Chapter 1051: Astonishing Mundane Individuals (Twenty-Eight) (Patreon)

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As Eddie reached for the piece of candy wrapper, a streak of black slime quietly crawled up his arm. With a swift movement, it adhered to the candy wrapper, which promptly vanished.

Eddie widened his eyes, then gritted his teeth. "Venom! What are you doing?! That belongs to Dr. Schiller. You can't just meddle with it. Have some basic decency..."

"I'm not human!" Venom chuckled. "Anyway, he'll just think you took it..."

"To be honest, do you know what this is?" Eddie asked with some confusion. He noticed a slight change in Venom's demeanor when he took out the candy wrapper, indicating that Venom recognized it.

"I don't know!" Venom immediately denied, while whistling nonchalantly in Eddie's mind. Eddie knew he was withholding something, but he didn't bother to press further.

Having spent so much time with Venom, Eddie had learned that this alien symbiote with an unconventional mind was entirely about negotiation. If he tried to forcefully take something from Venom, it would only lead to a struggle for control over his body, followed by Venom running downstairs to dance in the convenience store.

Eddie glanced at the coat on his hand. Having mingled in high society, he could tell by the fabric that it was expensive and not suitable for washing.

He had heard about Schiller's greedy nature. In the past, if Eddie dared to bring this item near a washing machine, even if Schiller was dead drunk, he would surely jump up and punch him.

Eddie casually draped the coat over the washing machine, planning to ask the landlady of the convenience store tomorrow about the nearest dry cleaner. In this community, finding a dry cleaner capable of handling such valuable fabrics was not easy.

To put it nicely, this was an emerging development area in the Brooklyn district. To put it bluntly, it was on the outskirts of slums, where the low-income citizens struggled to survive. A half-year's salary for the people here couldn't afford such a coat.

After setting down the coat, Eddie returned to Schiller's side. He glanced at the cigarette box on the coffee table and noticed at least three cigarettes missing.

The cigarette Schiller was holding was almost burnt out, yet he showed no intention of discarding it.

Eddie reached for the cigarette butt, and Schiller didn't react. He instinctively reached for the cigarette box on the table, but Eddie grabbed it too. Only then did Schiller look up at him.

Eddie sighed. "Doctor... I mean, Schiller, I don't know what's going on, but I feel like your mental state is off."

At that moment, Schiller's pupils suddenly contracted, as if he had just snapped out of something. He swiftly stood up, staring fiercely at Eddie's face, then grabbed his shoulders and pushed him onto the sofa.

Confused, Eddie watched as Schiller trembled. Stepping away from the coffee table and the sofa's gap, Schiller hurried to the nearby cabinet, searching frantically.

Just as Eddie was about to get up, Schiller turned back, coldly saying, "Stay there and don't move."

Eddie opened his mouth to retort, but seeing the murderous look in Schiller's eyes, he remained silent. After a while, he asked, "What are you looking for?"

Schiller's trembling arms made his search clumsy. Although he made a mess in the drawer, his movements became faster, and his expression more anxious.

Finally, he forcefully threw the remote control aside, turned to Eddie, and gritted his teeth. "Why don't you have a notebook?! You're a journalist, aren't you?"

"Well, I work with a computer, and I don't usually bring work stuff home," Eddie shrugged, sitting still.

Schiller sighed, then stood up and returned to the sofa. Eddie stood up, offering, "Let me get you a glass of water."

"Sit back down," Schiller said without looking up. "Fine, let's consider this a medical history... How have you been lately?"

"I've been fine," Eddie nodded. "What's wrong with you? Do you need me to call someone?"

"No... no..." Schiller quickly denied. "Put away your mobile phone... right now! Don't call anyone. If you receive any calls later and they say anything absurd, don't believe them! They're frauds!"

Eddie frowned, deeply puzzled. Inside his mind, Venom teased, "Oh! Our little Eddie is about to become a lab rat!"

Before Eddie could respond, Schiller locked eyes with him. "Where's Venom? Bring him out!"

Venom sucked in a breath inside Eddie's mind, then roared, "No! Say I'm not here!"

"I know you're here," Schiller said, staring at Eddie. "If you don't show up, don't blame me for turning the volume up and destroying both of us."

"Damn it, you lunatic!" Venom reluctantly emerged from Eddie's body.

As soon as Venom emerged, his head bumped against the ceiling, followed by a pained howl. He complained, "I told you, you should rent a taller place!"

"That's because you're too fat!" Eddie retorted.

"What did you say?!!" Venom roared with a gaping mouth. "Apologize! Apologize now!"

"Don't be like this, there are outsiders watching..." Eddie coughed.

Looking up at Venom, who was at least three times larger than in comics and movies, Schiller remarked, "You're a bit too chubby. What's causing your binge-eating? Anxiety?"

Venom showed an unusually human expression, curling one side of his mouth back and emitting a scoffing sound. "Eddie may not understand, but you don't know? For a symbiote, more is better, bigger is beautiful! If I returned to Klyntar now, I would surely win the symbiote beauty pageant!"

"Look at my rich symbiote factor, my densely arranged spiritual network, and my excellent flexibility and solid structure..."

After finishing his speech, Venom began to laugh maniacally, but the next moment, a hand captured his bright red tongue.

Schiller grabbed Venom's tongue and pulled it down forcefully. Venom let out a cry, then began to wildly swing his arms.

As Schiller let go, Venom recoiled, hitting his head against the wall again. He rubbed his slightly dizzy head and glared at Schiller. "What are you doing?!"

"Has anyone told you that narcissism is also a disease?" Schiller sat back down, slipping back into his confused state, subconsciously reaching for a cigarette.

Venom smirked, hands on hips, and looked down at Schiller, saying to Eddie in his mind, "What do you think... is he trying to scam us?"

"Do you even know what scamming is?" Eddie replied.

Instantly, Venom withdrew, shaking his arms. He looked at Schiller, whose trembling hands had scattered cigarette ash everywhere, and said:

"Well, Schiller, if you don't want to go back to your sanatorium or clinic, and you don't want to go to the hospital, I can take you wherever you want. Where would you like to go?"

"...I don't want to go anywhere." Schiller shook his head, his breathing becoming labored, and his speech becoming difficult, with occasional slurred sounds, like a child learning to speak.

"Schiller's state reminds me of those autistic children we saw at the special education school before," Eddie told Venom in his mind. "Do you remember? Talking to themselves, answering unrelated questions, sudden excitement, sudden depression..."

"You just figured out he has autism?" Venom's mocking voice echoed in Eddie's mind. "Seems like that's your limit."

Eddie sighed, too preoccupied to argue with Venom. He thought for a moment, then said, "I remember the teachers in special education told me not to be too demanding when talking to autistic patients, not to break their habits, as it might lead to loss of control."

Eddie pursed his lips and sat back down, shouting to Schiller, "Schiller? Schiller? Schiller, look at me, Schiller!"

Eddie called out more than thirty times before Schiller finally looked up at him. Eddie continued, "Okay, I know you're feeling uncomfortable right now. Can you hear me? I'll pretend you can..."

"I'm not a professional doctor, but if you don't want to go anywhere right now, you can stay here. There's a guest room over there, but I need to get your essentials."

Eddie kept his eyes on Schiller's, saying, "If you want to stay here, give me the keys to your clinic, and I'll help you pack."

Eddie spoke slowly, repeating, "If you want to stay here, give me the keys..."

Schiller slowly leaned back until his back was against the sofa's backrest. After about five minutes, he reached into his coat pocket with a sluggish movement.

However, inside his coat, he only wore a black turtleneck sweater with no pockets.

He stood up slowly, walking to the coat placed on the washing machine. Eddie didn't stop him until he heard a loud thud from the washing machine.

He went over to see Schiller pounding the cabinet with his fist and asked, "Where's the candy wrapper?!"

Eddie awkwardly said, "Uh, Venom took it. Hold on, I'll make him spit it out now!"

"Venom! Venom! Spit out his candy wrapper quickly! Can't you see his murderous look? Do you want to kill both of us?"

"It's not his candy wrapper!" Venom yelled indignantly. "It's obviously mine! Someone gave it to me!"

Eddie stood there, logically concluding that the likelihood of Venom eating candy was higher between a normal Schiller and Venom. Anyway, he couldn't imagine a professional and rigorous psychologist snacking on chocolate during treatment.

But while Eddie was thinking, Schiller began to lose control. He kept pounding in one place, muttering the same sentence rapidly, which lacked logic and was just repeated endlessly.

At the same time, due to his trembling jaw, the words were bitten very finely, sounding like some strange incantations.

On certain words and accents that others couldn't understand, he would gnash his teeth viciously while sniffing, as if cursing someone.

He kept hitting the same spot on the cabinet with his palm, with a constant frequency and intensity. Then he started to sway his body back and forth, nodding forward as if about to fall.

Eddie rushed over to support him. After a while, Eddie's palm finally felt a candy wrapper. He handed it to Schiller, who immediately calmed down a bit, retracting his hand from pounding the cabinet.

He held the candy wrapper in both hands, slowly flattening it with his finger, rolling every crease until it was smooth, then pinching the two corners of the candy wrapper and folding them over.

He folded the square candy wrapper into a rectangle, then continued folding in another direction until a cross appeared in the middle, then unfolded it again, with the four corners facing the center of the cross.

Eddie squinted as he watched Schiller's movements. Soon, he noticed that the candy wrapper had been folded countless times, and each of Schiller's actions seemed to have been practiced thousands of times, being swift, decisive, and accurate, as if instinctual, without needing to think.

After about a minute, a strange folded paper object appeared in Schiller's hand.

It looked like a large umbrella, or four small umbrellas combined together.

If Eddie were Chinese, he would know that this kind of folded paper toy played an important role in every Chinese childhood.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 1052: Astonishing Mundane People (Twenty-Nine)