotham University, he might not be facing imprisonment, but execution instead.
Thinking about this, Bruce was furious. It's tolerable for these two to be bad; after all, Gotham had its fair share of villains. But what really pissed people off was that these two were so stupid they didn't know they were being incited and used by others. They were simply a disgrace to the people of Gotham.
Yes, Bruce believed that Rhomann and Thomas might have been incited by others because their frequent blunders at Shiller's office suggested they wouldn't be capable of accusing Shiller using their student status to tarnish his cherished educational career.
At the same time, Bruce was also clear, what Victor had said was right. He and Shiller had hurt each other. Shiller led to him questioning his emotional control abilities, and he had given Shiller quite a blow,
Despite four years of deep attention, he was still elusive in the end. This was a significant blow for any teacher. To add to that, the world knew Batman was intellectually superior, so if he didn't learn, whose problem was that?
In other words, each time Batman failed to achieve the expected result in psychology, Shiller might have started questioning his own teaching methods considering how high Batman's IQ was.
Bruce also self-reflected on the reason for his failure in the previous exam.
He thought that the main reason might be that he had handled a series of criminals successfully using new ideas previously, which made him a bit complacent.
Or perhaps, he thought he had already mastered this psychological shortcut, focusing too much on his adversary's emotional changes, and weakening his prided observational skills and skepticism. Otherwise, he wouldn't have suspected who would call the Gotham police and provide them clues, which was essentially absurd.
Normally, he needed to find a balance between his focus on others' feelings and factual evidence, so that these two approaches could complement each other and offer maximal aid.
On the contrary, like his previous state, focusing too much on factual evidence in legal situations, and being overly interested in others' emotional changes and verbal inconsistencies would ultimately be biased.
Bruce's learning abilities and capacity for self-reflection were freakishly good. He located the crux of the problem within a day, adjusting his mindset, but the problem was that his professor seemed to be heading towards intentional negligence.
Bruce didn't doubt for a second that Shiller would definitely go to prison rather than continue to teach him. What he suspected more was that Shiller was planning to do exactly that.
Bruce hesitated, looked at Angela, and before he could ask, Angela directly replied, "It's impossible. They're watching him closely. I can't reach him, even if I could, I won't be able to convince him."
"Bruce, why don't you consider this, I was once his patient, if it's possible for me to convince him, how did he cure me in the first place?"
The two of them were silent as they looked at each other.
"The current problem is that Rhomann and Thomas are not accusing him because of Shiller's unfairness. Instead, they were incited by others. I think Shiller understands this, and the reason he didn't refute them is because he thinks he isn't good enough in this aspect." Angela started to analyze.
"If he wants to pay for his mistakes, he should pay them equally. He shouldn't be punished more by a group of people with ulterior motives, thereby ruining his professional career."
"I don't believe that he wouldn't have noticed that someone wants him to pay more. What I don't understand now is why doesn't he care? Nobody should be indifferent to such a thing, right?" Angela asked, somewhat puzzled.
Bruce cleared his throat gently and said, "Perhaps he feels teaching, compared to prison, is more painful."
"Why? Doesn't he love his teaching career very much?"
Bruce pursed his lips, looked up at Angela and said,
"The student he mentioned, who he was overly concerned about, taught with special care and favoritism, is me.
Angela slowly widened her eyes. She stared at Bruce's face for a whole tens of seconds before she opened her mouth and said,
"...No wonder he wants to go to jail."