146. The Mysterious Letter

The residence of the Marquis of Beiding.

As soon as the little dumpling returned to its little room, it couldn't wait to climb onto the chair.

She carefully took out the prettiest envelope from her bosom and placed it in the center of her desk as if it were a rare treasure.

"Who should I write to..." she muttered to herself as she swung her short legs and took out her pen and ink.

She picked up the pen, tilted her head, and thought for a long time.

Finally, she had her answer—

Sister Fufu loves strange and unusual things, and she will definitely like the letter, which is equally mysterious in the eyes of the little dumpling!

From Sister Fufu

She first carefully wrote down the heading that her brother had taught her, and then it was time to write the main text.

How can I write it in a way that sounds impressive?

Of course, you should write a bunch of incomprehensible words like an adult!

"You have to write lots and lots of words, like an adult!"

So the little dumpling started to "write" seriously.

Holding a calligraphy brush, the little hand drew a series of crooked "characters" on the paper.

Perhaps describing it as runes would be more accurate?

"Draw a circle here... add dots here..." she muttered as she wrote, her little face covered in ink smudges.

After filling an entire page, she nodded in satisfaction.

Although she couldn't understand a single word, it really looked like a letter written by an adult!

Finally, she neatly wrote her name in the bottom right corner.

She packed the letter, sealed the envelope, and ran out of the room with the letter in her arms. She met the butler in the corridor: "Uncle Butler, could you please mail this letter for Yue'er?"

The butler bent down to take the letter and asked with a smile, "Who does the young lady want to send it to?"

"Send it to Sister Fufu!" the little dumpling exclaimed excitedly. "It's at the Duke of Anguo's residence!"

The steward looked at the childish words "To Sister Fufu" on the envelope and nodded knowingly: "Alright, this old servant will send someone to deliver it right away."

The little dumpling jumped up happily: "Hurry up! Sister Fufu must be getting impatient!"

She firmly believed that, under the influence of some mysterious force, Sister Fufu must have known that she was going to write to her.

She leaned on the windowsill, watching the housekeeper walk away with the letter, her heart pounding with excitement.

Sister Fufu must be very surprised to receive such a mysterious letter, right?

This is the secret information she sent out. What secret information will Sister Fufu send back this time?

-

The Duke of Anguo's Mansion.

A maidservant brought Lin Fuman a letter: "Second Miss, this letter is from Princess Fukang of the Beiding Marquis's Mansion."

"Little Moon wrote me a letter? Let me see it!" Lin Fu opened the envelope with great curiosity, took out the letter, and was immediately stunned.

The paper was filled with incomprehensible gibberish; it looked more like some kind of incantation than words.

She could only recognize a few words at the beginning and end.

"Little Moon, what is this..." Lin Fu was stunned for a moment, then doubted whether her cultural level was too low, and silently shook her head in denial. She then frowned and studied it for a long time.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up: "I know! This must be a secret message!"

She immediately perked up, dismissed everyone around her, bolted the door, and spread the mysterious letter on the desk.

"This must be Little Moon trying to play a puzzle game with me," she muttered confidently to herself. "It will require a special method to solve!"

Her first thought was the most common starch-iodine method.

Writing with starch water is invisible on paper, but if you cover it with iodine, a chemical reaction will occur, and the writing will become visible.

However, iodine was not available in ancient times.

However, it's not a big problem; this won't stump Lin Fuman.

Although there was no iodine tincture in ancient times, there was iodized sea salt.

She took a basin filled with water at the bottom and poured in some sea salt.

"It needs to be soaked through, but the paper must not be ruined..." she murmured to herself, carefully pressing a corner of the letter into the water with her silver hairpin.

The water surface rippled with tiny waves, and the paper fibers slowly absorbed the water, becoming translucent.

She held her breath, staring intently, hoping that the hidden ink marks or patterns would emerge from the wet area.

However, things did not go as planned.

The delicate ink blots spread and smudged when they came into contact with water, turning the few characters that were barely recognizable into blurry ink blots.

One corner of the letter was soggy from being soaked for too long that it was almost about to tear.

"Oh dear!" Lin Fu exclaimed softly, hurriedly using her silver hairpin to pick up the letter. She frantically pressed it with a handkerchief to absorb the excess moisture, looking at the smudged mess with heartache. "This method is not good. It almost ruined Little Moon's secret letter! It doesn't seem to be deciphered this way."

"It's alright, I have other ideas."

"If water won't work, then we'll use fire to roast it."

Lin Fuman then came up with a second idea.

Writing with lemon water or milk will be invisible once it dries completely.

However, once heated, the transparent lettering turns brown.

She placed the slightly damp letter on the silver plate, secured the plate to the shelf on both sides, moved the candlestick over, placed the candle flame half an inch below the paper, and carefully moved it back and forth to warm it.

She felt like an intelligence agent, currently deciphering a secret message passed on by her teammate.

However, this secret message is not easy to decipher.

They were worried that the distance was too far and the baking wouldn't produce the desired effect, but they were also worried that getting too close would ignite the precious secret message.

The paper was baked until it turned slightly yellow and curled, emitting a faint burnt smell and the odor of moisture being evaporated.

She carefully searched for every inch of the fire-scorched marks, hoping that the contrasting yellow background would reveal writing in a different color.

"How could it be... completely unchanged?" She reluctantly baked it for a while longer, but apart from making the paper more yellow and brittle, the scribbles remained the same.

“Since direct display doesn’t work, it must be encrypted!” Lin Fu thought for a moment, then found some paper and scissors, cut the paper into small pieces, and copied a scribbled symbol onto each piece.

Then I tried to break down these scribbles into different characters one by one, attempting to piece together these scattered strokes or symbols into meaningful words.

She was completely focused, trying various decompositions and word combinations.

However, the little dumpling's calligraphy was too abstract and irregular. No matter how it was dissected and pieced together, the information seemed far-fetched and ambiguous.

Looking at the page full of random symbols and her increasingly outlandish guesses, she felt a deep sense of frustration for the first time and began to doubt her own decryption abilities.

"Could it be..." She slumped down on the embroidered stool, staring at the crumpled and slightly burnt letter she had handled. An unbelievable thought finally surfaced, "This isn't actually a secret letter? It's just... just something Little Moon scribbled on?"

The thought had barely crossed her mind when she quickly shook her head in denial: "Absolutely impossible! Little Moon used such an exquisite envelope, the format was so formal, and the salutation and signature were meticulous. How could it be meaningless scribbles?! I must have failed to grasp the mystery!"

She gritted her teeth and rallied her spirits: "Perhaps it used a very rare black ink? Or does it require a special solvent to make it visible?"

She actually got up and rummaged through drawers and cabinets, and when she didn't have enough materials, she ran out to look for more.

Finally, they found half a bottle of cooking wine, a small pot of fragrant vinegar, osmanthus hair oil for combing hair, and so on.

She dipped a clean brush into the liquid and carefully applied it to the blank spaces and symbols on the letter paper, her eyes wide with anticipation for the chemical reaction to occur.

However, apart from making the letter paper smell strange and become more fragile, no miracles occurred.

The letter paper became even more transparent due to repeated application of liquid, almost to the point of tearing.

Time slipped by quietly, and it was already late at night.

Lin Fu slumped wearily into a chair, staring at the mess on the table and the weathered letter, a wave of immense frustration washing over her.

"Why...why can't I solve it?" She rubbed her sore eyes, her gaze falling back on the crooked circles and the few recognizable words "Sister Fufu" and "Little Moon".

Suddenly, a simple fact that she had been ignoring all along burst into her mind—

Little Moon is only three years old.

How could a three-year-old child possibly write a secret letter?

How could she possibly know how to use those complex encryption methods that even she couldn't handle?

This realization shattered all her obsessions like a lightning bolt.

Those symbols she thought were encrypted were very likely just...

A three-year-old child's random, meaningless scribbles?

That solemn format is just a childish imitation of adult behavior.

"Then why would she do that? It couldn't be a prank. She deliberately had someone deliver the letter to me. There must be a special meaning behind it..." Lin Fuman fell into thought.

If this wasn't a secret letter, why would Little Moon write it this way?

Could it be...?

Another, even more bizarre idea, yet perfectly capable of explaining the entire situation, grew wildly in her mind like weeds—

"Could it be... that Little Moon also time-traveled?!"