In the battle conference room of the outpost on the edge of the Great Portal Star Sector of the Xia Empire, which belonged to the main ships of the Nine Kingdoms, Charles tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest, while everyone else stared at him closely.

Only human superheroes and mutant leaders were present, and they had come here to discuss how Earth should earn its rightful place in this war.

Halfway through the meeting, Charles suddenly showed a shocked expression, hurriedly left a sentence "Schiller's thinking tower has an accident", and fell into a state of distraction.

How does this not shock and worry others?

In the next few minutes, Stark, Strange, Steve and other human superheroes who were close to Schiller were about to go crazy, even mutants like Magneto and Beast who didn't deal much with Schiller frowned deeply, and no one here didn't know the importance of Schiller.

But fortunately, everyone present trusted Professor X's ability and thought that as long as he was in the mental space, there was nothing that could not be solved, so they did not explode this anxiety, if Asgard's reckless men were here at this time, they might have killed Schiller by now.

As Charles's eyes gradually focused, Stark, who was sitting in the first position on the right, finally couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong?" Professor Charles, is Schiller alright? ”

"It's just a misunderstanding." Charles replied gently: "Schiller got the soul of a zerg into his own thinking tower, I thought his spiritual world was invaded, but everything is under his control, and there is no danger." ”

Suddenly there was a series of relieved exhalations in the room, Stark almost lay on the table regardless of his manners, Charles smiled apologetically, and said: "It's also the first time I know that Schiller has a habit of picking up monsters and keeping them as pets, and he got that zerg's soul back just to feed his pet." ”

"It's a bit surprising to me, but it's within comprehension, so I don't have any position to ask him not to...... However, there may be something more amazing than this, and you should hear about it. ”

The humans in the room didn't concentrate their attention quickly, and they were still feeling afraid, and all kinds of terrible images of Schiller's spiritual world being polluted appeared in their minds.

In the end, Stark, who had the worst temper, still couldn't help complaining: "In any case, it's too dangerous to let Schiller deal with that group of bugs, but don't say anything stupid about 'always bugs are dangerous', bugs have a thousand chances to make mistakes ten thousand times, and no matter how many times of bad luck can it be counted, but if Schiller has a problem, the entire universe will only have one chance combined." ”

Magneto looked at Stark with some dissatisfaction, of course he heard Stark openly and secretly accusing Professor X's treatment of being too dangerous, Strange coughed twice, trying to defuse the tense atmosphere between the two, but in fact, he was still helping Starkra.

But Charles, the protagonist of the controversy at this time, said amazingly: "Do you know that Schiller was abused in his childhood? ”

When his words fell, the whole room was quietly dropped, and all the intelligent people present only looked at Charles but did not speak, for they could hear the subtle condemnation in Charles's tone.

This is not a question that needs to be answered, as Charles apparently already knew the answer, and the usually mild-mannered good old man was not happy enough to express his emotions in public.

"We had speculations." Stark's answer was rather conservative.

He wanted to avoid explaining this matter as much as possible as if he was shirking responsibility, so he could be said to have exhausted all his emotional intelligence and explained it very carefully.

"We've seen some of his memories of an accident in his childhood, but for some reason we haven't looked into it, did he tell you about it?"

"He told me in detail about his childhood and formative years." Charles brought a pen and notebook from the table next to him, as if trying to write down some key information.

Stark and Strange, who were sitting next to him, looked at each other, and they didn't say anything, but Steve, who was sitting across from them, spoke first.

"We don't ask about these things, not because we don't care about him, including his other peculiarities, but because we don't know how to ask a person about a painful experience, but not to re-traumatize him in the process of recalling, which is an impossible task for us."

"You have a very ambivalent attitude towards Schiller." Charles adjusted his emotions, quickly found the key point, and continued.

"On the one hand, you are infinitely overestimating his abilities, and in every way you expect him to be far beyond the reasonable limits of your relationship with him, not like friends and friends, but more like gods and believers."

"On the other hand, you underestimate his capacity, think that his mental stability is inversely proportional to his degree of genius, and consider all aspects of his spirit to be too fragile, so you take great care to maintain the status quo."

"Maybe it's because you don't have too much professional knowledge of psychology, but it's more because your own understanding of feelings is not sound enough, and you have experienced mental problems, and you feel that Schiller can't bear it."

Charles put down his pen and glanced at several people in the room, and said, "But in fact, Schiller has endured more than you have experienced, he has already passed the broken period of mental instability as early as his youth, and he is more stable and sound than any of you. ”

Charles then proceeds to tell the rest of the room about Schiller's own experiences, but his focus is not on the content of the story itself, nor on his professional perspective, but on Schiller's state as he tells it.

At the end of the story, Charles concludes: "For Schiller, this memory has no special significance, he no longer suffers from it, he no longer derives strength from it, there is nothing to avoid and nothing to write about." ”

"Suffice it to say that if you had inadvertently asked Schiller what your past was like, you would have known the story a long time ago."

Now in the huge conference room, Charles's voice echoes, and everyone else is immersed in their own thoughts, most of them thinking about the story of Schiller's past as Charles tells it.

After finally understanding and digesting this information, Schiller's closest friends began to be surprised by one thing, but before they could actually ask, Charles had already answered their doubts, except that he did it from the beginning, like every good teacher.

"People often say, 'Suffering makes people stronger,' and this is not their reverie, and there is evidence that people with more difficult life experiences show a more stable outward appearance, which is called 'maturity'."

But there are also those who question whether suffering is really a catalyst for strength – whether it really produces maturity. Perhaps I prefer to call that outward manifestation of calm 'numbness'. ”

Charles quietly glanced at Magneto, who was sitting on the other side, and continued: "Unlike most ordinary people's intuition, mental wounds are more difficult to heal than physical wounds, and time will not heal everything, only a part of the suffering will be forgotten, and what cannot be forgotten will make people get used to it." ”

"Like all pain, once you get used to it, you become numb, and the pain is still there, but subjectively speaking, it doesn't hurt as much as it did at the beginning."

Charles flipped through the paper in his hand and calmly said: "There are very few parts of those too major mental traumas that can be forgotten, and most of them are in constant pain, which makes people more and more numb. ”

"The most serious consequence of this numbness is that it makes people appear to be overly calm, as if they have already seen through everything, and all things in the world have been seen, and those ordinary people who do not know why call this transparency and indifference after experiencing suffering."

"But in fact, this is a permanent scar of mental trauma, and its greatest harm is that it gradually loses the ability to explore outward, showing that it is not curious, does not want, and does not care."

"People tend to see not fighting as a sign of kindness and gentleness, rather than paying attention to why they don't want it, and for people who have been permanently traumatized, they are both powerless and gradually disinterested in everything."

Stark furrowed his eyebrows slowly, as if he had thought of something, and Charles was quick to respond to his doubts.

"Yes, it doesn't sound like Schiller, who was always interested in everything and wanted everything, but did you ever think that it might be precisely to combat this state of affairs that his greed became more and more extreme?"

"The way the human mind and mind works is such that they can't completely erase the scars of major mental trauma, so they have to find a way to combat this state of dying of vitality, and most patients with trauma disorders who have a good prognosis force themselves to turn their attention to something that can be of infinite interest, such as faith."

"Because only by stimulating infinite interest and always maintaining a state of outward exploration can we fight against the numbness and emptiness brought about by trauma."

"That is to say, the greedy trait in the Schiller personality as you know it is not pathological, but, on the contrary, it is healthy, even the healthiest of all qualities, because it ensures that Schiller always has the curiosity and vitality to explore outward."

Strange was silent for a moment before saying, "It's because of the severe mental damage he has suffered, and the enemy he faces is strong, so he naturally has to forge a more powerful weapon, that's why greed is so extreme, right?" ”

"In a sense, that's exactly what it is." Charles's fingertips rubbed the paper, he turned his head slightly to look at Magneto, sighed softly and said, "Schiller is extremely fortunate that during the best recovery period after the trauma, he met a good doctor, a good doctor who is more patient and skilled than me. ”

Magneto just lowered his eyes, his eyes sunken deep in the rim of the eye sockets always had the indifference of no one approaching, and only when he raised his eyes to see Charles's sparkling blue eyes, it was like a reef illuminated by the shimmer of the ripples of the sea, from the cold and deep to reveal a little of the brilliance of the former waves.

"And one more thing." Charles looked down again at the paper on which he had written his words, and continued: "Because of autism, some of Schiller's emotions and behaviors are still abnormal, not very obvious, and no one but me can see it, and this is obviously the doctor's work." ”

"These surviving anomalies also show that the doctor is an ordinary person who does not have the ability to read minds like me, but it also means that I can help Schiller go one step further and completely eliminate these anomalies."

Suddenly, all the humans present turned their heads to stare at Charles, and Charles still said in a flat but quite confident tone.

"Next, I will follow my treatment process for autistic patients, and I have convinced him to accept my treatment, and you, as Schiller's friends and now his family, all you have to do is to cooperate with the treatment as much as possible, so as to achieve the best results."

"Well, okay, Professor, I understand." Stark nodded, his hands clenched on the table, looking a little nervous, he looked into Charles's eyes and said, "So where do we start?" ”

(End of chapter)