When Shiller returned to his house, Jonathan was lying on the sofa sleeping soundly; Valentine was dozing in a recliner on the backyard porch, and Martin simply stretched his legs out and fell asleep on the floor.
Shiller woke them all up, and as they sat there groggy, they looked just like wandering souls, with Jonathan, sporting a huge dark circle under his eye, mumbling, "I really can't take it anymore, I don't want to kill people anymore, I just want to sleep now."
Valentine lifted his somewhat trembling arm and said, "I don't think I can handle such high-intensity labor; I need a rest."
"Really can't take any more, the Ancestral God says he really can't take any more," Martin wailed, "This is just too outrageous."
"But I have already dealt with all the bodies," Shiller said as he lightly clapped his hands, "and what you're saying is you don't intend to find new ones, but rather let so many prey slip away on the sly."
"That's not prey at all," Jonathan roared, "I feel like I'm a pieceworker in a factory! So why didn't I just go to a factory instead of doing this? Pieceworkers aren't this tired!"
"Professor, not everyone can go without rest like you," Valentine said earnestly, "Lack of rest will severely affect our work efficiency; it won't be good if we damage an organ."
After a moment of hesitation, Shiller looked at them and said, "Alright, rest this afternoon, then we'll start work again in the evening."
They were all relieved as if they were pardoned, completely ignoring Shiller, who was shaking his head and muttering, "You're not even as good as college students."
Suddenly, as if Shiller had an idea, without caring about the three who climbed upstairs like zombies to sleep, he took out his phone and began sending emails.
"Leonard, I know you go hunting often, come over, help me out, and I can give you half a credit..."
"Aguna, stop obsessing over that little lover in your basement, I'm not interested in hearing your heartfelt stories. If you are as skilled in surgery as you say, then come over, credits are available, my address is..."
"Simmons, your senior brother is not answering calls, probably because he's down in the sewers disposing of bodies and has no signal. Tell him to hurry to my new house; there's a work-study project..."
"Victor, is Pamela up all night again? She's not answering calls; tell her to come over after she wakes up, I have a new project here..."
"Polatina, did you draw a Dark Magic Circle in the school's basement before? I won't pursue your responsibility for scribbling around, but come over now..."
Shiller sent a dozen emails in one go, and soon most of them had replies. Many students' profile pictures popped up, one after another inquiring about the new project Shiller had found.
"I developed it on my own; you'll work when you arrive, don't ask any other questions, I guarantee you'll earn more than working outside, hurry over."
More than an hour after Shiller sent the group texts, students began arriving one after the other. Shiller stopped them in the front yard, inspecting them with a picky and stern gaze.
These dozen or so people were all graduate and Ph.D. students, all current students, although some weren't from the psychology department, instead having studied psychology in their undergraduate and moved to other fields for graduate study. What was common was they had all taken classes under Shiller, and their grades were quite good.
So they were all accustomed to Shiller's gaze. Some even whooshed up the steps, grinning and cheekily asking Shiller where the project was.
"First, put on the shoe covers." Shiller stuffed the shoe covers into that student's hand, letting them enter one by one, but he stopped the second student who tried to go inside and said, "Aguna, there's blood on your boots, go clean it off over there first."
"And you, Aix, you want to come into my house straight from the sewer? Take off that coat first, then go to the back yard's tool room and take a shower."
"Pamela... Pamela!!! How many nights haven't you slept? Can you be a bit more alert?... Alright, you go sleep on the sofa."
"Jacob, do you know how to fix electrical appliances? First, help me connect the freezer, then take a look at that fridge; if you can't fix the exterior, leave it, but at least help me restore its cooling function."
"You two wait here for a while, someone will come to pick things up later; move those two boxes by the entrance over there."
Luckily, Shiller's new house was also a large villa, and even if you tossed a dozen people inside, it wouldn't seem crowded. Under his direction, the house gradually regained its cleanliness.
Pamela, dead tired, collapsed on the sofa, and when she woke up later, it was already evening.
Her head was woozy, and she wanted to grab a bottle of icy beer to wake up. She staggered over to the freezer, and when she opened it, a freezer full of arms.
Great, it seemed she still hadn't woken up; Pamela staggered back to the sofa and lay down, only to be hauled up by Shiller.
"How much longer are you planning to sleep? Your brothers and sisters have already finished a round of work; don't think just because you are Victor's student, you get special treatment. If you don't get up now, your credits for today won't be added."
Pamela didn't react.
"Alright then, keep sleeping; we'll just leave you out when we divide the money later."
Pamela's eyes snapped open.
She stared intently at Shiller and said, "Divide money? What money? Did you rob a bank?"
The students in the kitchen burst into insane laughter.
Shiller sighed and said, "You really are a good student of mine; are you surprised that I didn't go rob a bank?"
"I just don't see any other way you could get money besides that," Pamela said, "As far as I know, people like you and money don't mix."
"Well, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you, miss."
Shiller pulled out a box from under the sofa, flipped it open with a click, and inside were all green bills.
Pamela was catapulted from the sofa, and with a whoosh, a vine snatched the box, the next second, green banknotes fluttered down from the sky.
Pamela was stunned.
Not because of the spectacle he created, but because the money raining down from the sky was all real, genuine Franklins.
"Where did you get all this money?" Pamela roared, "You still say you didn't rob a bank! What's more, you actually robbed a bank without taking me along!!!"
"This makes much more money than robbing banks," one of the students said, shaking the blood-stained surgical scalpel in his hand. "And it's safer too, aside from being a bit tiring, it's perfect."
"What exactly did you do?" Pamela asked, puzzled.
"I've just found a normal money-making channel."
"In what way exactly are you normal?"
"This doesn't violate morals," Shiller said. "It might even not be illegal, isn't that normal enough?"
Pamela expressed her deep doubts.
Then, through Shiller's explanation, she gradually understood how this production line operated.
The clones sent out by Amanda aimed at serial killers like Shiller, that is, as long as one could confirm the presence of a serial killer, it was very likely that clones were around.
Shiller got a machine from the Primary Universe Batman which, once the cloning component simulating brain waves was installed, could conduct a wide-area brain wave search to locate nearby clones.
The killers' group, currently led by Jonathan with four students experienced in such matters, would then kidnap the targeted clones, or just leave them with a breath of life.
Once brought back, Valentine's surgery group would remove their valuable organs and place them in professional preservation boxes provided by organ traffickers, storing them in freezers.
Before their death, Martin's sorcery group would sacrifice their souls to the Ancestral God, hastening its digestion before granting power back to the sorcery group members.
Finally, Shiller's cleanup group would categorize the remnants. The insignificant parts with no remaining value were handed directly to the organ traffickers for disposal.
Some usable parts were handed over to humans like Feite, who worked with the 'Value Return to Nature' project group to complete the grand cycle of the cosmos.
Then the last bits difficult to clean up and most likely to reveal characteristics were taken by the fishing group, turned into bait, and fed to the fish in the lake, which were then used for dinner that night.
In this way, the value of the clones was completely extracted, with every part of them being perfectly utilized.
After listening to the whole process, Pamela remained silent, unable to comment because as eerie as it was, what they were doing seemed not to violate morality or the law. How could she judge? It was hard for her to say.
Who could enrich the process of killing and disposing of bodies to such a degree that it didn't break the law or even morality?
Despite not being very normal herself, Pamela had to say for the umpteenth thousandth time, Shiller was a madman!
The reason Shiller had called her over was to have her take away the most difficult part to deal with: the blood.
Blood left in a place could have a huge smell, and as a liquid, it could easily seep through or stain some unnoticed corner. Pouring it directly into the lake would reveal a color, and while the blood of one or two bodies wasn't an issue, any more than that would be a huge problem.
Shiller reasoned that watering plants with water was the same as watering them with blood, and it could even save Pamela a sum on her water bill.
Pamela remarked that his and the butler's gardening skills were indeed inherited.
However, Pamela ultimately accepted the deal because Shiller said he could offer the souls to All Things Green. In reality, All Things Green had no use for human souls, but his goal was to weaken All Things Red. Plainly speaking, he wanted to see sheep streaking, so Pamela agreed.
Of course, All Things Green wasn't aware of the entire operation process. He thought Pamela had gotten into a verbal dispute with someone and accidentally killed a person, hoping he could help settle the trouble.
As a universally recognized good and noble boss, how could All Things Green refuse such a favor? So when Pamela submitted the project proposal, he signed off on it with a big flourish.
And then, he nearly burst.
After conducting experiments, Shiller and his group discovered that clones did have souls, but their souls were in the form of infants.
Having dealt with Lucifer frequently, Shiller also understood some of the underlying laws of the workings of the world. By analogy with computer terms, a mother getting pregnant is like creating a new folder under the 'mother' folder.
The embryo is a string of data in this new folder, and the instant the embryo separates from the mother, that data becomes a new folder, independent of the 'newly created' folder and the 'mother' folder, becoming a parallel folder to the mother. That's when the embryo becomes a baby.
Theoretically, the cosmos has an infinite capacity for individual humans, meaning the computer's memory is infinite. However, the number of data turning into independent folders at the same time is basically constant, meaning the number of new human babies in the universe is essentially fixed.
The birth method of clone babies is almost identical to that of human infants; scientifically speaking, both are nurtured in an embryo. The only difference is that clones are born as adults complete with implanted memories, while infants grow and learn.
From the magic side, it is about brainwave synchronization followed by igniting the soul; clones are ignited by scientists, while babies are ignited by the brainwave synchronization of their parents.
So under the restriction of a limited number of births, the emergence of a clone takes up the quota of an infant. With every new clone, one less baby is born, which doesn't mean a baby is killed; rather, the egg never fertilizes from the start, never develops an embryo, and naturally, no baby is born.