Chapter 351: New Clues—The Death Tarot Card!

The time had reached 3:17 AM.

The lights in the Command Center were still on.

The clock on the wall ticked away.

The surveillance footage on the screen wall had been playing on a loop for who knows how many times.

Every camera angle, every perspective, every frame had been repeated over and over again.

The technician's eyes were already blurring.

The third pot of coffee had been brewed in the coffee machine; someone in the corner curled up in a chair for a nap, but was quickly startled awake by the ringing of a phone.

In the conference room.

Henry and several members of the Expert Group were not idle either; they had been continuously discussing the next investigative direction and specific action plan for this case.

3:20 AM.

The glass door of the Command Center was suddenly pushed open.

Hearing the sound, everyone looked up in unison.

Immediately after, an agent wearing an FBI windbreaker walked in quickly.

He was holding a transparent evidence bag in his hand.

The expression on his face was complex.

After walking up to Henry, he immediately raised the evidence bag to chest height and handed it over.

"Boss, new physical evidence has been found at the scene."

Hearing this, the group, who had been somewhat exhausted, immediately perked up!

Henry was also galvanized; he hurriedly pulled his hand from behind his back and reached for the evidence bag.

"What is this?"

After taking the bag, he frowned and examined it carefully:

Inside the transparent plastic bag.

Lay a Tarot Card!

The back of the card was facing up, featuring a dark gray background printed with fine, spiderweb-like patterns.

The edges of the card were slightly curled, as if it had been repeatedly rubbed by someone's hands.

Henry used his fingers to flip the evidence bag over, card face up.

On the grayish-white face of the card was a knight riding a gray horse.

The horse's four hooves were suspended in mid-air, as if it had been suddenly frozen in motion.

The knight's face was mostly obscured by a massive helmet, revealing only a pair of hollow eyes.

He held no bow and arrow, no sharp sword, no scales. He held a flag; the flag was black, embroidered with a white rose.

At the bottom of the card, a word was written in an ancient Gothic font: DEATH.

The meaning of this word in Chinese is: Death!

At this moment, the air in the Command Center froze instantly.

Everyone involuntarily held their breath; even the sound of the air conditioning system became exceptionally clear.

Liu Xuemin was the first to stand up.

He walked to the table, picked up the evidence bag, held it under the light, and squinted his eyes behind his silver-rimmed glasses into slits.

"It seems our previous deduction was not wrong; these four Tarot Cards are his sequence of crimes! Among the four Tarot Cards he left in the contestant preparation room earlier, there was also a card like this."

"Correct." Chen Zijin took over the conversation.

"The French Bank incident was the White Horse Knight—he used the Arc de Triomphe on the 100-euro banknote and the gate in the famous knight painting to create an imagery association. The British Museum was the Red Horse Knight—those looted artifacts are themselves products of war. This time at UnitedHealth, it is the Black Horse Knight—because their denial of coverage caused people who could have survived to lose their lives, just like the judgment of Death..."

Chen Zijin paused, his gaze shifting from the evidence bag to Henry's face.

Henry placed the evidence bag back on the table and pressed it lightly with his finger to flatten the Tarot Card inside the bag.

"In that case, he still has one final performance."

No one in the conference room spoke.

Chen Zijin pushed up his glasses; his voice was not loud, but his speaking speed was faster than usual: "His first three performances had a common logical thread—that is 'redistribution.' 'Taking' artifacts from the bank vault and returning them to their countries of origin. 'Scooping' funds from the insurance company's profit pool and distributing them to clients who were denied claims. He is doing one thing: redistributing wealth that has been unfairly allocated."

Redistribution.

As soon as these four words were uttered, everyone present was startled!

Shui Ge's pen tip stopped on his notebook.

His spiral line had reached the final circle, and the pen tip sank into the paper, poking a small hole.

"So for the fourth time, what will he do?" His voice was very soft, so soft it was as if he were asking himself: "Famine. What does he want to 'redistribute'? Food?"

No one could answer this question.

The next second, Chen Zijin's voice came from the other end of the conference table again: "What is the essence of famine? It is not a lack of food; it is unequal distribution. The world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet some starve while others dump it. Everything Chu Chen has done has 'redistribution' at its core. Bank money, redistributed. Museum artifacts, redistributed. Insurance company profits, redistributed. The fourth time will be the same, but the famine he speaks of, I don't think it should be food."

"Is there any basis for that?" Detective Matthew asked.

Chen Zijin shook his head: "No, it's just intuition."

Zhuang Yan's bandages were no longer glaring under the dim light, turning into a gentle, almost fabric-like off-white.

She said: "Plague—he used the Arc de Triomphe to represent money, and money to represent plague. War—he used looted artifacts to represent war, rather than the battlefield itself. Famine—he will use a symbol to represent famine; what we need to do is find that symbol."

As she spoke, she had already sat up straight.

The phone screen was no longer an enlarged map of the world, but had changed to a search engine page, her fingers constantly sliding across the screen, flipping through one search result after another.

"Famine. Great famines in human history. The Irish Potato Famine, the Bengal Famine in India, the Great Soviet Famine—each has strong symbolic significance. But what Chu Chen needs is—a 'stage.' Like the vault of the French Bank, like the exhibition hall of the British Museum, like the annual meeting venue of UnitedHealth. He needs to complete his magic on that stage, and the stage itself must have a sufficiently strong visual and symbolic connection to the theme of 'famine'."

At this moment, Chen Zijin suddenly spoke up: "So, could he choose a location related to 'food'? The headquarters of the UN World Food Programme? Some large grain futures exchange? The commodity trading pit of the Chicago Board of Trade—that is where corn, wheat, and soybeans are traded, and global food prices are determined there. If he wants to create a piece of magic about 'famine,' the most direct stage is the place that decides who has food to eat and who does not."

Henry's brow twitched.

He turned around and looked at Hank.

Hank had already opened his laptop, tapped his fingers on the keyboard a few times, and the data for the Chicago Board of Trade popped up on the screen.