Chapter 2 The Nonexistent Fire Scene_2

"Hmm," Jiang Shu did not refuse.

The Character Card was akin to the identity card from his past life in Hua Country. Whether you owned one didn't really matter, but for those who didn't and wanted to obtain one, it was truly difficult—almost impossible—if you were over eighteen years old and wished to apply for awakening.

Even Sister Ruo couldn't handle it; the database associated with the Character Card had always been the most secure area in the entire network security of Lonely City.

"So, do we watch surveillance here, or do we go to the scene?" Jiang Shu stood up, shaking his wrists, which had been handcuffed to the table; he felt uncomfortable all over.

"You!" Wolf was shocked to see him effortlessly shake off the handcuffs with a mere flick of his hand.

"Don't panic, just a little tired from sitting too long. I'll cuff myself again in a bit," Jiang Shu spread his hands, indicating he had no ulterior motives, then pulled out a small key and tossed it to Wolf, "Next time keep it in a safer place. Don't put the handcuffs and key in the same pocket."

"" Wolf took the key with a dark face and turned to leave the room, "Let's go, directly to the scene."

Having just left the interrogation room, Jiang Shu saw Liu Tingruo sitting in a chair at the door, her eyes intently focused on the Simulated Light Screen.

In front of Liu Tingruo was a floating blue orb, Small Eight, projecting a fragment of a virtual screen, while another red orb, Small Five, lay in her palm.

These two orbs were black technologies developed by Liu Tingruo herself. Small Eight served as both monitor and central unit while Small Five was a combination of mouse and keyboard. Their roles could be swapped and both possessed a certain level of intelligence.

"What... are you doing?" Jiang Shu glanced at the screen, a black display with white characters, all incomprehensible to him.

"Hang on, I'm about to hack into the police station," Liu Tingruo said, still staring at the screen without patience.

Then she suddenly paused and turned to look at him, her small face filled with surprise, "How did you get out?"

"Why do I sense a hint of disappointment?" Jiang Shu helplessly pulled her up and turned off Small Eight and Small Five's working modes, "You head home first, I'm going to assist with the investigation. Don't worry, everything's fine."

"Oh—" Liu Tingruo uttered an elongated sound, "Then be careful."

——

In the slightly dim surveillance room, screens were playing the video from the day of the heist, with Jiang Shu, Wolf, and a duty officer intently watching.

The video was not long, just about ten minutes or so, but fortunately, the 4K high-definition quality allowed Jiang Shu to make out quite a few details.

"What have you found in your investigation?" Jiang Shu slowly asked.

"We've investigated the audience at the scene; they were all random," said Wolf, "and we've checked the bank's surveillance from that day, with no findings."

They were utterly befuddled: there was no beginning or end in sight, and they could not imagine how the fox managed to remotely retrieve the money.

"What about the surveillance video from inside the vault?" Jiang Shu looked at Wolf.

"There's no surveillance in a place like a vault, to prevent hacker attacks," Wolf replied helplessly, "It was only discovered that ten million was missing from the vault when the bank closed and counted cash at six-thirty after Deception ended."

"Right, it's normal for you to feel at a loss on where to begin," said Jiang Shu, nodding, "Because you're not using magical thinking to consider it."

"First is a magic concept, Time Misdirection," he explained, "In magic, the cause and effect the audience sees can be very different from the actual cause and effect, and this disparity is also one of the sources of the magic effect. Simply put, you think that the remote retrieval and the theft of the Feather Coin happened simultaneously, but in reality, the Feather Coins might have been stolen much earlier."

"Huh?" Wolf was stunned and then denied, "That's not right, the vault was checked by someone before the bank opened in the morning, and there was no theft then. Also, we thoroughly reviewed the surveillance from that day; no one entered except for the cash counting in the evening."

"Can you be sure that there was not a single issue with the inspection this morning?" Jiang Shu pressed on.

Wolf furrowed his brow slightly, falling into deep thought.

"So, the case consists of two parts," Jiang Shu continued, "First, the gang managed to steal ten million, and then there was the Deception performance at the bank entrance to muddle the waters."

"If you just want to catch the fox, there's no need to bother with the first half," he opened the surveillance video from the bank entrance again, "A good hunter often only focuses on one target. Since you only want to catch the fox, there's no need to worry about uncovering the truth."

"Well, it would still be best to figure out the truth," Wolf said, somewhat embarrassed.

Play—

"Today, July 19th, is the day of our reunion." At the bank entrance, a man wearing a fox mask stood on a table and said leisurely, "So, I don't want to play those little tricks from the past anymore. Let's... go big this time."

At that moment, the fox stood fifty meters away from the bank entrance, and the crowd quickly surrounded him, erupting into waves of noise.

"First, let's randomly select an audience member." The fox took out a deck of cards and expertly fanned it out before handing it to an audience member nearby, "Take one."

The chosen audience member casually drew a card, then handed it to the fox, and after four repetitions, the fox revealed the four cards at once—combined, they read "1025".

"Alright, does anyone here have a Character Card Sequence with the last four digits of 1025?" the fox turned half a circle, displaying the four cards.

Following his move, a young man stepped forward from the crowd, showing off his role card Projection displayed on his wristwatch, with the Sequence number "1025" at the end.

"It seems we're in luck. Please come to the front," the fox said as he smiled, hopped off the table, and asked the man, "First off, I want to know, sir... do you need money?"

"Money?" The man paused, then began to laugh, "Well, of course, I need money. Who wouldn't want more?"

"Then, if I give you a chance to make a million in five minutes, would you take it?" the fox continued, his hand gripping the tablecloth.

"Absolutely," the man replied without hesitation.

"Whoosh—" the fox yanked away the tablecloth, and a flash before everyone's eyes was followed by a large heap of fire spontaneously appearing on the table, burning steadily.

"Oh!" The crowd backed away slightly, issuing bursts of exclamations.

"Here we have a fire pit, which connects to another space. Just extend your hand into it..." The fox's mask actually curled up at the corners of the mouth. He reached into the fire pit, felt around, and then pulled out a large bundle of cash, "you can receive a reward for overcoming your fear of fire..."

"100,000 Feather Coins!" His mask stretched into a crazed smile, and the crowd around him, whether stimulated by the money or the deception, cheered wildly.

"Now... It's your turn." The fox grinned, motioning with a gesture of invitation, and then snapped his fingers near the young man's ear, "Just overcome your fear of flames, and you'll receive your reward."

The man's eyes stared fixedly at the flames, which cast an orange glow upon his face—rooted in place, an unnatural sense of fear showed on his face. Instead of reaching out, he retreated several steps.

"Here, the fox triggered the Heart Anchor," Jiang Shu paused, then seeing Wolf's puzzled expression, he explained, "Under a state of hypnosis, a requisite conditioned response is set in the subject's subconscious. When this condition is triggered, the subject quickly re-enters a hypnotic state and carries out the pre-set instructions."

"This is a Heart Anchor."

"The trigger is this snapping of fingers," he pointed at the video of the man, forehead slick with perspiration, looking panicked, "Compared to others, his fear of the bonfire suddenly intensified. So I speculate, the result of the Heart Anchor was the appearance of a hallucination."

"He saw a fire that didn't exist."