freenovelworld Chapter 1030 An unwelcome guest is about to arrive?
Chapter 1030 An unwelcome guest is about to arrive?
The newcomer's voice was a little ethereal, carrying a hint of nonchalance.
Then, the office door creaked open a crack, and a head wearing sunglasses and with messy hair poked in. He looked around before squeezing in and closing the door behind him. He walked unsteadily, clutching a few crumpled telegrams in his hand, and walked straight up to Director Zheng, slapping the papers down next to the ashtray.
Director Zheng looked up at Baoqiang, one of the notorious "problem children" in Bureau 701, codenamed "The Listener".
This kid is really skilled. His ears are so amazing that they can pick up signals on dozens of frequency bands at the same time. He can distinguish the "breathing" of a specific target from a noisy sea of radio waves. He has made great contributions in several tough battles for the bureau.
But he's also really carefree and irreverent. He treats everyone with the same nonchalant attitude, except for a few people he respects (like Jin Zhen).
"Baoqiang? What's up?" Director Zheng wasn't in the mood for small talk and sounded annoyed. "If you don't have anything to say, don't come and cause trouble."
"Make trouble? I'm here to deliver 'medicine'."
Baoqiang pushed up the sunglasses he almost never took off (it's said that his eyes can't stand bright light, a habit he developed from spending years in a dimly lit listening room), and pointed to the few pieces of paper he had just photographed.
"Here comes the eleventh one. Freshly baked, still piping hot."
Director Zheng was taken aback, his gaze falling on the telegrams.
The format and character style of the above copy were completely different from the style of the ten coded telegrams he had, and were more like... the tone of ordinary business communications?
He picked up the top sheet, quickly glanced at the title and a few keywords, and his brows immediately furrowed.
"A business briefing from Phnom Penh to Taiwan?" Director Zheng tossed the paper onto the table, his tone skeptical.
“Baoqiang, this is not the time for jokes! I know you have sharp ears, but this is completely different from the coded messages we need to decipher! What does the public band communication from Phnom Penh to Taipei have to do with your ability to hear the wind? You call this ‘medicine’?”
He certainly had reason to be suspicious.
Baoqiang's expertise lies in capturing and analyzing those deeply hidden, frequency-hopping "enemy station" signals, rather than regular business messages on public or semi-public bands.
The two are worlds apart, both in terms of technology and intelligence.
Baoqiang didn't directly refute, but simply moved his head closer to Director Zheng and turned his face to the side.
The office overhead light wasn't bright, but it was enough for Director Zheng to see clearly that on the edge of Baoqiang's ear, which was always covered by the sunglasses and messy hair, near the ear canal, there was a small patch of dark red blood that hadn't dried yet, and there was even a very faint smell of blood wafting over.
Director Zheng's words came to an abrupt halt, and his pupils contracted slightly.
He knew the "price" Baoqiang had paid for his ears.
Long-term, excessive capturing and analysis of subtle signals, especially high-intensity, high-frequency listening, can place a huge burden on the auditory nerve and blood vessels in the ear.
Baoqiang has experienced tinnitus, dizziness, and even temporary hearing loss before, and this isn't the first time he's had ear bleeding. Although this guy is usually unserious, he's almost obsessively reliable when it comes to his "hearing the wind" ability. He wouldn't, and would never stoop to, faking or joking about such things.
"You..." Director Zheng's voice softened, carrying a hint of barely perceptible seriousness, "Where did you 'hear' this from?"
"Of course, it's the listening tapes that the relevant authorities along the coast need!"
When Baoqiang noticed that Director Zheng had noticed the bloodstains, he pursed his lips, seemingly annoyed by the trouble, but still explained, "Old Zheng, those ten 'heavenly books' you have, the source of the transmission is cunning, the encryption is insane, right? I've been staring at their main frequency and possible frequency hopping sequences, my ears are practically bleeding from listening, and I haven't gotten a single fresh clue. But think about it, someone doing this kind of dirty work has to report the progress to their boss and receive instructions, right?"
Would they dare use the same encryption method and the same data link to transmit this kind of everyday information? The risk is too great.
He picked up the telegram and tapped his finger on a few seemingly ordinary words: "Public band, standard wording, looks very clean!"
However, the transmission power margin seemed a bit unnatural, and the transmitter's finger placement... tsk, I'd 'sense' a similar rhythm during a monitoring session in the south some time ago. Of course, that alone is utterly useless.
He paused, his gaze behind his sunglasses seemingly focused on some distant point:
"The key point is that there is a very precise delay between the time when this 'Eleventh' telegram was sent and the time when the seventh and ninth telegrams in your possession were intercepted."
This delay happens to be exactly the theoretical time required for optimal signal relay or human transmission from the area where the 'heavenly book' signal source might be hidden to a public radio station in Phnom Penh.
Moreover, the order and length of three phrases in this telegram, when I used a process of elimination to simulate a simple substitution code table that the underlying layer of that 'cryptic book' might be using, produced a set of randomly generated test sequences that gave me an 'echo' that made my ears itch.
Baoqiang's description is disjointed and mixed with a lot of personal perception terms.
What does it feel like? What's the rhythm like? What's the echo like?
If it were someone else, they might really think that 701 should just be turned into a mental hospital.
But Director Zheng understood the core message: Baoqiang wasn't deciphering the content; he was using his superhuman auditory memory and intuition about signal characteristics to conduct an extremely bold cross-signal source correlation analysis!
He forcibly linked seemingly unrelated public telegrams with top-secret and difficult-to-decipher coded telegrams through time correlation, the "feel" of transmission characteristics, and "pattern intuition" that even he himself could not fully explain in words!
"You mean... this seemingly ordinary telegram might be a confirmation or status feedback from the lower levels of the command chain? Using publicly available information as a highly subtle marker?" Director Zheng's heart pounded. If this were true, even if it only provided a sliver of information for verification or a clue to narrow down the scope, it would be invaluable in their current desperate situation!
"Maybe, just maybe. But it's better than staring blankly at those ten 'lumps of iron,' isn't it?"
Baoqiang shrugged, the bloodstains on his ear seeming to seep out a little more with his movement, but he didn't care at all. "So, Old Zheng, stop thinking about that blockhead Jinzhen. He won't be back anytime soon, and distant water can't quench immediate thirst."
He suddenly changed the subject, his tone becoming somewhat abrupt: "Jin Zhen is quite something, isn't he? But have you forgotten? When he was stuck on that 'Albatross' code and almost shaved himself out, who was it that gave him a wake-up call?"
"River……"
Director Zheng was taken aback, and then a name popped into his mind. But he was alert and didn't finish speaking. He quickly shut his mouth, placed his right hand on his head, and his fingers began to dance seductively.
“That’s right! Jinzhen said that the way that kid looks at problems is completely different from ours, but he often manages to hit the nail on the head.”
"He can't go abroad, so it's easier to find him than Jinzhen!"
Oh dear (艹皿艹), I'm so busy I've forgotten about that silly kid!
Even Hua Lao said that this kid's group theory level is top-notch, and group theory is naturally used to crack codes!
Besides, that kid is Big Yellow's father!
"Prepare immediately!" Director Zheng abruptly stood up:
"Activate the highest-level security emergency communication link, package and encrypt all ten coded telegrams, all our analysis records, as well as the related telegram discovered by Baoqiang and his analysis notes, and send them directly to us with the highest priority..."
"Yes!"
Old Ma, who was standing nearby, quickly got up to respond.
But after a long while, they realized that their director hadn't specified the recipient or address at all!
"Uh... Chief, what's the address? And the recipient's name..."
"Darian Naval Base!"
When he said the address, Director Zheng hesitated for a moment, but finally clenched his fist and said those words.
"Never mind! No need to send it..." Director Zheng thought of something.
He grabbed his coat and hat, looking at Baoqiang: "You, come with me, to the airport now! We're flying to Dalian immediately! There are some things we need to explain to him in person! Here," he glanced in the direction of the decoding room, "let Lao Wu take charge for now, keep him on high alert!"
"Alright!" Baoqiang wiped the blood from his ear and grinned, though the smile was pale from exhaustion and blood loss. "We should have done this a long time ago! What's the point of sitting here listening to mosquitoes? Let's go find that silly kid to 'listen to the wind'!"
……
On the plane, Director Zheng closed his eyes to rest, but his slightly furrowed brows showed that he was not truly relaxed.
Baoqiang seemed restless. He leaned back in his seat, his fingers unconsciously picking at the scabs that had formed on his ear. Suddenly, with a "snap," a small piece of dark red scab was flicked off and landed squarely on the dark blue sleeve of Director Zheng's Zhongshan suit next to him.
Director Zheng's eyelids twitched, but he didn't open his eyes. He simply raised his hand and gently brushed away the stain.
“Hey, old man Zheng,” Baoqiang said, seeing that Director Zheng was ignoring him, he simply moved closer and pressed himself against Director Zheng:
"To put it nicely, we've come to ask for advice; to put it bluntly, we're begging for help. But look at the people you've brought..."
……