Shiller walked over to the peephole and looked outside, then realized that the ones standing at the door were none other than Scarecrow and Professor Pig.
Shiller opened the door and saw that Jonathan and Valentine still had gifts in their hands. He frowned and said, "Didn't you get the message that the banquet was canceled?"
"Of course, we got it, but we decided to come today because we might be busy for the next few days."
Jonathan walked right into the house as if he belonged there, looked around, and said with some confusion, "Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of accident? The house looks fine."
"That's because I just finished cleaning up."
"Cleaning up? You?" Jonathan said with disbelief.
Shiller couldn't be bothered to argue with him; he was still contemplating how to stitch up the large tear behind the Batman puppet. At that moment, Valentine walked over to the sofa and placed the gift box he brought on the table next to it.
"What are you going to do for the next few days?" Shiller asked.
Jonathan snorted coldly without responding, and Valentine mumbled a few words that Shiller couldn't make out clearly. So, he asked again, and Jonathan said impatiently, "Why are you asking? Can't we have some privacy?"
Shiller narrowed his eyes.
"What's wrong with this thing?" Valentine tried to pick up the Batman puppet with his muscular arms but almost failed to lift it.
"It got sliced up, and I've been thinking about how to sew it back together—it keeps showing the cotton." Shiller said, walking over and fiddling with the Batman puppet's wings.
"How do you sew it? Just use a thread, right? Don't you do operations?" Valentine said, puzzled.
"I'm a psychologist... Alright, the Shiller you know should be able to, but I can't."
"Do you have tools here? Such a common cut can be sewn up in three minutes, guaranteed to leave no scar."
Shiller thought it over; indeed, he did bring a set of surgical tools, so he went upstairs to find something for Valentine.
The advantage of not having a very big house is that no matter how good the soundproofing is, one can still hear a bit of noise from upstairs and downstairs.
"Do we really have to go?" Valentine seemed hesitant, and his voice floated down discontinuously, "It doesn't sound like a good gig… Maybe there's still room to…"
"…Rely on those medical insurance payouts? I don't want to move." Jonathan's voice, always slightly contemptuous, echoed in the house, "Besides, what's the difference who we work for? …Nothing big anyway…"
Shiller quickly brought the surgical tools, and Valentine began to sew up the tear on the back of the Batman puppet using surgical suturing techniques.
"Are you going out of town?" Shiller asked.
"We're not your prisoners!" Jonathan suddenly exploded, "Where we go is none of your business! Stop meddling with us!"
Shiller looked at him with slight disdain and said, "Caught in someone else's scheme, forced to work for them, don't make it sound so noble. You're not going to say you're doing it for freedom, are you?"
Jonathan turned red-faced with chagrin.
"It's not entirely because of the trap," Valentine said, seeming much more honest. "It's true we fell into the trap of our own making, but they offered a high price, and we have to eat."
"Would you shut up?" Jonathan was very dissatisfied with Valentine giving the game away and continued to make excuses, "How could those childish little traps possibly make us change our minds? We just want to be self-reliant. Is there anything wrong with that?"
"No, there isn't. If you hadn't described it as a 'childish little trap,' I'd really believe you're just after the money." Shiller said with a sneer.
"What gives you the right to judge me?!" Jonathan snapped, glaring at Shiller, "Don't think just because you've cleaned up the house I'm unaware of the chaos that occurred here before. Didn't you also fall for a 'childish little trap'?"
"But that only affected an insignificant party," Shiller said. "I still maintain the freedom that you desire so much."
"You two are sure to sweep first and second places in the stubborn contest," Valentine said cuttingly.
Both fell silent.
"I don't understand, Shiller," Jonathan said, with his arms crossed and truly puzzled. "What are you really doing? Why aren't you using your usually spot-on Mind Reading Technique? Can't you just punch someone the moment you sense they mean no good?"
"I'm a regular person, I can't read minds."
"Here we go again, my ears are already calloused from hearing that," Jonathan rolled his eyes and admitted, "I admit we were limited by our abilities and didn't avoid the trap. After all, everyone's struggling these days. I spent two nights in the chemical factory's lab for that damn project bonus, groggy as hell, so it's normal to be taken in."
"But you, you're a well-known psychologist. What exactly makes you compromise with these clumsy tactics? You don't seem to have any intention of showing them who's boss."
"Because I don't intend to do that," Shiller said. "You said it yourself, everyone's having a hard time. Can't I just live an ordinary life in peace?"
Jonathan muttered under his breath, but eventually said, "Anyway, I don't believe that with your ability and temperament, you would tolerate them dancing on your head."
"I have no intention of tolerating it. Someone's already had a taste of their own medicine," Shiller replied as he watched Valentine stitch up the wound.
Jonathan's eyebrows immediately perked up with interest as he leaned in and said, "How about I count down from three, and then we say that name together?"
"Childish little trap," Shiller remarked.
"Alright, I admit we need you, but I think that damn Clay will never let you go, he has a mysterious list, and it's full of people like us."
"What kind of people?"
"Freaks teetering on the edge of genius and madness," Jonathan continued to make excuses for himself. "You might as well call us high-IQ psychopaths."
"What did he do to you?"
"Nothing much." Jonathan curled his lip as he spoke, "They added something to my solution, which caused me to lose my job. The head of the project team was only too happy to pay out one less bonus and kicked me out immediately."
"And then he targeted you?"
"He manufactured a murder case and framed me for it. The methods were so crude that, if you saw the scene, you'd want to gouge out your own eyes."
"So he made you a tainted witness?"
"Of course he wanted me to work for him." Jonathan sighed, "To be honest, I don't really care about being framed. The guy who died was clearly no ordinary person; if he kept lurking around my house, I would have killed him sooner or later anyway."
"But the guy pays well." Jonathan tapped his temple as he said, "He not only offered to give me the project bonus but also a very high salary and even allowed me to draw an advance. You know about my house..."
"I heard you bought an apartment in the East District."
"That damn apartment." Jonathan cursed again. "After I bought it, the price dropped, but I still have to repay that damned high-interest mortgage. I should never have trusted this godforsaken city..."
"Get to the point," Valentine interrupted. "We can't stay at Arkham Psychiatric Hospital forever; we weren't crazy to begin with."
"More importantly, that broken-down hospital is too far from any factory." Jonathan frowned, "All the factories have moved to the west now. Are we expected to drive from the island across half of Gotham just to get to work?"
"Then why not stay put in the psychiatric hospital?"
"I don't want to repeat the fact that we're not insane, and more importantly, Jack has already bought a car and a house, so why can't we? And what about the guy upstairs? Whatever his name is—a crazy murderer—he even has a girlfriend now! And the crocodile, I don't even want to talk about it..."
"I just wanted to be a professor." Valentine said, "Gotham University Medical School has already approved my job application, just the interview to go, but then something unexpected happened on the way to the interview."
"And they framed you too?"
"Pretty much. Their dissection skills were so lousy that I couldn't stand it and had to do it properly myself, and I got caught red-handed."
"You're absolutely insane!" Jonathan scolded.
Valentine quietly continued sewing without speaking, while Shiller said, "It looks like you can't resist the temptation of high salary, but you also want to vent your anger, so you came to me."
"It's pretty much the case," Jonathan said. "You know we don't really care if people call us criminals, and with such a high salary on the line, it would be a waste not to take it. But their techniques in committing crimes and framing people are so appalling, I can't have such a revolting case on my criminal record..."
"Don't worry, as long as you don't bring it up, there won't be any stir in our circle," Shiller picked up the water bottle next to him to pour water as he spoke. "As for the regular news media, do you care about them?"
"They never get a shot of our faces anyway," Jonathan said with a sneer. "And those guys won't let them take any pictures either."
After Shiller had a drink of water, he went to pick up the gift box they brought over. Jonathan exhibited a bit of excitement as he said, "Are you going to open the present now? Take a look, we put a lot of thought into it."
"If there's a severed head inside, I'm kicking you all out."
"We wouldn't be that uncreative," Jonathan said confidently.
Shiller unwrapped the outer packaging, and to his surprise, inside was a gaudily colored box. He turned the box over to take a look—"The housewife's most trusted laundry mega kit, 6-in-1 effect to solve all your laundry problems."
Beneath that was a 'not for sale' label, and on closer inspection, Shiller realized the manufacturer was actually Jonathan's workplace.
"Isn't this your company?" Shiller asked with some confusion.
"You know where I work?!"
"Didn't you tell me yourself?" Shiller gave Jonathan a look as though he was an idiot, "You bragged on the chat board about joining a new company."
"I wouldn't say joining, I'm their consultant," Jonathan clarified. "The company that produces laundry products, this is the latest achievement of our project team."
Shiller opened the package, which advertised its catchphrase, and inside he found a large bottle of laundry detergent, two refill packs, a box of laundry pods, two stain remover sprays, a box of laundry powder, and a pack of fabric care beads.
"These are the samples I took before leaving the job; they're already on the market now and selling very well. These products can handle all scenarios of clothing cleaning needs."
Jonathan began to introduce the products to Shiller, "The laundry detergent is used in the washing machine for regular clothes, the laundry pods are for special fabric care and also go straight into the washer to ensure it doesn't damage clothes, leaving them with a long-lasting fragrance."
"The stain remover spray dissolves any grease and tough stains with just a spray, especially bloodstains, even if they've been there for a long time. The laundry powder is for pre-soaking large area stains and can even achieve industrial-strength cleaning effects."
"The fabric care beads are added to the steam iron for steam cleaning and ensure that the steam doesn't damage fabrics while cleaning them thoroughly."
Shiller pondered for a while; with his recent trips to night markets, supermarkets, the murdering and body disposal, his expensive suits would cost a fortune to dry-clean.
Excellent, not just housewives need this laundry mega kit, he needed it too.