Emperor Weapon (236)

A Yao nodded and walked away, leaning on her bamboo cane. The iron hoops at the bottom of the cane tapped against the stone pavement, making a crisp, reassuring sound.

Snow Empress put away the metal box and hard drive, then sat on a small stool in the yard, basking in the sun. Old Zhou went inside to make a phone call, leaving her alone in the yard. She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and went over the events of the trip in her mind: the radar station, the drainage ditch, the three nodes, Old Dao, the Mute, the cave collapse. It was all a mess, but the outcome was alright.

The sun was warming her face. Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she suddenly heard the Vein Guardian: "Old Liu! Sharpening knives!"

Then came Old Liu's voice. "What are you sharpening? You don't even have a knife."

Snow Empress was awakened by the two shouts and opened her eyes, sitting up from the stool. The sun was shining brightly in the yard, and the henna plants that Old Zhou had grown under the wall were blooming brightly, with bees buzzing around them. She stretched, stuffed the tin box and hard drive into her clothes, and went out to the repair shop.

The repair shop was at the east end of town. A cement slab stood at the entrance, with tire-patching tools and two chipped kitchen knives on it. Old Liu was squatting at the entrance, sharpening a Mars with a grinder, sparks hissing out. The Vein Guardian squatted under the shade of a tree nearby, crunching on half a cucumber.

"You're here?" Old Liu looked up at Snow Empress, put his sickle down, took the knife she handed him, and examined it. "Oh, two cuts on it. You've been using this knife to cut rocks?"

"Almost." Snow Empress sat down on the stool next to her. "Can it be ground out?"

Old Liu held the knife up to the sun, squinted at it for a long time, then tapped the blade with his thumbnail, listening to the sound, "The steel is alright, not annealed. It's just that these two cuts are a bit deep. I'll have to grind them with a coarse stone first, then with a fine Shi Mo. It'll take time, almost an hour. If you're in a hurry, leave it here and come pick it up this afternoon."

"No rush." Snow Empress left the knife behind, then remembered something, "By the way Old Liu, do you know how to sharpen scissors? The iron hoop at the bottom of A Yao's bamboo cane is worn a bit crooked, she always wobbles to one side when she walks."

Old Liu snorted, "Bamboo cane with iron hoops? Those things are cast, not forged, so they can't be ground. Tell her to replace them with rubber pads; hardware stores have them for two yuan each."

The Vein Guardian next to him stuffed the cucumber tail into his mouth and mumbled, "Did you hear that? It's just a matter of two dollars. Don't keep thinking about sharpening knives and iron."

Snow Empress glared at him. "You're awake?"

"Sleeping? I'm here watching the stall for Old Liu." The Vein Guardian patted his butt and stood up. "Come on, let's go to the police station and see how the hard drive handover is going with Old Dao. Old Zhou said the tech guys are coming this afternoon, I was thinking of going with them to see what that hard drive actually looks like."

The two walked towards the police station. The town wasn't big; it would only take the time to smoke a cigarette to walk from one end to the other. Passing the entrance to the farmers' market, Old Sun, who sold tofu, was arguing with someone. "... Let me tell you, the water in my well has really risen! A few days ago it was murky, but yesterday I poured in a bucket, and it was clear and sweet!"

An older woman selling vegetables nearby chimed in, "Mine too! Those rows of cucumbers in our garden used to be drooping and lifeless at this time of year, but this year the vines are climbing so high we can't stop them."

Snow Empress and the Vein Guardian exchanged a glance, neither of them saying a word, but the corners of their mouths turned up slightly.

In the police station courtyard, Old Dao squatted against the wall, basking in the sun, his hands handcuffed, with two auxiliary police officers watching him. Old Zhou was talking to a middle-aged man in a gray jacket, surnamed Wu, from the county bureau's technical department. He wore black-rimmed glasses and was carrying a silver briefcase.

"Where's the hard drive?" Technician Wu asked.

Old Zhou took the hard drive out of the room. Technician Wu took it and examined it twice, then held it up to the light to check the interface. "It's an old model, a system-specific SCA interface. You need an adapter card to read it. I brought one." He opened his briefcase, which contained a laptop, a bunch of adapter cables, and several square adapter boxes. He picked one out, plugged the hard drive in, connected it to the computer, and typed a couple of keys. A line of garbled text appeared on the screen.

"It's encrypted." Technician Wu adjusted his glasses. "The slot table is in system format, but the data area is locked. This lock is a feature of the early systems of the Spirit Vein Bureau. The key algorithm isn't complex, but it requires the authorization code of the master node to decrypt. Do you have the authorization code for Node 01?"

A Yao arrived sometime earlier, leaning on her bamboo cane as she entered through the courtyard gate. "Yes. The authorization code for Node 01 is in my pocket. But the master node isn't in town; it's in the county bureau's server room. You'll need to connect to the county bureau's intranet."

Technician Wu frowned. "Then I'll have to go back to the county. Or do you have a dedicated line here that can connect to the internal network?"

Old Zhou raised his hand. "The town government has one. I submitted a report and applied for a temporary permit. It can connect to the county bureau's intranet, but the speed is a bit slow."

"Take it easy, it's fine." Technician Wu removed the hard drive. "Let's go to the town government."

The group hurried towards the town government building. Old Dao, standing by the wall, looked up and shouted, "Hey! There's really nothing else on my hard drive, don't go looking through it!"

The Vein Guardian turned around and waved at him, "You just stay put. Whatever they find, we'll take it."

In the innermost office on the second floor of the town government building, there was an old-fashioned desktop computer against the wall. The monitor was one of those large, boxy types, and it took a long time to boot up. Technician Wu inserted the adapter card, connected the hard drive, and then asked A Yao to give him the authorization code for Node 01. A Yao took out a small notebook from her waist bag, turned to the middle page, and read out a sixteen-digit alphanumeric code.

Technician Wu typed away rapidly, and after the screen spun twice, a partitioned interface popped up, containing a dozen or so neatly arranged folders.

"It's open." Technician Wu clicked on one of the folders labeled "Blind Zone Node," which contained several scanned documents and a spreadsheet. He opened the spreadsheet, and densely packed data appeared, with each row corresponding to a node: number, coordinates, burial depth, key type, interface specifications, activation date, and a column of remarks.

"The information from 01 to 04 is all there." Technician Wu scrolled down with the mouse. "From 05 onwards... sigh, this table ends at 04. The rest is empty."

A Yao leaned closer to look. "Empty?"

"It's empty. But the file size is wrong." Technician Wu pointed to the folder properties. "This folder shows it's over 40 megabytes, but the files inside combined are less than 10 megabytes. There are hidden files."

He brought up the command prompt interface, typed a few lines of commands, and three files without extensions appeared on the screen, totaling more than 30 megabytes in size.

"An encrypted compressed file." Technician Wu tried to decompress it, and a password input box popped up. "You need to enter the password. Old Dao said he couldn't crack it, and it seems he really can't. This password isn't part of the system; it was added later."