Chapter 334: The Meaning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

The sky outside was extremely overcast.

The rain in London had started falling again.

After saying goodbye to Pinkman, Wesley and his group immediately returned to the Police Headquarters to hold an internal meeting.

The rain hit the windows of the Police Headquarters conference room, making a fine, monotonous sound.

All the lights in the conference room were on.

The pale light made everyone's face look somewhat gray.

At this moment, it was already past seven in the evening, and the sky outside the window had gone completely dark; only streaks of rain drifted diagonally within the halos of the streetlights.

The long table was spread with materials—photos, maps, timeline charts, and lists of physical evidence.

In front of each person was a thick stack of printed live-stream screenshots, and on every one of them, she had used a highlighter to mark details she considered suspicious!

The coffee cup in front of Chen Xiong had already been emptied four times, with rings of brown stains left at the bottom.

Zhuang Yan leaned against the back of her chair, the bandage on her right hand replaced with a new one, white and gleaming.

Liu Xuemin sat at one end of the long table, his eyes behind his silver-rimmed glasses bloodshot, yet his posture remained upright, like a man who did not need sleep.

Wesley stood in front of the whiteboard, holding a black marker in his hand.

The whiteboard was already filled with writing, divided into two columns—the left side read "Paris Bank Vault," and the right side read "British Museum."

Under each column was a long list of keywords: live stream, remote theft, audience interaction, vanished objects, physical evidence left behind, police response time, media dissemination path...

He had drawn many connecting lines between the two columns, attempting to find overlapping parts, but those lines were like a tangled mess that could not be unraveled, becoming denser the more he drew, and more chaotic the denser they became.

"Let's go over it from the beginning again."

Wesley's voice was somewhat hoarse as he tapped the whiteboard with the marker. "Two cases, the same perpetrator. The first, Las Vegas Grand Theater; he performed a feat of remote theft on stage, targeting the vault of the French bank in Lyon. The second, London, Russell Square; he repeated the same trick in the square, and in full view of everyone, emptied the British Museum again. We need to figure out what his motive for committing these crimes actually is. Why choose to commit these two cases? Is there some hidden story between them that we don't know about? The similarities between these two cases are obvious. Both had live streams, both had a large number of live audience members, he was sitting in a fixed position for both, and the target locations were both very far away from him. He has never personally been to the crime scene—at least not in the live-stream footage."

"These are all superficial characteristics." Liu Xuemin's voice came from the end of the long table, unhurried: "Why did he choose these two targets? Why the French bank? Why the British Museum? What is the inherent connection between these two is what we need to figure out."

The conference room was quiet for a few seconds.

The sound of rain seeped in from the windows, filling the gaps of silence.

Wang Ruomei opened her notebook.

Her handwriting was very neat, and she had marked the key points in red on every page: "I am thinking about a question. Both of his actions had a 'chosen audience member.' That time in Las Vegas, he had a United States tourist come on stage and sign the ticket stub. This time in London, he chose a Chinese-descendant boy again. Could these two people have some connection to the question we want to figure out?"

"According to Pinkman's statement, these two people were chosen by him long ago; only in this way could the magic trick form a complete closed loop. But I feel that these two people shouldn't be the key to the problem..." Wesley muttered.

Zhou Yun looked up, glanced at Zhuang Yan, and then turned to Wesley: "Could it have something to do with those Tarot Cards?"

Shui Ge flipped through the materials in front of him and pulled out a photo.

The content of the photo was the four Tarot Cards that Chu Chen had left in the competition preparation room.

"Tarot Cards..." Wesley took a hard puff of his pipe.

Suddenly, the door to the conference room was pushed open.

A young police officer walked in carrying a tray, on which were disposable paper cups and a pot of freshly brewed coffee.

He placed the coffee on an empty spot on the long table and retreated silently.

Wesley picked up the coffee pot and poured himself a cup; the black liquid was steaming.

Perhaps because he was absent-minded, he didn't notice when the coffee was nearly full, and let it overflow.

"Oh, shit..."

The spilled coffee spread across a document about the British Museum.

Seeing this, Wesley hurriedly wiped it dry with his hand.

"Admonitions of the Court Instructress, looted from the Old Summer Palace by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860. Benin Bronzes, snatched from the Kingdom of Benin by the British army in 1897. Statues of the Three Fates, sawed off from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin; this is the criminal evidence of Western civilization's aggression, colonial plunder carried out through war..."

"War..." Seeing these two words, Wesley suddenly froze and furrowed his brows!

The air in the conference room sank.

Liu Xuemin noticed the change in Wesley's expression and asked, "What did you say?"

Wesley gently placed the document on the table, then immediately used the notebook in front of him to open a webpage and typed in a line of English.

Before long, an image of a famous painting appeared on the computer screen—a 15th-century oil painting on wood by a German artist, depicting a knight riding a white horse holding a bow and arrow, with an arched city gate in the background.

His computer was connected to a projector.

When he saw this painting, the other experts also witnessed this scene!

"What is this?" Zhou Yun asked.

"The White Horse Knight," Wesley answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

"The White Horse Knight?" Zhou Yun was puzzled.

Wesley continued immediately: "One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from the 'Book of Revelation' in the Bible. The White Horse Knight holds a bow and arrow, representing Plague. The Red Horse Knight holds a sword, representing War. The Black Horse Knight holds a pair of scales, representing Famine. The Gray Horse Knight represents Death."

As he spoke, Wesley pointed his finger at the city gate in the painting: "Everyone, look at this gate."

"What's wrong with this gate?" Liu Xuemin asked.

"The city gate behind the White Horse Knight is exactly the same as the gate on the 100-euro banknote..." Wesley suddenly said this.

Everyone looked at him.

Wesley did not continue to explain.

The next second, Chen Zijin seemed to have figured something out and suddenly spoke up: "So, you mean that his first action was the card representing the White Horse Knight among the Tarot Cards? And this is also his order of crime?!"

Wesley nodded: "Although the White Horse Knight represents Plague, he used the symbol of a 'gate' to link the knight and the euro together. Because he robbed a bank, it's money. And the 100-euro note is the most representative denomination, and the Arc de Triomphe is its most conspicuous pattern."

Liu Xuemin stood up from his chair.

He rarely stood up in the middle of a meeting.

He walked to the front of the whiteboard, picked up the marker Wesley had put down, and wrote two words under "Paris Bank Vault" on the left side of the whiteboard: White Horse Knight—Plague—Gate—100 Euro.

He capped the pen, turned around, and said excitedly:

"Following this logic, the British Museum corresponds to the Red Horse Knight—War? Because most of the British Museum's collection was obtained through war and colonial plunder. The Red Horse Knight holds a sharp sword, representing War. And this is also the fundamental reason he chose the British Museum!"

Once Liu Xuemin finished saying this, everyone's spirits were instantly lifted!

"Then are his next crimes going to be Famine and Death?"

It was unclear who said this, but it completely stirred up the atmosphere in the conference room.

The rain was still falling. Raindrops on the window gathered into thin trickles of Water, winding their way down the glass and stretching the light from the streetlamps outside into blurry pillars of light.

"That's right, every one of his actions corresponds to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The French Bank corresponds to the White Horseman—Plague; he used the symbol of the 'gate' to link the horseman with the Euro. The British Museum corresponds to the Red Horseman—War; he used the historical background of the museum's collection to signify war. Then the next two actions should correspond to the Black Horseman and the Pale Horseman—Famine and Death."

Wesley nodded. He walked back to the front of the whiteboard and wrote under 'British Museum' on the right side: Red Horseman—War—Plunder—Face turned downward.

Then, at the very bottom of the whiteboard, he drew four squares; the first two squares had already been filled with color—white and red. The last two squares were still empty, black voids, like two eyes without pupils.

"We need to find his next target," Wesley said. "He said he would perform four shows. We have already witnessed two. The themes for the next two should be Famine and Death. If I can find the symbolic 'stages' that correspond to these two themes, we can stand there and wait for him before he makes his move!"

"From now on, we must continue to investigate along this clue and focus our research on symbolic landmarks worldwide related to the themes of 'Famine' and 'Death.' Financial institutions, museums, monuments, cultural landmarks—as long as there is a clear symbolic connection, list them all. Chu Chen gave us four cards, and we have already deciphered two. We must decipher the remaining two before the next show begins."

After Wesley finished speaking, everyone became busy.

Some people were tidying up the documents on the table, some were searching on computers, and some were using their phones to photograph the content on the whiteboard.

Wesley did not move; he remained standing by the window, looking at the wet, rain-soaked London outside.

The rain in London had been falling all day.

And it showed no sign of stopping even late into the night...