Chapter 5: The pattern on the chain

When the note was taken out, it had already turned yellow. Yes, after all, it had been at least seven years. There were only a few simple sentences on the note, written in the master’s handwriting.

Chengyi, if fate has arranged for you to find this note, then the secret master will no longer keep it a secret. The secret is on the metal chain. Use colored water to flow over the metal chain and then wipe it dry. You will naturally see the secret. Whether you can understand it or not depends on fate.

I held the note in my hand, feeling confused. Even if I found the secret, could I understand it? But I still habitually put the note away. My master left me too few mementos. He was a man who didn’t even have a photograph. Even the work permit was a special permit, and it was a sketch of him!

Later, I don’t know if he tore it up, but I never found it.

As for whether the master had an ID card, this question is a mystery. Anyway, I haven’t seen one!

Thinking is not as good as doing. Everyone saw the note. Cheng Xin stood up without saying a word and said, “I’m going to buy some ink.”

Ink is the most suitable for colored water. After saying that, Cheng Xin went out.

The three of us were left in the room, Qin Huai and Ru Yue were quite in tune with each other, and when they encountered such a foggy matter, they were excited and started discussing it.

I sat on the sofa, seemingly calm, but in my heart I was not calm at all. I thought to myself, and I couldn’t help but take out a metal chain and look at it carefully.

I found that this metal chain was quite heavy, at least heavier than an iron chain! It was also unusually hard, and had a certain degree of flexibility. If it didn’t have flexibility, how could it be made into a chain?

I don’t know anything about metals, and I don’t know what this material is made of. I just feel that this silvery-white metal chain has a charming luster when I look at it closely, but it is very restrained.

Is it an alloy? I don’t think so. Did they have alloys in the days of my master’s ancestors? Did they?

I can’t think about this question in detail. After all, my master’s experience was too strange. If you told me that he brought back the metal from Mars, I would believe it.

From the metal, I found no problems, but only from the things engraved on it. But apart from some engraved formations and runes, I really couldn’t see anything. To put it in a funny way, I even have a limited understanding of the runes and formations engraved on it. If I really want to study and think about it out of interest, it’s not an exaggeration to say that in five years, I might have some understanding, but it’s impossible to make it completely.

I said I hadn’t found anything, but there was a tiny little problem. It was so small that I even doubted whether I was being too picky. What was it? It was that there were some tiny scratches on the metal chain. It looked messy to me. Was that a problem?

Just as I was examining the metal chain, Brother Chengxin quickly returned with several bottles of red ink.

I put down the chain. Since I couldn’t see anything, I just followed the master’s instructions.

I put the red ink on the table, and I took the metal chain over. There were nine in total, so I opened a bottle of red ink and took one of the chains, pouring the red ink down from top to bottom.

The red ink flowed over the chain and quickly slid down, as if the metal chain had the characteristics of the ancient description of the magic weapon—killing without blood! Because the bloodstains would soon slide off the weapon.

However, the chain was engraved with runes and formations, and the ink left behind in those places made the runes and formations more clearly visible. But what does this mean? I was puzzled. Is it to make me see the runes and formations more clearly?

After waiting for a while, the chain did not change. We took a piece of paper and dried the chain according to the master’s instructions, but found that the entire chain did not change in any way and there were no clues.

What is going on? We looked at each other in confusion. Could it be that Master had a bad taste in humor and was teasing us?

“Chengyi, what do you think?” Qin Huai, who was most interested in solving the mystery, couldn’t help but ask me.

I frowned slightly and thought for a while. Chengxin, on the other hand, remained calm. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and said, “What else can we think? Uncle said that there is a secret on the metal chains, but he didn’t say which metal chain has the secret, or if it’s all of them. So let’s test all the metal chains.”

Chengxin’s view was correct, which made me feel much more at ease. So I took my time and tested each chain, and in the end we really found something different.

Three of the chains left us with an incomprehensible pattern!

One of the chains I remember is the one I was sitting on the sofa observing. It turned out that those tiny scratches formed a pattern. The secret was really here!

However, just as the note left by the master said, use colored water to flow through the chain! With the naked eye, it is impossible to see all these tiny scratches, and it would never occur to you that they are a pattern.

What’s even more amazing is that I don’t know what method the master used to keep the ink from spreading in these tiny scratches, but it didn’t spread in the rest of the chain. I tried it with water, and the water easily washed away the marks, so I poured ink on it again to make the pattern reappear.

There is a reason for this. I was afraid that the patterns would remain like this and be discovered by someone with a heart. As for who is someone with a heart, I have no idea, but I just had a hunch that I should do it!

But the fact that it can be easily washed off makes me feel relieved.

All the uncertain factors have been eliminated, and all that remains is for us to decipher these three patterns. To be honest, these three patterns leave me speechless, because I have never seen such strange patterns before, and it is impossible to associate them with any shape.

Who can think of a pattern from a jumble of dots and lines? These three patterns can only be called patterns, but what they represent is beyond our understanding.

This reminds me of the master’s words: whether you can understand the secret depends on fate.

I clenched my fists and paced back and forth in the room, really fucking it up!

So, the four of us stared at the patterns on the chain for half an hour, and no one offered any constructive suggestions. Chengxin said in a depressed tone, “It seems that we don’t have a chance. Well, let’s solve it slowly later. I’ll go wash it.”

I also sat down on the sofa in a bit of a slump. Yes, because I myself could not express any opinions on the three patterns. Ruoyue comforted me gently, telling me not to worry. Originally, we didn’t have this clue. Do we have different arrangements for the future?

But after Ru Yue said this, Qin Huai suddenly shouted, “Chengxin, don’t wash it, don’t wash it.”

Chengxin looked at Qinhuai with a strange expression, while Qinhuai was excitedly spinning around the room, then said to Yueyue, “Yueyue, what did you just say?”

“I said to let Brother San not worry.” Ru Yue looked at Qin Huai in a daze.

Qin Huai anxiously scratched his head and said, “It’s not this, it’s just that sentence.”

“I said, don’t you have any plans for the future?” Ru Yue was even more confused!

“Hey, that’s it!” Qin Huai suddenly became excited and then asked me, “Chengyi, what are your future plans?”

Seeing Qin Huai’s strange behavior, I knew that he must know something. I said in a low voice, “I’m in a hurry, so please get to the point!”

“Okay, okay, get to the point!” Qin Huai clapped his hands and said, “What is the point? Your future plans are to sail, to go to rivers and lakes. When I think of rivers and lakes, I suddenly have a flash of inspiration. Maybe I have some impressions.”

“What?!” I suddenly stood up. Chengxin, who was originally going to the bathroom to clean the three chains, also hurried back, placed the three chains on the table, and then pulled Qinhuai over, saying in a somewhat urgent voice, “Hurry up and say it.”

Qin Huai said, “I don’t understand what’s going on with these two, but I have some impression of this one! You know my grandfather, I’m not trying to show off, he was a big military official, the old man loved to set up a sand table, do some exercises, or study the map, think about military things, and often like to drag me, tell me about what strategic depth and other knowledge.”

My brother and I stared at Qinhuai without daring to make a sound, and we didn’t even urge him to speak. Qinhuai didn’t want to be long-winded, so he said directly, “Because of this, I often saw the old man’s maps. You know that military maps are not open to the public, especially those that my grandfather can see. In short, those maps are very detailed, and I won’t say anything else about them. At first, I thought the pattern on this chain looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. So I didn’t dare say anything…

Qin Huai looked at me and Cheng Xin with a guilty look, and I took a deep breath and said, “I know, you saw this pattern on a military map, right?”

“It’s not that I’ve seen it before, it’s just that this little section of the pattern is very similar. By the way, there’s a tributary of a large river on that map, and it looks just like it!” Qin Huai said to us with certainty.

The whole room was quiet because at least one of the chains meant something!