After leaving the base, Victor soared into the sky. He flew directly towards his mother's cemetery. On the way, he recalled his conversation with Bruce.
At the time, they were in front of his mother's grave and had already discovered that the grave had been tampered with, and the soil's moisture level seemed off. But at that time, he had already locked onto a suspect, who was his father. He believed it must be his father who dug up his mother's grave and took her body away.
But what if the sequence was reversed? What if his mother came back to life, dug herself out of the grave, and was then taken away by his father?
Soon, Victor arrived at the cemetery. He re-opened his mother's grave. Last time, he had just given it a cursory glance, filled with confusion and anger over his father's actions. Overcome by emotions, he didn't realize that the truth could be completely opposite to his imagination.
This time, he dug up the entire grave again, even taking out the coffin directly. He meticulously examined every part of the coffin, then discovered scratches and push marks on the underside of the coffin lid, so-called coffin board.
It's fortunate that Western coffins aren't nailed down. After the ritual of viewing the remains ends, the lid is simply placed on and put into the grave. Although some might have latches or similar things, it's actually easy to open. After all, these items are just ritual artifacts, not anything to prevent the dead from rising, so there's no need to make them so tightly sealed.
Plus, generally, such public cemeteries tend to be buried shallowly. People believe that if buried too deeply, it would hinder the deceased's path to Heaven. So, in many movies, you'll see that the pit dug out is only slightly deeper than the height of the coffin. When filling it with soil, it's almost just one person with one shovel of earth.
Therefore, the creature inside the coffin should have first pried open the latch on the left side of the coffin, then continuously pushed the coffin lid, creating a gap, and ultimately rose from the coffin.
Then the question arises, if his mother climbed out herself, why would she appear in a cultivation tank in his father's experimental base?
Other people's resurrected relatives always went straight back home, sitting there properly waiting for them to return. It can't be that only his mother ran out of energy after coming out, and just happened to be picked up by his father, right?
This obviously raises a lot of suspicions. Victor couldn't fathom any leads, so he decided to ask his father directly. He flew again to Florida, arriving at the entrance of the Red House Experimental Base.
Dr. Stone was somewhat surprised to see him. Victor, somewhat angry, slammed his fist on the table and said, "What's going on here? What are you hiding from me?!"
"What are you talking about, Victor?"
"Stop pretending. The Justice League told me that these resurrected people are no different from normal people, and there's no such thing as being out of energy. Plus, my mom clearly climbed out of the coffin herself, proving she can move freely. Why did you put her here?!"
Dr. Stone paused, then sighed deeply before speaking, "Sure enough, I couldn't hide it from you. Victor, I didn't lie to you. I genuinely wanted to revive your mother. But not by someone else's hand."
Victor squinted his eyes at him. Dr. Stone said, "I was indeed the first person to discover your mother's resurrection. But it wasn't through a phone call, rather the old house's surveillance cameras captured her figure."
"For years, I've been under military control. I knew they might go to desperate measures. So every time I went home, I would maintain the security system and repair the cameras to ensure I could see everything happening inside the house, preventing them from taking drastic measures against you."
"But I didn't expect they had reached the point of insanity by exploiting car accidents. However, the security system still played an important role. The moment your mother returned, it alerted me that the house had been invaded. When I saw your mother, I realized something was wrong."
"Although I don't know exactly who, I am very clear that the figure standing inside the house looking identical to your mother at the time was definitely not Eleanor. No one knows better than I do the price paid for resurrection."
"Not even you, Victor. You didn't actually come back to life successfully; my son was already dead. What remains now is the consciousness of Victor Stone carried by the Mother Box. I resurrected you not merely to console my emotions but because I realized the military was spiraling out of control, and I needed someone to punish them."
Dr. Stone walked to the lab table and said, "This imposter that suddenly appeared in the old house, although not truly Eleanor, captivated my curiosity with her flawless appearance and seemingly flawless memories and habits."
"Although perfect resurrection is unattainable, this specimen even approaches being more perfect than you. Therefore, I subdued her with an electric shock device and brought her here. I need to find out how the person behind this achieved it."
Victor listened in stunned silence, never having seen such a cold side of his father. Perhaps it was the military's prolonged oppression and control that drove him insane or maybe he was inherently crazy. However, this mad scientist aura, viewing moral ethics as meaningless, surely intimidated Victor.
"How... how could you do this?" Victor asked, "That's disrespecting her, this is desecration!"
Dr. Stone's gaze finally turned cold. Standing behind the lab table, he stared at Victor and said, "The one who destroyed the coffin I prepared for Eleanor, the one who had someone looking identical to her crawling out of the grave, shamelessly invading the place we once called home, the one who wants to use a mother's love to fight against her son—the behind-the-scenes manipulator—his actions are the real desecration."
Victor was speechless.
He looked again at his mother in the cultivation tank. It was the face he longed for day and night, seeming so close yet so far.
Victor was unwilling to admit that this was not his mother. But he had no proof. Although he could activate the console view, he had never looked at his mother this way when she was alive, and he didn't know what her true source code was, so there was no way for him to tell if it was real or fake.
Moreover, Victor himself couldn't quite understand much of the data in this view. It wasn't something a being of emotion like him was supposed to see, so he couldn't analyze the flaws of this resurrected impostor based on it.
That's right, Victor had actually already admitted in his heart that the woman who crawled out of the coffin wasn't his mother. It was just hard for him to accept the gap. Lost and found, found and lost again, the taste of it was indescribable.
Victor sat down as if exhausted on a chair next to him, quietly gazing at the cultivation tank. After a long while, he regained his senses and then looked at Dr. Stone and said, "You said you want to truly revive her?"
Dr. Stone nodded and said, "That's the ultimate goal, although I think the possibility of achieving it is slim. But any small progress would be a great advancement in exploring the rules of the universe. Besides, the Justice League will sooner or later approach me to find out who exactly resurrected them."
Victor couldn't deny this. His father's level of scientific research was extremely high. To put it this way: the military was aware that attacking Victor and his mother might provoke a strong backlash, but even with such a risk, they wanted to control Dr. Stone because no one was his equal.
Not to mention his level of research on the Mother Box; the fact that he could study it meant he had at least reached the level of observing the truth. Aside from Batman, he was probably the only one capable of figuring out the principle behind this conspiracy. The Justice League would definitely need his help.
To be able to use experimental material identical to his deceased wife for research, Dr. Stone's willpower was astonishingly strong. If he recited the Green Lantern Oath now, he might as well become a Green Lantern.
But this wasn't the first time. After all, he had once revived Victor. At that time, he also faced his son's corpse alone.
Victor sighed heavily. He knew better than anyone how unpleasant this feeling was, so how could he blame his father too much?
At the end of the day, helping the Justice League was helping the universe. What he was doing now was equally great. As someone who hadn't made any significant contributions since joining the Justice League, he had no standing to criticize him.
"I understand," Victor simply said, "if you have any new progress, be sure to let me know at the first instance."
"Victor." Dr. Stone called out to him again and said, "Although your body is now made up of the Mother Box, you must remember, you are Victor Stone. Control it, don't let it control you."
Victor stood in the shadows by the door, nodding to Dr. Stone. He had long realized that the Mother Box had its own consciousness. Not wisdom, but consciousness, and even retained certain memories. The power of the Cosmic Origin was so strong that once lost, one would be doomed forever. He must be doubly cautious.
Just as Victor walked out the door, an image flashed before his eyes. Amidst the blaze of fire, he was placed on the ground by someone. A man lay next to him, and the figure walking slowly toward them looked very much like Wonder Woman, Diana.
Victor was suddenly alarmed. He realized something had happened.
When Barry and Ron arrived at the Amazon, they found the atmosphere here was unusual. The whole nation was under martial law, and there was no way to enter through normal means. But given the urgency of the matter, Barry had no choice but to take Ron and break in, reaching the Queen's palace.
As their figures appeared in the palace, the trusted aides shouted and surrounded them. The Queen was also startled, turning to look at them. Realizing they were members of the Justice League, she not only didn't relax but grew even more tense.
"What are you here for?! You despicable thieves!"
"What?" Ron asked.
"Wasn't it you who encouraged Diana to steal the Mother Box? Isn't that right?!"
"What?!"
Barry and Ron looked at each other in shock. The Queen tightly furrowed her brow, staring at them as if trying to judge if they were acting. Ron hurriedly said, "Your Majesty, we are here to find Diana. To be honest, we discovered that relatives of Justice League members have been resurrected..."
Ron briefly introduced the previous incidents to the Queen. Upon hearing the word "resurrect," the Queen seemed to have a realization and suddenly said, "Steve..."
"What?"
"Diana might be trying to resurrect Steve," the Queen said, looking at them. "He was her former lover."