"There's no need for that." Xiao Ling rejected Xiao Tan's analysis without thinking.
"Huh?" Xiao Tan was surprised by that as well.
"Haha … Of course." Feng Bujue smiled. "As an alcoholic who is desperate to open the wine cellar, he will not use a method that is too complicated."
"That's right." Xiao Ling added. "Well … we can understand that once we analyze the headmaster's mentality. If possible, he would have written down the eight-digit password on a piece of paper. That would have been the most convenient." As she spoke, she pointed at the remote control. "Look, he has placed the remote control and the two items that are needed to unlock the cellar. This means that he knows that … when he is addicted, he will not have time to do anything complicated. His mind will only be filled with the desire to open the cellar as soon as possible."
"Then, why didn't he set up a simpler password and memorize it in his mind or just write down the eight-digit password on a piece of paper?" Phantom Dawn added, "In that case, even if he is drunk, he will be able to open the wine cellar."
"You are not wrong … but while he is doing this for himself, he has to consider the issue of safety." Xiao Ling replied. "After all, he is a primary school headmaster. If the fact that he is hiding wine in the headmaster's office is exposed, he will lose his job. Otherwise, he would not have built such a 'secret cellar' and installed an entrance with a remote control."
"Oh …" Phantom Dawn understood.
Xiao Tan added, "So … he came up with this' convenient and safe 'method. He placed all the items needed to open the cellar inside the drawer and added some kind of simple encryption to it. That way … even if someone discovers the items inside the drawer, they will not be able to unlock the password in a short amount of time. "
"Hah … Or rather … under normal circumstances, the person who discovered these three items would not have considered the possibility of 'unlocking', right?" Feng Bujue added with a smile. "We use the perspective of a modern person, a player, to think about this problem … and that is why we came up with the use of these three items. But what about looking at it from the perspective of the characters in this scenario? " He paused before continuing. "You have to understand that this scenario is set in the 1970s. At that time … it was only a decade or so before the advent of wireless remote control for civilian use. It was not until the 1980s that the infrared remote control that we are familiar with started to become popular. So … wireless remote control was obviously still a rare thing for people at that time. In a primary school in the Japanese countryside, how many people could recognize the remote control? Taking a step back, even if someone knew that this was the remote control, so what? This person would need to know at least two other things before he would consider the 'decryption' layer. "
At this point, Brother Jue raised two fingers. "First, he needs to know that the headmaster has a secret wine cellar. Only then will he be able to figure out what the remote control is used to control. Second, he needs to know how the remote control works and the exact location of the entrance to the wine cellar. Because the remote control in that era used ultrasonic technology, not infrared, the entrance to the wine cellar did not have an obvious infrared receiver. If the user does not know where the entrance is, even if they decipher the password, they will not be able to open the wine cellar. "
"By the way … I wanted to ask earlier." Xiao Tan heard this and turned to look at Xiao Ling. "How did you find the entrance?"
"I found it based on the texture of the floor," Xiao Ling replied.
"The floor …" Xiao Tan mumbled as he lowered his head to look.
Indeed, the wooden floor used in the headmaster's office was better than any other area that they had been to before. Not only was the floor thick and compact, but the wooden boards were also patterned.
"Oh! I understand now. " Two seconds later, An Yueqin suddenly realized. "One of the three hints in the female toilet is used here."
"Yes." Xiao Ling nodded. "The seemingly random graffiti on the wall of the female toilet matches the texture of the floor at the entrance to the wine cellar. When I was exploring this room earlier, I vaguely felt that the texture of the floor here was familiar. When I heard the commander say that we had to knock on the wall and floor inch by inch to find the entrance, I realized where the problem was."
"Then … the problem is back." Two seconds later, Xiao Tan said to Xiao Ling, "What is the eight-digit password that is' not complicated '?"
"42561047." Xiao Ling said the answer in the next second.
"Huh?" This time, the other five people, including Feng Bujue, all had the same reaction.
"How did you solve it?" Brother Jue was the first to ask.
"It's very easy. Multiply 231568 by 616512, and you get a twelve-digit number, which is 142764450816," Xiao Ling answered. "And the eight digits in the middle refer to the eight positions of the twelve-digit number. The sixth digit is 4, the third digit is 2, the eighth digit is 5, the fifth digit is 6, the eleventh digit is 1, the ninth digit is 0, the sixth digit is 4, and the last digit is 7. Other than the sixth digit, which is repeated once, for the seven positions, there is no repetition of the digits. In other words, there are no two positions that refer to the same number. This matches the logic of the password."
When she finished, the room was silent.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey …" About five seconds later, Phantom Dawn recovered. "This big sister over there …" He paused for half a second and asked with confusion, "You haven't even opened the calculator, so how did you manage to multiply two six-digit numbers?"
"Mental calculation," Xiao Ling replied with two words.
These two words caused Phantom Dawn to be silent for another five seconds. In those five seconds, he studied the man's expression and realized that he was not joking. Therefore, five seconds later, he replied with these three words, "Fine, you win …"
"Oh, by the way …" After Phantom Dawn said that, Xiao Ling picked up the calculator and waved it around. "This calculator has no battery. When I checked it earlier, I realized that it could not be opened." Then, she tossed the calculator on the table. "Then, I understood … this is not a necessary tool to decrypt the password but a tool to give us hints. So, what is a dead calculator supposed to give us? Think about it and you'll understand — it's a single digit. This is a calculator that can display at most twelve digits, so the message it is giving us cannot be more obvious. Taking into account the fact that the headmaster will not use overly complicated encryption and the various numbers on the paper, it is easy to come to this conclusion. "
…
At that moment, Phantom Dawn did not feel like speaking anymore.
An inexplicable sense of frustration continued to expand in his heart, gradually suppressing his fear and causing his mind to be in turmoil.
Before coming up with this script, Ma Junxiao felt that he was a talent. While his peers were still studying hard in high school, preparing for the college entrance examination, he was already earning a salary that others could never earn even if they graduated with a bachelor's degree.
However, the scenario with these people from Underworld Frontline had shattered the sense of superiority that Phantom Dawn had built up after he started working.
He could not help but think … a question that every professional gamer, esports player, or anyone who 'supported themselves by playing games' had thought about and should have thought about.
That was, other than playing games, what else could he do? Or rather … what else could he do?
There was a limit to how long a game could stay popular. No matter how high the quality of the game was, it could not stay popular forever. Eventually, there would be games that were more advanced and more up-to-date to replace it. However, some games would still be called 'classics' ten or twenty years after their release, and some would fade out of the public's sight after one or two years.
Any professional gamer's career was limited. No matter how much glory he had won and how many fans he had, he would eventually retire. This was because people would age, and people aged faster than games, and they were easier to replace.
However, people were not games. Games that were no longer popular could be taken down, but players who could no longer earn money from games could not be buried, right?
Their lives were still long, and they still had a long way to go.
After Ma Junxiao entered the gaming industry, he had naturally been influenced by similar things. He realized that many superstar players who were like legends in the hearts of the players had a normal life after they faded out of the public eye. In fact, one could even call it a sad life. Of course, there were those who had a good life, like those who used the money they earned when they were young to start their own business or those who found a more stable behind-the-scenes job in the gaming industry, but the proportion of these people was not high.
Phantom Dawn was a sensible child. After seeing and hearing enough, he understood that one could play games forever, but it would be difficult to support oneself for the rest of one's life. That was not a problem of hard work or talent; it was something that was physically impossible.
There were many who gave up their studies to enter the gaming industry at a young age like him. Indeed, before the age of thirty, even if they were just a blue-collar gamer, they could earn quite a decent income … but what would happen after thirty? What should they do? Most of them had not considered that, or rather … they did not dare to think about it.
If they could stay in the gaming industry, that would be the best, but there were conditions to stay. Money, skill, ability … at least one of them had to be there. Just knowing how to play games … was useless.
Changing careers … that would be difficult. Even if some of them became professional gamers after they finished university, to enter a completely unfamiliar field after ten years of absence, one could imagine how difficult it would be to start from the bottom. Of course, this group of people was not that bad. There were many who did not even finish high school like Phantom Dawn, and the situation of their career change was even more worrying.
After all that was said and done, it was necessary to be objective. These kinds of considerations and thoughts were not things that a person of Phantom Dawn's age should have needed to consider. With his qualifications, he could at least stay at the top of the gaming industry for another ten years, or even longer.
However, Phantom Dawn had been thinking about this for more than a day or two.
It was not that he had been provoked by the people from Underworld Frontline that day, even though he had been greatly provoked that day.
Actually, he had been thinking about many things related to the 'future' before this, and the 'future' that he was thinking about … was not limited to these 'practical problems'. There were many strange thoughts, including doubts about this world, that would appear in his mind involuntarily.
The reason was that Ma Junxiao was not a 'normal person' — he was a candidate.
His will, talent, and potential … they were all different from others. It was just that … the "current" him had yet to realize this.
…
Two minutes later.
The door to the wine cellar was open. Xiao Ling's prediction was correct.
Feng Bujue took the flashlight and led the way into the underground space.
"I say …" When Brother Jue walked down the stairs, he glanced at the structure of the door and said, "This Mr. Headmaster of Zhong Jiu Primary School is most likely an engineering student." When he said that, he had already walked down the stairs that were not that long. He stepped into a very small space below the headmaster's office. "The mechanism at the entrance to this wine cellar and the accompanying remote control are obviously his own work. Perhaps he dug out the whole wine cellar himself." He stood at the bottom for a few seconds and suddenly said, "Wait a minute … is it possible that … the headmaster was directly involved in the construction of this primary school?"
"Hmm …" Ruo Yu, who followed Brother Jue into the wine cellar, answered quickly. "In a small town like this, it is normal for the project to be handed over to the village's company or someone related to the project." She muttered, "If this principal is really an engineering student, your speculation is indeed possible."
As they spoke, the two of them stood still in the wine cellar.
The space was rather narrow, like a compressed subway car. In terms of height, Brother Jue would not be able to straighten his back even if he stood inside it. In terms of width … it was not even possible for two people to stand side by side. To switch places, they would have to turn their bodies sideways. As for the length … At a glance, the wall was five meters away.
When they were observing from above, Brother Jue said that there was no need for all six of them to go down together. So, only he and Ruo Yu came down, while the others stayed in the headmaster's office to wait.
"I think this speculation is plausible." Feng Bujue said as he walked forward, "There is a 90% chance that this space was set aside in advance when the building was completed. If he was one of the people in charge of the project, it would be easy for him to find an excuse to create a secret room here."
"Speaking of which … this place is really small. The two of us can't even turn around." Ruo Yu said, "Why don't … I go up first?"
The moment she asked this question …
Only a "bang" sound could be heard! The entrance to the wine cellar behind them suddenly closed.
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