Chapter 63

It turned out that the paper contained eight characters in Chinese, which did not form a sentence. After Shen Wanqing saw it, she said, "This should be some kind of code, but it's impossible!"

Lin Yuan asked, "What's impossible?"

Shen Wanqing replied, "Deng Shichang is under house arrest now! He is a prisoner, how could the guards possibly let him send out such a letter?"

Lin Yuan shook his head and said, "I can't figure it out. Let's try to figure out what the code says."

Shen Wanqing sighed and said, "This is a typical substitution cipher, where one character is replaced by another. Although this encryption method is simple and can be cracked using frequency analysis, with just a few characters, it's impossible to use frequency analysis. Without the key, we won't be able to figure it out no matter how hard we try."

A key, in cryptography, is the rule for converting between ciphertext and plaintext.

The two of them found a teahouse, and it was empty at that time. The teahouse was very quiet, and neither of them spoke, both thinking of a solution. Suddenly, Lin Yuan said, "Do you think this might be the cipher used by the Beiyang Fleet?"

Shen Wanqing thought for a moment and said, "That's quite possible, but where can we get the key for the Beiyang Fleet?"

Lin Yuan said, "This must be recorded in history. They wouldn't change the key just because we traveled through time. However, such an obscure thing, even if someone has studied it, we can't possibly find it now."

Shen Wanqing said, "If that's the case, we have only one way left. We can use the computer on the Beijing ship to brute-force all possible combinations!"

The two of them lowered their heads and started calculating the number of possibilities. With eight positions and 3,500 commonly used Chinese characters, the number of combinations is 3,500 to the power of eight, which is roughly 10 to the power of 83. This magnitude is entirely possible with a computer.

However, the problem is that the computer can list all the results, but it doesn't know which result is reasonable. That means a person needs to check each result. Even if a person can check one result per second, it would take 10 to the power of 70 years to finish.

After calculating, both of them felt a chill. Such a long time would probably last until the end of the world.

Shen Wanqing said, "There are too many results for these eight positions. It's unlikely we can figure it out. Let's think about the key."

Suddenly, Lin Yuan slapped his thigh and said, "How could I forget? When we were fighting the Japanese, our early warning aircraft also recorded the communications between the Beiyang Fleet and Tianjin. We didn't pay attention to it at the time, but now we can use those records to decipher the code."

Shen Wanqing's eyes lit up, and she said, "Then let's not wait. Let's get the Beijing ship to decipher it quickly."

Although the crew of the Beijing ship was engaged in various activities on land, there were still enough people reserved on the ship. Lin Yuan used the communicator to send the message back to the Beijing ship, and the ship immediately took action. The previous communication records had not been deleted, and even if they were, computer experts could restore them.

Lin Yuan soon received the accurate meaning of the eight characters: "Meet at midnight tonight."

Both of them were moved. This meant that Deng Shichang agreed to go with them. Shen Wanqing frowned and said, "There shouldn't be any trick, right?"

Lin Yuan thought for a moment and said, "It shouldn't be. If he wanted to catch me, he could have done it in the room. Why go through so much trouble?"

At midnight, the two of them sneaked out to the yard. The wall was very low, and they easily climbed over. Deng Shichang's room was still lit. They quietly went in, and when Deng Shichang saw Lin Yuan, he sighed and said, "It's fate! It's fate!"

Lin Yuan asked, "Commander Deng, what do you mean?"

Deng Shichang smiled bitterly and said, "I think about fighting the Japanese every day to avenge my fallen brothers, but the Emperor exiled me here. Today, seeing you, I feel that the opportunity for revenge has come, but I don't want to betray the Emperor. So, I wrote you a secret letter. If you could decipher it, it means that heaven wants me to go with you. It's fate."

Lin Yuan smiled and said, "You will have your revenge soon."

Just then, a man's voice from outside the yard said, "Commander Deng, who is speaking in the room?"

Before the words were finished, a soldier pushed the door open. It was the same soldier who had questioned Lin Yuan during the day. Shen Wanqing was standing by the door, and when the soldier came in, she was right behind him. Shen Wanqing thought, "If these guards find out, we won't be able to take him."

With that thought, she moved and delivered a palm strike to the back of the soldier's neck. She had practiced this move many times and thought it would be easy to knock him down. However, the soldier sidestepped, and her strike hit the shelf, causing the vase on it to fall and shatter on the ground. The sharp sound startled Shen Wanqing.

The soldier didn't seem to care and looked at Lin Yuan, saying, "Hey, aren't you the guest who came during the day?"

He then turned to look at Shen Wanqing, pointing at Lin Yuan and asked, "Are you his wife?" Then he said innocently, "Why did you hit me?"

Shen Wanqing didn't have time to deal with this. She didn't even have time to tend to her injured hand. She knew that the sound of the broken vases would alert the guards in the neighboring yard, making it impossible to take Deng Shichang.

However, Shen Wanqing knew that the soldier was difficult to handle and couldn't subdue him in one move. Just then, a crowd of soldiers, holding torches and brandishing bright single-edged swords, rushed into the yard, surrounding the house. Lin Yuan knew that it was impossible to take Deng Shichang away now. Seeing Deng Shichang shake his head and sigh, he knew that he attributed his failure to escape to fate, and it would be hard to take him away in the future.

Lin Yuan bowed to Deng Shichang and said, "Commander Deng, I came to visit you under the moonlight, but I didn't expect to disturb the officers. I apologize and will take my leave."

However, the soldier blocked Lin Yuan and said, "Mr. Lin, are you planning to take Commander Deng out for a walk?"

Lin Yuan didn't know why he was asking this and didn't answer. The soldier then loudly called to the soldiers outside, "Come in, pack Commander Deng's things. Commander Deng is going out with the two distinguished guests."

The soldiers outside seemed to follow the soldier's orders and rushed in. The soldier smiled and said, "Pack Commander Deng's books, and..." He looked around and saw that Deng Shichang had nothing but books, so he said, "Pack all of Commander Deng's books and carry them for him."

Then the soldier pointed to the door and smiled at Lin Yuan, "Mr. Lin, let's accompany Commander Deng on his outing."