Falling Dreams, Rising Hopes: Saving Mr. Boyfriend

"Old man, you might have to personally go and meet him. How would I tell him otherwise how he must read it?" Mei Qingyang was suddenly very worried. Her heart was racing because she had no idea how far along her dad was in his planning already. What if she was too late?

"How do I contact him? Anyway, I have seen him grow up here, I know he is intelligent enough, he will be able to crack it. Send a simpler code to throw anyone off who wants to intercept. Make them instructions on how to read yours," the old man suggested. He was full of wisdom owing to his age and experience in life.

"You are not suggesting that other people are that stupid that they won't figure such an obvious thing out?" Mei Qingyang stifled her laughter. Was this old man implying that all the intelligent people around Yu Rong, in case her codes were indeed intercepted, wouldn't be able to crack it?

"Humans, my dear child, look for patterns in everything, it is their nature. But you, you think differently. And Yu Tian knows that. He won't overthink things unlike the smart people out there who want to make everything overcomplicated," old man gave his wise advice to her.

Mei Qingyang really learned something today. Her heart felt lighter after hearing that. People had more faith in their relationship than herself. It felt as if everyone was rooting for both of them, except her own family. Once she remembered her father's message, she felt depressed again.

It seemed like, in the end, she was not really their daughter but a pawn for revenge. Is that why he had raised her all these years? What about those tears he had shed begging her to not go to the school and not take up the position? Were they all acts too?

"Girl? Girl?" The old man touched her hand slightly who was dazedly staring in space.

"Focus, okay? I see how you left the work you had come to do and are now trying to let someone else know about your secret code. I am pretty sure it is critical to you. So you need to work hard and not think about anything," the old man insisted. He understood the human nature very well, having dealt with so many different people over the years.

He had always been able to see through this girl, she was so pure and honest. She didn't mind dirtying her hands for her loved ones and right things. On the top of that, she did not brag about it or claim to be a hero of justice or anything, although she was doing exactly the same. What else would one require from a human being?

His stance had always been soft towards this girl, though he scared the heck out of other people. Yu Tian was one of his favorite children too, but there was a bias in it. He also happened to know his circ.u.mstances in Yu family. Haiz, he was a pitiful child indeed.

"Ah! Yes, thank you. I do need to focus. I do not have time to wallow in my sorrows. There is a life I need to save. Yes, I will go with your suggestion. You know him better than me," Mei Qingyang shook her head. She really needed to not let anything distract her.

The old man had been a particularly reliable person over her stay in the campus, she decided to reveal her secret.

"So taking the ISBN number, last digit meant the version of dictionary we were going to use. This meant, all the books that I ordered had same ending digit."

The old man tried to recall her orders. Having a good memory, he realized that it indeed was true. She would order ten to fifteen books at a time and all had the same ending digit. Furthermore, all the books she ordered were with the ten digit barcode on it, not the thirteen digit one. Genius! This was simply genius!

"Then?" he asked curiously, a glow of reverence on his face.

"Then, the first three digits and fifth to seventh digits and eighth to ninth digits corresponded to the words in that version of dictionary," Mei Qingyang could see how impressed the old man looked and she could not help but grin. This method was something that she had come up with. It was time consuming but so rewarding that she had patted her back for days when she finally finished it. It was difficult to solve because first of all, someone would need to know the dictionary versions her and her dad had, and then their corresponding numbers. Otherwise it would not make sense to anyone.

"Wasn't it difficult to find books with a particular barcode number like this, having the words you needed?" old man pointed out the flaw in the method. This was too much effort for just communication.

"It was difficult. But I had already taken out a lot of numbers of common words from those dictionaries, then I just needed to find the books with those ISBN. I had already hacked and worked out the numbers that were all on off-site storage, so it was much easier," Mei Qingyang scratched her head embarrassingly.

"So then, your dad only needed to know the numbers of the books you ordered? They were sent to the system over there and then the truck boy would get them. But there were other people who would order books too, how did they segregate? The system here only sent the full list without telling who was ordering what," the old man raised another question. This was tricky, they just sent the orders in total.

"Oh that, if you noticed, I always ordered only ten or fifteen books. They would pick all the numbers with same ending digit. If it was more than ten or fifteen, then they would look at the fourth digit. All my books had same fourth digit too. The probability of someone ordering a book with same fourth and last digit is very less," she shrugged her shoulders.

He had seen Jiang Nuo in despair over his son's death. But his eyes said something else, revenge. When Mei Qingyang was revealed to be his foster daughter, he had wondered if Yu Rong was stupid to admit this girl. But he knew, she also did not have a choice because this was something written in the school rules, rules she herself had made. At that time, al the higher up ministers, including the president of the country, were under her palms, how could have she foreseen someone like this rise in power? Now he had really become trouble for her.

That is why they say, the problem should be solved from root. She managed to eliminate Jiang Bo, the immediate threat but what about the future? Had she not calculated it or had she thought that she could suppress the guy at a smaller post all his life?

And now if she found out whatever had been happening in her own yard, she was going to regret letting Jiang Nuo go.

Anyway, none of his business. He was here to see the show, and he was expecting a great ending to this whole ordeal.

"Yeah, I am glad our country's ISBN system is great in that manner, it was easy to segregate words. Then my dad would make sense of the words to get the info. One book meant one sentence, it was telegram format of writing, no helping verbs, nothing. Short and concise," she concluded.

"I am guessing your dictionaries would be very peculiar ones too?" the old man asked again He had so many questions about this, he was dull knowledge buff. And this was not the first time someone had used books like this. But just to get those sentences to her father, she went through so much, what was the use? She would need to make so many permutations and combinations, just for a message!

"Yes, they were not only English dictionaries, there are a few foreign language dictionaries as well, making it more complicated to crack. Fortunately, only I and my dad know about this."

"Then, how are you going to relay this to Yu Tian?"

"I was hoping you could explain to him personally. But I don't see that possibility. I am not sure what I could do, and thus I explained to you the whole thing. Can you help me come up with a solution?" she pleaded. It would take her a few days if she were to do this alone. But this knowledgeable old man could definitely help her.

"He is being monitored in the similar way as I am. I cannot contact him by normal means. If I could, I would have done it already," Mei Qingyang explained. Yu Rong had a lot of good system in place. Unfortunately, she was not a great manager. She had put people to check on the calls and messages and the cameras 24*7 for Yu Tian and her. She could have used the encryption on her phone whenever she needed. But putting a permanent bug was risky and she did not have access to Yu Tian's phone.

Now she needed to just think how to tell all this to Yu Tian, she really regretted not teaching this to him earlier.