"For a long time, my morbid tendencies were completely submerged in my subconscious. The floor separating them was very solid. Can you guess who built it?"
Natasha didn't need to guess, but she played along and said, "I guess that would be the doctor who helped you heal."
"Healing is not exactly accurate. He was just an ordinary man with no ability to cure something like a terminal case of solitude, but he did have a strong interest in the concept of healing."
"So, he sealed away your morbid tendencies with a floor?"
"Yes, in those original circumstances, that was the case. If I had been content with my situation and had no plans to escape my social environment back then, living like that for the rest of my life would have been enough. It was safe enough."
Surprisingly, Shiller spoke candidly, even not avoiding terms such as "that original world". Natasha was not surprised. As an objective individual who did not have a deep friendship with Shiller, she could see more clearly.
"But since university life was so dull and boring, please note, my morbid tendencies were completely sealed away. This means I had no abnormal hobbies, no pursuit of excitement, it's just that college life was too boring for me, because I was not only familiar with those subjects, but had long experienced them in practice."
"A major downside of precociousness." Natasha shrugged and said, "Certain parents like to make their children learn knowledge not suitable for their age, whether they can get a head start, I'm not sure, but by the time they review it the second time, they're certain to lose a lot of interest."
Shiller nodded in agreement and then continued, "Then I went abroad and, in an environment with no oversight, I developed a few small hobbies. Then I realized that just sealing away the morbid tendencies wasn't enough."
The two had already exited the darkness as they spoke. They had reached the vicinity of that hole, but it was nothing more than a hole, and nothing remarkable. The light that came from inside was too dazzling. Natasha was unable to see the full picture of the other side of the Tower of Thought through that hole.
Then they continued to walk on. Natasha did not know where they were headed next, but along the way she heard Shiller say,
"My primal desires were greatly influenced by morbid tendencies during my growth. Even if the morbid tendencies themselves were sealed away, they still affected me in many ways."
"That doctor only sealed away my morbid tendencies, he couldn't possibly seal away all of my emotions and desires. It was neither necessary nor achievable, so I still chose the path of revenge out of anger and came to this country to investigate the tragedy that occurred in the orphanage."
"I unravelled it bit by bit, slowly identifying the people involved, but my first accident occurred when I killed an oil industry businessman."
"As you can imagine, I knew I was capable of stealth and assassination, and confident that they wouldn't be able to find me in a short time. I did exactly that, the only problem was that after I slit his throat as planned, I felt an indescribable excitement."
"My body was trembling, my heart rate completely beyond the normal range, there was no connection between my brain and body, and they were completely out of control." Shiller took a deep breath, as if still somewhat scared, "There was even a period of memory loss."
"When my consciousness returned to my brain, I found myself with the corpse, in the apartment I was renting."
"I might have been lucky. The businessman had a wife and son who had been living separately for years and were eager to inherit a large fortune. They quickly handled the disappearance of the businessman without triggering any waves. I escaped by chance. In that state, it really was just luck."
"So this is what you meant by 'problems arose before reaching the point of no return.'" Natasha stared at Shiller, then squinted and said, "I think this is the first time I've heard of someone being so excited after a kill that they couldn't normally leave the scene of a crime..."
"The first time was the most serious." Shiller continued with his reminiscence, "The next few times were better, but then another problem came up."
"I felt excited when I killed, so to find a solution to that, I continued to bait my targets. After doing this multiple times, I noticed some changes."
"What was it?" Natasha had a bad feeling, but she still asked.
"I am not a purist. There were many people at school who pursued me. I chose a girl who only wanted a one-night stand with me, seeking to create an alibi. Then I discovered that some kind of reverse conditioned response had happened."
"The moment I got excited, my first reaction was to kill her."
Natasha was stunned. She was silent for a while before turning her gaze to Shiller and saying, "I do hope men to be straightforward in their stories, but not this type of straightforwardness... Can this even cause a conditioned reflex?"
"That's the problem." Shiller exhaled deeply, "I speculate that the repressed morbid tendencies gave stronger excitement to certain behaviors, reinforcing my reflexes and associating them with causing death and killing, leading to this result."
"And what I am going to show you is..." Shiller paused slightly, and Natasha had already seen some vague figures in the darkness before her.
She took another step forward and heard a "swoosh", as if a stone had been kicked off a cliff. Looking closely, an abyss lay at Natasha's feet.
"Opposite to the Tower of Thought, this is the abyss of thought that leads from my subconscious to the surface of my consciousness. It was once the prison of my morbid tendencies - my prison."
Natasha turned her head towards him, her gaze becoming even more focused in the darkness, she asked, "Are you morbid?"
"We all are. Before this, we coexisted with other traits within our subconscious." Shiller stood on the edge of the cliff, stomping his foot forcefully on the ground and saying, "The sturdy wall built by the psychologist using social rules and morality is called the 'Superego'."
"When the sturdy floor appears, all the primal desires greatly affected by the morbidity are cast into the abyss of thought below the floor, including lust, gluttony, envy and so on. Also included are skills unnecessary in peaceful society, such as manipulation, hunting, tormenting, as well as some twisted theories and ideas, like art."
"Steven mentioned that he has encountered a man wearing a patterned tie in your Tower of Thought, claiming to be morbidity."
"He is manipulation and also the source of morbid contamination." Shiller said as he gazed down at the abyss of thought. "You could consider the situation of the Abyss and Tower of Thought as parallels. Should you descend now, you would see a fair amount of Shillers within this abyss. Morbidity contrasts normality, formed of many fragments, though ours are more tightly connected."
"In fact, many among us have ventured out to get a breath of air, after coming to this world and creating the hole."
Just as Natasha was about to ask, Shiller began to explain: "Evidently, this world does not belong to peaceful rule society. It is first not peaceful, and secondly, the social rules I remember do not apply here."
"Aggressive personalities are the guarantee of survival in a dangerous world, thus, the Superego tends to turn a blind eye, allowing Arrogance to create a hole in the floor using the characteristics of a particular world."
"So, what's the deal with the elevator?"
"What's the point of pretending to be reluctant now?" Shiller chuckled and said, "Moving back and forth from the hole every day is tiresome, so why not just build an elevator."
"How interesting." Natasha exclaimed with a smirk, "Could you tell me who's who among these morbid traits, and what they've done?"
"Do you plan on recording it into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s confidential files?"
Natasha shook her head and said: "It's purely for my own interest."
"Manipulation is the most ancient one, you can consider it as the source of morbidity. It was born during the early stages of those mysterious organization's experiments. It absorbed all the morbid knowledge there, documented all the trauma and pain, these things are like the nourishment for morbidity."
"Gluttony has surfaced numerous times but because on one occasion he lost his manners whilst dining, biting more than a few mouthfuls from someone else's food, the elevator is temporarily not open for him."
"Hunting and Art have collaborated on some serial killings involving mutilation of corpses. Although those who died weren't exactly saints, before you came down, Art did tell me that he wanted to freeze you using liquid nitrogen and place you on a ballet stage."
Natasha shuddered. Suddenly she seemed to recognize something, her eyes flitted left and right, then glanced from under her eyelashes at Shiller, smiling knowingly, she said, "If my deductions are correct, you would be the notorious…"
"You can call me the 'fuse resulting from the combined effort of a psychopathic murderer, sadist, psychic, and perverted artist and various other monsters.'"
"Thanks for ruining the mood."
Natasha began to ponder again over the logical contradiction and started counting with her fingers, "Killing excites you leading to excitement causing you to kill. So, is the mediating factor only killing? Can't it be replaced with something more gentle?"
"The main point of this problem is that even if you solve my problem, there remains a heap of morbid problems awaiting resolution."
"Such as?"
"Gluttony eats everything."
Natasha suddenly understood what he meant, she shivered again while Shiller continued, "Morbid traits link more closely than normal. Once a morbid need is satisfied, all traits manifest, like Manipulation and Gluttony, Hunting and Artistry, Cruelty and Lust, unable to distinguish from one another."
"Then I think you being single is just as well." Natasha candidly said: "There hasn't been anyone by your side who matches your aesthetic yet, has there? If there is, we'll transfer him away immediately."
"No, not yet."
Shiller's words initially put Natasha at ease, yet what followed caused her heart to leap into her throat.
"But I am planning on fishing for one."