Atlantic salmon migration season runs from August to September. It's never missing from upper class dining tables across the East Coast, which often serve tantalizing dishes of bright orange salmon. In addition to raw salmon slices, pan-seared salmon, herb salmon salad, and Italian Tuscan salmon are common dishes, often accompanied by a variety of seasonal vegetables.
The grand dining table at Rodrix Manor is only used for parties of six or more. The last time it was used was for the mages' final supper, where it took great effort to remove the lingering scent of reindeer meat. Nonetheless, Merkel and the chef had fortunately performed their duties well.
Shiller could see the surprised look on Lex's face when he entered the dining room alongside Merkel.
Lex turned to Shiller and asked, "Professor, do Gotham and Metropolis perceive a casual meal differently? Should I have dressed formally for this?"
"Not at all," Shiller shook his head and took his seat at the head of the table, gesturing for Lex to sit in the first seat on his right. Lex, visibly uneasy, sat down.
His discomfort was understandable. His outfit only consisted of a shirt – not even a formal one. His overcoat, a long trench coat, had already been taken by Merkel. Without a tie or bowtie, Lex was attempting to securely fasten his shirt sleeves to avoid scratching the marble table with his metal cufflinks.
Shiller was still dressed in a dark suit. The only difference from the previous day was the subtle pattern on his tie. After some careful scrutiny, Lex confirmed that this was indeed Professor Shiller, and not any other Shiller.
Known for being meticulous to the point of obsession, this professor ensured that even the shabbiest students tidied their appearance before entering his office, to avoid being stabbed with an umbrella – a popular rumor swirling around Gotham University that Lex believed wasn't just a tale.
Lex felt confused. If Shiller only intended to invite him to a simple dinner, there would definitely be smaller dining tables suitable for two at Rodrix Manor. If the occasion was indeed formal, the professor wouldn't joke or mislead him with his language. So what was going on?
Lex's worries eased a bit when the food was brought in by Merkel. The spread didn't look extravagant, as would be expected at grand banquets. The appetizer was raw salmon garnished with seaweed and tartar sauce, the soup a dried orange, pumpkin, and crab claw, and the main a puff pastry with creamed spinach sauce and pan-seared salmon. There was also a vinaigrette salad and pickled sour cherry cheese chiffon cake roll.
These dishes were quite ordinary and weren't from a specific cuisine. All of them could be whipped up in any average Western restaurant. The hot soup and main dish suggested that the food served was more for nourishment than for show.
Only after Shiller picked up his cutlery did Lex secure his napkin and begin to eat. However, he was still far from relaxed as he didn't know what Shiller wanted to discuss.
Speaking with this professor alone was a pressurizing affair, which is why he had suggested they communicate via email if there were issues with his thesis.
Many Gotham University students admitted that they'd never expected email exchanges to be so convenient and efficient. If they were to abandon this method and turn to meeting Shiller in person, they would require a week to recover from the psychological trauma.
Lex was already considering canceling his work for the coming week. He couldn't completely dismiss his feeling of guilt, as his graduation journey hadn't exactly been straightforward. He had a strong premonition of a reprimand.
So, he decided to preempt it.
"Professor," he began his speech, "I must confess that the graduation season is a challenging time for everyone. Professors are busy with a multitude of tasks, as are the students, and at the end of all this chaos, we're often exhausted."
"In reality, if we prepare ahead of time and complete most of our work within the learning process, perhaps all of this could be avoided. Don't you think so?"
Lex elegantly cut his food and conversed, taking the time to chew his food during pauses, exemplifying the epitome of good dining etiquette.
"Don't be so tense, Lex," Shiller seemed to read his emotions from his mannerisms and said, "Although I have been consistently tracking your academic progress and regret not having been able to contribute more to it, we don't need to constantly talk about it."
Lex was more confused now. He paused for less than a second, quickly glanced at Shiller's expression, and said, "I agree, the intention wasn't to use your rest time to discuss academic matters. However, I've been a bit busy recently, and there were some formatting issues with the forms I submitted to Professor Fries, so we couldn't discuss my subject in depth, which is indeed regrettable."
"You handed over all your design sketches and tables to Victor. How long did it take you to organize those?"
"Approximately a week," Lex cut a piece of salmon and replied, "I had to change the work medium during the creation process, so the diagrams in the software tool needed to be exported and printed. It was a bit tricky, leading to errors and slight delays."
"But Professor Fries was quite lenient. He asked me to submit the organized sections first. He could review those while I continued with the remaining revisions, which significantly improved our efficiency."
"Sounds like a perfect collaboration."
"Always, Professor."
During this conversation, Shiller noticed a peculiar trait in Lex; he always steered the topic towards an area he was confident about. He had demonstrated this skill in previous group meetings chaired by Shiller, and nobody found anything amiss.
The topics he brought up were always relevant and insightful, thereby keeping listeners engaged for extended periods, until it was time to wrap up the conversation. It was indeed a delightful communication experience.
Lex Luther was a speaker who could expertly guide his audience to attentively listen to him, the complete antithesis to Batman.
Shiller began to feel curious. Was this a skill he honed during his battles with shareholders, or was it innate? It was a talent superior to perfect diction, and almost amounted to manipulation.
Shiller decided to probe a little.
"I think your decision to prioritize dealing with Victor's academics is correct, it will give us more time together."
"About two weeks ago, I sent the final draft of the paper to your inbox. In your reply, I detected approval, although there could be some details to fine-tune."
"I think we need not spend more of our leisure time discussing this," Shiller swallowed a piece of fish as he spoke, "This is remarkably private time, how does the food taste?"
"Quite good, professor, I can't say I particularly enjoy them because I don't really know what I enjoy eating. I only know that their taste is pleasant, and they are perhaps nutritionally valuable."
Lex smiled, scooped a piece of soup and commented, "Whenever it's salmon migration season, usually in autumn, protein intake becomes more pleasurable. The taste of fish is entirely different from other red meats, and they have a natural flavor."
"Do you prefer them raw or cooked?"
"Cooked, with a hint of butter and herbs," Lex responded with a very specific answer, "I'm not an ardent lover of seasonings, but spices have existed in human history for such a long time and have become an indispensable part of our diet. In short, they taste good."
Both Lex and Shiller smiled, Shiller got the answer he wanted. This was an innate, not an acquired skill.
Indeed, taking control of a conversation with Shiller was challenging. The discussions always developed into a pattern of Shiller asking, and the others answering.
Because Shiller inherently exuded an oppressing aura during a conversation. It was a temperament borne from a loneliness disorder with a touch of neuroticism, making people feel his moods are unpredictable, and every word and statement he made possessed profound implications.
Listening and understanding would gradually become difficult, demanding more time, and it was tough to discern from Shiller's expression and posture whether he endorsed certain things. This utterly inscrutable feeling could make people lose all sense of security anchoring their self.
Once they lost their equanimity, they would inevitably fall into a subordinate position, and the dialogue would always unfold as Shiller asking, others answering. Under such unsteady feelings and immense pressure that they might fall into the water at any moment, they couldn't muster the energy to express themselves and instead craved to accomplish tasks.
So, it was rare for anyone to express whether they liked or disliked something in front of Shiller, because expressing oneself requires courage and determination. Ordinary people would lose all they had within three rounds of conversation with Shiller and thus be trapped in a dialogue pitfall of desperately seeking a satisfactory and correct answer to please Shiller.
It was relatively difficult to maintain one's self in a conversation with Shiller because, if there was anything he couldn't control, it was perhaps this pressure-bringing temperament. This stemmed from his inherent morbid nature, making it hard to control freely.
However, in the recent conversation, Shiller's behavior was erratic. He initiated the topic of academics but quickly said not to intrude on personal time, leaving people puzzled.
Once they began to question if they had done something wrong that caused the topic to fall into a contradictory situation, the one-sided situation had become irretrievable.
When they were deep in thought, Shiller immediately presented another question — the taste of the dish. It was a simple question deliberately set. People would instinctively answer it as good.
As they were still feeling uneasy about the previous topic, they were often unable to say anything after giving a perfunctory general response as they were busy figuring out where they'd gone wrong.
Then they would belatedly come to their senses, wanting to add a few more words to not appear casual, but at that time, Shiller presented another multiple-choice question — raw or cooked?
The question came too quickly, not giving them time to ponder their feelings, so they had no choice but to rely on their intellect to make a choice.
They would think that they might have already missed one or even two chances, as they had responded perfunctorily when asked about the taste, appeared rude, and Shiller might be losing patience.
So, they would intuitively guess, not focusing on their preferences or the reasons behind their choices but trying to pick a correct one, or one that Shiller would like.
Then, only a very few detectives would start behavioral analysis to infer whether Shiller preferred raw or cooked salmon and, by impeccable deduction, provide a right answer to Shiller.
However, once Shiller started blaming them as hopeless for this "correctness", they would feel very aggrieved, continuously arguing and lamenting how perfect their deduction was and how right their answer was.
Shiller found he couldn't reminisce anymore; his blood pressure was rising again.