Speaking of which, I deserve credit for Wen Zheng being able to come to their school and their department! Jianming secretly chuckled to herself, her inner voice trembling with excitement.
At that moment, someone next to the girl in the back row let out a loud "tsk".
Jianming subconsciously glanced back; it was another girl, quite pretty. He didn't know why she was being so inelegant.
"Is math so easy to learn?" The girl, with her blue-black nail polish, said sarcastically, "A graduate of a military academy dares to transfer to Rongda University so casually. Well, the whole world is his backer. With his current popularity, he can choose where he wants to study and what he wants, right?"
Before Jianming could react, the "fangirl" in the back seat had already switched to real-life PK mode, yelling at the blue-black fingernails: "He can transfer to our school so easily, much more impressive than you struggling to get into your major by barely passing the entrance exam, right?"
“You,” nail polish fumed, rolled her eyes, and said angrily, “It’s all because of people like you that the academic atmosphere has been ruined.”
Jianming realized what was happening and felt a surge of anger rising within him.
Someone actually disagreed!
Before the nail polish could finish speaking, she continued her rambling: "And there's something even funnier. This person not only came to learn math herself, but also brought her rumored boyfriend along."
She shrugged and said, "Ha, just a pretty face. So what if she can play the piano? Even an idiot can play the piano after practicing for ten years. Can an idiot learn math?"
These words were so harsh that the girl in the back seat was furious.
"Even a fool could practice for ten years and still not be able to play the piano!"
Jianming: "..." That's not the point!
After the person named Blue-Black Nail Polish finished speaking, they actually received some agreement. Looking closer, there were quite a few people agreeing.
Jianming was seething with anger.
Rongcheng University is ranked among the top ten in Xia Guo. Who among those who can get in hasn't been outstanding since childhood?
When Wen Zheng appeared in the news, they expressed their gratitude, praise, and respect without reservation. However, when it came to their own discipline, they naturally felt that they were the true professionals in the field.
Besides, he hasn't even taken the college entrance exam yet!
Some people, like the girl in the back seat, are obsessed with good looks; they're fine with anything.
Of course, there are also people who, regardless of the consequences, want to express their dissatisfaction first.
With the support for the blue-black nail polish, his tone became even more smug.
"Anyway, his attitude is definitely not right. My uncle works in the student affairs office. I heard that they were going to arrange accommodation for him, but he said it would be inconvenient to keep a cat, so he decided to commute instead." She clicked her tongue: "Everyone knows that our school doesn't allow freshmen and sophomores to commute. No matter who comes, it's no use. Last year, even the mayor's son couldn't get accommodation arranged, right? But Wen Zheng is different. He just said he wanted to keep a cat, and the school gave him the green light. My uncle said there wasn't even a persuasion process. He just said he wanted to commute, so he did."
That's not fair.
Thinking about it this way, even the other students who were indifferent felt a little uneasy.
“What’s even more infuriating is his beautiful girlfriend, right? I admit, she’s very good-looking, and I even followed her on Weibo, but…” The girl with the nail polish picked at her nails: “My uncle said that apart from his ID card, he can’t produce anything else, and he suspects that she dropped out of high school.”
Those around her looked on in astonishment, and she quickly said, "There's no evidence for this; it's just my uncle's guess."
"Did he get it registered?" someone asked curiously.
“It’s in the news,” Nail Polish said listlessly. “I already told you, he’s incredibly popular right now, with national leaders as his backers, so of course he can do whatever he wants… including packaging his mistress as a graduate of Rongda University.”
Whoosh—
The people around immediately let their imaginations run wild, their eyes becoming subtle.
While you can't completely trust what that person says, there's some truth to it, isn't there?
Most of the students, who were indifferent to Wen Zheng, didn't find him annoying at all; on the contrary, they became even more curious about him. One of them asked in a lighthearted tone, "You've said so much, but where is he?"
The girl with the nail polish was speechless.
Another person said, "Yeah, a third of the people in the classroom are fans who came secretly to wait for him to appear. They're all getting impatient. My roommate keeps asking me if he's here yet... Didn't you say he's already registered for day school and should be coming to class by now?"
"This advanced mathematics class is a fundamental course that every math major has to take. You wouldn't be so arrogant as to skip class, would you?"
"Probably not. Otherwise, why would he bother reporting to Rongda? He's so young and already a colonel. If he stayed in the system, he could rise to the top in one step. Who wouldn't admire him?"
"Exactly, no matter how good their level is, they'll still attend classes, right...? Why aren't they here yet? Are they not planning to enroll this year?"
The last person's words were a great encouragement and broadened everyone's thinking.
That makes sense.
It's the second semester now, and they've been taking classes for half a year. If Colonel Wen really wants to learn math, isn't he worried about falling behind? Postponing enrollment by half a year is quite reasonable!
"Well," the girl with the nail polish was about to say something when the professor interrupted her.
There was a loud bang. The fat professor smiled and unscrewed the light from the projector, throwing it into the empty trash can.
The entire classroom fell silent.
"Can we start class now?" He asked the student in front to pick up the hardworking lamp, slowly screwed it back on, and said, "Any student who doesn't want to attend class can tell the teacher, and I'll twist your head off as skillfully as I twist a lamp."
Students: "……"
Jianming swallowed his pent-up arguments and decided to live for several more decades.
"Oh, by the way," the old professor said, having just turned on the laser pointer and pointed it at the screen, then suddenly turned it off as if he remembered something, and said enthusiastically, "Wen Zheng won't be taking this course."
All: "!!!"
The professor said, "He's a graduate student."
All:………………? ? ? ? ? ?
***
The female students who came specifically to wait for Wen Zheng attended the two-hour lecture with blank stares. Towards the end, the old professor seemed to take an interest in these unfamiliar faces who "even if they were not majors in mathematics, they were particularly passionate about it," and frequently called on them to answer questions.
As soon as the bell rang, they sprinted away from this hellish place, and it was Jianming and the others who helped them move their chairs back to the next room.
Jianming was also surprised; he didn't know that Wen Zheng had gone directly to graduate school.
But this is good too; it's peaceful, at least I won't be surrounded by people during the big lecture.
He thought sadly, it's a bit of a regret. He thought they could be friends and go to get out of class together, but the other person skipped a grade...
He was definitely overthinking things about friendship, sob sob...
After moving the last chair, Jianming picked up his books and headed back to his dorm. Halfway there, his WeChat notification went off.
He raised his knees to support the stack of books, and unlocked the book with a juggling motion of his right hand. When he looked at it, his eyes suddenly lit up!
—[Wen Zheng]: Is get out of class over? Are you coming to the library?
Waaaaah, our friendship is back!
Jianming rushed back to the dormitory like a little bird returning to its nest, happily greeted Zhang Zhenghe who had just returned, and then flew away again.
Poor Zhang Zhenghe's question, "Where are we going?" was stuck in his throat.
Rongcheng University Library is quiet because it is large. The walls and bookshelves are equipped with various sound-absorbing devices, so even if you talk or discuss quietly, it won't disturb others. Students like to go there to discuss their research topics.
Jianming swiped his card to enter and immediately spotted the people sitting at the corner table.
Wen Zheng wore his usual attire: a black t-shirt and jeans, with his ever-present baseball cap on.
Unfortunately, his efforts to keep a low profile were largely in vain, because his beautiful girlfriend was sitting next to him, wearing a loose trench coat with the effect of a magazine spread, exuding irresistible charm at all times.
Across from them sat a stranger who looked rather unassuming and had a shy smile.
“Simple.” Wen Zheng was the first to see him and raised his hand in greeting.
Jianming sat down excitedly and introduced himself. Under his expectant gaze, Bei Sining said reservedly, "Call me Brother Ning."
Yu Jin smiled and said, "My name is Yu Jin. You can call me whatever you want."
"Oh!" Jianming, seeing that he looked like he hadn't graduated high school, said with feigned kindness, "You can also call me Brother Jian!"
"..." Yu Jin said awkwardly, "I'm twenty-eight."
Wen Zheng added: "He is Mayyu."
Jianming sat down silently and respectfully said, "Excuse me, Brother May."
Wen Zheng wanted to ask them for help, so he didn't keep them in suspense and quickly explained the difficulties he was facing.
"It's still the same cipher, the last one. I've done a simple calculation, but I have no clue." Wen Zheng turned the paper with the cipher information on it so that Jian Ming and Yu Jin could see it: "Jian Ming is more familiar with Rongda's collection of books and materials, and Yu Jin is very knowledgeable about ciphers. I'm asking for your help."
They were both flattered, and Yu Jin shook his head vigorously.
"No, no, no, I'm the one who's been helped too much, I can never repay it... and I might not even be able to help." Yu Jin looked at the code and frowned: "I've just seen it a lot, and I'm sensitive to certain code structures. If I hadn't seen it before, I wouldn't be able to solve it."
Jianming felt even more unworthy of the offer: "I can only look at the information and help you check. If it's not in the entire library, then I'll be even more at a loss."
“No way,” Wen Zheng said confidently. “There must be a recorded code.”
Bei Sining then spoke, her voice low and elegant: "Because the person who set the password intended for him to crack it, not for him not to be unable to crack it."
This is an idea that Bei Sining just provided in the last two days.
They may have overcomplicated things from the start.
Bei Sining couldn't sleep at night and kept thinking about the password. No matter how she thought about it, she felt that her uncle and aunt's message was probably written to ten-year-old Wen Zheng.
Wen Zheng told him stories from his childhood as bedtime stories, and Bei Sining remembered almost every detail.
According to him, Wen's father loved to show off his knowledge, such as the mathematical solution to Murphy's Law, finding a partner using optimal stopping theory, and what a substitution password is.
Because he was too young, Wen Zheng didn't remember much, but this little bit was enough to prove that his father had taught him math and cryptography, and that Wen Zheng could use simple knowledge to crack the code.
Bei Sining vaguely felt that there must have been a book or a set of documents in the study at that time, which clearly told Wen Zheng where to find the key, what type of password was used, and how to use his brain to crack it.
Unfortunately, the answer is forever buried in the river of time, leaving only a sad deduction.
Bei Sining was afraid he would be upset, so she didn't say anything, but only gave Wen Zheng a direction to think about—find a suitable classical cryptographic model, which might be able to match it.
“The cipher text is ro, xu, hu, xy, cl, ew, uh, ne,” Wen Zheng said, writing eight sets of letters on the paper. “The key is a line of poetry, ‘Life is like a journey, and I am but a traveler.’”
Yu Jin exclaimed, "Wow, it was the one I solved?"
Wen Zheng nodded: "The answers to the previous three passwords were all poems, but this last one is not."
"Because it doesn't have enough letters." Yu Jin quickly realized.
This is a limitation of Chinese Pinyin.
Even if a poem is short, just ten characters, the resulting encrypted number or letter will be quite long when you add the final nasal sound, which matches the characteristics of the previous three codes.
But once the last password is deciphered, it is clearly less than ten characters long.
"Could it be an idiom?" Jianming asked. "Has anyone stipulated that it can only be a poem?"
Wen Zheng: "It might not even be Chinese."