Not far from the monitoring room, Shiller and his group found the cargo elevator. It was a cylindrical capsule elevator, very spacious, able to accommodate dozens of people, and it functioned well.
With the help of data in the monitoring room, Shiller had roughly inferred the meaning of some Kryptonian characters, especially numbers, so he could understand the meanings of the buttons on the elevator.
Shiller originally wanted to go straight to the surface, but considering the scope of the dream realm might not be that large, Chayle might be somewhere in the mine. He chose a middle floor number, planning to search for Chayle's traces on that level.
The elevator quickly came to a stop. Upon stepping out, he looked around, and once again saw many dark passageways. The entire mine was eerily quiet, with only faint humming of machinery and the sizzling sound of lighting equipment heard from a distant place.
Quiet signifies safety, Shiller thought. While recalling this past, Chayle felt safe; perhaps someone accompanied him, and that would be his mental anchor.
Once more standing at the edge of the corridor and looking down, Shiller saw a light two levels below. That level clearly seemed different, appearing to be a living area.
"Will they be there?" Injustice Batman asked after noticing the same place.
"We can go down and take a look," said Shiller.
They took the elevator down two levels again. Once the elevator doors opened, many things became clearer.
The closer one gets to the dream's owner, the clearer the dream becomes, thought Shiller. It looks like Chayle is on this level.
To avoid conflict with the locals, they swiftly turned the corner. Shiller glanced quickly at the plaques on the corridor doors, which became increasingly clear from left to right.
The plaque at the end of the left corridor seemed to have only a number, the middle one had some color, and the plaque on the rightmost room showed clear signs of wear.
Even a super brain has a fuzzy logic function; unused and unnecessary information gets blurred out. The clearer remembered information is, the clearer it appears in the dream.
"You stay here and keep watch," Shiller told Injustice Superman.
Injustice Superman naturally wouldn't want to take orders, but since Injustice Batman stayed back, he didn't move forward either.
Shiller grasped the doorknob, feeling a slightly cool touch. He gently pushed the door open; behind it was a lounge with silver-white walls and a soft bed.
A gray-skinned little boy sat on the bed, fiddling with a toy in his hands. Noticing someone enter, he looked up towards the door.
At first glance, Shiller squinted, noticing that even the young Chayle had horrifying scars on his face.
Unlike Barry, he was quite familiar with this scenario. The El couple shouldn't have been abusive to him, so the problem likely lay with his creator.
Shiller recalled everything he encountered while traversing the deep dream—a terrifying infant, Kryptonian-inscribed pliers, strange tentacles...
Shiller thought of many things but still walked over. Chayle looked at him curiously and greeted him in Kryptonian, saying, "Hello."
Just by looking, Shiller could already discern a few things. His gaze fell onto the toy Chayle held.
Chayle rattled off a string of words in Kryptonian. Shiller keenly picked up the syllables "Joe El," the tone rising, carrying a bit of pride. When mentioning this name, Chayle was undoubtedly happy.
Shiller gradually restored the original appearance of this dream—El bringing his adopted son to work. Every ordinary day he was busy, little Chayle awaited in his father's lounge, playing with toys.
El was Chayle's mental anchor. El's significance to Chayle was similar to Lois's to Injustice Superman.
In an instant, Shiller already thought of how to make Chayle in this dream lose control.
He glanced around; besides a bed, there was a table and chairs. Going over to the table, he saw some drawing papers and a row of pen-like things resembling colored crayons.
Shiller casually picked up one and began sketching some lines on a white sheet. After a while, he lifted it up and placed it in front of Chayle.
Reflected in Chayle's pupils was the emblem of the highest council.
Horror flashed in his eyes, his expression began to twist, and he slapped away the paper from Shiller's hand, clutching his toy and retreating to the bed.
Seeing his reaction, Shiller confirmed his suspicion.
The more vividly something is remembered, the clearer it appears in dreams. When they arrived, they saw this pattern on the central huge pipeline; every detail of the pattern's flow was very clear. This indicated a deep impression on Chayle.
Shiller also found this emblem on some equipment in the monitoring room. He guessed it might be the emblem of the highest governing council of Krypton.
This is actually quite abnormal. Like asking someone about the emblem of their location's ruler, many can only recall the general, such as the shape and elements on it, but very few can detail every tiny pattern.
Because it's not an everyday item, even if it appears in news reports, no one scrutinizes it, a quick glance to identify it suffices.
Even with a super brain, an emblem isn't something one must remember. Chayle, having been away from Krypton all these years, yet still remembers this emblem so distinctly, implying it has extraordinary significance for him.
As expected, little Hai'er felt afraid.
Shiller persisted relentlessly, holding that piece of paper and pointing at the symbol on it, he asked Hai'er in English: "Do you know what this is? Can you tell me what this is?"
Hai'er couldn't understand what he was saying, but creatures with empathy don't necessarily need to understand the language to feel what's being communicated. Actions, attitude, tone, and emotions can make one feel pressure.
Shiller's incessant questioning attitude made Hai'er even more frightened. His breathing became rapid, and he threw the toy in his hand at Shiller.
Suddenly, he shouted something, and the entire dream shattered.
Once again enveloped in darkness, Shiller felt the familiar sensation of falling. This feeling always accompanied the journey into deeper layers of the dream.
The Injustice Superman and Injustice Batman outside the door also fell along with him. However, this time, they could see how the dream was constructed.
First, some solitary objects flew by, like an experiment table, laboratory bench, cabinet, chair. These objects rotated continuously in the air, forming a storm.
A sound of water flowed over, and the walls around them seemed to rise from a river, slowly appearing beneath their feet and then enclosing them, forming a room.
The light source also spun incessantly around the room, suddenly stopping at a specific angle. The furniture fell down with a swish.
In a flash, it became an utterly ordinary room, looking like a laboratory.
Outside the window, the sun was bright, the breeze gentle, and even the sounds of some birds could be heard, completely hiding the earlier chaos.
The three of them stood on one side of the laboratory, and on the other side of the lab table lay a specimen of some animal.
What was most striking was a spherical machine fixed on the ceiling. Two mechanical arms extended from the lower side of the machine, their tweezer-like sharp tips rotating slowly, seemingly awaiting the next command from the control end.
Seeing the shape of these two mechanical arms, Shiller's breath caught slightly—these were very similar to the tentacle chasing the car.
Shiller walked over and looked up at the machine above his head. The round machine had many holes, suggesting various mechanical arms could extend from within.
The Injustice Batman approached the control panel nearby. With a glance, he roughly understood the operation method of the thing.
He reached out and pressed a button, the mechanical arm on the left deftly bent, and the two sharp, tweezer-like tips slipped into the wound of the dissected animal, pulling out a milky neural strand.
"Ingenious design," Injustice Batman said. "If we illustrate with Earth's technology, it would mimic the movement of an octopus's arm. But I'm not sure what methods they used for the touch-point design..."
Shiller looked at the animal lying on the dissection table. It was an animal about the size of a wild boar, with a long nose and smooth skin surface, its abdomen cut open by an incision.
Shiller looked up again at the mechanical arm and noticed that the two sharp tips of the car-chasing mechanical arm in the deep dream were noticeably larger, which is why they seemed like a monster's teeth.
"Get rid of it," Shiller said, pointing at the animal on the dissection table.
Injustice Batman readily complied, maneuvering the mechanical arm to push the boar-like animal down.
Then Shiller did something that surprised both Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman.
He laid himself on the dissection table.
"Now it's right," Shiller thought as he lay flat on the dissection table. "Lying here, indeed the tips appeared large."
He sat up again and then said, "You two go find Hai'er; he should be in the adjacent room. Bring him here."
Injustice Superman wanted to retort, but recalling Shiller's sudden move to lie on the dissection table, he thought this man must be a madman. Coupled with Injustice Batman waiting by the door, he simply went out too.
Shiller sorted through the clues in his mind.
There was no doubt that Hai'er had some childhood trauma. He might have stayed in a laboratory for experiments when he was young, leaving a lasting impression of the mechanical arm constantly waving above his head.
At that time, he was very scared, which is why in his memory, the mechanical arm was magnified many times and became a terrifying tentacle chasing every living creature.
By that logic, other monsters might be the same.
Just as he thought of this, Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman brought Hai'er in. However, instead of walking him in, they had directly dragged him in.
It seemed that young Hai'er didn't have such great strength, at least wasn't a match for Injustice Superman, who effortlessly dragged him into the laboratory.
He was shouting something, and Shiller heard similar syllables. He guessed it might mean "Dad" in Krypton's language.
In the instant he saw the mechanical arms behind Shiller, Hai'er let out a scream. The dream shattered once more.