The car moved swiftly along the highway, tracking forward into the night.
The wind rushed inward through the half-open window, blowing hard enough that the unsealed letter, which Ji Xun had taken out and tossed onto the passenger seat, pressed tightly against the door, completely motionless.
He looked at the path ahead. Alongside the straight road illuminated by artificial lighting lay a pitch-black world untouched by the beams.
The world was vast. What people could see was merely the tiny sliver directly in front of them; yet, while some pushed the very limits of their vision to gaze further and wider, others were content with the immediate view.
The “key,” or rather the “password,” to the lock Meng Fushan had placed within the letter was incredibly simple. It was nothing more than an old trick they used to play back in their school days. A stranger’s first instinct upon receiving the letter would be to study each individual character. However, the first layer of code on this letter relied precisely on the inverse of conventional thinking: they had constructed the letter into a maze based on the finals of the Chinese characters.
There were many paths within the maze, but only one could lead out.
That path was the correct path. Only the characters distributed along this correct path were valid.
Yet, extracting the valid characters did not mean the mystery was directly solved; next came the second lock.
This layer of locking involved ciphertext conversion, and the conversion text used was the Xinhua Dictionary—a fundamental reference book that could reasonably appear anywhere.
By using specific information from the maze to map the characters in the letter one-by-one to the Xinhua Dictionary, one could arrive at the final, correct message.
Of course, Ji Xun had not memorized the Xinhua Dictionary. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, but rather that his past self had never found a reason to commit the entire dictionary to memory. Fortunately, when they played this game years ago, he had flipped through the dictionary multiple times. Recalling it now, his memory was close enough that he could remember portions of it without too much discrepancy.
Ji Xun was in no hurry to translate the letter right away.
As he drove, his thoughts drifted into a disorganized tangle… amidst the continuous cool breeze, his consciousness shifted slightly, wandering back to the past when Ji Yu was still around.
The winter break of their sophomore year hadn’t been the only time Meng Fushan visited his home.
Afterward, his relationship with Meng Fushan remained consistently excellent, and his family also took a liking to Meng Fushan. Whenever his parents brought him up, they always described him as a “polite and industrious” boy. Ji Yu, needless to say, would from time to time slip gifts meant for Meng Fushan into the packages she sent her brother.
Ji Xun had never asked Meng Fushan what he thought of his family.
But Meng Fushan had never once rejected the items Ji Yu sent. It seemed that for many things, the clues were always hidden in the smallest details.
Roughly a year and a half later, during the summer break of their junior year, Meng Fushan came over again.
On closer thought, it couldn’t exactly be said that Meng Fushan came over again; rather, Ji Xun had once more invited Meng Fushan to spend the summer break together. But instead of staying at his house, they partnered up to go traveling.
When they were young, they thought the world revolved around them—they just charged forward without a shred of fear. With a broad stroke of his pen, Ji Xun had circled Tibet on the map. They decided to hike and backpack up the mountains, bravely scaling the peaks to test out just how impressive they could be by attempting to reach the sky with their bare hands!
The plan was beautiful, but a small hiccup occurred during the preparation process.
The plan for him and Meng Fushan to go hiking in Tibet somehow reached Ji Yu’s ears, and she clamored to tag along.
However, whether in the past or the present, his sister had always been a weakling in Ji Xun’s impression. They were going to Tibet to hike up mountains, so bringing his sister along was entirely unsuitable.
But his sister simply insisted on going.
Her Chinese literature teacher had assigned the students a travelogue composition, and she wanted to travel to Tibet in person to complete the assignment based on real-life experience.
Of course, writing a travelogue didn’t strictly require a trip to Tibet, but beneath her outwardly boisterous demeanor, his sister actually possessed a stubborn streak. Once she set her mind on something, she would never give up.
The brother and sister engaged in the following dialogue:
“What’s so fun about climbing mountains?”
“If climbing mountains isn’t fun, why are you guys going?”
“We are going for a challenge.”
“I am going to write an essay.”
“You’ll drag us down.”
“Humph.”
Ji Yu let out a cold snort at Ji Xun, turned her head, and immediately called out for their father.
Ji Xun rolled his eyes.
Knowing that their father doted on her, this girl would resort to calling Dad whenever there was something she wanted but couldn’t get since childhood. It was an old trick!
This shout drew the attention of both parents. Once Ji Xun and Ji Yu explained the situation, the parents split sides. Their mother felt that it was both inconvenient and boring for a girl to travel out with two boys, asking if it wouldn’t be better to stay home and escape the summer heat. Their father felt that mountain climbing and exercising were good things, and it was only natural for an older brother to take his younger sister out to play; as for the challenge and whether she could keep up, they could simply adapt to the circumstances when the time came.
Having stated their respective viewpoints, the couple quickly reached a consensus: they would neither support helping Ji Yu pressure Ji Xun, nor would they object to Ji Yu convincing Ji Xun on her own. To summarize their stance: the matter between the siblings should be decided by the siblings themselves.
Ji Xun almost rolled his eyes a second time.
This couple was getting better and better at playing both sides to keep the peace; speaking a great deal amounted to saying nothing at all.
With their parents pulling themselves out of the matter, Ji Xun fell victim to his sister’s relentless tactics. Ji Yu used both soft and hard approaches—one moment making handicrafts and preparing delicious food for Ji Xun, and the next fiercely wielding a plush toy like a sword to threaten him. She even seized every gap to stealthily peer at Ji Xun’s phone screen. In her words: “As long as I find out the time and location you agreed upon with Brother Meng, I’ll arrive half a day ahead of you guys. Once the rice is cooked, you won’t have a choice but to take me along.”
Her logic was quite solid.
Ji Xun sneered, immediately switching his normal chat with Meng Fushan into ciphertext.
With the communication method changed, Meng Fushan naturally had to ask why.
He briefly explained the situation at home, earning a cold, single-word reply from Meng Fushan: “Boring.”
But Ji Xun didn’t care what that fellow thought; he had already set a simple trap for his sister:
He left his phone in the living room and went into the bathroom to take a shower.
His sister knew the unlock password to his phone. Since she wanted so badly to go to Tibet with them, she would definitely take advantage of his shower time to quietly steal a few glances at their agreed departure time and walking route.
And then she would see… content that she couldn’t possibly understand in her entire life.
Thinking about how his sister would look annoyed and frustrated the moment he pushed open the bathroom door, Ji Xun cheerfully hummed a few tunes.
He finished his shower. Fifteen minutes—neither too long nor too short, matching his usual shower duration.
He dried himself, put on his clothes, and pushed open the bathroom door. Sure enough, he saw his sister hugging a pillow, her eyes staring blankly at the wall, looking as though she had fallen into a deep existential crisis.
Ji Xun felt he certainly hadn’t hidden his smile well at the time, because the next moment his sister saw him, her face puffed up with rage like a steamed bun.
Ji Xun remained completely unbothered. He had indeed tricked his sister, but who told her to look at his and Meng Fushan’s chat records without permission?
Yet, who knew what crossed her mind, but after being angry for a short while, Ji Yu suddenly stopped being mad. She even flashed a little devilish smile at Ji Xun, a smile that seemed to say:
Big brother, don’t get too smug. I have other ways.
Ji Xun returned a calm smile.
He was departing the day after tomorrow. For the short remaining time, Ji Yu was merely a grasshopper in late autumn—unable to hop around for long.
He was wrong.
On the day of departure, at the high-speed rail station, Ji Xun met Meng Fushan, and right beside Meng Fushan stood Ji Yu, dragging her luggage and smiling at him triumphantly.
Damn it.
No matter how much he calculated, he never could have anticipated that a guy who looked so cold and detached on the outside would be won over by Ji Yu in less than forty-eight hours!
