Puzzle Madness

Chapter 26 Password
As the night deepened, the city became noisy. Alcohol began to enter people's blood, and people are the blood of this city - so Mong Cai also became drunk.

This was the second night that the skinny man, who looked a bit like a skeleton, had moved into his new apartment. The entire Tianhu community was dark, with only the constantly flashing bright colors in the security booth, coming from the small cathode ray tube TV.

He leaned on the blinds, peering through the crack for a long moment before gripping the door handle and gently and slowly pushing open the only barrier between himself and the outside world.
During the day, there are guys in casual suits hanging around outside, I don’t know if it means danger: not to mention
He glanced at the room diagonally opposite - the windows were dark, and it seemed that the young man in the yellow raincoat was not at home, or he had fallen asleep like his peers.

The skinny man reached out and groped around. Standing on tiptoe, he felt the highest point of the doorframe. His fingertips slowly slid down until he had to kneel down to reach the bottom. Wood thorns pierced the doorframe, spreading across it, sharp and piercing.

He carefully avoided the prickly thorns - even when imagining touching stockings worn on human limbs, the skinny man had never been so cautious and slow.

Du: A subtle sound that is almost imperceptible and transmitted through touch.

Finally - the skinny man's fingertips scraped the tiny bumps on the edge of the wall: although there were still many protruding iron nails on the wooden door frame; this one felt elastic, more like rubber.

He paused and pulled out a piece of A4-sized printed paper from the cardboard box beside his feet. The paper was covered with creases and densely packed text annotations and drawings.

The skinny man sniffed and looked at the printed paper that he had seen countless times in the moonlight.

"It feels resilient to the touch, and clearly distinguishable from wood." This is it. It must be the code generator!

[It's really hidden here! I thought they made a mistake.]

The skinny man followed the instructions on the printed paper and gripped the edge of the cipher with his thumb and index finger, twisting it back and forth and pulling it outwards, nearly lifting his nails off.

[They clearly said they'd put it in the elevator. Seriously.]

As he thought this, he twisted and pulled out the code device with force; until it finally came out and was held in front of the skinny man's face.

The "nail" hammered into the doorframe was a smooth, round tube—two long and short pieces screwed together, each with a different shade of color; its surface was slimy and slippery to the touch. The skinny man held his palm up to the hallway light: the lines on his palm were stained with a dark, sticky layer.

The skinny man realized it—it was blood. Perhaps human blood.

Why hasn't it dried up yet? It looks like it was just pulled out of an animal, and my hands are wet, with only some meat scraps clinging to it.

The skinny man frowned and stared at the long round nail for a while, then cleared his mind of the little incident. Then he followed the dividing line and the arrow, unscrewed one end, and pressed it down again:

drop.

After the electronic sound, one end of the tube lit up like a flashlight - the light shone on the skinny man's palm, reflecting a blurry and distorted pattern.

Originally, the skinny man had received information that he should be able to find this round tube in the elevator floor—
But when he mustered up the courage and quietly entered the elevator, which was sealed with yellow police tape, he found nothing. Instead, the lingering smell of blood and stench, a scent that would haunt him forever, was the only thing the skinny man gained.

The skinny man thought that something went wrong in the task and had to wait for the next instruction. However, the round tube was honestly embedded in the door frame according to the original instructions.

It was really inexplicable - but the skinny man had experienced too many inexplicable things in the past few months.

He scratched his head, thought for a moment, and finally shrugged:

People these days are so bureaucratic. Even this little bit of information is conflicting. Never mind, I'll just find it.
-
The skinny man closed the door and found a flat spot on the mottled, mostly peeling white wall in the living room.
He touched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to push up his non-existent glasses; but in the end he withdrew his hand to his mouth and coughed twice.

The gray-blue light hitting the wall finally formed meaningful and recognizable symbols - although the paint on the wall was uneven due to peeling, the Arabic numerals formed by the light were still clearly visible.

There were twenty-seven numbers in total: the gaunt man's gaze swept quickly over each number, memorizing them thoroughly. *Beep*

Five seconds later, the round tube made a soft sound, and the number reflected on the wall changed - still twenty-seven digits.

The skinny man came closer. He stared at the numbers, his sunken eyelids blinking constantly, as if he was looking at something glaring.

drop.

The beeping sounded seven times, and a total of 189 digits flashed on the wall—
The round tube stopped making any sound, and the blue light it emitted also dimmed.

The skinny man turned the knob a few more times, but nothing happened: the tube seemed disposable. But at least he remembered the numbers; an excellent memory was a gift the skinny man wasn't proud of.

"The pure number length isn't very long. Single-table encryption? Multi-table encryption? If it's Chinese characters, it's difficult to handle this substitution encryption without a codebook. Affine encryption would be better."

The skinny man squatted down, rolling the unresponsive pipe on the ground with his skeletal hands, muttering to himself.

"Just wait a little longer. If it doesn't finish quickly, will they send me an assistant? Eh. Weird, why is it so itchy?"

For some reason, his protruding ribs suddenly began to itch; it was like hives, but no matter how much he scratched, the itch would not stop.

Finally, he sighed and shook his head; he stood up again, put the tube in his pocket, and walked around the small apartment.

"Ah?! What kind of bug is that?"

The skinny man shuddered as if he had been electrocuted, and slapped the shirt that had lost its color with both hands - he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his shriveled chest muscles, probably because he was bitten by a bug.

This is not surprising. In the hot and humid summer in Mong Cai, there are already countless flies and insects, not to mention this apartment that has not been occupied for a long time.

The skinny man shook his shirt vigorously, lamenting his bad luck.
-
The history of the apartment is probably much longer than the skinny man's life so far; the insects, ants and fleas hiding in the carpet also have more vigorous vitality than him.

But this apartment cannot be said to be dilapidated - the basic decoration has been completed, but the household appliances are old and have a vintage feel.

They even have "Lianluobao" (Connectivity Treasures): a popular system used a decade or two ago, a home broadcasting system within each residential complex; the programs broadcast were generally arranged by the residents themselves. These are rarely seen in newer residential complexes anymore.

Of course, it had long since lost its original function; it hung in a corner of the ceiling like a broken sculpture.

The furniture brought by the moving company was piled haphazardly in one place, most of it still in its shipping packaging. The skinny man slept on the floor in the corner last night, so the weather in Mong Cai didn't keep him from getting cold. He hadn't bought the furniture himself; someone had bought it for him before he moved in.

The skinny man didn't bring many personal belongings with him - personal odds and ends that could be packed into two or three cardboard boxes.

The largest household item is the conspicuous and awkward light gray fabric sofa - of course, he didn't buy it.

The skinny man took out the instruction manual again and read a few words to himself; then he squatted down, threw the sofa pillow aside, and lifted up the seat cushion - then he took out a utility knife from the cardboard box and pressed the blade out with a swishing sound.

The instructions he received said that this fabric sofa contained equipment that "they" had allocated for themselves.

(End of this chapter)