Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 574 The Perverted Hero

PTSD, which was originally a rather niche illness, has, with the development of the times, become a kind of knowledge that is popular among a small group of people.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder, in our local dialect, is like being bitten by a snake once and being afraid of a rope for ten years."

Ma Zhaodi concluded: "However, 'fear afterward' is a normal reaction for normal people. Only when it reaches the 'pathological' level, when one is completely out of consciousness during the onset, can it be considered true PTSD. According to what the soldier boy said on TV, the Russians may have conducted a lot of experiments on him."

"What does that have to do with me?" the butcher sneered. "I definitely don't have PTSD. I've never been afraid of anyone in my life."

“Don’t you have any childhood trauma that you’ve never been able to talk about? The kind that makes you easily lose control of your emotions when you bring it up?” Ma Zhaodi retorted. “Because as far as I know, it’s unlikely that a jerk like you would be born in a normal family environment.”

The butcher suddenly fell silent—that in itself was an answer.

“And then there’s Kimiko,” Ma Zhaodi continued. “Her throat is healthy—at least it should be healthy after eating the candy and wine I gave her, but she still can’t speak. That’s a psychological problem.”

"What do you know?" Kenji immediately snapped, "You have no idea what we've been through—"

Who killed your parents?

Kenji was stunned.

“You know yourself that you’re not normal, right?” Ma Zhaodi continued, “The village where you’ve lived for so many years was massacred, your parents were killed, and your sister was captured and used as a test subject, imprisoned and tortured. Just like you said, only you know how painful what you’ve experienced is—then tell me, after you have superpowers, why do you still stay in the dazzling light?”

"Coco Shining Brightly is right, the United States is indeed utterly wicked—"

"What about your village? What about your parents and sister? How much better can Shining Glory's work be than America's? Why have you forgotten even the blood feud of your own family?"

Kenji fell completely silent.

"Alright, alright," Franky subconsciously advised, "Kenji is still young; he and Kimiko were forced into it."

"Frankie, after the Lamplighters died, Mallory said he wanted to see you, but you didn't go—I understand your guilt, but I'm sorry, you have to say it to my face."

The breast milk shrugged: "I can tell that Old Ma isn't in a good mood today."

"What I want to tell you is that only by facing the problem head-on can we solve it. Keeping things bottled up inside will only make us look like a dark and shady underground violent group."

Ma Zhaodi sighed: "I've really had enough of being around a bunch of lunatics in Gotham, and now that I'm here, my teammates are still all abnormal. Can you guys just give me a break and make my life a little more normal? Stop using melodramatic multi-person love stories and ethical dramas to lengthen the runtime."

"Do you know that the henpecked husband with high blood pressure is now the healthiest among you all?"

The mother's expression froze. She opened her mouth as if to refute something, but ultimately said nothing.

Because he is indeed henpecked.

Becca, meanwhile, huddled to one side with Ryan in her arms. For the first twenty-odd years of her life, she had been a perfectly normal woman—except for the last few years when she became a complete mess. She had an affair, gave birth to a son with superpowers, faked her death, and dreamt every night of Homelander coming back. She was as anxious and lost as a stray dog, and countless times cursed her former, foolish self in her heart.

Ma Zhaodi's words were somewhat offensive to her.

The room fell silent for several seconds before Ryan's voice unexpectedly rang out: "And what about you? Why didn't Uncle Ma tell you about his own affairs?"

"."

Faced with the child's question, Ma Zhaodi thought about it carefully.

"My problem is probably my mental state. There are two little people in my head who are always fighting."

"?" Ryan looked at the older brother in front of him, who did seem a bit off, with a blank expression: "What?"

"Yeah, in everyday life, I'm not content with the mundane routine, but after arriving in Gotham, I yearn for a normal life; I feel like I should do something difficult, but I procrastinate and wait for someone else to step up and do the difficult thing; I often mutter 'Don't bother me if you have something to do,' but I can't help but get involved in things."

Ma Zhaodi said, "I'm too strange. In the normal world, I always seem like a weirdo; yet I'm too normal. In the strange world, I seem like a god. I'm always in a quantum superposition state between a normal person who's just a salted fish and a freak wheelchair hero. Ryan, if you don't want to be a hero when you grow up, being like me isn't bad either."

"what?"

Ryan's eyes widened: "Why? Didn't you say it wasn't healthy enough?"

"It's not healthy enough, but humans are all bound to have some minor flaws. Occasionally, you have to accept your own abnormalities so that you don't become pathological or too normal."

Ma Zhaodi replied, "Did you see those people on TV? Those who want to worship Soldier Boy as a religion, those who think heroes are always perfect and should not have any flaws, they are just too sick."

"Then what does 'normal' mean?"

“People like those in Waterley, like Madeline, like Edgar, who think that heroes don’t need to act like heroes, that the world doesn’t need heroes, that there are no ideals in the world worthy of awe and worship, and that the most essential thing about people is that they should be abnormal, are just too normal.”

"But I think heroes are cool."

"Then you can be a slightly freakish hero."

"That sounds really weird."

"What's strange about it? Heroes are also human beings. They neither live in the heavens nor on the ground; they all live among humans."

"Where are people?"

Backstage at the press conference that had just ended, the soldier boy casually asked Edgar a question, his attitude almost condescending, as if he didn't take the Walter boss who was supporting him at the press conference seriously at all.

Maeve was right. He really is a bastard, and a typical redneck bastard who has lived since World War II.

Edgar didn't care about this; he turned around and led the soldier boy to his car.

Edgar waved his hand, signaling the driver to get out and close the door.

"Which one do you want to ask about?" he asked calmly.

“All of them—” The soldier boy added impatiently, “What about Xuanse? Isn’t he the closest?”

"The moment he heard you were coming back, he removed the subcutaneous chip tracker and fled from the company back to his safe house."

A sinister grin spread across the soldier boy's face.

"So, the remaining old buddies in the team all ran away too?"

"They ran away, but not completely."

Edgar replied, "Since I promised to hand them over to you, I have of course made preparations in advance. I can give you their location now."

"I have only one request—to kill in the name of that mysterious organization."

(End of this chapter)