Chapter 361: Is the Elevator His Magic Prop?

Inside the FBI Command Center.

The lighting was ghastly pale.

The atmosphere was boisterous.

The walls were covered in blueprints and surveillance screenshots brought in from various places, and the air was thick with the scent of instant coffee and anxiety.

Henry stood before a long table, his hands pressed against the edge.

He kept his head lowered, like a stone pillar bent under pressure.

Hank repeatedly confirmed the search progress of each team over the walkie-talkie; every "nothing found" he uttered was like a muffled hammer blow, striking the chest of everyone present.

In the livestream chat, the barrage of comments was already scrolling wildly. Viewers were following every move in the Command Center in real-time through leaked audio clips.

【Nothing found? Could a box that big just fly away?】

【Is this all the FBI can do? Seriously?】

【If I were Henry, I'd have had a mental breakdown by now.】

【Chu Chen is just awesome, end of story.】

【Wait, don't start praising him yet; what if the painting isn't even missing?】

【To the person above, get a grip—the box is gone, how could the painting not be?】

【But how did they do it? The elevator was sealed, three people were watching, and the box just vanished into thin air?】

【Magic, this is magic.】

【I'm already starting to feel dizzy.】

Metropolitan Museum, second basement level.

Liu Xuemin stood in a corner, eyes slightly closed, his fingers slowly rubbing his chin.

Chen Xiong and Matthew stood at the stairwell entrance, smoking.

Zhou Yun sat right next to them; he had just climbed up from the B3 elevator shaft, his clothes covered in dust and rust.

Zhuang Yan's phone was still lit, the screen displaying a 3D model of the Metropolitan Museum's piping system; she had drawn countless lines on the diagram, but every single one led to a dead end!

Chen Zijin stood before a window, silent, as if deep in thought.

In the livestream, the pace of the barrage comments accelerated.

【How many lines has Team Leader Zhuang drawn? I'm exhausted just watching.】

【Dead ends, all dead ends; this case is unsolvable.】

【Can any expert explain if it's really impossible to hide a person in the piping system?】

【Theoretically yes, but there isn't enough time, and there are no traces.】

【So we still don't know how the box disappeared.】

【I've given up thinking; let's just wait for Chu Chen to reveal it himself.】

【Dizzy +1】

【Dizzy +2】

【Dizzy +】

"Boss, I've searched the entire building thoroughly, but still found nothing."

The final voice came through Henry's walkie-talkie—it was Hank's report.

Immediately after, the entire room fell completely silent.

Henry slowly raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the messy pile of blueprints and photos on the table, finally landing on the monitor in the corner that was looping the elevator surveillance footage.

The screen was black.

From the moment the lights went out to when they came back on, the entire segment of surveillance was black.

A black screen, a black elevator shaft, a black corridor, a black vault.

For those few minutes, the whole world seemed to have been hit with a pause button.

But when the finger was lifted, the painting had been swapped, the box was gone, and Chu Chen had already left.

Everything about this was just too unbelievable!

"Understood. Go join the others; I'll be there shortly," Henry said, then put on his coat and left the Command Center.

In the livestream, the barrage began a new round of speculation.

Meanwhile.

Over at the Metropolitan.

Pinkman and his assistant, Kaili, were in the staff passage of the second basement corridor, facing some modern prints and sketch reproductions collected by the museum hanging on the wall.

These paintings were by relatively unknown young artists and had little collection value; they were hung there simply to decorate that drab, windowless corridor.

Just as the two were staring intently, Chen Zijin suddenly walked over.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

Pinkman didn't answer immediately. His cane tapped the floor lightly.

"Why are you so idle too..." Pinkman's gaze never left the landscape sketch.

Chen Zijin sighed and replied, "What else is there to do?"

In the livestream, the tone of the barrage suddenly shifted.

【Pinkman! It's Pinkman!】

【The one who saves the day has arrived!】

【Wait, what is he looking at? What's so interesting about those reproductions?】

【Don't know, but Pinkman definitely isn't just looking at them for no reason.】

【He must have discovered something.】

【I beg you, hurry up and solve the mystery; my brain is already at its limit.】

【Me too, if it isn't solved soon, I'm going to explode.】

"Have you ever considered," Pinkman's cane drew a small circle in the air, "that the elevator is actually his magic prop?"

Chen Zijin stared at him, frowning slightly.

He looked at Pinkman as if he were looking at an old friend who had suddenly started spouting nonsense.

In the livestream room, the barrage exploded instantly.

【What? The elevator is a magic prop?】

【What does this mean!】

【My brain is about to grow!】

【Damn, I'm getting more and more dizzy.】

【Stop being mysterious, hurry up and say it!】

Pinkman smiled slightly, took his phone out of his pocket, opened a video file, and handed it to him.

The video was very short, less than a minute; he had his assistant film it on the way to the museum.

In the frame, his assistant stood next to a man of similar build, and between the two of them sat a cardboard box of the exact same dimensions as the transport crate.

The assistant covered the cardboard box with a black cloth, then the man crouched down and crawled out from under the black cloth; when the black cloth fell, the cardboard box was still in its original place, but the cardboard box was empty. The assistant lifted the black cloth, the cardboard box was gone, the man stood behind the black cloth, holding that piece of black cloth in his hand, and the cardboard box was already behind him.

Chen Zijin finished watching the video and looked up at Pinkman.

"What are you trying to say?"

In the livestream room, the barrage had already started to feel dizzy.

【What the hell is this? How did the box get to the back?】

【Cover it with a black cloth, and the box is transferred?】

【This is magic, a classic transfer trick.】

【But did Chu Chen use the same technique in the elevator?】

【There was no black cloth in the elevator!】

【The power outage is the black cloth!】

【Damn, that makes sense! The minute and a half of the power outage was the time the black cloth was covering it!】

【So the box was transferred during the power outage?】

【Transferred to where?】

【Don't be impatient, Pinkman hasn't finished yet.】

【I beg you, say it all at once, my heart can't take it.】

"What I want to say is that what your eyes see is not necessarily the truth. When a magician uses a cloth to cover a prop, they are actually telling you in disguise that this object no longer exists..." Pinkman said unhurriedly.

"You mean, the elevator power outage is actually equivalent to the magician covering it with a black blanket?"

"Heh, as expected of Huaxia's most famous suspense novelist, you are truly smart. But this is just the surface; the real magic goes far beyond this..."

In the livestream room, the barrage was in complete chaos.

【Surface? There's something deeper?】

【I don't understand anymore.】

【Pinkman, what are you saying!】

【I beg you, speak human language.】

【No, I'm really dizzy, how is this deduction getting more and more complicated?】

【+1, my brain can't turn anymore.】

【But it's so exciting, I can't stop watching.】

【Pinkman, hurry up, I can still hold on.】

【I can hold on too, just a bit dizzy.】

【Being dizzy is right, it wouldn't be normal if you weren't dizzy.】

After a pause, Pinkman continued: "When did they discover the box was gone?"

"The moment the power was restored, they discovered the box was gone," Chen Zijin answered first.

"At that time, what floor were they on?"

"At that time, they were on B3."

"Heh, B3... that's right, the elevator did stop at B3 due to a malfunction, but when the power was restored, they actually didn't continue to descend."

"Why?"

"Because they were already on B4," Pinkman answered with a chuckle.

In the livestream room, the moment this last sentence fell, the barrage appeared briefly blank—it wasn't that no one was posting, it was that everyone was stunned.

Then, the blankness was torn apart!

【What??? Already on B4???】

【They didn't go down from B3, they were already on B4?】

【How is this possible? They were clearly on B3!】

【The surveillance shows they were on B3!】

【Pinkman, did you say it backwards?】

【I'm completely dizzy, completely dizzy.】

【Someone explain to me, what does 'already on B4' mean?】

【Does that mean—the elevator didn't move at all? Or it moved, but they thought they were on B3, when they were actually on B4?】

【Impossible! The floor indicator wouldn't lie!】

【Chu Chen could even infiltrate the FBI, is it really that hard to tamper with a floor indicator?】

【Damn, that makes sense! When the power went out, he tampered with the elevator's system!】

【So the elevator stopped at B3, but displayed B4? No, that's not right, Pinkman said they were already on B4 long ago...】

【I give up, I'm done thinking.】

【Me too, I'm just waiting to see the result.】

At this moment, the popularity in the livestream room had already surpassed 7 billion!

The barrage comments were still refreshing crazily at a speed of tens of thousands per second!