Chapter 335: Chuck: Mrs. Cooper, You Don't Want Little Sheldon to End Up as Lion Food, Do You?
"I knew it!"
Sheldon's meemaw gave him a knowing look.
The car fell silent again.
They arrived at the Hofstadter's house.
Seeing Chuck, Sheldon's earlier dismissal over a rooster resurfaced. He said to his meemaw, "Meemaw, contact your sister. I need her investment."
"She's a porn star!"
Sheldon's meemaw warned, displeased.
"I know,"
Sheldon said matter-of-factly, glancing at Chuck. "I used to think I was unlike anyone in my family.
Now that my great-aunt built such a successful career, she must have some intelligence. At least smarter than all of you.
I always choose the Rogue class in games; it seems there's a genetic component, maybe not much, but maybe some, unlike you guys."
"Sheldon Lee Cooper!!!"
Sheldon's mother shouted out his full name in a fit of rage.
There was nothing she could do.
Normally, she might be angry, but she'd just call him Sheldon Cooper, without his middle name.
But Sheldon saying this now, especially in front of Beverly, whom she most wanted to compare herself to, was completely unacceptable to her.
"I'm telling the truth,"
Sheldon said bluntly.
"You chose the Rogue class in the game not because you inherited it,"
Chuck said.
"Then why?"
Leonard and Missy asked in unison, their voices trailing off.
After speaking, they looked at each other and laughed.
Leonard lowered his head shyly.
Missy smiled and then looked at Chuck.
Leonard was habitually playing along with Chuck.
Missy, on the other hand, displayed high emotional intelligence and a hint of mischief towards her twin brother.
"Because you're a coward!"
Chuck said seriously.
"So accurate!"
Leonard and Missy both burst into laughter.
"..."
Sheldon glared resentfully at the two laughing people.
Normally, if he were called a coward, he would readily admit it, "Yes, I am a coward! It's one of two choices humans face when confronted with a challenge: fight or flight. I simply chose the wisest latter."
But when the word "coward" came from Chuck's mouth, it immediately lost its rationality, giving him a more human, emotional understanding of the word.
He realized for the first time that it wasn't a good word!
"Chuck, can we talk?"
Seeing her mother's resolute attitude towards her older sister Connie, which didn't seem like a reconciliation would happen, Sheldon's mother, still concerned about her son, wanted to ask Chuck for clarification.
"Sure,"
Chuck didn't refuse.
If he could win over Sheldon's mother, it would be much more effective in dealing with Sheldon.
After all, in the original timeline of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the adult Sheldon was a troublemaker, a nuisance, living a self-centered and domineering life within his own little circle.
When he clashed with his beautiful neighbor Penny, and Leonard, who knew Sheldon's status in the scientific community and had a somewhat inferior mindset, wouldn't give him any pushback.
So the two started playing pranks on each other.
One tricked the other, the other played a trick back.
Neither would back down.
This put Leonard in a difficult position, caught in the middle. He didn't want to offend Sheldon, but he wanted to be closer to Penny. So, as the situation escalated, he secretly told Penny about Sheldon's Achilles' heel.
Penny was shocked when she heard this... but she did it immediately.
That's right!
She called Sheldon's mother and tattled on him.
Sheldon received the call from his mother and tried several times to explain that he hadn't started the fight, but his mother interrupted him each time, ordering him to apologize.
In the end, he reluctantly bowed his head and apologized to Penny.
If Penny (whom Sheldon sees as no different from a gorilla and has even played a mutant ape in a movie) could achieve this through Mrs. Cooper, then if Chuck could get Mrs. Cooper on his side, he would be even more effective at dealing with young Sheldon in the future.
He hadn't done it before because it wasn't necessary.
Now that Mrs. Cooper had taken the initiative to chat with him, he didn't mind getting her approval for his actions against young Sheldon.
That would help him better collect Yin-Yang Points to accumulate the Water of Life.
"Chuck, can I call you Chuck?"
After Mrs. Cooper and Chuck walked to the side, and Chuck nodded, Mrs. Cooper smiled wryly and asked, "What exactly is this investment all about?"
Chuck gave a brief explanation.
"So the conditions you offered are indeed very good."
Mrs. Cooper looked at him. "But why did Shelly insist on refusing you?"
"He didn't refuse."
Chuck said bluntly.
"..."
Mrs. Cooper was speechless. "He didn't dare to refuse. You were clearly helping him, so why did you have to make him cry and make him so afraid of you?"
"Mrs. Cooper, what do you think of me?"
Chuck didn't answer directly but asked in return.
"You?"
Mrs. Cooper was taken aback, staring intently at Chuck, her eyes suddenly changing, somewhat lost in thought. "What do you mean..."
"Not the meaning in your book!"
Chuck bluntly reminded her.
"Oh!"
Mrs. Cooper gasped, her face flushed crimson. She almost turned and ran, or wanted to disappear into the ground.
But when she caught sight of her daughter looking this way from afar, she forced herself to stay rooted to the spot, unable to meet Chuck's eyes, and said shamefully, "What, what do you mean?"
"I mean, from a mother's perspective, what do you think of me?"
Chuck reminded her.
"Oh, this."
Mrs. Cooper was taken aback, then realized what Chuck meant, and looked up at him again, blushing. "You're very good."
"How about Sheldon?"
Chuck didn't expose Mrs. Cooper's thoughts.
He knew that Mrs. Cooper was currently in a very wavering state. The devout Mary Cooper of the past had begun to have thoughts of straying.
There had been a new pastor in Mrs. Cooper's church before, quite different from traditional pastors, witty and humorous, who had truly captivated her for a while.
She even dreamed of having sex with him at night, and he had even made their stagnant marital life more harmonious.
However, when Mr. Cooper felt lucky, he didn't know that although it was his body that was on top, in her mind his face was being replaced by someone else's.
Mrs. Cooper had indeed become somewhat flirtatious with the new pastor, and Mr. Cooper had even witnessed it, but Mr. Cooper had also almost had an affair with the lady next door, so he didn't say anything.
Then came the incident where her eldest son, Georgie, got a woman ten years his senior pregnant, but she refused to marry him.
In traditional Texas, having a child out of wedlock is considered illegitimate, leading not only to discrimination against the woman but also to the entire Cooper family being implicated.
Mrs. Cooper was a devout believer... well, she had a wild youth, only becoming a devout believer after getting pregnant with her son and getting married.
Even after marriage, Mrs. Cooper, a devout believer, worked part-time at the church, actively organizing church activities.
But because she couldn't persuade her grandson's mother to marry her son, she faced ostracism from everyone.
Even her close friend, the pastor, fired her, severely impacting her faith. When the pastor shamelessly visited her to persuade her not to give up on God, she slammed the door shut, saying, "I feel like God has abandoned me."
Her faith wavered, and inspired by her mother's reading of romance novels by Chandler's mother, she decided to try writing her own romance novel.
After that, she developed a sense of admiration for Chandler's mother.
No wonder!
Chandler's mother was a world-class author of romance novels.
Last time, under the pretext of visiting young Sheldon, she specifically went to see Chandler's mother, who was there to promote her son.
After learning her secrets, Mrs. Cooper suddenly lost confidence in her own writing.
No wonder.
Chandler's mother's writing technique was so simple and explicit, while Mrs. Cooper's was more ambiguous, subtle, and focused on atmosphere.
She was, after all, a person of faith; she simply couldn't bring herself to describe those things directly with explicit words.
Although Chuck was much younger than her, almost the same generation as her son, his face was so mature that it didn't show any signs of youth.
Even the BAU's psychological profiling experts were completely surprised that Chuck was actually younger than Dr. Reid, who was known for his youth and required being addressed as "Doctor" to command respect and not be treated like a kid...
Given his age, his looks and physique were already incredibly attractive, especially considering he'd played Batman and Daredevil, and now had two enhancements from the Water of Life—he was practically walking hormones.
With this mindset, how could Mrs. Cooper not have a misinterpretation when Chuck suddenly asked, "What do you think of me?"
Especially since Chuck mentioned her book; almost instantly, the face of the male protagonist in her book materialized in her mind, transforming from a blurry image into the face before her.
She couldn't control it!
"So much better!"
Mrs. Cooper, after Chuck's reminder, finally realized she should try to see things from a mother's perspective. "If Sheldon could be like you someday, I'd be so happy!"
In the original timeline's Big Bang scenario, the grown-up Sheldon, to cover up a lie he considered weak, meticulously crafted another lie, even hiring a physics student minoring in theater to play a drug-addicted relative.
He specifically fabricated a script.
One of the psychological concepts involved was the middle child syndrome.
This theory suggests that in classic American families with three children, the second child is often overlooked and neglected, leading to various psychological problems and negative consequences later in life.
Therefore, he designed his drug-addicted relative as the middle child.
He strongly believed in this theory, almost causing a major falling out with the student actor who didn't follow the script.
But he was the middle child, the second oldest, yet he completely defied this psychological phenomenon he believed in, living the life of the most noticed and loved one.
Missy, the youngest and only girl who should have been the most beloved, lived like an invisible middle child.
Yet, she possessed remarkably high emotional intelligence.
This shows that high emotional intelligence is nothing compared to true high IQ.
Mrs. Cooper was aware of this problem, but Sheldon's behavior was so exceptional that she had to give all the love meant for Missy to Sheldon.
However, she knew in her heart that Sheldon had issues.
She took him to see doctors to check if he was mentally ill.
She felt he had no friends and shed tears for him, urging the friendless Sheldon to actively seek out friends.
Upon discovering Paige's family, she was overjoyed, revealing her feelings about raising Sheldon, only to find that Paige was smarter and more mature than her son, without so many problems. Then she became depressed again, finding only slight comfort in the conflict between Paige's parents.
From childhood, she worried that Sheldon had problems. Before the appearance of the wonderful Amy, she couldn't imagine him ever finding a partner; she thought her son would surely die alone.
Without her unwavering and special love, he wouldn't have grown up, nor would he have lived to a lonely old age.
Chuck, on the other hand, lived the life she imagined her son could possibly achieve.
"Young Sheldon probably told you that in his eyes I'm the Devil,"
Chuck said expressionlessly. "But putting aside whether that's the real me or not, just consider the Devil himself. Without the Devil, how can God be embodied? Without the trials and tribulations of the devil, how can mortals achieve themselves and ascend to Heaven?"
He then calmly uttered a line: "Mrs. Cooper, you don't want young Sheldon to end up as lion food, do you?"
Mrs. Cooper: "..."
Although her mind was now wandering and her faith wavered, the religious environment she had been raised in and her nearly twenty years of unwavering devotion still kept her faith in God alive.
In the biblical story, when the end times came, Noah's Ark would save those worthy believers as the last survivors of humanity.
Young Sheldon, who was not religious at all, was very skeptical of this, and had once pointed out what he saw as a plot hole in the Noah's Ark story:
there simply wasn't enough food on Noah's Ark for the animals that had been preserved.
Her explanation was: "The bodies of the sinners who drowned in the flood, floating on the sea, were food for these animals."
At this point, she really wanted to pat her son's disapproving little head and say, "My poor son who would feed the lions."
But she held back.
However, she had a very strong feeling that one day she wouldn't be able to resist and would actually do it!
"What should I do?"
Mrs. Cooper, although she found Chuck's words strange, was touched by them. Looking at Chuck's calm face and thinking of his achievements, she subconsciously chose to believe him.
"You can comfort him, indulge him,"
Chuck nodded. "Give him all your love, but always stand by my side! Let me give him the appropriate intensity of challenges and trials, so he can become better and have a brighter future!"
"This..."
Mrs. Cooper's expression was strange. She felt that Chuck had been trying to persuade her.
"Do you deny that young Sheldon needs challenges in his life?"
Chuck asked. Seeing Mrs. Cooper shake her head, he continued, "Then can you find someone besides me who can completely keep young Sheldon in check, make him submit, and be willing to guide him towards a better future?"
"Okay, I know what to do,"
Mrs. Cooper smiled wryly.
There really wasn't one!
(End of Chapter)
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