Shiller, who had just pushed the brazier onto Katy or Clayface, looked calm as if he hadn't done anything.
Captain Marvel, Carol, looked at Shiller with suspicion. Shiller sighed lightly, his hands retreated back into the pockets of his white coat. He saw that the brazier on the table had disappeared, replaced by the diamond-shaped pattern in front of each of them, hinting that they could leave the game just as they did when they registered by placing their hands on it.
Shiller turned his head to look at Carol and asked, "Ma'am, why aren't you leaving?"
"No, I just want to know what exactly..."
Joker impatiently yelled, "Your acting is terrible, stop manipulating that stupid face of yours!"
Suddenly, he twitched the muscles on one side of his nose and looked coldly at Carol. "Otherwise, I'll cut it open and see what's inside."
Startled, Carol was about to roar out, but Shiller let out a sigh again. For some reason, the doctor's voice always seemed very out of place in this room because it was too calm, completely out of place for a competition game.
"Ma'am, the game is over. Let's talk about you seriously. If you don't want to know the truth, why not leave the game?"
Carol looked at Shiller, shocked and suspicious, staring into Shiller's focused eyes. After dozens of seconds, all the shock, fear, and panic on her face completely vanished, like a melted mask.
Then, starting from her forehead, Carol's skin gradually turned blue. Her fair skin faded away in an instant, revealing Mystique's, Riven's, face.
"When did Clayface and I give ourselves away?" she asked, obviously looking to confirm her own flaws from the two of them.
To her surprise, both Shiller and Joker sighed at the same time.
Joker leaned his right side on the table, elbow propped on the table, jacket hitched up at his waist, and gestured to Mystique Riven, saying, "You mutants are all alike. I'm starting to doubt that you all graduated from the same school."
Rakshasa woman deeply furrowed her brow. Although she was not Carol, she also found Joker crazily irritating, so she could only look at Shiller.
"Ma'am, he's not wrong. You and Clayface share a common trait. Because of your innate talent for imitation, you overlook the essence of imitation."
Mystique was about to say something, but Shiller held up a finger and placed the base of his wrist on the table, and said, "Let me finish, ma'am. The biggest difference between you and an ordinary human actor is that you can become exactly like the person you want to imitate, with no difference in appearance."
"Without a doubt, this is enough to deceive most people. Your opponents are also ordinary people; they won't remember a person's daily habits, they won't know the unique intonation of certain words, they don't care which foot is stronger when they walk."
"Of course, dealing with agents could be more troublesome, but because your appearance disguise is flawless, people cannot continue to question, because when they know there is a perfect imitator, anyone around could be you – if they suspect everyone, they wouldn't be able to live."
"As this continues, the biggest suspicion you've encountered is nothing more than a few probing looks that were quickly rationalized and dismissed."
"Before imitating someone, you don't need to understand their background, living habits, personality traits, emotional characteristics, mental activities, etc. – all of these constitute a person's mental essence."
"Because the physical imitation is too invincible, after a long time, you relaxed your own acting skills and no longer tried to figure out the character's personality and psychology, causing the roles you played to become stereotyped and flat."
Shiller gathered his fingers together and pinched, saying, "You and Clayface give me the feeling of two walking pieces of paper -- a timid, shy and slightly clever little girl, a pretty ditzy, emotional neurotic woman. But are they really like that?"
"Everyone has a comfort zone, and your comfort zone is that you only imitate their personalities in front of you, but you don't care about how their personality forms such a character."
"More importantly, when you were imitating these characters, you didn't control your own emotions well and put your own prejudice against the characters too much."
"If I'm not guessing wrong, you and Captain Marvel are not on good terms, but that's understandable. The Mutant Brotherhood and S.H.I.E.L.D. are at odds after all, and Captain Marvel is essentially a firefighter for S.H.I.E.L.D."
"It's even possible that from the first time you met Captain Marvel, you two were subtly opposed because of the differences in your positions. She couldn't possibly leave you with a good impression."
"Most likely, she's pretty but stupid, impulsive, emotionally unstable, and unreasonably dominant – but is she really like that?"
Mystique Riven's lips moved a bit. She wanted to give a definite answer, but Shiller shook his head and said, "I don't deny that part of her personality is like that, especially when dealing with the Mutant Brotherhood, she may indeed have no patience and often resort to using force to warn or expel."
"But if you had known about her life before imitating her, you would know that this is a common attitude of agents when dealing with enemies during a mission. Even if she wasn't so powerful, she wouldn't be gentle with enemies."
"But you regarded this as her entirety – you thought she should be like this, so you imitated her like that."
"But aren't you just using the fact that you happen to know about Captain Marvel's life to expose me?" Mystique Riven retorted.
"Hahahaha!" Joker let out a laugh, bending his waist and slapping the table in amusement. Shiller exhaled breathlessly, appearing slightly helpless.
Mystique Riven looked at the two of them, puzzled. She didn't understand what kind of riddle they were playing.
"Ma'am, I have to say, you might need to improve your ability to think independently. Haven't you noticed that your thinking has been led by me from the beginning?"
"Are you starting to doubt your acting skills? Or do you actually want to spend a considerable amount of time understanding the life of each target you mimic?"
"Your actual flaw is not in these areas." Shiller chuckled, "Why would Captain Marvel, Carol, choose an intelligence game?"
Stunned, Mystique Riven stayed silent.
"Your actions are very contradictory. You know you are an intellectual character and should participate in intellectual games, yet you are unwilling to give up your biggest asset and choose a person to mimic."
"Perhaps you wanted to kill two birds with one stone. Knowing the possibility of having spectators, you portrayed Captain Marvel as a stupid, emotionally uncontrollable woman. When Captain Marvel finally gets to the other teammates, they may worry about her over-excited emotions hurting them and instinctively exclude her."
"Have you ladies had any disagreements recently?"
Mystique Riven's face darkened, she rolled her eyes to the side, covered her mouth with her hand and mumbled, "She had a quarrel with Rakshasa Woman."
Shiller subtly lifted his chin indicatively. Rakshasa Woman was Mystique's adopted daughter, arguably the person Mystique Riven cared most about in this world.
At the same time, Rakshasa Woman and Captain Marvel were not strangers. Rakshasa Woman had absorbed some of her superpowers from Captain Marvel. Hence, the backstory is plain to see.
It's very likely that before coming to this universe, Rakshasa Woman quarreled with Captain Marvel Carol for some unknown reason. Angrily, she ran back to Mystique, complained a bit.
Mystique Riven was excessively protective over her, but before she had a chance to confront Captain Marvel Carol, she was pulled into this universe. Hearing that there were superheroes from various parallel universes in this game, she naturally wanted to set a trap for Captain Marvel.
Any excessive love carries possessiveness, Mystique Riven's love for Rakshasa Women was probably no exception. She was probably discontented with her adopted daughter spending time with Captain Marvel and instinctively viewed Carol as a big-breasted, brainless woman who can only rush recklessly.
Indeed, Mystique Riven snorted, "I only wanted to play a typical, stupid white female character so people would find my performance reasonable; after all, Carol isn't widely known."
After that, Mystique Riven turned her attention to a sludge trace on the ground and asked, "What about him?"
"Same rationale as you." Joker sneered at one side, "You all have participated in the first round of the game, right?"
Mystique Riven nodded. Without anyone pointing out, everyone present knew that characters with perfect mimicry abilities would naturally want to participate in the game as quickly as possible. The sooner they gathered information, the more advantage they had.
"This idiot did the same and picked what he thought was a perfect character to play from the teammates matched in the first round of the game, a little girl who would make most people let down their guard. But his acting is even worse than yours."
"What was the problem?"
"You all have the same mindset. You all want to mimic the characters you're playing to a high degree but don't want to give up your advantages."
"He clearly played an innocent, naive little girl, but as soon as the door opened, he yelled out your name. The malicious intent to expose your identity was written all over his face," Shiller explained.
"Sure, he could argue it was a slip of the tongue, but then his actions and mannerisms—cautiously observing his surroundings, estimating the height of the ceiling, silently calculating the temperature of the stove in his mind—are clearly not the actions of an unintelligent little girl."
"His biggest flaw is similar to yours. Shadow Cat Kitty's mutant ability is quite advantageous. Teleporting any time is a god-like technique. She should definitely lean towards participating in courage or unity type games that are more likely not to limit her ability rather than intelligence games."
Mystique Riven nodded. She knew Shadow Cat Kitty, another mutant, better than others, albeit only slightly more, as she was a member of the Mutant Brotherhood, not the X-Men. That's why she couldn't tell earlier.
"Then, ma'am, please leave first. Mr. Joker and I still have some matters to discuss."
"Why should I... "
The dark muzzle of a gun appeared in the center of Mystique Riven's vision. The corners of Joker's mouth are open wide behind the gun.
Mystique Riven recalled the previous system prompt, all aggressive props and abilities would return after the game ended. Joker said that he came here while robbing a bank with a gun.
Mystique Riven had no choice but to place her hand on the table and disappeared with a "whoosh."
Joker turned to Shiller with a seemingly amused look, curious about what Shiller wanted to tell him. But Shiller didn't say anything. He just clenched one hand into a fist and presented it in front of Joker as if offering a treasure.
Joker also curiously leaned over to take a look, Shiller "whoosh" opened his hand. There was nothing in it, but there was a burn mark taking up half of his hand where the skin was burnt off.
This was the price of forcefully pushing the brazier.
Joker's eyes went wide, his mouth formed into an O shape. He looked at Shiller with surprised eyes, "Your human skin!"
Shiller revealed a bright smile, "Well… it's got a tear in the corner."