Such a personality was obviously not satisfactory. When Pamela was a little girl, her quiet and sensible nature was considered advantageous, which was why she was chosen.
However, as Pamela grew older, her foster mother finally realized that Pamela was sick.
This wasn't an insult spat out in anger but a precise description. Pamela displayed an innate indifference and detachment to everything, showing interest in nothing.
This wasn't a hereditary trait. Pamela did not feel disconnected; it just seemed like the organs in her body that secreted excitatory substances hadn't been functioning for a long time. But this wasn't depression. She often spiraled downwards, yet wasn't afraid of the descent. This was her normal state.
This kind of personality made it difficult for her to radiate charm. Being well-versed in music, chess, literature, and art, while beneficial, didn't make much difference. In this field, sexual appeal was critical and everything else was just complementary. Though beautiful, Pamela seemed soulless.
More importantly, Pamela's indifference and apathy were often interpreted as contempt by others. Whereas others might feign superiority as a part of their public image, Pamela truly looked down upon everyone in this world with a sense of equality.
Clearly, Pamela's education had failed. Her foster mother tried for a long time, employing various methods, even resorting to more severe measures, but Pamela remained unmoved, her sickness gradually worsening like a piece of rotten, uncarvable wood.
Such a product was worthless, but the resources and effort invested in nurturing her were significant. More importantly, this failure shattered her foster mother's undefeated record, illustrating that her parenting methods were not necessarily correct and that her previous successes had perhaps merely been a stroke of luck.
Pamela's foster mother was outraged.
What happened after was not written in the records and Anna never asked. In any case, when Pamela was sixteen, her foster mother was convicted of abuse. All of her foster girls, except for her biological daughter, testified against her. Yet, the biological daughter defended their mother by exploiting her privilege, resulting in the mother's confinement in a mental hospital.
Pamela escaped from her foster mother and returned to Gotham alone. There, she resumed her studies with the compensation she received. Her grades weren't very high, but they were enough for her to apply to Gotham University.
Anna and Victor speculated that the outraged foster mother must have abused Pamela as they had occasionally spotted older injuries on Pamela's body. They assumed that these were inflicted by her foster mother.
Shiller's conjecture was darker. Considering Pamela's orientations, she speculated that her foster mother might have tried to forcefully hand over her foster daughter to a man. Pamela, however, did not let her hai aim. This might have resulted in serious harm, which raised public attention, thereby exposing her foster mother.
These were all just conjectures of Shiller. Poison Ivy's backstory had already undergone multiple major revisions, and there was no decisive conclusion in many universes.
The only certainty was that the fate of Poison Ivy in this universe had been completely changed. Dr. Jason Wood, the man who originally poisoned her with plant toxin, was already dead. However, Pamela still became the spokesperson of All Things Green.
This means, while Pamela is not Poison Ivy anymore, she is still a plant-based magician, a top-tier existence comparable to Constantine and Zatanna.
Initially, Shiller only had this much information, until the last midsummer night in Gotham.
The rain that night was a sign of the end of this long summer. The cold air along with the torrential downpour was a refreshing change from the persistent drizzles of Gotham. The whole world was enveloped by a thick curtain of rain.
Tired of the incessant drizzle, Shiller developed an interest in the normal rainstorm. He positioned a chair on the second floor, listening to the raindrops hitting the thick leaves, watching the waves in his garden pond, and the mist rising from the soft soil.
Water is the source of all life and under the curtain of rain, the plants seemed brighter. And the branches, resisting the force of the storm, sang a mighty song of life.
However, Shiller soon noticed that the vines behind the large tree in the middle of the estate were a bit too resilient. They were not hit down by the heavy raindrops but instead kept growing higher and faster.
A shadow moved—that was the Little Devil Hexagon bathing in the rain. He had been a potted plant in Shiller's estate for a long time. Merkel's extravagant gardening techniques were just right for him, as he liked to sunbathe and enjoy a hot bath; it made him feel at home, much like in Hell.
While he was scrubbing his back with his tentacles, he felt a heavy shadow hit two of them. His reflex was to coil them back, drawing a shout from the second floor of the estate.
"Hexagon! Hexagon! Put her down!"
Hexagon turned around to see that he had caught a woman with his tentacles. In a hurry, he carefully placed her on the nearby vines, seeing Shiller approaching with an umbrella.
"What happened?" Shiller questioned.
Hexagon waved his tentacles indicating his ignorance about the situation. Shiller looked up to see walls full of vines and then looked down to find Pamela lying under the tree.
She was wearing a hoodie and jeans, soaked in rain. Her red hair was sticking to her cheeks. When Shiller turned her over, he found her eyes open but somewhat lifeless.
Shiller checked her pulse on her neck—it was weak but not life-threatening. He checked her temperature; it was well above average. Pamela was running a high fever.
Merkel also rushed out, then was sent back by Shiller to grab a blanket, they quickly wrapped Pamela in a thick blanket and carried her back to the fireplace in the mansion.
Merkel began to wipe Pamela's body with alcohol to reduce her fever, while Shiller checked her eye responses. Eventually, they determined that Pamela's unconscious state was probably caused by a high fever, and there seemed to be no other issues.
Shiller made a call to the social services department and soon two female social workers arrived to bathe Pamela in warm water and change her clothes. One of them, who had nursing experience, took her temperature and examined her body, informing Shiller that Pamela had no external injuries, so her fever was not caused by an infection.
With this information, Shiller was fairly certain that Pamela's condition was likely due to emotional problems leading her to lose control. After she got drenched in the rain and caught a chill, he gave her some fever reducers and she slept late into the night.
During this time, Shiller conducted a brief profile of Pamela, once again not requiring her to answer any questions, but rather relying on heavenly-human intuition to make guesses.
Although Pamela's background was unusual, it wasn't complicated. The only problem was that there was no evidence to indicate where Pamela's unique affinity for plants came from.
Shiller believed that the problem likely lay with Pamela's biological parents.
Pamela was adopted at the age of 5, which is quite young for most children. Consequently, her memories may not be very clear, but Shiller knew that Pamela was also a genius.
In casual chats with Anna and in the accounts of law enforcement officials dealing with her foster mother's abuse case, Pamela seemed to deliberately obscure her biological parents. No one would question a small girl who lost her parents at the age of four or five not remembering them, but in Shiller's view, this was highly suspicious.
If Pamela's cold and numb character actually came from her biological parents, then perhaps her love for plants stemmed from the same place.
What did her biological parents do?
Shiller sat by Pamela's bed with paper and pen, creating a psychological portrait and sketching random lines until 11 o'clock in the evening, when Pamela's fever subsided and she slowly woke up from her coma.
Pamela first turned to look at Shiller with lifeless eyes, then at the rain outside the window, and finally began to communicate with Shiller through eye contact.
From her expression, it was evident she didn't expect her signals to be effective, but Shiller stood up nonetheless, walked around her bed, and pulled back the window curtains, revealing a lush green landscape outside.
Pamela, looking somewhat surprised, stared at Shiller as he approached, he then helped her sit up, propped up her upper body with pillows, and removed her still slightly damp long hair from behind her neck and the crease of the pillow.
Pamela sank back onto the pillow with a sense of comfortable languor. She glanced down at her own clothes, then looked back at Shiller.
"Ms. Huckley, your social worker, is a retired nurse, and your Professor Anna is slightly taller and leaner than you, so her clothes might not fit very well. If you need, give me an address, and I'll have my butler pick them up for you."
"Very gentlemanly, Professor, but I've forgotten whether I've done my homework."
"You have no more psychology assignments." Shiller sat back at the head of the bed, smoothed out the comforter on the bed, and said, "This is your final academic year, you'll be graduating soon."
Pamela gazed out the window. There were no lights on in the guest room, hence only the edge of her cheek was illuminated by the light filtering through the rain outside. It was a cold light, carrying damp mist that made her downy facial hair clearly visible.
This is a sign of youthful tenderness, Shiller thought, on young, supple skin, these tiny hairs would crowd together like a patch of grass and then fade with aging, turning wrinkled and dry.
"Forget about the homework." Shiller spoke softly, "You just had a high fever. It's unusual for adults to have such high temperatures, and you were drenched in my garden."
"I'm sorry, when I'm ill, my abilities become uncontrolled. Once I'm better, I will rebuild your garden, Professor."
"Also forget about my garden. Even if you hadn't fallen in, the plants would be in disarray after such a storm, and Merkel clearly can't handle it."
"So will you come to find me then? Professor?"
"I believe you will come to find me." Shiller crossed his legs and said, "You'll remember there are plants here that need help."
"Rather than people who need help?"
"I don't need help, Pamela." Shiller looked into Pamela's eyes and said, "You help plants so they can live better, not to make my garden prettier."
"This is the most significant difference between you and other gardeners, and why you can do better than them. The plants that grow with your help in the garden are much more than decorative items, they are more like powerful lives."