"There's no doubt that Miller's life has gotten worse and worse. His criminal record is increasing, his prison time is increasing, and his age is also increasing... The only thing that's decreasing instead of increasing is his probability of finding a decent job.

"Faced with life, Miller had to make a choice... Either go back to the straight and narrow, and live a mediocre life at the bottom of society; or go all the way, and go even further down the road of crime... In the end, people like Miller, of course, chose the latter.

"However, the evil path is not so easy to walk...

"Miller wanted to join a criminal organization, but he couldn't compete with those youngsters who were a dozen years younger than him but had richer criminal records.

"He even considered joining a gang, but he was white, and there weren't many gangs that accepted white people, and most of them were made up of racists.

"You have to know... theft, robbery, and kidnapping are one thing, but racism is another...

"As a person who has received higher education and once had great ambitions, even if Miller has gone astray, there are some things in his values that will not change; he can accept theft, robbery, and kidnapping... From his logic, this type of crime is a "violation of the law to earn some kind of benefit." Since he assumes the corresponding risks in the process of implementation, invests the corresponding energy, and is also prepared to pay the corresponding price, he does not feel that there is anything shameful about it.

"But, the racism thing is different... In Miller's view, in modern society, those discriminations against innate factors such as skin color, ethnicity, or region, their psychological source actually comes from a kind of 'inferiority.'

"Although there are some people who join the ranks of discrimination because of their growth environment, ideological control, and stereotypes, those who are the most stalwart racists, those who truly hate a certain region or a certain skin color of people from the bottom of their hearts for no reason, are, to put it bluntly, people who have a psychology of 'only being able to find a sense of superiority in skin color and place of birth.'

"They are either ugly, or rude, or stupid, or weird... In short, based on some innate or acquired factors, these people have no competitive advantage in their own race, so the 'inferiority' in their hearts gradually accumulates into 'anger,' and 'anger' naturally needs to be vented. Just like middle-class people like to go to the government to hold up signs to protest to vent their daily pressure, the practice of racists is to gather together... by attacking another race, or people from another region... to gain a sense of identity and superiority.

"Miller, who holds this view, no matter how badly he is doing, he scoffs at these people..."

"Wait a minute..." Hearing this, Feng Bujue was really a little curious, "Xiao Zuo..." He called Zuo Yan in Chinese, "What you said before was fine, but that part just now... you're overthinking it a bit, aren't you? Miller wouldn't have recorded those monologues about his values in the recording, would he?"

"Heh..." Zuo Yan smiled, "Jue-ge, you asked a good question..." As he spoke, his gaze swept over the other people in the room, "I think, everyone here must have more or less similar thoughts. But please rest assured, my narration is based on evidence..."

After Zuo Yan finished speaking, he took out his own mobile phone from his pocket again, quickly operated it, and then turned the screen to everyone.

At this time, the screen showed several screenshots of comments taken from a social media platform. The pictures showed the speeches of a user with the id "mr.stone1962".

"This is..." Feng Bujue read, "Miller's account?"

"Yes." Zuo Yan quickly replied, "Although he didn't fill in complete user information, it's not difficult to find out the user identity behind this type of account. In fact, the United States began a long-term network surveillance program in the 2010s. Except for some countries that use firewalls to isolate themselves from the world internet, most civilians in other countries... as long as they have a certain frequency of activity on social media, their data will be captured by a program into a database in the United States. If necessary, Americans can use a complex but very precise calculation method to quickly match their real identity in reality based on these people's commonly used IP addresses, registration time, age, hobbies, various ideological tendencies, and other information; those who like to use multiple 'aliases' to act online have always been the same person in the eyes of the intelligence department, and their identity is clear."

"Hmm..." Feng Bujue nodded, "Okay... then let's skip how you got involved with the intelligence departments of the United States... or some other country, and talk directly about those message records..."

"I just took a rough look." Zuo Yan continued, "First of all, the id of this account is taken from the Rolling Stones and the year of its founding, which is undoubtedly one of Miller's personal preferences; like most people with some knowledge but who are not doing well in life, he used an incomplete account in order to publish some clearly aligned, unique, and radical speeches online. From the content of these speeches, the posting time, and combined with Miller's criminal record, it's not difficult for me to piece together this person's personality and his life trajectory over the years..." As he spoke, his finger lightly swiped on the mobile phone screen, flipping to a comment screenshot about "racism," "Look... what I said just now, most of it is just quoting Miller's original words..."

"Then your memory is pretty good." Dauster seemed to be really drunk. While saying this, he got up and went to the coffee table to pick up the bottle of "Floral Bud" and poured himself another glass.

"I told you, he's a famous detective, photographic memory is a must." Feng Bujue glanced at Dauster and replied in a teasing tone.

Jue-ge naturally understood in his heart that although Zuo Yan was also a good detective, he definitely hadn't reached the level of photographic memory. Being able to clearly remember the content that he had "skimmed through" and quote it fluently must be thanks to Vidocq behind the scenes.

"Ahem..." The next second, Zuo Yan pretended to clear his throat, "Let's continue talking about Miller..." He has never been very happy to accept praises that did not belong to him, so he immediately brought the topic back, "In addition to these speeches on social media, some of his materials and recordings during his imprisonment, including the diary he wrote in prison, I have also quickly read... uh... I read them when Jue-ge went to pick out the red wine, so my impression is still relatively deep.

"In short, I have a relatively clear understanding of Miller's situation over the years and his operational logic in this case.

"About... three years ago, Miller, who couldn't get into an organization and felt that working alone had no future, finally found a long-term way to get rich after racking his brains..."

Speaking of this, Zuo Yan looked at John: "That is... extortion."