Originally, the Monday supplement of "Seaside Magazine" only had 9,000 copies, so the discussion was not too widespread.
But once the Manchester Guardian got involved, the whole world knew about it.
People are all curious about the book review edition.
"What is this book review?"
"You don't know? Doctor Doyle's new short story - "The Little Dancing Man", uses this code to challenge people all over London."
"Ah, could it be said that someone has cracked it?"
"It seems so, but I just don't know who it is."
"There's no signature in the newspaper either."
…
All kinds of discussions were noisy in the dust.
Just like that, another day passed, and it was Wednesday, and the secret chapter of "The Dancing Man" was finally released.
…
early morning.
University College London,
library.
The students were all uninterested in studying and gathered together in twos and threes chatting quietly.
Although the row of dancing figures in the Manchester Guardian was unsigned, they had a vague feeling that the peculiar book review came from Professor Lu.
There is an impetuous and anxious atmosphere brewing in the air.
Nikolic and Solomon were there,
The fact that the two participated in Professor Lu's polling project spread like wildfire, so others envied and respected them.
If you stick to Professor Lu, you will probably become famous in the future.
Nikolic whispered: "I can't stand the way my classmates look at me."
Solomon said: "I really enjoy it. You are not the French roommate who was jealous of you before..."
Before he finished speaking, he was interrupted:
"I didn't! I'm not! Stop talking nonsense!"
Nikolic refused three consecutive sets.
Solomon rolled his eyes at the other party,
"I don't know who always kept muttering 'How are the Spaniards worse than the French?'. You are indeed no worse than him now. In the past few days, haven't you received a lot of love poems? All those girls' school students... …Hmm!@#*￥%…”
Solomon's mouth was covered.
Nikolic denied again: "No!"
Seeing his nervous look, Solomon couldn't help but widen his eyes.
grass!
Could this serious friend really be in love?
This world is so crazy!
Solomon pinched the other person's wrist covering his mouth and tried to break it open.
At this moment, a shout suddenly came from the door:
"bought!"
Everyone followed the sound,
I saw a student rush through the door out of breath and said loudly: "I bought it, I..."
Before he finished speaking, the librarian interrupted him: "Quiet!"
The student was slightly embarrassed, lowered his voice and said, "I bought "Seaside Magazine"."
The whole library fell silent.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Suddenly, the librarian cleared his throat and said, "Let me take a look too."
As soon as these words came out, all kinds of "clattering" sounds were heard, and the students all moved chairs and sat around. There were three floors inside and three floors outside, and the library was turned into a lecture theater.
The student was a little embarrassed.
"I...that..."
Seems a little shy.
Solomon said: "Why are you dawdling? Forget it, I'll do it."
He walked to the middle of the crowd, took the "Seaside Magazine", turned to the secret chapter of "The Dancing Little Man", cleared his throat, and began to read the original text:
"
'Among the English letters, E is the most common. It appears so many times that it must be the most common even in a short sentence. Four of the fifteen symbols on the first note are exactly the same, so it is reasonable to estimate it as E. '
"
Everyone present nodded.
Indeed, Holmes's reasoning is very reasonable.
Someone took out a piece of paper, drew all the dancing figures on it, and then wrote "E" on the small side of one of them.
Nikolic urged: "Go on."
Solomon continued to read:
"
'Except E, the letters in order of occurrence are T, A, O, I, N, S... However, the number of occurrences of T, A, O, and I is almost the same. It would be endless work trying every combination until you came up with an idea. '
"
…
As Solomon read out the original text of "The Little Dancing Man", more and more letters were deciphered.
Suddenly, someone whispered: "I, space, C, A, R..."
Solomon was interrupted and was not annoyed: "What's wrong?"
The student frowned slightly and said, "I'm reading the book review page of yesterday's Manchester Guardian. Don't worry."
Only then did everyone suddenly realize,
right!
There’s also a book review edition!
Everyone began to rummage around in a hurry.
Solomon compared it with "The Dancing Man" in "Seaside Magazine" to decipher it.
However, there was someone faster than him,
Nikolic suddenly shouted: "It's broken! I've broken it! Yesterday's book review page said this, 'I've cracked the code. Your loyal comrade, Lu.'"
Everyone couldn't help but look at each other,
"Is it really Professor Lu!?"
"It turned out to be...hiss...so terrifying yesterday!"
"In it, Sherlock Holmes used a row of dancing figures to lure the murderer into revealing his true identity and surrendering to the trap; in reality, Professor Lu used a row of dancing figures to tell Dr. Doyle that the code trick he constructed was just childish."
…
The students whispered.
Suddenly, Solomon slapped his forehead as if he remembered something: "Do you think Professor Lu will continue to publish book reviews today?"
These words reminded others,
Nikolic asked: "Where's the Manchester Guardian today?"
…
"Where's the Manchester Guardian today?"
Cavendish put down the "Seaside Magazine" and asked James next to him.
The two of them were currently finding a bench in the courtyard of King's College, Cambridge, sitting and reading.
The cool morning breeze blows,
Silence lay between the two of them.
Seeing that James didn't answer, Cavendish asked again: "Where is today's Manchester Guardian?"
Only then did James come back to his senses, looked at Cavendish, and said, "Mr. Superintendent, this Lu Shi is really an all-rounder, not only talented in literary creation, but also..."
The conversation ended abruptly.
Cavendish urged: "What else?"
James shook his head,
"That's all. See for yourself."
As he spoke, he handed over the Manchester Guardian in his hand.
Cavendish turned directly to the book review page and found an article called "The Design and Decryption of Ciphers".
The author is of course Lu.
At the beginning of the article, Lu first told a short story:
The protagonist of the story is Caesar,
Caesar needed to encrypt important military messages, so he developed a cipher that changed the order of letters so that outsiders could not form a single word.
Since most of Caesar's enemies were illiterate, even if they were literate, they would interpret these messages as an unknown foreign language. Therefore, there was no technology at the time that could solve this most basic and simple substitution code.
This is the origin of Caesar's cipher.
After that, Lu Shi described in detail the process of designing a password to cracking it.
In the whole article, "The Little Dancing Man" is not mentioned in every sentence, but it is also inseparable from "The Little Dancing Man".
Cavendish took a deep breath,
"A learned man."
This was his most sincere evaluation of Lu Shi.
On the other side, James smiled bitterly and said: "At the same time, he is also a serious person. When Mr. Lu responded to Dr. Doyle like this, I don't know how he would respond to me..."
Cavendish waved,
"It's okay, hasn't he posted an article yet?"
James looked at the Chancellor speechlessly and said helplessly: "Have you forgotten that the Manchester Guardian does not have a serial page? Mr. Lu's works are either published by the Royal Publishing House or published in The Scotsman. "
(End of chapter)
