Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

Lucian saw himself being sprayed with an unknown gas by the clown, causing him to feel slightly dizzy. Then he was stabbed in the abdomen with a knife, and then a sulfuric acid rose appeared...

"Do you want me to review it again?" Lucian said, "If so, then there is no need.

"No, no! Of course not!"

The clown has a pair of eyes hidden in his eye sockets, with a cold smile, as if he is opening Pandora's box with a condescending and deep malice.

"Look, I sprayed a little gas on you... Do you feel that afterward, your observation of the world has become more detailed?"

The overly detailed description of the sulfuric acid rose and the endless imagination.

“Your threshold for pain is higher, and your thinking is sharper.”

Lucian narrowed his eyes slightly and said nothing. The incandescent light in the room shone on his head. His high brow bones and thick eyelashes blocked the light from entering his eyes, making his vision dim and unclear.

"Continue to develop..."

Lucian saw the Joker in the hallucination injecting Batman with a syringe of unknown something. After the injection, Batman's eyes were focused and scattered, falling on the air instead of on any specific entity, showing a blank expression.

"He also has a more detailed observation of the world and a more extreme imagination." The Joker chuckled: "I can even guess what he's thinking."

"Wow, the little boy who watched Pink Zorro is here again with his parents... He's going to die again this time, haha."

As the plot continues to develop, the clown dies, and the family of three leaves with relief at having survived.

"Let me repeat one thing, dear."

"Your biggest problem is that you're trying to project a two-dimensional image onto a three-dimensional person."

"You copied the answers from the written document into the real problem."

"I don't know why you deify the Joker virus... Why do you think that the person who kills me will be me?" The Joker said with a confused look: "If that's true, I only need to let Superman accidentally kill me... Wouldn't I be resurrected in the body of the most powerful person?"

"What do you want to say?" Lucian had a premonition.

"I want to say..."

Chapter 14 You Should Make Him Laugh

"Great men are great because we kneel." The clown slowly read the words from the book again and smiled. "Stina's point of view."

“That’s my point of view as well.”

Lucien heard him continue, "You think Batman is a great man, and you think I am a great man too... How can you see the whole picture from a kneeling position?"

"My death itself will emit a chemical substance, which will react with what you and Batman inhaled and injected... This is the Joker virus." The Joker did not keep it a secret any longer, and his tone was somewhat innocent:

"You haven't forgotten that I'm a chemist."

"Just me and Batman?" Lucian looked up at the Joker who lowered his head slightly, trying to see something from him.

"Of course!" The Joker asked back, "You've seen the Batman Who Laughs, but have you seen the Superman Who Laughs, the Flash Who Laughs, and the Wonder Woman Who Laughs?"

"...Please look at me, my dear, as if I were a human being. Everything has a traceable origin!"

Lucian stood up. He was a little shorter than the clown, but no matter what, the green eyes he saw were blurred and buried deep in the darkness.

"Then why five people?" He seemed to be asking the Joker, but also seemed to be talking to himself: "What about the remaining three people? They are not asymptomatic..."

"Guess what." The clown held his shoulders lightly with both hands and said gently, "Don't think too highly of anyone."

"It was normal until they were out of my sight."

"Correct."

"It wouldn't be normal for me to see them again."

"Yes."

"There was a gap of time in between... a day, maybe half a day."

"continue."

"I was knocked unconscious by Batman, and the first person to know and contact them would only be Batman..."

"I don't know if you've ever read Sherlock Holmes." The clown opened his arms, a smile spreading across his face, his eyes fixed on him.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how implausible, must be the truth.”

As if to confirm his words, a voice came from the intercom again:

"Mr. Lucian, may I ask about the symptoms of Laughing Robin?" It was still the old man's voice, but it was unconsciously a little hurried.

"Barking, wild laughter, green eyes, and loss of rationality." Lucian closed his eyes and asked dryly, "Can I ask who has these symptoms?"

Penny was a little surprised by the question, but he didn't hide it: "Jess, John, Annie."

Jess, John, and Annie are the three members of that family.

Lucien took a deep breath. "Did Batman do this?"

"Do you still call him Batman?" The Joker smiled, but looked a little sad.

"Yes," Penny replied.

"You should make him laugh," said the clown.

-

John is a timid, cowardly, unintelligent, ordinary boy.

He is lucky. He has had a harmonious family and normal friends since he was a child. He has never suffered from bullying, blackmail, sexual assault, or abandonment... He is luckier than most children in Gotham.

But he was also unfortunate, and the only misfortune he encountered in his life killed him completely.

He was killed by his own city's very own hero when he was completely unprepared.

Now he was trapped in hallucinations, his brain nerves were completely destroyed by the drug, he just grinned exaggeratedly, green shadows covered his eyeballs, his skin was pale, and he was on all fours, looking completely inhuman.

"Hahaha."

A laugh leaked from his throat, and his whole face was stiff and unnatural, as if it was just a body and his soul had long disappeared.

"The symptoms are similar to those experienced by people affected by laughing gas."

"Is it possible to save him?"

"It's just similar. The special medicines developed today for nitrous oxide are useless to him." Red Robin pointed at the bar graph displayed on the Batcomputer:

"It's like trying to turn a hard-boiled egg back into a raw egg. I don't think it's possible to turn it back into a raw egg."

"Do the other two have the same symptoms?" Red Hood asked.

Red Robin's goggles reflected blue data, looking cold:

"Although Jace retained his sanity the longest, this is what happened."

"I think they could be frozen and kept in a freezer for a while—at least to stop them from getting worse."

"Then we started looking at mitigants... We can't turn a hard-boiled egg back into a raw egg, but we can shred a hard-boiled egg so that under certain conditions it has a texture similar to a raw egg when it's been re-cooked."

"At least we can find a research direction."

Red Hood nodded slightly, "How about the one who started it all?"

The instigator is naturally Batman, who is not sure whether he should be called Batman or not.

"This is a comparison of his muscle tissue, blood samples, gene sequence, and brain CD." Red Robin tapped the keyboard, and other data appeared on the screen.

"There were no changes in muscle tissue, but platelet activity in the blood increased by ten percentage points. Changes were seen in the genes for OCA2, HERC2, and TYR, and activity levels in the orbital cortex and ventral prefrontal cortex decreased."

This can lead to increased self-healing abilities, a change in iris color to green, and decreased self-control, empathy, and moral cognition.

"It doesn't look that different." Red Hood frowned as he compared the data on both sides. "With such a minor change, I think he's still sane and trustworthy."

Red Robin said, "But we don't know what else is affecting him yet. Being undetected doesn't mean it's safe."

"So what's the research direction?"

"Batman's research direction is to compare it with Lucian's."

"The Joker virus has almost become one with him, causing changes in his personality. These changes are both drastic and natural, quietly transforming him into another person."

"Lucian is the exact opposite. He's completely separated from the Joker virus, each of them forming their own personality. They coexist without affecting each other, and it can even be considered a peaceful coexistence."

"Is this a thing?" Red Hood couldn't help but question.

"I know you're having trouble believing this, but I have to say this: Lucian has all of Batman's changes, but with the added bonus of hyperactivity and hyperconnectivity in his DMN."

"In short, Batman is a born sociopath or a serial killer, and Lucian is also a sociopath and a serial killer, but that is another of his personalities."

-

"You've successfully convinced me." Lucian watched the communicator go silent, then turned to the Joker and said, "Laughter is Born... and then what?"

"Your theory is correct, but as you said, I'm just an ordinary person. If you want me to help you with something, I'm afraid it will be difficult for you to get what you want."

"Are we going to cross the line of trust and discuss cooperation?" the Joker asked, "Isn't this progress too fast?"

"Then what do you want?"

"Maybe... I want you to see reality."

Chapter 15 Let's Talk About Trust

Lucian scoffed, "Philanthropist."

"Philanthropist? Not really." The Joker said, "Since you know so much about the so-called plot... I wonder if you knew that I once teamed up with Batman?"

In the recent past, when the main world dealt with the Maniac Who Laughs, Batman and the Joker joined forces.

The Joker saw something in Lucian's expression: "Smart people don't need trust to work together... We have a tacit understanding between us."

"But you can't, honey," he said. "We need to talk about trust."

He talked about trust, but Lucien heard the subtext between the lines: You're not smart.

Lucien: ...

As if sensing Lucien's emotions, the Joker said lovingly, "It's okay, dear. Wisdom comes from the past and experience."

And you are a person without past and experience.

Lucien heard the subtext again.