Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

People often hear a principle that the living can never be compared with the dead, which is actually based on a very simple psychological common sense: the human consciousness's ability to complete information.

Perhaps some have heard that the brain is a supercomputer that no other computer can match, and its most powerful feature is its capability to fill in the blanks. You think all the information you receive is what you actually see, but in fact, 15% or more of the information is actually completed by the brain itself.

For instance, unless you are Voldemort, you should be able to see your own nose, but think carefully about the first-person images in your memory, how many of them are blocked by your nose?

The blind spots in the human field of vision are not just the nose, most of the time, the information actually received by the eyes is very little, and most of it is completed by the brain. This is a concrete form of completion, whereas human consciousness can engage in abstract completion.

When describing something, a mentally normal person must be logical, such as cause and effect, which is the simplest logic.

Because someone wears too little clothing, they feel cold; this is a simple cause-and-effect logic. But in reality, when thinking about this logic, consciousness helps to complete things that aren't mentioned, such as the cold being due to the weather. If the weather were warmer, then no matter how little clothing one wears, they wouldn't be cold.

People subconsciously feel that this logic occurs on the basis of cold weather, so when you respond, you would naturally advise to remember to wear more clothes next time, or segue into discussing the recent cooling trend. All responses are based on the premise of "cold weather."

This is a fundamental logic embedded in human thought and the basis allowing for smooth communication.

However, many mentally ill patients are unable to complete this most basic consciousness completion due to disordered thoughts. When people say they feel cold because they wear too little clothing, they do not automatically assume it is because of cold weather.

Their thinking is runaway, divergent, and incompatible with this underlying logic, which easily leads to communication barriers like "Concrete No. 42 mixed with Italian spaghetti."

This is a consciousness completion that many people do not realize because, like the brain filling in blind spots in our vision, it begins from birth, and because it is so common, it often goes unnoticed.

Returning to the difference between life and death, people use this kind of consciousness completion more when dealing with the dead. Just as with cause and effect, the airtight logic of sealed cases offers more space for completion, making them believe they understand, believe they have clarity, and believe they are right.

The future of the living is unknown and requires speculation, but the future is uncertain, and no one dares to say they can guess it accurately. In comparison, a series of established facts that have already occurred makes it easier for people to complete and understand what's going on, giving them ample right to judge others. This sense of control gives pleasure and inclines people to make conclusions about the dead.

So the underlying logic of why the living can't compete with the dead is actually that the dead are easier to control. Apart from not being able to come back to life in the real world, in abstract fields like memory, people feel they understand a concluded dead person more and more precisely than a living person who continues to form new connections every day.

To reinforce this sense of control, they inevitably use their consciousness to fill in more details, to make the logic more coherent. Only by doing so can they show that they know the person well enough to have the right to judge others.

And complete for the sake of being coherent always bypasses many unreasonable aspects, just like when your gaze is intently fixed on one place, you are more likely to ignore the blind spot beneath your nose caused by it.

This leads to the perception that everything the deceased did was reasonable, all had a cause, all should be forgiven and praised.

Because the future of the living is unknown, people's impressions of the living can be completely overturned by something they do later on. They can't arbitrarily be dressed up in memory and can't provide that pleasure of understanding and controlling everything; naturally, they can never compare to the dead.

While alive, Batman was considered the greatest detective, but he could well not be at any time. Many comics have depicted Batman making mistakes or encountering accidents, which led to his rejection by people and a steep decline in reputation.

But if Batman died, there would be no more such accidents. He would have no chance to make any more mistakes that could affect his reputation, and people would automatically complete the logic of everything he did before, calling him the great hero of Gotham.

From another perspective, all the controversies surrounding the comic character Batman are because the comics are still being published, without a final verdict. Once the Batman series is officially declared finished, that comic character's status in the history of comics will definitely rise several notches.

Shiller clearly saw a wavering expression on Joker's face.

He now had some confidence that it was Joker who tampered with the dice, leading to the Primary Universe Batman's critical failure and current predicament.

And the subsequent appearance of the dice that were bound to result in a major failure could well be because Batman was close to death, and Joker, no longer wanting to play, decided to bring down everyone with him.

Saving Batman was the most crucial link because to save Batman, Joker had to remove his control over the dice; otherwise, each roll would be a major failure, preventing the Primary Universe Batman from receiving any healing.

If the Primary Universe Batman lived, the struggle between Joker and Batman would have to continue, making it impossible for Joker to rush to kill everyone so hastily. Naturally, he would not let the doomed dice keep rolling.

Shiller didn't continue to persuade, knowing that in the presence of a very typical Batman figure, he meant nothing in Joker's eyes—all depended on whether Joker was still willing to play the game with Batman.

So he promptly continued the round. After firing a shot that forced the monster back, Shiller swung the gun around like a baseball bat and struck the corpse's head.

"Bang!"

The strength of the corpse didn't seem substantial, and as it was struck, it wobbled and fell to the left. The pale knight seized the moment, delivering a kick to the side of the knee, causing the corpse to completely topple over.

Shiller pulled out a kitchen knife and slashed at the side of the neck. There wasn't much blood left in the corpse. Stabbing it felt like poking into a sack filled with seaweed.

After the knife penetrated, Shiller didn't immediately withdraw it. Instead, he twisted the handle downward, almost severing the head.

Just before the corpse's hand could reach him, Shiller stood up and kicked the knife still embedded in the corpse, and after a crisp snap, the head rolled to the side.

Following the victory, there was no sound effect. The skill list appeared abruptly. Seeing Bruce's condition, Shiller knew that a level 3 skill must have led to a significant change.

Bruce's Spiritual Analysis was supposed to be an active skill, but when it reached level 3, it turned into a constant passive skill. Although this seemed like a copy of Shiller's talent, Shiller himself wasn't like this 24 hours a day—Transcendent was a bit of an exaggeration.

Shiller thought it over and felt that the effects of Clairvoyance at level 2 were already quite good. He planned to select level 1 first aid, so if Joker decided to return the dice, he should also be able to heal Primary Universe Batman.

One advantage of this game was the determination of a character's death based on blood volume; even if first aid couldn't heal such wounds in the real world, as long as it restored health, the character's condition could improve.

After selecting the skill, Shiller carefully checked its effects and found that it indeed restored health, and that after advancing to level 2, it should also be able to stop bleeding. This should be sufficient to save Primary Universe Batman.

The battle over, Shiller finally had time to take a detailed look at the room. He discovered this wasn't simply a homicide scene. The room appeared to be a storage area, with shelves for goods and several freezers.

Shiller found several footprints near a freezer, but unfortunately, analyzing these prints also required rolling dice. He didn't know if Joker had made up his mind yet, so Shiller didn't examine them thoroughly.

Opening the freezer door, he found two frozen fish that looked very familiar—the same kind they'd seen in the underground cave's dark river and matched the fish meat that splattered from the woman's explosion.

Shiller could envision a scenario where a woman, for some unknown reason, hastily came here, grabbed the fish from the freezer, and stuffed them into her mouth. The man who followed wanted to kill the fish thief but ended up being killed instead.

There must be some miraculous effect to the fish; otherwise, why would the woman insist on eating it?

Shiller closed the freezer door and looked at the shelves, noticing they were stocked with various foods.

Shiller left the room while the others searched the floor without finding anything special. Led by Greed, they all proceeded to the fifth floor.

The situation on the fifth floor was even more tragic.

Upon arrival, Shiller saw two corpses—one a woman over 40 years old, dressed simply and with a scarf wrapped around her head. Not far from her lay a little girl, seemingly six or seven years old. Judging from their appearance and skeletal structure, these two might be mother and daughter.

They were both dead, one shot in the chest and the other in the head, clearly at human hands.

Moving further in, they found two more bodies and obvious signs of a struggle in the hallway. These were both men: one older with white in his beard, likely close to 70; the other much younger, below the age of the man with slit throat found on the fourth floor.

After seeing all the bodies, Shiller spoke up, "These victims appear to be a family."

The pale knight flipped the older body to take a look, then nodded, "They bear a resemblance in appearance, and the ages match up. This old man might be the family's patriarch, the woman outside, and Jeff could be a couple. The man who died on the fourth floor and this younger one here could be two sons, with the woman who died the daughter-in-law, and this little girl their granddaughter."

But there seemed to be one person missing from the scene, Shiller thought. Because in the room with the dog on the first floor, there was a tall, thin, middle-aged man: could he be the real Lighthouse Guardian?