Chapter 356: Global Discussion, Popularity Soaring!

The next morning.

A live-stream clip of Chu Chen changing his costume and breaking into the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters was uploaded to a video platform by an anonymous user.

Seven minutes after the video was posted, the view count surpassed one hundred million!

A forty-seven-second video, on a single platform, was played in its entirety one hundred million times within seven minutes.

The platform's servers crashed at the twelve-minute mark, and it took the engineers nearly twenty minutes to restore service.

After restoration, the view count quickly jumped to three hundred million.

On Twitter, the hashtag #FBIinfiltration reached the top of the global trending list three minutes after the video was posted, and in the following two hours, six of the top ten hashtags were related to Chu Chen.

Ranked first was this one, second was #ChuChenAtFBI, third was #HeWasRightThere, fourth was #TheyDidntEvenNotice, fifth was #BlackHorse, and sixth was #TheDayAfterTomorrowAtNoon.

The number of new tweets per minute peaked at over eight million, and a Twitter engineer typed a line in an internal chat room: "We are experiencing a global neural oscillation."

This message was later screenshotted and leaked, and the term "neural oscillation" itself became a meme, being retweeted millions of times.

Furthermore, another tweet was retweeted over five million times, containing only one image and one line of text!

The image was a meme featuring Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather, with the caption "Look how they massacred my boy."

The text below read: "He wore an FBI uniform, wore an FBI badge, walked into the FBI building, dropped off a letter, tore off his mask, gave them the middle finger, and left. He just walked away like that." The top-liked reply in the comment section of this tweet consisted of only four words: "I have no words."

Another tweet came from an account verified as a "former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent." His tweet was written much more calmly than those of ordinary netizens, but the calmness itself was the greatest display of emotion.

"I worked at the FBI for twenty-two years. In twenty-two years, I have seen countless attempts at breaking in, impersonation, and infiltration. Not one succeeded. Not a single one. Today, a magician did it. Not because he has better technology than us, but because he has a better imagination than us. Our security systems are designed for 'criminals.' He is not a criminal. He is a different species."

Regarding Huaxia.

On Weibo, Chu Chen alone occupied eleven of the top fifteen spots on the trending list.

Ranked first was "Chu Chen breaks into FBI," followed by a deep red "Explosive" tag; this color tag has only appeared four times in the history of Weibo!

An account verified as an "International Relations Scholar" posted a long Weibo, titled "This is not a crime, this is cognitive warfare."

The article wrote: "Everything Chu Chen is doing is not challenging the law; he is challenging cognition. He let the French see how fragile their banking system is, let the British see how arrogant their museum is, let the Americans see how greedy their insurance company is, and let the FBI see how many blind spots they have. He is not committing a crime; he is using the form of a crime to expose the wounds of this world. Every performance is a process of a wound being torn open. The day after tomorrow at noon, at the Metropolitan Museum, what he is going to tear open is the wound behind that painting! The genius painter who painted this work over a hundred years ago would never have dreamed that his painting would become world-famous because of the appearance of a magician."

This Weibo post also received millions of reposts in a short period!

On Douban, an art history discussion group urgently changed its group rules in the early morning.

The original first rule, "Discussion of topics unrelated to art is prohibited," was changed to "Discussion of Chu Chen is allowed, because what he does is related to art." The pinned post in the group was a long article titled "Doré's 'The Famine of Samaria': An Underrated Painting and a Rediscovered Gaze."

The author was the group's founder, a female student studying for a PhD in art history in New York. She wrote in the article: "I have looked at that painting no less than dozens of times. Every time I go to the Metropolitan Museum, I stand in front of it for a while. It is hung next to Millet's Gleane, but most people only look at Gleane. Millet painted a peasant woman bending over to pick up wheat ears; Doré painted starving people who didn't even have wheat ears to pick up. The two paintings are less than two meters apart, yet between them lies an entire world."

The discussion about "how exactly he will steal that painting" was the liveliest part of the internet.

On Reddit, a post was pinned with the title "Let's crack Chu Chen's Metropolitan Museum plan together."

The main post contained a floor plan of the European Painting Gallery on the second floor, taken from the Metropolitan Museum's official website. On the map, red arrows marked several passages Chu Chen might enter, blue circles highlighted several blind spots that could be exploited, and yellow highlights marked the shortest routes from the gallery to various exits.

The poster was a user who claimed to have "worked in the museum security industry for ten years," and he wrote a paragraph at the beginning of the post:

"I have worked in the museum security industry for ten years and have participated in the design and upgrade of security systems for the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre Museum, and the British Museum. I can tell you responsibly that the three things Chu Chen did in France, London, and New York were theoretically impossible to achieve. But he did them. So I will not analyze from the perspective of 'impossible,' but from the perspective of 'how he bypassed them.'"

The replies under the post already exceeded fifty thousand. The top-liked replies were all different, but they all pointed in the same direction—no one felt the FBI could stop him.

"Will he swap the painting for a replica in advance? Like he did at the British Museum? But he has already announced in advance that he is going to steal this painting, and the FBI will definitely send people to watch the original painting twenty-four hours a day. He cannot possibly have a chance to swap it beforehand."

"He doesn't need to swap it. He never touched those things. He didn't even touch the French vault; he had already taken the artifacts from the British Museum before the performance, and he transferred the UnitedHealth money on stage using RFID. Every time, he wasn't 'stealing,' he was 'demonstrating stealing.' The Metropolitan Museum will be the same. He won't touch the painting. He will make the painting leave that wall by itself."

"How to make the painting leave by itself? Wires? Magnetic devices? Holographic projection?"

"I don't know. But last time I said 'he couldn't disappear from the encirclement,' and he disappeared. Last time I said 'he couldn't swap the artifacts before the live stream,' and he swapped them. Last time I said 'he couldn't transfer money from Brian's account,' and he transferred it. This time I won't say anything. I'll shut up. I'll just wait and see."

"Have you ever thought that he might not go at all? He might just be at home watching the live stream, watching the FBI turn the Metropolitan Museum upside down, and then posting a meme in the comment section."

"This guy is too arrogant. As long as he said it, the day after tomorrow at noon, then it is the day after tomorrow at noon. He said he would be there, and he will be there. An arrogant person will never break his word."

The discussion about how the FBI and the Expert Group should respond was also a hot topic!

A user claiming to be a "former special forces member" posted a long tweet, analyzing the deployment plan the FBI might adopt from a tactical perspective:

"They will seal off all entrances and exits of the Metropolitan Museum, leaving only one, and that exit will have identity verification. Plainclothes officers will be deployed inside the gallery, at least two people behind every wall, and at least one camera in every corner. The painting itself will be moved to a safe place, with a replica hanging on the wall. Emergency teams will be on standby at a temporary Command Center a few blocks away, and helicopters will patrol the perimeter. All of these are standard anti-theft contingency plans, but to catch this guy, I think the FBI needs to use their brains!"

Another user who claimed to have "worked at the FBI" was more direct: "From the moment they let Chu Chen walk into the building in uniform, drop off a letter, tear off his mask, give them the middle finger, and walk away, the FBI had already lost. The two sides are simply not on the same dimension!"

In addition, a magician named Li Heng, who has a large following on the internet, also spoke up. This guy is also a fairly well-known close-up magician in the country.

He usually posts content that is mostly teaching and performing street magic.

His state in the video was completely different from Liu Qian—Liu Qian is restrained and rational.

He was direct, emotional, like a fan who is so excited while watching a ball game that he jumps off the sofa.

"What Chu Chen is going to do at the Metropolitan Museum is ten thousand times harder than what he did at the FBI building. What he is going to do next is tell everyone—the place you think is the safest, I can come and go as I please!"