Volume 2: Residence in the Capital Chapter 100 Binary?
Although she had made a mistake just now because she forgot that there were other people in the car, when she saw that Lu Sanlang really brought a letter to Zhang Shou, Zhu Ying, who was standing by, immediately came over. After reading it for a long time, she only found that it was a letter of greetings that made no sense. She didn't know who it was from, and she asked Ah Liu in annoyance, "What is this riddle from Lu Zhutou?"
Ah Liu had always kept silent in front of Zhang Shou, but now he opened his mouth to explain: "He was captured to solve the mystery."
This time, Zhang Shou understood immediately.
Apparently, this letter was not written by Lu Sanlang to him, but Lu Wan had captured Lu Sanlang's son and brought him back to try to have someone decipher the secret letter? Ah Liu, you should have told me earlier, I don't think Lu Sanlang would be so idle!
He suddenly became interested and immediately put aside the joking thoughts he had just had and started calculating with full concentration.
The most fearful thing about everything is to be serious. After a careful look, he vaguely felt that if punctuation is regarded as a separation, the horizontal line between words represents one symbol, and those without horizontal lines between words represent another symbol, then...
Is it Morse code? One is di and the other is da? I remember when China first had telegraph, it used four digits to represent Chinese characters...
But in this day and age, even with the presence of a senior like Taizu, this seems a bit too advanced. The two parties in communication have to prepare thick code books, which are inconvenient to keep!
So, maybe it's binary? Oh, yes, my computer teacher said that the I Ching Bagua is actually a kind of binary...
Even if the Zhouyi Bagua is just a far-fetched creation of later generations, it doesn't matter. After all, there was still Emperor Taizu before him. Although he must have died a long time ago, it is very likely that he has passed down a lot of things. Why not give it a try first ?
Compared to Zhang Shou who immediately started to solve the puzzle, Zhu Ying's reaction was not slow either: "Lu Wan wanted Lu Zhutou to decipher this letter that looked like a family letter? He didn't just want to capture him and bring him back to trouble Ah Shou? I didn't expect him to have such good vision! However, although Lu Zhutou has some talent, he has only been learning from Ah Shou for a few days? He hasn't mastered the skills yet, does he have the ability to do it?"
Seeing Ah Liu shaking his head, the young lady knew that Lu Sanlang had indeed not figured it out, and immediately laughed at him. But when she heard that Zhang Shou beside her had not made any movement for a long time, she immediately turned her head to look. Seeing that he was frowning in thought, his handsome face was full of concentration and seriousness, she couldn't help but stare at his profile, unconsciously beaming with joy.
I was just thinking about how to deal with Lu Wan. If Ah Shou could decipher this letter, wouldn’t it be easy?
Since it was judged to be binary, Zhang Shou quickly found out the first few digits by separating the punctuation marks.
101100001, 10010110, 100110001, 1000101110…
Converted to decimal, it should be 353, 150, 305, 558...
It's such a big number? It's impossible to use a normal password. Maybe it corresponds to a book?
By the way, he had always told his cheap teacher Ge Yong that he used Thousand Character Classic as a code book because none of the one thousand characters in the text were repeated. Why not try substituting the first four digits into it?
Even though he now had an extraordinary memory, Zhang Shou still took great pains to find the four corresponding characters from the Thousand Character Classic in his mind - Scholar Kong.
Finding that these four words could actually express a clear meaning, Zhang Shou did not bother to understand the next words, and quickly turned his head to ask Zhu Ying beside him: "Yingying, who is Scholar Kong?"
"A Shou, have you figured it out?" Zhu Ying was overjoyed and said quickly, "Master Kong is the current deputy prime minister and the leader of the New Party. He was the one who insisted on lifting the ban and letting in the Western barbarians and their books. This way, we can eliminate the dross and retain the essence, and select the most suitable things for our Ming Dynasty. Only in this way can we live up to the painstaking efforts of Emperor Taizu!"
After stroking his chin and pondering for a moment, Zhang Shou laughed and said, "It's not necessarily possible to solve all the problems. I just tried the first four words. However, with this, we should be able to meet Lu Sanlang's father."
"That's what I was thinking!"
Just when Zhu Ying was overjoyed, Ah Liu suddenly said in a low voice, "Master, Miss, it seems someone is coming towards us."
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Shou looked out of the car window again, and saw that Ah Liu, who was standing there and talking just now, had disappeared in an instant.
Muttering that this kid was always elusive, he simply lifted the curtain and saw the butler who had just received Zhu Er and his party walk out of the gate of Lu Mansion. He looked around for a while and then went straight to the carriages parked at the foot of the wall. He said to Zhu Ying, "Yingying, it seems that they already know we are coming."
When Zhu Ying saw Zhang Shou leaning out of the car, she quickly followed him. After landing, she saw that the housekeeper had indeed spotted them at once. She couldn't help but get angry: "Was it my second brother or Zhu Gongquan who leaked the news?"
"Don't think about it. At this point, those details don't matter anymore." Zhang Shou noticed that many of the people who were waiting to see Lu Wan were looking in his direction. He smiled and held the folded paper in his hand. "With this thing sent by Lu Sanlang, we are no longer just looking for trouble."
While he was talking to Zhu Ying, the housekeeper had already come running over. He bowed deeply with a smile on his face, and then said respectfully: "The master heard that Miss Zhu and Dr. Zhang came together, so he specially asked me to come out and invite them."
Zhang Shou smiled slightly and said casually, "What a coincidence, we are also going to visit Minister Lu."
Zhu Ying was about to say no, but Zhang Shou had already agreed, so she could only say stiffly, "Why are you talking so much? Lead the way!"
Mother Jiang, who also got off the car, signaled Zhan Jin to wait here, and waved to Zhu Hong to follow, but she followed Zhu Ying and Zhang Shou with her head lowered. She was the last one to enter the gate of Lu Mansion, and the whispers behind her were blocked out. She knew without thinking that the news that the eldest lady and Zhang Shou were in the same car would spread soon.
Even though the current social climate is more open than that of the Tang and Song dynasties, the eldest daughter is indeed too bold. Fortunately, the Madam had already said that the wedding would be arranged as soon as the master came back, so as to avoid any more trouble.
However, she had already tasted what the eldest lady and Zhang Shou were going to do and was sweating profusely!
Compared to the Duke Zhao's Mansion, the Lu Mansion also had a deep courtyard, but it seemed to have less accumulation of years. The housekeeper who led the way also explained one thing very well - the Lu family had a wealthy merchant in their ancestry, so the family was rich. This house was bought and renovated by Lu Wan after he became a deputy minister of the Ministry of War, and then expanded several times. Compared with the poor officials in Beijing, this is indeed a big deal!
Zhang Shou didn't care about these things until he walked along the corridor to a hanging flower gate and saw two young men waiting in front of the gate. Seeing that their eyebrows and eyes were a little similar to Lu Sanlang, he knew that they were probably Lu Sanlang's two brothers. When the two men came up to some very nice and polite words, he naturally practiced Tai Chi calmly.
Zhu Ying, however, was most impatient to deal with such a person who kept going back and forth. Seeing that Zhang Shou was still perfunctorily dealing with the two of them, she simply strode ahead. When she walked straight into the study outside the Lu Mansion, she saw that the Minister of War Lu Wan, whom she had met several times, was sitting behind the desk with a smile. She almost threw out the question that was stuck in her mind impulsively.
What hatred or grudge do my father have against you that is worthy of you scheming against him in such a complicated way!
However, the eldest lady still had some sense of propriety and suppressed the question that was about to come out of her throat. Not only that, when Zhang Shou finally entered the room, she even took a step back and stood side by side with Zhang Shou.
Lu Dalang and Lu Erlang saw Zhu Ying's attitude but didn't take it seriously. However, Lu Wan's pupils shrank slightly. When he saw Zhang Shou bowing calmly and Zhu Ying bowing reluctantly despite being reluctant, he couldn't help but have a ridiculous idea.
Is this a perfect match... or is it just a husband and wife following each other's lead?
However, Minister Lu did not really want to find a famous and willful daughter-in-law in the capital for his youngest son, and the marriage was just a trick to fool people.
Seeing the elegant young man and the beautiful girl at this moment, he narrowed his eyes again, and then said with a smile: "If you two came here for my son Lu Zhu, you can just visit directly. Why do you have to let Zhu Erlang take the lead? Although Zhu Erlang doesn't have a good reputation in the capital, it seems that he didn't mean to come here to provoke trouble and act crazy. Isn't it too unfair for him to take the blame?"
Zhu Ying was immediately furious, but then she felt a hand suddenly reach out and hold her hand tightly. Although she had been alone with Zhang Shou more than once or twice, this was the first time they had such close contact. Although the hand loosened in an instant, she still felt a sense of security after the initial shock.
After instinctively choosing to appease Zhu Ying with his actions, Zhang Shou casually picked up the piece of paper folded like dried tofu with two fingers and said calmly: "As expected of Minister Lu, you have a keen eye. Perhaps I am judging others by my own meanness. But if I hadn't been so roundabout, I wouldn't have known that Minister Lu, a great Sima, would have the leisure to solve and guess riddles with his young son."
