Chapter 330: He Used to Be the Best Magician in London!

Meanwhile!

Inside the conference room of the London Metropolitan Police Service!

The lighting was ghastly pale!

It cast a cold glow upon the massive whiteboard on the wall.

In the very center of the whiteboard, two large Chinese characters were written: Chu Chen!

Surrounding the name were all sorts of photos plastered everywhere: images of Chu Chen fleeing in Russell Square, a close-up of the white fingerprints on the glass curtain wall of the Bloomsbury Building, and screenshots from various angles of that moment when the rain of banknotes fell!

The photos were connected by red and blue lines, densely covered in arrows and question marks.

Fourteen people sat around the conference table.

At this end of the long table was Liu Xuemin, his silver-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, a thick stack of meeting minutes spread out before him.

Shui Ge and Li Changyu sat on his left and right, respectively.

Next to them were Chen Xiong, Zhou Yun, and Zhuang Yan.

Zhuang Yan's right hand was wrapped in bandages, a souvenir left behind from the wrist ligament strain she suffered due to gripping her gun with excessive force on the rooftop of the Bloomsbury Building.

The bandages were very white.

They looked particularly jarring next to the cuff of her dark jacket.

From the time of the incident until now, she had slept for less than six hours in total, and every time she closed her eyes, she would see the image of Chu Chen spreading his arms and falling backward in her mind.

Then, she would wake up with her heart pounding violently, finding her right hand clenched into a fist in the darkness.

Aside from the pursuit personnel who participated in this operation, all other experts were also in attendance.

Zhu Guowei, Matthew, Wang Ruomei, Chen Zijin, and Lin Xu, as well as Margaret and her deputy.

The conference room was filled with a murky air mixed with caffeine, anxiety, and the lack of ventilation for a long time.

Liu Xuemin tapped the tabletop with his knuckles.

The sound was not loud, but it was enough to make everyone withdraw their gazes from their own thoughts and focus on his face.

"Let me say a few words first."

Liu Xuemin began, his voice hoarse but the rhythm still steady, like an engine that had been running for too long; although the sound was not pleasant, the power had not dropped at all:

"Regarding technical issues, Xiao Wang and Lin will continue to follow up. I think what we should be discussing right now is not 'how he did it,' but 'what we should do next.'"

Chen Xiong lowered his arms that had been crossed over his chest, his body leaning slightly forward. The six words "what we should do next" were like a wrench, twisting him awake from his numbness.

"What else can we do?"

Zhou Yun's voice squeezed out from his throat, carrying that dryness and irritability peculiar to someone who had been pulling all-nighters: "We can only wait for that guy to show up again."

The conference room was quiet for two seconds.

Immediately after, his lips moved, his voice not loud, but every word sounded like it had been ground on sandpaper: "We have to admit one thing."

Everyone looked at him.

"We really can't catch this guy..." Zhou Yun said these words.

His voice did not tremble, and his expression did not change: "Of course, it's not because we don't have enough manpower, nor because our equipment isn't good, and certainly not because the intelligence is inaccurate. It's because all the methods and tools we use are designed for the act of 'catching people.' But what that guy does is simply not within our scope of capture."

"He was surrounded by forty SAS members in Russell Square, targeted by six snipers, locked on by the searchlights of four helicopters; thermal imaging, multispectral, infrared—every sensor that could be used was used. Yet, he disappeared right under our noses again?"

"The thermal imaging signal went directly from existing to non-existing. What kind of concept is this? It means he didn't move to a place we couldn't find in three-dimensional space; he disappeared from three-dimensional space. What can we do against someone who can disappear from three-dimensional space? We can't even establish the most basic logic of pursuit—the premise of pursuit is that the target exists in space, and his position is a function of time. If this function doesn't hold, we will never be able to bring him to justice."

The conference room was quiet again for a few seconds.

"Do you have anything to say?" Liu Xuemin looked at Zhuang Yan.

Seeing that Zhuang Yan seemed to have something to say, he asked decisively.

"I'm thinking about a problem," Zhuang Yan said, her voice not loud but very steady: "Everything Chu Chen has done, from the British Museum to the glass wall climbing, we have been responding with a 'capture' mindset. He drinks tea in Russell Square, we surround him. He goes up the Bloomsbury Building, we chase him. He jumps off the building, we watch him. Every step is him moving, and us reacting. No matter how fast our reactions are, we are always one beat slower than him."

She raised her eyes and looked at Liu Xuemin.

"If we keep using a 'chase' mindset, we will always be led by the nose by him. We need to change our perspective—"

Detective Wesley leaned his body forward, resting both hands on the edge of the table.

He had worked at the London Metropolitan Police Department for nearly thirty years and had seen more criminals than most people present had seen in movies.

But he had never seen someone who made the entire pursuit system collectively fall into this kind of cognitive dilemma.

Chu Chen didn't just make their capture operation fail; Chu Chen made the very concept of their "capture" ineffective.

"I think you're right," Wesley began, his voice having the quality of an announcer on an old-fashioned radio, deep, slow, and carrying a hoarseness worn down by the years: "We are using a bear trap to catch a bird. It's not because the bear trap isn't good; it's because we used the wrong tool from the very beginning."

He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, picked up a black marker, and wrote a word in the blank space: MAGIC.

Magic.

He put the cap back on the pen, turned around, and faced everyone.

"This guy calls himself a 'criminal artist.' He said something in his live stream—'The highest realm of a magician is not to keep you from seeing the trick, but to let you know it's not magic, yet you still cannot explain it.' We haven't taken this sentence seriously before. We thought he was being mysterious. But the fact is, all of his actions conform to the basic logic of magic—misdirection, sleight of hand, props, psychological suggestion, and the precise exploitation of human cognitive loopholes."

Wesley's gaze swept over everyone present.

"We are not magicians; we are police officers. Our training system does not have a subject called 'how to crack magic.' Because we have never encountered a criminal who uses magic to commit crimes. This guy is the first. If we want to catch him, we must step outside our professional boundaries and walk into a field we are completely unfamiliar with. We need to understand magic. Not the kind of understanding from watching a few magic shows, but the kind that goes deep into the texture, from principles to practice, being able to see through the tricks, and being able to anticipate the patterns."

"Everyone, we need a magician."

After Wesley finished this sentence, the conference room was quiet for about three seconds.

"I know someone," Wesley continued, "He used to be the best magician in London."

The gazes on the conference table instantly focused on him.

"Tell us about this person," Liu Xuemin said.

Wesley walked to the whiteboard, picked up the marker, and wrote three characters under "MAGIC": Pinkman.

"This guy started learning magic at fifteen and became famous in the magic circle by twenty-one. His solo shows played in the London West End for seven years, sold out every time. In recent years, he started trying to crack some magic tricks, and by selling videotapes, he made a fortune."

At this moment, Li Changyu said: "Are you sure he's willing to help us?"

"I don't think he has any reason to refuse," Wesley said quite frankly: "As a magician, he certainly won't give up this opportunity to trade blows with a master."

Wesley paused, his gaze sweeping across everyone's face before finally landing on Liu Xuemin.

"Can you contact him now?" Liu Xuemin asked.

Wesley nodded.

Outside the conference room window, the London sky was turning from gray-blue to a deeper, thicker gray.

The clouds hung very low, as if an invisible giant hand above the city were slowly pulling a massive gray velvet cloth downward, wrapping the entire city up, swaddling it, and stifling it.

Liu Xuemin took off his glasses, slowly wiped the lenses with the corner of his clothes, and then slowly put them back on.

"We need to step out of his game and stand off-stage to look at the person on stage. It's not about seeing what he will do next, but seeing why he is doing these things! Starting today, our work will be divided into two lines. One line will continue to track his physical trajectory; Matthew, Zhuang Yan, Zhou Yun, Chen Xiong, you are responsible for this line. The other line will be led by me, Dr. Li, and Wesley. We will contact Pinkman as soon as possible to see if we can use him to crack Chu Chen's magic trick and let us find some clues."

The sound of a dozen people leaving echoed in the hallway.

The conference room fell back into darkness and silence.

Against the backdrop of tense background music, the live broadcast camera gradually zoomed in on Chu Chen's name on the whiteboard, finally freezing there!