Smallville Mental Asylum.
Lex, in shackles, was queuing up to receive his medication at the window.
Due to his last failed attempt to escape the asylum, he had been severely punished and could only move around in shackles recently.
However, compared to being confined, he still preferred the punishment of wearing shackles.
At least it made him feel alive, rather than being locked up in a place where he couldn't see a ray of sunshine, waiting for his body to mold and rot.
"Next!"
The middle-aged woman at the window shouted towards the line.
Lex slowly shuffled his shackled feet to the window.
"Mr. Luthor, if you spit out the pills again, I'll force a whole bottle down your throat!"
The Black middle-aged woman said fiercely to him.
She knew Lex Luthor often dishonestly spit out his pills, so she threatened him.
Ignoring the Black woman's threat, Lex took the tray, picked up the water cup on it, put two pills in his mouth, swallowed them at once, and then opened his mouth for her to see.
The Black woman scrutinized him carefully, and after confirming that there was nothing in Lex's mouth, she nodded and let him go.
Dragging his heavy shackles, Lex moved slowly down the corridor.
He wanted to go to the common room to watch some TV.
That was his only means of contact with the outside world.
Upon reaching the common room, he leaned on the armrest of a chair and slowly sat down.
After a few shallow breaths, Lex fixed his gaze on the television screen.
The TV was reporting on Eric's ongoing crackdown on terrorism, specifically targeting superpowered criminals involved in terrorist attacks in parts of Gotham and Metropolis, with the Homelander government deploying superpowers and the military to suppress them.
Lex shook his head, watching the superhero on TV, glowing faintly green, fighting with green beams of light emanating from a ring.
"The President?"
Looking at Eric's back on the TV, Lex recalled a hallucination he had once experienced.
He was sitting in the White House office, with a gloomy sky outside, dark clouds looming, as if a storm was brewing.
Then he walked out of the office, and the ground outside turned into a field of blooming sunflowers.
He reached out to touch the sunflowers, but suddenly found that the ones he touched withered rapidly and then disappeared.
After the sunflowers disappeared, the ground turned into a pile of white bones.
"Slap!"
A pair of hands suddenly touched his shoulder.
Lex snapped out of his reverie and saw that the asylum attendant was standing in front of him.
"It's time for your psychiatrist appointment, stop daydreaming and follow me!"
The somewhat overweight attendant nodded at Lex, signaling him to follow.
The mental asylum had weekly psychiatrist sessions, and everyone underwent regular psychological evaluations, and Lex was no exception.
Although he didn't believe that so-called psychiatrists could cure him.
Dragging the shackles on his feet, Lex followed the attendant step by step.
As he reached a door, seeing the faint sunlight emanating from the room and the dark iron door in front of him, a sudden ominous feeling arose in Lex's heart.
"Creak!"
The iron door slowly opened, and Lex saw the person inside.
A woman's figure sat at the iron table.
The woman, dressed in a neat psychiatrist's uniform and wearing black-rimmed glasses, was looking at him with great interest.
Lex didn't recognize her, but he clearly felt a dangerous aura from her.
"Who are you? I remember the last psychiatrist wasn't you."
Sitting down face-to-face with the woman, Lex asked with a frown.
"From now on, it's me."
The woman smiled slightly at Lex, "You can call me Dr. Quinn."
"Dr. Quinn?"
Lex repeated, "So you're now responsible for the psychological health evaluations of the mental patients here?"
Dr. Quinn, who was Harley Quinn, showed a somewhat eerie smile and said to Lex, "Yes, and that includes you, Mr. Luthor!"
"I am not a mental patient. Even if I was before, I am fully recovered now."
Lex tried his best to appear normal.
If it were his old temper, he would have surely stood up and vented his anger at her.
But now, in order to get out, he had learned to disguise himself.
"I... I made many mistakes before. At that time, I had a very bad temper, and my emotions were terrible. That made me start doubting myself, and even started doubting the people around me, including my father. Now I know that was my problem. I can now view things around me very calmly. I have returned to normal."
Lex tried to make his tone sound very peaceful and non-aggressive.
"Is that so? Let me see your previous file."
Harley pretended to open Lex's file.
Since her profession before meeting Joker was a psychiatrist, she was very comfortable playing the role of a psychiatrist again now.
"You once claimed that your father—Lionel—along with his business partners, killed your grandparents, which are your father's biological parents, for the purpose of inheriting their estate. That sounds truly horrifying. Do all of you in the Luther Family like to pursue power and money so much? Or is this an inherent nature ingrained in your bones?!"
Harley leaned closer to Lex with great interest and asked him softly.
"That was just my delusion. My mental state had some issues during that period. I had issues with my father, but this matter is not real. But you can't expect someone with mental issues to be responsible for every single word they've said, can you?"
Lex calmly said to Harley.
"Not necessarily. If sometimes harm is unavoidable, then hide the truth under the hay, don't speak it yourself, but wait for someone to discover it and speak for you."
Harley smiled slightly and said to Lex, "Judging whether a person has mental problems is not based on the logic and coherence of their speech, nor on whether that person chooses to be as ordinary as a normal person, but on whether there is madness in their eyes!"
Licking her lips, Harley leaned in, bringing her face closer to Lex's.
"I see madness in your eyes, a madness more abnormal than any normal person. If you could hide this madness, perhaps I would be deceived by you, but now all the emotions in your eyes have been captured by me."
Harley extended her finger and gently pressed it on Lex's right eye.
"That is ambition and unwillingness, and even more, a desire for this world. If you were to get out, perhaps your madness would infect more people, and even infect this world, leading to a more entertaining situation."
Harley became excited, "Haha, that's also the situation I want to see, after all, how can this world be without people like you?!"
Looking at Harley, who was laughing, Lex stood up in alarm and took a step back.
With suspicion in his eyes, Lex asked her, "You're not a psychiatrist. Who exactly are you?"
"I am a psychiatrist, the kind with a license, and the kind specifically invited here to diagnose you."
Harley's smile grew wider.
"Mr. Luthor, my diagnosis of you is that your mental illness is still very severe, so for the foreseeable future, if you want to get out, you'll have to break out of prison."
Harley Quinn spoke words that struck fear into Lex.
"No! You can't do that! I'm normal now! On the contrary, you're the abnormal one! You lunatic!"
Lex couldn't suppress his terrible emotions and roared at Harley.
"Even if you disguise yourself as a doctor, I can feel all your madness! You're not a doctor, you're not a psychiatrist here to diagnose, you're here to spread madness!"
Lex roared at her.
"Look at what this world has become! Someone who shouldn't have appeared has appeared and now rules the Earth, and you all are engrossed in it, unwilling to see how our world should truly operate! Everything is utterly absurd! You are the crazy ones, not me, and you still want to lock me up! Never—impossible!"
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