955 The Text on the First Day of the Lunar New Year
Gu Nianzhi could still clearly remember that Bai Jinyi had wanted this phone so much that she would take Luo Xinxue’s life for it, because this phone had received a string of digits for a consecutive number of days. Those digits had only appeared on the phone. There were absolutely no records from the telecommunications companies. Everyone was still suspicious of this during the trial that year. No one could explain how this could happen. They only knew that those digits were coordinates, showing a particular location on earth. Gu Nianzhi could still remember the numbers clearly.
“228.45892311956, 52.33906674.
378.89020942583, 27.358020866.
657.35966837696, 66.335066969.
980.34969677770, 49.230556660.”
Huo Shaoheng was the one who had told them that these digits were the coordinates of a magnetic field, and they had indicated a particular location. Upon keying in these coordinates into the system and converting the data, what came up was another string of data, and it showed the lat.i.tude and longitude of a particular place in C City. It was right there, seven years ago, that a weird magnetic energy occurred. It was also right there that Huo Shaoheng had saved Gu Nianzhi.
Gu Nianzhi quickly thought about everything that was related to that phone. Her memory was extremely good. Therefore, although she had only glanced at it, she was already able to remember the new numbers that had appeared on the phone.
“649.33599305697, 39.56356576.
342.19235302098, 20.321749302.
109.23413829178, 12.322556976.
213.23450000224, 86.298000123.”
Could it be another set of coordinates?! “Auntie, this phone was not like any other. Don’t you remember?” Gu Nianzhi reminded Song Jinning, agitated. “You had even invented a super battery to use for this phone…”
Song Jinning remembered it in an instant. “You mean that phone has received something again?!” Song Jinning pressed the “on” b.u.t.ton on the phone. The battery was still working…
After stopping for about two seconds, Gu Nianzhi saw the numbers on the screen again. “Look! I’m not wrong, am I? Someone sent a message to this phone again!” Gu Nianzhi rubbed her hands together and had to control her urge to s.n.a.t.c.h the phone from Song Jinning’s hands and take it home to experiment on herself.
Song Jinning looked at the string of numbers and turned towards her study without further prompting from Gu Nianzhi. Gu Nianzhi wanted to follow as well, but the doorbell rang. It was most likely Huo Shaoheng.
Looking at Song Jinning’s back and then at the door, Gu Nianzhi still walked to the door and opened it for Huo Shaoheng first. Huo Shaoheng was still in his uniform, his right arm hanging from the bandage hung around his neck. His face was solemn, looking as suave as always.
“Happy New Year, Huo Shao.” Gu Nianzhi opened the door with a smile and let Huo Shaoheng in. Closing the door behind him, Gu Nianzhi was extremely eager to go upstairs to watch Song Jinning decipher that string of numbers.
“Please take a seat, Huo Shao.” She poured Huo Shaoheng a gla.s.s of water and put it on the coffee table in front of him. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Huo Shaoheng sensed the eagerness in Gu Nianzhi’s eyes and held onto her arm. “What’s going on? What happened?”
Gu Nianzhi thought about it and thought that there was nothing that should be kept from him. Huo Shaoheng was the first to decipher the numbers that time, saying that they might be coordinates of a location. “Huo Shao, remember that amazing phone from your uncle?”
Huo Shaoheng nodded and looked slightly lost. “What has it got to do with this?” It was the first day of the Lunar New Year. He had rushed there with all his effort, but not to come and discuss that phone.
Gu Nianzhi said seriously, “Just now, right after midnight, that phone received another string of digits.”
Huo Shaoheng was taken aback. “You mean that phone without a number tagged to it that we stopped using—and such an old phone at that—has just received another string of digits?” Huo Shaoheng also remembered the case that was just over when they realized that the phone they had been checking had received a string of digits. That was seven years ago.
Seven years later, this phone had brightened up again. What changes would it bring?
Huo Shaoheng lost his appet.i.te for supper. “Where is the phone? What are the digits?”
Gu Nianzhi pointed towards the second level. “Auntie brought it to her study, most likely to do a data conversion.”
“Let’s go.” Huo Shaoheng naturally held Gu Nianzhi’s hand and led her to the study on the second level. Gu Nianzhi was anxious to take a look at the phone, so she didn’t push Huo Shaoheng away. They arrived at Song Jinning’s study holding hands.
Song Jinning’s study was extremely s.p.a.cious. She utilized a wooden display shelf to separate the room into two different areas. The front was a small living area. There was an L-shaped sofa, a tea table, and two pots of delicate green Alocasia flowers. The place where Song Jinning did her work was behind the bookshelf.
There were bookshelves built against the entire wall, and they were all filled with books.
There was a huge table beside the window, and there was a high-performance computer that could be a server on its own. There were three indicators placed side by side on the table as well. Song Jinning was sitting right behind the indicators, and she was already in the midst of doing data conversion.
Gu Nianzhi knocked lightly on the bookshelf that separated the study to let Song Jinning know that she was here. “Auntie, Huo Shao is here.”
“He’s here? Let him have a seat,” Song Jinning replied without so much as looking up.
Gu Nianzhi smiled and walked to the front of the table. Huo Shaoheng didn’t stand on ceremony and went to the back of the table and stood behind Song Jinning to look at her data conversion. After conversion, the data would become the coordinates of a location. It was easy to discover where that location was.
“Madam Song, did you manage to find the location?” Huo Shaoheng leaned forward and looked at the location that was indicated on the screen. “Where is this place?”
Song Jinning said softly, “America, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.”
Gu Nianzhi was speechless. Huo Shaoheng was slightly taken aback. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Song Jinning shook her head and looked uneasy. “I want to go to New York and take a look.”
Gu Nianzhi remained silent. It was just after midnight on the first day of the Lunar New Year, and Madam Song wanted to go to New York. Gu Nianzhi instinctively felt that it was not a good idea. Raising her head to look at Huo Shaoheng, who was calm and collected, she whispered, “Huo Shao, why don’t we use the satellite to take a look and see if there’s anything strange over there?”
Song Jinning nodded readily. “That sounds like a good idea. Let’s take a look using the satellite. Shaoheng, I know that the satellite you guys have has extremely high accuracy. Quick, go and take a look.” With that, she stood up and couldn’t wait to make Huo Shaoheng leave right at that instant.
Huo Shaoheng looked at Gu Nianzhi like she had said something ridiculous. “You and your great idea.”
“Isn’t my idea great?” Gu Nianzhi tilted her head and winked. Her adorable face looked so lively. Huo Shaoheng took a glance and turned away. He felt his insides beginning to burn up, and it had reached his chest. She had caused it.
Huo Shaoheng controlled himself and turned on his Bluetooth earpiece to contact the central control room at the headquarters of the Special Forces. Upon being connected to the subordinates who were there on duty, he said, “Check a location for me and see if there has been anything strange recently.” He gave the person on the line the coordinates of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
“Yes, sir.” The soldier who was on duty swiftly keyed in the coordinates into the central control system and managed to get connected to the Nandou Satellite Communication System immediately. After the satellite received the command, it filtered a week’s worth of footage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for them.
The Nandou satellite in New York was not recorded with video. Instead, it was recorded in snapshots. This was nothing unusual. Just like Di Capital also provided their data to America in snapshots only, they were merely doing what everyone was doing.
Very quickly, the Nandou Satellite Communication System sent the stored information back to earth, and it was received by the central control system of the Special Forces in the Hua Xia Empire.
While they were waiting for the data, Gu Nianzhi went down to cook Huo Shaoheng some dumplings for supper. Huo Shaoheng stayed in the study to speak to Song Jinning for a while before leaving to look for Gu Nianzhi.
A bowl filled with yummy little dumplings was brought out of the kitchen. Gu Nianzhi had used chicken stock for the soup and had placed the dumplings into a white ceramic bowl. Then, she sprinkled on some spring onions and some seaweed along with some dried shrimps to taste. She put the entire bowl in front of Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng looked at her. Gu Nianzhi raised her eyebrows and scooped a dumpling for Huo Shaoheng. The small bowl, albeit full, only had six dumplings. Huo Shaoheng felt like he could finish all six dumplings in one gulp. They were as small as b.u.t.tons in his eyes. However, Gu Nianzhi fed them to him one by one.
He ate the dumplings patiently and heard that he had a phone call from the alert of his Bluetooth earpiece just when he had managed to finish the dumplings. “Huo Shao, why did you want to take a look at the data from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? There really was a problem.”
“What problem was there?” Huo Shaoheng stood up. “Send the data over to my mailbox.”
The person agreed and sent it over in a jiffy. Huo Shaoheng returned to Song Jinning’s study. “Madam Song, please allow me to use your computer.”
Song Jinning handed him a laptop. Huo Shaoheng logged into an encrypted website and entered his mailbox, then he clicked the email that his subordinate had just sent him. After looking through it quickly, Huo Shaoheng’s gaze was focused. He tapped a couple of times on the keyboard and forwarded the data to Song Jinning’s mailbox. “Madam Song, take a look. Does this data look familiar to you?”
Song Jinning opened her own mailbox and looked at the data. She too, was taken aback. Only after a while did she ask agitatedly, “Where did this data come from? Where was it?!”
Huo Shaoheng tapped on the laptop casually. “It’s right at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This was data from a couple of days ago. It has already disappeared now.”
“Oh,” Song Jinning said, disappointed. “It has already disappeared?!”
“Yes. This is the data that was stored in the satellite. The data that we just received showed that everything is normal in the museum right now.”
Gu Nianzhi listened the whole time and finally asked, “Huo Shao, Auntie, what data were you guys talking about? Was it the text just now?”
“No.” Song Jinning said, agitated. “It’s a magnetic field. A couple of days ago, a strange magnetic energy was detected at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City!” As it was indoors this time around, the information that was captured by the satellite was really weak. What they were looking at was data that had been magnified. Had it not been magnified, it would have been easy to have overlooked it.
Previously, when they had discovered such a magnetic energy field, it had occurred outdoors. This was the first time it had happened indoors.