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墨書 Inktalez
"Perhaps it was just an impromptu murder, but some evidence suggests that the killer who took the lives of those five people is not the same person... In any case, if we can crack this code, we might gain some new intelligence. This is an email I found in the victim's inbox that was set to send at a specific time. The content is quite simple; it's the 'cose' I just mentioned to you." Lin Li held her phone, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the edge of a piece of draft paper, her brow tightly knitted.
"I thought it might be another deathbed confession, but it seems we're not following the traditional plot after all. Who was this email sent to?" came Mr. Cang's teasing voice from the other end of the line.
"This email was written about twelve hours before she headed to Yushan and was set to be sent two days later, right at noon on the second day after she arrived at Yushan. The recipient is her boyfriend—a regular high school math teacher. They met when his father was hospitalized and had been dating for a year and a half, with a strong relationship. Moreover, he is not listed as the beneficiary on her insurance policy, so motives of love or financial gain don't hold up. Besides, during the time she was at Yushan, he was teaching at Yizhong and has a solid alibi. However, this man is currently in poor mental condition and likely isn't paying attention to whether there are new emails in his inbox, so we might uncover this lead before he does." Lin Li paused, flipping through the documents on her desk. "Considering that the victim was a fan of puzzles, I believe she had some basic knowledge of cryptography. Before heading to Yushan, she likely sensed that her life was in danger and wrote this suggestive email in advance as her last words."
"Foreseeing death? Then why go? Young people these days..." Mr. Cang couldn't help but interject.
Lin Li lightly tapped the table and continued her analysis: "Regarding the email itself, I've checked it and found no additional codes attached, so the information is simply the password made up of those four letters: 'c', 'o', 's', 'e'. As far as I know, there are many basic ciphers; when combined, they can deeply encrypt content and become quite complex. Right now, I only have a few ideas." She raised the draft paper filled with notes. "These four letters have no inherent meaning and don't have any special shapes. I first tried cracking it using a Caesar cipher—shifting letters forward or backward by the same number of steps—there are twenty-five possible results, but none looked like plaintext."
The white paper displayed twenty-five sets of jumbled letters arranged neatly, exuding a sense of futile frustration.
Mr. Cang sighed. "The Caesar cipher has long fallen out of fashion. Cracking codes needs to keep up with the times."
Lin Li pinched her aching temples and continued: "Next, I converted the letters into numbers. Replacing them according to their order in the alphabet gives us 315195, which can be rearranged into 'caese' or 'caeaie'. There are too many vowels for them to convey meaning; writing it backward gives 'eiom', which also doesn't make sense; patterns formed on a phone keypad lack regularity; since there’s a 1 present, it can't be mobile pinyin input either—this route is blocked. Finally, I directly interpreted it using my phone keyboard: translating 'cose' gives us 2673, which translates directly to 'bfgd'. While 'bf' could stand for 'boyfriend', 'gd' makes no sense at all. I really couldn't find a satisfactory answer, which is why I came to you." After saying all this in one breath, she felt tightness in her throat and walked over to the fridge to grab a carton of milk and gulp it down.
On the other end of the line came rapid keyboard clacking and mouse clicks. Moments later, Mr. Cang's voice carried a hint of triumph: "Xiao Li Li, from knowing nothing about codes to being able to analyze so much—I’m truly impressed! However, this time the ciphertext is special; with only four letters, there's limited space for translation. In wartime, such codes were nearly unsolvable, but now it's different. In modern society filled with information overload, many titles are replaced with initials like Vp or WTO; strictly speaking, they also count as codes. But this type of encryption has a downside—it can have too many interpretations. For example, BL could mean 'the Horde' for gamers but imply 'male homosexuality' for others. So knowing who receives it is crucial. Given that you told me 'cose' was sent to a math teacher, I immediately thought that the first three letters 'cos' are an abbreviation for 'cosine' in mathematics!"
"The Cosine Building!" Lin Li suddenly stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. She bit her lip in frustration—how could she have overlooked such an obvious clue while fixating on complex solutions?
"You know that building? There's an E-shaped sign on its roof; I suspect that's what the code refers to," Mr. Cang's tone rose with excitement. "Are you heading over there now? We just got in an expansion pack for Blackjack; I can't wait for you to come challenge me!"
"I'm on my way right now! We'll talk later!" Lin Li grabbed her handbag and rushed out the door. The streets were eerily quiet in the late night; taxi drivers hummed off-key old songs while the sound of tires rolling over pavement echoed clearly. In less than twenty minutes, she arrived at Cosine Building.
Lin Li quietly pushed open the door leading to the rooftop and moved carefully on her high heels along the floor. Underneath the moonlight stood the E-shaped sign silently; ropes tied to its concrete supports dangled over the railing's edge. "Something must be hanging from those ropes!" She held her breath and gripped tightly onto one of them to pull upwards with all her strength; her palms were scraped raw by the rough hemp rope. However, when she fully reeled it back in, it was completely empty.
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