The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4437 Dark Prelude (Twenty-Two)
“Hey Bruce, you really have to do me a favor.” Diana said as she walked out of the Justice League base on the phone, “Get me some CCTV footage from around the museum. You know, not the official footage, but your own.”

"No problem, ma'am. Who is your target?"

“All suspicious vehicles,” Diana said after a moment’s thought. “Focus on vans or mid-sized cars, but don’t overlook any small vehicles that seem suspicious.”

Diana knew her request was rather unreasonable, almost pointless. But she knew Batman could do it. Sure enough, Bruce said, "Okay, I'll check it out for you now. There are many roads around, and the traffic is heavy; it'll probably take about three hours..."

“Okay, I’ll wait for your news.” Diana hung up the phone. She felt this was already quite good. Just like Bruce said, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is in the city center, and last night was the last night of the Christmas holidays, so many people were taking advantage of the last days of the holiday to party, and the traffic was extremely heavy. It was already a miracle that Bruce could find the location in three hours; you couldn't expect more.

But then Diana thought: although the robbery might have happened late at night when there were fewer people around, Metropolis is a city that never sleeps, and even late at night, the streets would still be crowded. Could there be eyewitnesses who noticed something amiss?
Thinking of this, Diana quickly went to the police station. After explaining the situation, the police didn't hesitate to investigate the surrounding streets. There were only a few bars in the vicinity, and they were all high-end establishments frequented by regulars.

The police and Diana went to ask around and actually found a few people who had been wandering around outside late that night. But unfortunately, it was late at night, and most of them were completely drunk. They were just wandering around the area waiting for their ride and hadn't specifically looked around the museum, so they didn't see anything suspicious.

The good news was that one of the people picking her up saw a black pickup truck parked on the side of the road on his way. Because it was a heavy-duty pickup and looked very cool, he took a second look. Based on the vehicle model he provided, Diana found the same model at a nearby auto shop.

She estimated the size of the artifacts and figured they could fit. She just hadn't expected them to be so bold, using a pickup truck to haul the goods in the open instead of a covered van.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. The mural only has a picture on one side; if you turn it upside down, it's just a stone slab, and no one would guess it's an important cultural relic. Besides, pickup trucks aren't as big as vans, and there are a lot of pickup truck drivers in the US, so they can easily blend into traffic.

Diana thought for a moment and immediately called Bruce to tell him about her discovery. She figured this would make it easier to pinpoint the target, but reviewing the surveillance video would take time and wouldn't be finished so quickly. So, Diana took the witnesses to identify the spot where the pickup truck had been parked, hoping to find any clues there.

Just as Diana was going around in circles like a donkey pulling a millstone, suddenly a car stopped. Diana turned her head and saw that the car had stopped right where the eyewitness had pointed out the pickup truck. A thought struck her, and the person who got out of the car walked towards her.

"Hello, are you Ms. Prince?"

Diana sized up the man in the suit. Having lived in human society for so long, she could judge a person's likely power or influence by their demeanor. This man, for example, reeked of a politician.

“Yes, it is,” Diana nodded. “What’s wrong?”

"We'd like to discuss something with you. Do you have a moment?"

“No,” Diana replied immediately. However, she glanced at the car again. Her intuition told her that the people in that car were probably connected to the robbers. And the fact that they dared to come to her door now suggested they had ulterior motives. She might as well go and check it out.

Although she changed her mind, Diana didn't back down. She knew these people would never give up.

This time, however, they didn't persist. After Diana refused, the man in the suit got into his car and quickly left. But not long after he left, a colleague called Diana.

"Diana, have you seen the news?"

"No, I'm busy looking for the robbers. What's wrong?"

"You should take a look; a lot of people are spreading rumors online. They're all targeting you."

After hanging up the phone, Diana picked up her phone and checked the news. This news was unusually different; if the previous reports were just speculation, this one was a direct attack by name. The online media was similar, with many accounts discussing it as if they were the world's best detectives, having ruled out all possibilities except for Diana.

They insisted that Diana had used her position to secretly replace the artifacts beforehand, which resulted in the robbers getting a fake.

Upon seeing these comments, Diana was no longer very angry. She realized this might be a setup targeting her. The entire conspiracy to steal the artifacts revolved around her, so the released video evidence was deliberately designed to create loopholes for her to exploit, all to frame her.

At that moment, Bruce called. He said, "I found the pickup truck you mentioned. I've also sent you the emails of other suspicious vehicles; take a look."

Diana opened the document and found that Bruce's compilation was quite comprehensive. She focused on the pickup truck's whereabouts and discovered that her guess was indeed correct: the stone slab had been loaded onto the pickup truck, and the method of transport was surprisingly simple.

Because the car was very close to the window, and the window wasn't far from the exhibition wall, they simply used custom-made boards and brackets to build a "track" the same width as the mural, and nailed wheels to the back of the mural. Then, the mural, like a train, slid along the track onto the pickup truck. After it was finished, they folded up the tracks, piled everything onto the pickup truck, taking up very little space, and drove off with a flourish.

As for how they managed to remove the mural, turn it over, and put it back on the track without the aid of a crane—one can only say that the lever principle is one of humanity's greatest discoveries. Half a ton sounds heavy, but given a fulcrum, humans can lift the Earth, let alone a mural.

Diana had noticed that these robbers were different from the usual ones; they possessed a mysterious calmness.

Ordinary robbers, no matter how meticulously they plan, will always act with a sense of urgency. But the methods these robbers used revealed an air of complete arrogance.

It's important to understand that moving murals using leverage or building tracks requires extreme care and precision. And they don't have much time; from late at night until dawn, they only have about five hours at most. Anyone would be anxious, and even if their movements aren't distorted, their gait and body language will betray their urgency.

However, the robbers' body language exuded confidence and mastery. This meant they were experts, meticulously calculating the time required for each step. Everyone performed their duties flawlessly, and it was impossible to tell who had trained them.

This composure and confidence may not stem from confidence in one's own skills, but rather from confidence in one's powerful backer.

This perfectly illustrates the saying "being fearless because of one's own strength." These robbers probably felt that even if their plan failed or was exposed, no one could do anything to them. This proves that their backers must be quite powerful.

Diana realized that her previous plan to get the robbers to confess to switching the artifacts was virtually impossible, because these people weren't after money at all. There must be a much bigger conspiracy behind it all. Even if she could find them, it would be difficult to use them to clear her name.

So what should she do? Diana began to think. It seemed like a dead end; no matter what she did, she couldn't prove she hadn't switched the items.

Diana then recalled a theory she had once read: never fall into the trap of self-justification. But while this theory advised against self-justification, it didn't explain how to avoid trouble. Diana was now stuck at this very step.

The problem isn't that she's unwilling to prove herself, but rather that she's unable to. So how can she avoid harming her own interests if she doesn't prove herself?
Unable to figure it out, Diana could only continue her investigation. Soon, Victor's results came back. The final result left Diana both amused and exasperated: the email's final address pointed to the National Security Agency.

“I don’t think it’s true,” Victor said. “It could just be a smokescreen. Of course, although the NSA’s servers now have more than 600 million dark web domains, this one does look like a frame-up.”

Diana sighed. There were two possibilities: either Schiller was behind it all, and everything was his fault. That possibility was not small, but Diana couldn't investigate that possibility, because she couldn't possibly arrest the president's secretary.

Even if Schiller was the ultimate mastermind, he didn't carry it out personally, much less admit to switching the artifacts. After all, he had no reason to switch them; he created the entire artifact himself.

Another possibility, as Victor suggested, is that someone framed him. While framing the National Security Bureau might sound strange, such an organization is inherently a mixed bag, with loyalists feigning loyalty and vice versa being commonplace, so it's not unusual for some to take advantage of the situation.

Diana could only ask Victor to continue the investigation, hoping to find clues to frame her. She herself continued reviewing emails, trying to find the whereabouts of the black pickup truck from more road surveillance videos provided by Bruce.