Chapter 6254: Chicago Memories (23)

What is the essence of manipulation?

Bruce believes it’s love. It doesn’t mean manipulating for the sake of love, but the key is to make the other party feel loved, ensuring the entire manipulation process revolves around love rather than power, violence, and abuse. That would be called taming, not manipulation.

What is the reason for manipulation?

Why not use methods of power and violence, and instead choose a more gentle, subtle approach to control a person’s actions?

It’s actually because there are no cards. Bruce knows that if violence were effective, no one would choose otherwise. But the conditions for violence to be perfectly effective are too stringent; most of the time, it’s a case of harming the enemy a thousand times and self-inflicting eight hundred injuries, making it impossible to achieve harm-free control over the other party. Therefore, violent taming methods are not advisable, and one must resort to manipulation.

The most fundamental technique of manipulation is conjuring cards out of thin air. That is, when you know you can’t use absolute power to control the other party, you conjure a card that can absolutely suppress them, making them believe they’re weaker than you.

And when this condition is met, the other party genuinely believes you are entirely superior to them, then if you take a step back, “love” naturally establishes itself. Because a strongman’s concession is a form of giving, this creates the illusion for many that “he loves me”.

Take the classic example of a pig-butchering scheme. The perpetrators will disguise themselves as financial experts, claiming to be economics PhD candidates from prestigious schools, having worked on Wall Street, or at least as seasoned stock market veterans. This is conjuring cards out of thin air, making victims believe they are authoritative in the economic field, much stronger than the average person.

And at this point, they express to the victims that, although they can earn in a day what the victim does in a year, although they know everything while the victim knows nothing, they’re still willing to take the victim along. Victims will fall for the false impression of “He is so strong but still willing to help me, it must be love”, thus getting deceived.

Little do they know, this is the trap of manipulation. The step back was never actually taken; he has not positioned himself above anyone, it was merely an advantage he fabricated from thin air.

Many people are also skilled at using this method to oppress others. There are born manipulators in this world; when you interact with such people, you feel, although objectively it seems they’re inferior in various aspects, you’re inexplicably a notch below them. This is because their ability to conjure cards out of thin air is strong, packaging disadvantages into advantages.

The technique of conjuring cards out of thin air is not about being terribly convincing to others but not being exposed.

Even the truth can only convince most people; there will always be those who don’t believe it, let alone lies. So lies don’t need to be overly persuasive, just undetectable, or at least, undetectable by the targeted audience.

It’s said that a lie requires countless other lies to support it, but there are indeed lies in this world that don’t need support. As long as they’re built on a foundation of idealism, especially becoming something like a spiritual support, even if it’s questionably known, no one will tear it down.

For example, luxury goods: not many are unaware that luxury goods aren’t made of great materials and aren’t handcrafted by a master, but are production line products, yet they’re incredibly expensive. But many fervently pursue them because they’ve become a social symbol, something people idealistically believe can represent their social class. If you go to a luxury store and tell their customers the materials aren’t good, the other party will only consider you mentally ill.

Thinking of this, Bruce immediately realizes the card created by Jile must be related to religion. This is the first thing in the world that cannot be verified or falsified, and in America, in this era, to debate authenticity is a sensitive matter. Now it only advocates belief.

“Forget it,” Bruce said: “I’m not going tonight. You go by yourself.”

Stark slightly widened his eyes as if not understanding why Bruce changed his mind after contemplating. But then he said, “No way. If you don’t make some noise, how can I leave early?”

Bruce rolled his eyes; he knew Stark was waiting for him to cause a disturbance to take the opportunity to slip away. Bruce also didn’t want Stark to stay too long with those people; it was rather dangerous, as Stark was his current financial source. So he said, “Alright. I’ll cause some noise tonight.”

“What are you planning to do?” Stark asked.

“You’ll find out then,” Bruce laughed again.

Stark looked at him with a smile akin to the big jokers in a deck of cards, mentally prepared for whatever Bruce was going to do, but he was still somewhat underprepared.

By past nine in the evening, the party atmosphere in the backyard was just warming up, a group of seemingly relaxed but clearly well-dressed residents of a wealthy area were engaging in the second round of American small talk. Stark held a glass, with Jennifer in his arm, toasting and fake-smiling.

Stark was quite skilled at this; he’d been Pepper’s large ornament at many banquets for years. Although it seemed he was holding Pepper, he was actually hanging on her. He went wherever Pepper went, held his glass whenever she did, and echoed whatever she said without having to use his brain at all.

At this party, it was actually quite similar; just replace the followers with Jennifer’s father. He just nodded the whole time. That’s why it was especially boring, as no one wanted to talk to him about technology issues, they only wanted to know how much his brain was worth.

Stark had to act humble while subtly boasting about how smart he was, which was completely against his nature. During the process, he drank champagne aggressively but still felt a little nauseous inside.

Later on, he had no choice but to act all heated, cuddling with Jennifer in a corner, flirting while making Jennifer laugh out loud, constantly glancing outside the yard, claiming to be admiring the night view.

Suddenly, a heavy rumble came from afar, and the smell of burning tires masked the scent of meat. With a roar, a bright purple Lamborghini zipped past the front gate, followed immediately by the wailing of police sirens, an entire fleet of police cars chased after it, then two police helicopters, and behind them, a news helicopter.

Stark was stunned. Is this the commotion Bruce stirred up?!

We asked you to create a scene, not an actual chaos! Goodness, within these two minutes, the Lamborghini made six laps around this street. When going straight, it was a roar, and when turning, screeching, the street corners were scuffed black, the smoke from the barbecue in the yard wasn’t as dense as the tire smoke, anyone unaware would think they were at a Nurburgring event.

Initially, everyone in the yard was still observing, but after a while, they couldn’t take it anymore and retreated into the house. The noise was a minor issue, the key was the toxic burning tire smell, the driver was fine in the car, but they were in the open yard, breathing in all the harmful gases.

“What the hell!” someone cursed, “Why did the chase come to us?!”

Stark was also a bit puzzled about how Bruce got in. He didn’t doubt who it was at all, just said he should be put into the Joker’s crew, since whose Batmobile is bright purple?

This community is isolated from the outside, with only one gated pedestrian pathway. If a car wants to enter, it would have to go through the underground garage, which also has restricted access, and the outer part is surrounded by thick hedges, making a forced entry unlikely. So he must have driven in through the underground garage.

But Bruce shouldn’t have started speeding from the underground garage; otherwise, the police couldn’t be chasing so closely. In other words, he rushed in directly with that many police from the underground garage.

Stark quickly told Jennifer, “We need to go to the garage and check the car right away.”

Jennifer paused for a moment, then quickly realized it too. She ran to tell her dad, grabbed her coat, and dashed out with Stark. When the two of them reached the underground garage, there were still three police cars stuck there.

Bruce only had one car, and since the underground garage was spacious, as long as his driving was decent, he wouldn’t get stuck. The police, however, couldn’t just send one car after him; if Bruce ran, a single press on the gas and he’d be gone, impossible to catch. But queuing down there, the terrain is complex with several exits, too many police cars would easily get stuck.

“Oh God,” Jennifer sighed, rushing to help. Luckily, the police cars only crashed into pillars, with two of them simply getting lost. The police, knowing this was a rich community, quickly got off to apologize, then explained to Jennifer and the others what happened.

It was straightforward. Some inexplicable lunatic stole a sports car from the northern car showroom, filled it up, and began flooring the gas. Many people were woken up by the noise and immediately called the police, who then gave chase.

Ordinarily, if it wasn’t a heinous crime, they wouldn’t send so many cars. But alas, Bruce ran into a wealthy district where residences are dense, revving his engine wherever he went, waking up the entire north side of Chicago. The police department had to dispatch more forces quickly to capture him; the union couldn’t handle so many complaints from the rich.

Stark was also a bit worried after hearing this. The chaos seemed a bit overblown; could Bruce really get away?

“Looks like we can’t stay here tonight,” Jennifer shook her head. “With the efficiency of Chicago police, this will probably go on till midnight.”

“Then back to our apartment…”

“Let’s just return to our dorms, don’t forget, new students start school tomorrow, you must get up early for class,” Jennifer said.

Stark then remembered they were students and had to attend classes. He sighed again but agreed to Jennifer’s suggestion, said goodbye to Jennifer’s father, and they each went their separate ways.

Jennifer’s father had no objections; this party definitely couldn’t continue, better for everyone to go home and figure out how to pin down this disruptive kid.

Just as Jennifer anticipated, around 1 AM, Bruce came back unscathed, without a trace of battle marks, probably indicating the police never caught up to him.