No Batman Incident (Part 2)

Gotham’s rain had been falling without end, and the rumbling thunder outside the window never ceased. Damp, chilly air seeped through the cracks, while flashes of lightning reflected in the coffee that had long since gone cold.

Dr. Hugo took off his glasses and rubbed between his brows. Straightening up from his desk, he glanced at the documents beside him and the cold coffee. He really wasn’t suited to staying up late working overtime; he always fell asleep.

Then, he heard a familiar voice echo through the room. "Hugo woke up in his office again. The coffee he made for himself at noon has already gone cold, but that’s all right. If he drinks it, he’ll find a key hidden at the bottom of the cup. What door does this key open?"

Hugo slowly reached for the coffee, picked it up, and poured it into his mouth. Cold coffee tasted awful. Hugo frowned, then felt his lips touch something metallic. It was a key.

A key. What door would it open?

Hugo shook his head and searched around his desk. He found that only a cabinet to his right had a locked drawer. He inserted the key, turned it to the right, and the drawer opened.

The voice rang out again. "Oh, so this is the key to the drawer in the office cabinet! Hugo is so clever!"

"Hugo pulled open the drawer and found a schedule inside. It said that at 9:20, he needed to arrive at Room 302 for rounds…"

"Hugo was a conscientious Doctor. He didn’t want to miss his rounds, but where was Room 302?"

Hugo opened the drawer and picked up a sheet of paper inside. It bore a single line: "Go to Room 302 for rounds at 9:20."

Hugo turned and looked at the weather outside. The voice spoke again. "Hugo looked out the window and found that it was rainy and overcast. He couldn’t tell the time from the sky outside. It seemed that his current problem was finding a clock…"

Hugo turned his head, then lowered his gaze to his wrist. The voice said again, "Hugo suddenly remembered that he wore a watch on his wrist."

And so, a watch appeared on Hugo’s wrist. It read 9:17. The voice continued, "Oh no! It’s too late! He only has three minutes to get to Room 302. Hugo knows he has to move faster!"

Hugo hurried away from his desk and went to the door. He twisted the handle, but it wouldn’t open. The voice said again, "Without question, this is another door that requires a key. Hugo needs to find it."

Just as Hugo began anxiously turning the room upside down in search of a key, the voice kept speaking in his ear. "Isn’t this strange? This isn’t even a game, so why does every door need its own matching key?"

"Honestly, I hate games where you have to solve a puzzle every two steps. It’s a complete waste of my life. Why don’t we use a quicker method instead? Like kicking the door down. What do you think?"

"Don’t worry. You’re only in a hurry to do your rounds, for the patients’ sake. It’s late now, and your colleagues have all gone home. No one will see…"

Hugo stopped what he was doing and looked at the door. It was only a wooden door. Before his eyes, its panels rapidly aged and became ready to collapse at any moment. He, too, felt that instead of wasting effort looking for a key, it would be better to kick the door open.

He walked to the door, raised his foot, and kicked hard. At the exact instant his foot was about to touch the door, it transformed into a massive red button. Countless warning lights began flashing wildly throughout the room, accompanied by a shrill, piercing alarm.

When Hugo’s foot struck the button and pressed it down, the wallpaper peeled from the walls, revealing bombs of every kind underneath. Amid the deafening explosions, Hugo was blown to pieces.

And the last thing he saw before he died was himself standing outside the door, wearing a malicious smile.

When Hugo returned to the first floor again, Victor asked, "This should be another special area, right?"

"That’s right. I call it the Realm of Self-Control."

"What was that voice that kept misleading Hugo?"

"His name is ‘Temptation.’"

Amid the puzzled looks of the others, Schiller began explaining again. "When we live in society, we inevitably have to follow rules. But following rules isn’t easy, and people often face many temptations."

"He lies, creates illusions, and guides people step by step into breaking the rules. Hugo’s temptation was already quite mild. Temptation merely created an ordinary work scenario for him, then led him step by step toward kicking that button…"

"When I went there, he wasn’t nearly so gentle with me. Hundreds of layers of chained schemes were commonplace."

"So how do you leave this place? Since you said Temptation can set endless traps and lure you in by all kinds of methods, how are you supposed to get through this floor?"

"There are actually many ways. Although Temptation creates illusions and traps, there are always flaws in them. It’s hard to explain the specifics to you, but there is one correct example…"

"It was that stair-climbing lunatic from before. The moment he entered this floor, he sat down without moving and kept chatting with Temptation until he drove him insane. Temptation ran crying to the upper floors to complain, so he got through."

Schiller turned his head toward Jack again, but Jack still ignored him.

"All right, but Hugo seems to have returned to the first floor again. What do we do this time?"

Schiller sighed. Although Victor had no idea how a globe could sigh, he still heard Schiller sigh, followed by, "Honestly, he’s a little disappointing… Or did that lunatic’s performance raise my expectations for challengers infinitely high?"

"Forget it. I’ll tell the elevator Administrator to send Hugo to a higher floor."

The torrential rain gradually weakened into a fine, cold drizzle. Dense streaks of rain fell through the twilight like golden dust drifting down from the sky.

When Hugo woke up, he found himself tied to a chair. Then he saw a strange-looking person walk over.

His head was cylindrical, his torso square, and his arms and legs square as well. A pitch-black cape hung from his back.

He extended one hand and pointed ahead. Hugo saw that his hand was shaped like a capital C, connected to his arm like a wrench. He pointed behind Hugo and said, "Release him, Joker! Or I’ll make you regret it!"

Hugo struggled to turn around and discovered that someone of a similar shape stood behind him. This one wore a purple suit and Joker makeup. This Joker also extended his C-shaped hand and said, "Batman! It’s time to make a choice. You…"

Before he could finish, there was a snap, and the entire world went dark. Hugo was thrown back to the first floor again. Victor rose from the audience seats and said, "Wait! What was that? Why was everyone here a Lego minifigure? Where was that?"

Victor saw Schiller frantically pulling the curtain shut. Looking guilty, he said, "That’s a floor whose name cannot be spoken. Don’t ask too many questions…"

Victor thought for a moment, then revealed a teasing smile. "…I never expected you to have such childish moments. Don’t tell me you hid in your room and played Role-playing with Lego minifigures?"

"I didn’t. Don’t talk nonsense. Even if I did Role-playing, I wouldn’t play them…"

At that moment, Jack woke up. He narrowed his eyes, then looked upward with a gleeful smile.

Following his gaze upward, past layer upon layer of floors, their field of vision rose ever higher until it finally stopped in a somewhat dim projection room.

There were two sofas in the projection room, occupied by one black figure and one white figure. The white figure wore a white lab coat, while the black figure wore a long black trench coat. Both figures were Schiller.

Marvel Schiller, dressed in the lab coat, let out a breath. "That was close. If that performance had gone on any longer, not only would his embarrassing past have been exposed, but there would’ve been copyright issues too…"

Then he looked at DC Schiller beside him and smiled. "Though it doesn’t matter. It’s your embarrassing past, anyway."

"That’s stereotyping. Why can’t adults build with blocks?"

"But you lived in Gotham City, built DC-themed Lego sets in your head, and even used Lego minifigures for Role-playing. That really was a little strange, wasn’t it?"

"Leaving this floor aside, Hugo should be close to reaching his limit, right?" DC Schiller changed the subject.

"According to our previous deductions, once he completely believes it and reaches a certain degree of conviction, he can use his obsession to pry open a passage to his deep consciousness," he continued.

"In theory, that is indeed the case, but whether our plan can succeed is still uncertain," Marvel Schiller said.

"If the previous floor doesn’t count, then we need to find another one. Which floor do you think would be best?"

"Let him go to the 190th floor, where that lunatic was trapped for a long time…"

When Hugo woke up again, he found himself in a vast white space. In front of him was an apple that was dancing.

The apple had comic-book-like arms and legs made of thin black lines, and it was dancing ballet.

He watched the apple dance. Everyone in the audience watched him watch the apple dance. Evans yawned and asked, "What kind of place is this? Why is there an apple dancing?"

"This place…" Schiller yawned as well. Victor still couldn’t tell how a globe could yawn, but he heard Schiller yawn.

"This is Boredom Plaza. Just as the name implies, its theme is boredom. It manifests whatever you find most boring. It seems that Dr. Hugo finds watching an apple dance to be the most boring thing."

"Then how did that challenge expert you mentioned before get through this floor?"

"In fact, he still hasn’t gotten through this floor."

"Then can we see what he’s doing right now? Can you switch the stage? I’m rather curious."

Schiller stood up. Victor thought he was going to the side of the stage to switch it. Instead, he walked over to Jack and pointed at him. "This is what he’s doing right now."

Jack had one eye closed and the other slightly open. He glanced at Schiller, then closed that eye as well.

Schiller explained, "A lunatic who has gone bored insane because Batman isn’t in Gotham."

"A lunatic who’s gone insane?"

"That’s right. According to the principle that two negatives make a positive, we call people like that—normal people."