Both of them looked at Dong Yunshan.
Dong Yunshan picked up the enamel mug, gently blew on it, touched it to his lips, then raised his head under the gazes of the two beautiful high school girls. "I like you too."
"Really?" Yui Yuigahama's eyes widened in delighted surprise.
Yukino Yukinoshita's delicate brows furrowed slightly, her displeasure obvious. "Why?"
"Generally speaking," Dong Yunshan said, breathing in the aroma rising from the cup, "any message from a girl that I can't understand means 'I like you.' Since this was a reply after a confession, it naturally meant 'I like you too.'"
"When it comes to disappointing me, you never fail to disappoint me." Yukino Yukinoshita sighed. "So you were just guessing."
"It was a well-reasoned analysis," Dong Yunshan corrected. "You wouldn't put that much thought into someone you weren't interested in. Usually, it's just 'oh,' 'mm-hm,' 'talk later,' 'haha,' 'I'm busy,' 'going to shower,' 'you're a good person,' 'we're not suitable,' 'I've always thought of you as a brother,' 'let's start as friends'..."
"What a rich history..." Yui Yuigahama looked at him sympathetically.
"That was my friend's experience." Dong Yunshan gave a light cough. "It deserved sympathy, but I felt like he had it coming."
Steamed by the heat, Yukino Yukinoshita's pink lips looked even more glistening as her clear, cool voice drifted out. "Do you have any friends who are less miserable?"
Dong Yunshan took a sip of tea. "Do you have any friends?"
"You... can make a request of me." Yukino Yukinoshita shot him a sidelong glare. "That way, the previous order will be fulfilled too."
Dong Yunshan raised one eyebrow. "Sounds like you've solved it already?"
"Your answer was correct." Yukino Yukinoshita set down her teacup. "But without the decryption process, even a correct answer becomes wrong."
"I was too lazy to look into it further..." Dong Yunshan set down his enamel mug. "Yuigahama, please repeat the question."
"A Student Council friend of my friend's friend confessed to a girl who was also in the Student Council, and then that girl, who likes classical ciphers, replied with a five-layer encrypted code." Yui Yuigahama showed them the email she had received. "Dot dot dot dot dash slash, dot dash dash dash dash..."
"Morse code." Yukino Yukinoshita interrupted Yui Yuigahama. "It decrypts to 4194418141634192622374."
"Morse what?" Yui Yuigahama blinked blankly.
"Morse code is a signal code made up of interruptions and transmissions. Different arrangements represent different English letters, numbers, and punctuation marks." As he explained, Dong Yunshan wrote down the numbers. "Accurate information can be transmitted using only dots and dashes. For example, the three short, three long, three short pattern widely used in maritime emergencies is SOS."
"A distress signal!" Yui Yuigahama's eyes lit up. "I know that one!"
"With numbers, it usually corresponds to the alphabet." Dong Yunshan muttered, "Daiddahadafcdaibfbbcgd... No, the letters are too repetitive. A reverse alphabet is the same. Is it double-layer positioning? If it's a rail fence cipher, two columns would be da/dd... no, that's not right either. Three columns, dai/dda... that doesn't look right either."
"The final answer is in English," Yui Yuigahama added. "The boy tried lots of methods but couldn't solve it. He could only ask the girl, and she told him to look more closely at the emails she sent. She also said that one step used a substitution cipher, and the cipher table was something they used every day."
"With hints included, she was obviously agreeing." Dong Yunshan held out his hand to Yui Yuigahama. "Let me see."
"Here." Yui Yuigahama handed Dong Yunshan her flip phone, covered in sparkly decorations.
As soon as the flip phone landed in his hand, Dong Yunshan could not help feeling sentimental. Smartphones were impressive, sure, but these old-fashioned flip phones had their own charm.
Compared to today's identical giant slabs, these button phones had designs that truly blossomed in a hundred different ways.
Just look at these wonderfully textured buttons, with their perfectly raised surfaces.
Feeling their texture beneath his fingertips, Dong Yunshan became a little dazed.
Phones these days had nothing interesting about them, so he could not even be bothered to take his out, much less fiddle with it carefully.
Now that he had one in his hands, he suddenly missed the days when he practiced touch typing.
After smartphones appeared, practicing touch typing had naturally become pointless.
Many people did not even use nine-key keyboards anymore.
"Dong Yunshan?" Yui Yuigahama looked at him with an incomprehensible expression. "You..."
"Try to understand, Yuigahama." Yukino Yukinoshita sighed. "Touching a girl's belongings is an extremely rare experience for him."
Dong Yunshan came back to his senses. "I was thinking."
"Shouldn't you be looking at the screen, then..." Yui Yuigahama spoke weakly. "Why were you staring at the keyboard and... touching it like that..."
"I was..." Dong Yunshan could hardly say he was being nostalgic. "I was decrypting it. The code is related to the keyboard... right!"
Dong Yunshan moved his fingers away and fixed his gaze on the physical nine-key keypad.
"It's the keyboard. The rail fence cipher was right, but the order was wrong." Dong Yunshan drew several lines through the numbers on the paper. "41, 94, 41, 81, 41, 63, 41, 92, 62, 23, 74."
Yui Yuigahama looked at the grouped numbers. "And then?"
"The ones digits are all no greater than four, and only 94 and 74 contain a four." Dong Yunshan held the phone up in front of Yui Yuigahama. "The meaning of 'look more closely at the emails she sent' is to look more closely at the phone."
"The phone?" Yui Yuigahama stared at it for a while. "There's nothing... The keyboard?"
"Exactly. On a nine-key keypad, only 7 and 9 represent four letters." Dong Yunshan picked up his pen. "For 41, take the first of the three letters represented by key 4. For 94, take the fourth letter represented by key 9... and so on. The second layer decrypts to GZGTGOGXNCS."
Final Exams and Spring Break: Study Hard
"I still can't understand it..." Yui Yuigahama puffed out her cheeks. "What do we do next?"
"The girl also felt that the third layer was a little difficult, so she deliberately gave a hint." Dong Yunshan already had a specific idea. "She said the cipher table was something they used every day."
"Mm..." Yui Yuigahama thought about it. "Textbooks?"
"That's something everyone uses every day." Dong Yunshan pointed out the key. "This 'they' specifically refers to those two. We need to look at what they have in common."
"What they have in common... They're both students. Right, and they're both in the Student Council." Yui Yuigahama frowned in thought. "Does the Student Council have anything that could be used as a cipher table?"
"A computer keyboard," Yukino Yukinoshita said. "The Student Council needs to handle all sorts of documents, so they need computers. Other students rarely have a chance to use computers at school."
"To improve typing speed, the letters on a keyboard are arranged in the order QWERT..." Dong Yunshan wrote out the keyboard's letter layout on the paper. "Matching the decrypted code to the keys according to that order, ABCDE becomes QWERT. Then GZGTGOGXNCS becomes OTOEOIOUYVL—at this point, the answer is already obvious."
"I LOVE YOU TOO!" Yui Yuigahama quickly rearranged the letters. "The confession succeeded!"
"A girl's cute little thoughts." Dong Yunshan felt like even his livor mortis had faded. "Although she liked the boy too, she did not reply directly. Instead, she designed a five-layer encrypted code and made him find the answer himself."
"With every layer the boy solves, he gets one step closer to the girl's heart. And if he runs into trouble, the girl even gives him hints." When it came to this, Yui Yuigahama understood all too well. "I like you too, but I can't say it directly. Still, if you're willing, I'll take your hand and show you the feelings hidden in my heart—how romantic!"
"So merely guessing the answer is not enough," Yukino Yukinoshita said. "You need the specific decryption process."
"Right, there are five layers." Yui Yuigahama looked at the scrambled letters again. "There are still two layers left?"
"Now that we know the answer, we can work backward." Dong Yunshan marked the numbers. "Marking them in reverse according to the order of I LOVE YOU TOO, there are four Os, so we'll skip those for now. That gives us..."
O/T/O/E/O/I/O/U/Y/V/L O/9/O/5/O/1/O/8/6/4/
"Looking from back to front, after 2/4/6/8 naturally comes 10, followed by 1/3/5/7/9/11." Dong Yunshan divided the letters into two groups. "Odd and even sequences, separated into two rows..."
O/T/O/E/O/I
O/U/Y/V/L
"Reading from top to bottom and left to right, it becomes OOTUOYEVOLI." Dong Yunshan put down his pen. "That's the fourth encryption. As for the fifth layer..."
"Just reverse it!" Yui Yuigahama picked up her phone. "I'll tell my friend's friend's Student Council friend right away!"
"Here." Dong Yunshan tore off the sheet of paper and handed it to Yui Yuigahama, making it easier for her to communicate with her friend.
"What a shame." Yukino Yukinoshita tilted her head slightly. "It seems we weren't able to complete the order this time."
"What?" Dong Yunshan grew interested. "Couldn't think of an interesting order, so you want me to make a request instead?"
"At present, I truly cannot think of an appropriate order that would make someone like you feel troubled." Yukino Yukinoshita did not hide it at all. "But you cannot think of a suitable request either, can you?"
"Actually, I already have an idea." Dong Yunshan lightly tapped his temple. "A reasonable request that neither I nor you can complete. The timing just isn't suitable right now."
"Oh?" Yukino Yukinoshita asked curiously. "How so?"
"The first school year is coming to an end, and final exams are approaching. It's better not to take up study time—let's talk during spring break."
"Very well." Yukino Yukinoshita nodded. "I was worried you would revert to your old self during spring break and make all my correction efforts go to waste—what's wrong?"
Halfway through speaking, Yukino Yukinoshita noticed the strange look on Yui Yuigahama's face.
"It's... nothing." Yui Yuigahama avoided her gaze. "Nothing."
Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes. "Final exams?"
Yui Yuigahama's eyes widened in surprise. "How did you guess that right away?"
"Because you made it too obvious." Dong Yunshan sighed. "You haven't even reviewed yet?"
"It's reviewing! It's not like we've reached the point of previewing yet." Yui Yuigahama pursed her lips and muttered softly, "Actually, if you think about it, studying isn't that meaningful. You won't use it after entering society anyway..."
"I see." Dong Yunshan understood. "You've skipped straight to the giving-up stage."
"It's not giving up!" Yui Yuigahama protested excitedly. "Studying has no meaning at all! High school life is already so short, isn't it wasteful to spend it studying? You only get one life!"
"The time when you can learn efficiently is also limited to this period. Studying seriously is one of the very few decisions among life's countless choices that you will never regret... Why am I saying something like that?" Dong Yunshan shook his head. "Forget it, forget it. Pretend I said nothing."
Yui Yuigahama stared at him in astonishment. "Why does it feel like I've been abandoned?"
Dong Yunshan had simply suddenly remembered that when he was Yui Yuigahama's age, adults had said the same things to him.
Back then, he could not take it in either.
"Studying is not meaningless." Yukino Yukinoshita sighed and rubbed her forehead. "The point of studying should be for you to find its meaning yourself. That is why each person's purpose for studying may differ, but there is no need to reject studying entirely."
"Little Yukino is smart, so you don't have any problems..." Yui Yuigahama lowered her head. "But I'm not suited for studying, and the people I know don't study either..."
Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze immediately sharpened.
"I-I'll study properly! Studying is my own business, so how can I just follow the crowd?" Noticing the change in Yukino Yukinoshita's expression, Yui Yuigahama immediately tried to make amends. "You can only know whether you're suited for it after trying. I'll do my best!"
Final Exams and Spring Break: Interest in Studying
Look how badly she scared the poor girl...
Dong Yunshan gave Yui Yuigahama a sympathetic look.
"R-right!" Yui Yuigahama noticed Dong Yunshan's gaze. "Dong Yunshan, let's work hard together!"
Dong Yunshan felt that Yui Yuigahama somewhat deserved this.
She had actually tried to shift the flames of war onto him.
It was no wonder. Sobu High School did not post students' grades publicly. It only sent each student their individual score and ranking.
Other than Yukino Yukinoshita, who was known for being first in the grade, most people had to ask around to learn about others' grades.
Dong Yunshan had barely attended class all year. Before, he had the excuse of being injured and hospitalized. Recently, he had not been injured much, so Shizuka Hiratsuka dragged him back to school.
After returning to school, although he attended class normally, he did not put much effort into socializing. No one asked about his grades, and he did not have the habit of talking about them everywhere.
Naturally, Yui Yuigahama did not know his grades.
By normal logic, a student like Dong Yunshan, who was constantly absent from school and only attended classes intermittently, ought to have terrible grades.
But in reality...
"My grades are pretty good." Dong Yunshan admired Yui Yuigahama's stunned expression. "I've always stayed in the upper-middle range."
"Traitor!" Yui Yuigahama loudly accused. "Doesn't that mean I'm the only one playing the idiot?"
"That isn't the case, Yuigahama." Yukino Yukinoshita firmly denied it.
"L-Little Yukino!" Yui Yuigahama brightened completely.
Yukino Yukinoshita explained seriously, "You were already an idiot. You weren't playing one."
That was already harsh enough, but combined with Yukino Yukinoshita's serious expression, it felt even harsher.
"Waaah~~~!" Yui Yuigahama let out a pitiful fake cry and thumped Yukino Yukinoshita's chest with her little pink fists.
With an impatient expression, Yukino Yukinoshita leaned back slightly, letting Yui Yuigahama's soft little fists fall on her like rain beating plantain leaves. She sighed helplessly. "What I mean is, using exams and rankings to measure a person's worth is something only idiots do. Some people get excellent grades but are a complete mess when it comes to being a person."
"I couldn't agree more." Dong Yunshan added approvingly, "The worse someone's character is, the more troublesome knowledge becomes."
As he said that, Dong Yunshan subconsciously looked at Yukino Yukinoshita, only to meet her gaze as she looked over at him.
The same question appeared in both their minds at once: Why are you looking at me?
There was no need to say it aloud. The answer was already clear.
Before you continue