Chapter 77 Twenty-eight Shotas

When they reached the mountain top mentioned in the diary, the sky in Nagano had already gone completely dark, and they could only rely on the flashlight in the car to illuminate the road.

"I think Xiao Shi probably buried the notebook under the tree with the red ribbon tied around it."

Scotland said seriously, "Let's split up and look for the tree first. If we can't find it, we can only come back tomorrow."

Now is not the best time to look for it, but the cake shop case has given everyone an inexplicable sense of crisis, and they all feel that they must find the notebook as soon as possible to answer their questions.

Bourbon and Ley had no objections. They simply divided their respective responsibilities and then acted separately.

Maybe it was God's will... or something else. Anyway, Scotland was the first one to find the target tree. After confirming it, he quickly called the other two people over with his mobile phone.

"The ribbon is new." Scotland placed his hand on the branch, his expression solemn. "According to what Xiao Shi said, the Grantys behind probably learned of the existence of the notebook through some secret code, and the new Grantys come here to check the notebook from time to time..."

There is no way that a ribbon from twenty years ago will remain as new as it was twenty years later. If it is to serve as a signpost that will not fade, the Granti behind must frequently replace the ribbon tied here.

Scotland remembered that there had been a heavy rain here just a few days before they arrived in Nagano, so the color should have faded faster, but the ribbons in front of them were brand new.

"The soil here also shows signs of having been turned over." Bourbon squatted beside the tree root corresponding to the ribbon, and inserted the shovel in his hand effortlessly into the soil. He said firmly, "Someone was here not long before us."

"It's Granty."

Bourbon looked up in surprise and found that these words were spoken by Scotland and Ley at the same time.

Bourbon raised his forehead and asked, "What's going on?"

Did Scotland and Ley exchange information that he didn't know about? It shouldn't have happened.

Obviously, the two had not expected this to happen. After looking at each other, Lai spoke first and gave a simple explanation: "I met him in a cake shop before. I asked the clerk and he looked like a brother to A."

Yes, of course they look like brothers, it's basically the same face but different ages.

Scotland also explained: "Didn't I say before that I was chasing someone there? It was indeed Granty that I saw."

Bourbon immediately remembered this. He had been planning to ask Scotland for confirmation in the car, but he was so shocked by the diary that he forgot about it for a moment. Unexpectedly, Ley had also met Granty.

"I don't think the police will be able to find him in the short term." Scotland sighed, "After all, no one would suspect a child to be the murderer. The organization probably thinks so too..."

"Child?" Lei shook his head. "The Granti I saw was a teenager."

There was another strange silence.

"That mission actually requires two Granti to go out together. It seems that the situation this time is indeed not simple." Bourbon tried to reason calmly, "But then again, this was originally our mission, why did the Granti come? I remember Mr. A said that they were directly under the boss. Could it be that the boss doubted our identity?"

As he spoke, he shook his head and denied his guess: "No, if we really doubted it, we shouldn't let the Grantis kill the target before us. This will only arouse our vigilance."

Think about what is around them that is related to Granty?

Scotland said the name that came to the man's mind at the same time: "It's A."

"...I never asked." Lei, the last person present who knew that A had escaped from the organization, asked in a deep voice, "How did the Grantis help A escape?"

Bourbon and Scotland would also like to know the answer to this question!

"He only said that it was the Grantis who helped him escape from the organization. As for the rest... the organization couldn't have kept it a secret until now and only discovered that A had escaped, right?" Bourbon's tone was very subtle.

Calculating the time, half a month has passed since they picked up A, which is almost two life cycles of Granty. If that group of clones who were unexpectedly united and had the ability to think for themselves had joined forces, they might have been able to send A out without telling the organization for so long.

However, this means that if something happens, the situation of Granty and others will become even more dangerous.

"I hope things don't get worse." Scotland frowned and said seriously, "We must find a chance to contact Granti and the others. Otherwise, if the organization starts investigating, our identities won't be able to withstand that level of investigation, let alone A."

Lei glanced at the expressions on the faces of the two police officers without making a sound, and said calmly, "Let's dig it out and take a look first."

That's true.

Bourbon, who happened to be holding a shovel they had bought temporarily, was startled when he heard this. He glared at Lei and then lowered his head to dig in the soft soil.

After digging about twenty centimeters vertically, Bourbon felt the shovel hit something hard.

"The stuff is still there." He breathed a sigh of relief.

Scotland and Ley didn't just stand there and watch, and they quickly took the box out of the soil.

This is an ordinary-looking wooden box without a lock. Strangely, you can't tell the front or back or up or down of it. However, after groping for a while, Scotland successfully found a pattern on the side that can be pressed down, and then the wooden box made a crisp click.

A brown notebook fell out of the upside-down box and was caught by Lei with his quick eyes and hands.

"This is it." Lei reached out and brushed off the dust on the notebook, then solemnly opened the notebook under the gaze of the other two.

It contains a long string of binary numbers.

Bourbon said in a strange tone: "Is that all?"

I put such a big notebook in this box, and the result is only a string of numbers? ?

"Maybe there is something else." Scotland took the notebook and quickly wrote down the corresponding numbers after the base conversion on the paper with a pencil he took out from his pocket.

As he read, his pen stopped, and he looked puzzled: "…Strange, whether it is octal or decimal, the converted numbers can't spell out a complete word or phrase in the alphabet?"

Lei also took the notebook and tried again, but he tried several decryption methods and all failed.

Bourbon, holding up a cell phone with a flashlight on, glanced at the screen inadvertently, and suddenly a vague idea popped into his mind.

"Maybe it's not that troublesome." He murmured, "The things in this notebook should be guaranteed to be known by every subsequent Granti. The Granti in the laboratory can still rely on the oral narration of the Granti outside, and the Granti outside will have to find this place and try to decipher it. However, it is impossible that all Granti will have the mission to come to Nagano, right?"

In modern society, is there any simple and convenient way for those cloned children to pass on secret messages? And it needs to be so that even if the organization's surveillance personnel see it, they can't decipher what it means...

Bourbon clicked into the notepad and tried to enter the numbers on the notebook on the keyboard, but the result was a string of incomprehensible words.

"I think Bourbon's idea is right." Scotland pondered. "Each of the ten keys in the input method can basically type out all the pseudonyms in that line. If you type a sentence on your phone and then pick out the key numbers used to type the sentence, someone who doesn't know the answer will definitely not be able to interpret the specific content of the sentence in a short time."

After all, if you press the number directly, you will only get a messy string of pseudonyms like Bourbon. If you want to crack it, you have to write down all the possible combinations of pseudonyms, but this is too troublesome.

Except, the numbers they saw were incomplete.

"Try adding the muddy sound to the last and last ones." A reminder suddenly came from above.

Bourbon did as he was told subconsciously, and as he slid his finger across the screen, he suddenly realized what the sentence meant.

The original last number '624' is typed directly into the input method as はかた, but if the front and back are added with a halo, with Bourbon's intelligence, he can easily associate which kana the first string of numbers corresponds to -

"That's right." The voice above the head said faintly, "これを见た人は马鹿だ."

Anyone who sees this is a fool.

Bourbon: “…”

Scotland and Lei beside them also had puzzled expressions.

Everyone looked up.

What came into view first was a pair of pale legs swaying slightly, followed by a spotless white shirt and black suspenders. On the other person's thigh was a box that looked very familiar and seemed, should, and had obviously just been dug out by them. As the gaze moved upwards, the last thing that came into view was a very familiar face.

Granty sat on a branch and looked down at them. After a few seconds, he raised his hand lazily with an expressionless face and greeted them: "Hey, good evening, Brother-sama's masters."

The person they were talking about before appeared.

And you look very sleepy?

In response, Chijiang Nayue said that she was completely innocent.

It's not that he wanted to create a strange image for Granti and the others that everyone was very sleepy. It was mainly because he had reshaped his body so frequently today that the energy of the [Book] was consumed a little quickly, and the power to help him suppress the virus was a little weaker.

Pain is not a big deal. Chi Jiang Na Yue's tolerance in this regard is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Not to mention that his pain perception is only 10% of that of a normal person, he has experienced more outrageous pain before. This virus is just a minor problem.

Therefore, the only thought in Chijiang Nayue's mind right now is: he really wants to sleep right here without waking up.

And the focus of the people below was a little off for a while.

The corner of Scotland's mouth twitched, and it was obvious that he didn't know what to say after being called the familiar title of "master". Bourbon and Ley, the two undercover agents who were called that for the first time but were honest by nature, got goosebumps all over their bodies.

Master is fine, but what the hell are masters! ?

Perhaps their expressions were too confused, and Granty noticed it.

"Aren't you all the ones raising Brother now? That's right." Granty took advantage of his paralyzed face and couldn't make any expression, and spoke some rogue and logical words with confidence.

The adult was almost choked to death: Whether it was Granty or A, the speaking style was so consistent that it was suffocating.

Lei now understood why Scotland called Granty a 'kid' even though he looked only fourteen years old.

However, Scotland asked, "Is this Granty, the girl you saw in the cake shop, Ley?"

Lei frowned: "I thought it was the one you met?"

Bourbon, who was in the middle, complained: "Why can't it be the new Granty?"

...That's right, no one said that only two Grantys came.

The boy on the tree finally had enough of the excitement, so he clinched his hands, held the familiar wooden box in his arms, and jumped down from the tree, stepping lightly on a huge rock not far from them.

Although the action was very anti-Newtonian, when the undercover agents thought that the person in front of them was a clone whose existence was irrational, they were tactful enough not to say anything inappropriate.

"Humans should greet each other at this time, right? Or something else?" Granty on the other side blinked. Even though he still had no expression, one could feel his excitement. "I know who you all are, and as for me, Brother-sama should have mentioned it to you as well, so I will simply reintroduce myself."

The young man standing on the high ground lowered his head slightly to ensure their eye contact, his watery red eyes were full of happiness, and then he casually put his fingers together and gently waved them in front of his forehead.

"A10562 reports to you."

Grandy said in a flat tone, "Or, you can call me Grandy. After all, that's the name that Brother gave us. To be honest, I like it very much."

It's a little... No, it's very scary. She actually said such cute interjections in such a voice!

Granty didn't care about people's emotional fluctuations at all, and answered the previous question: "The ones you met before were 10561 and 10563. We were born in the same batch."

"That's why they appeared together." Bourbon suddenly realized.

"Hmm?" Granty looked at him strangely, shook his head, and said frankly, "It has nothing to do with the time of birth."

"We beat the others, so we are qualified to meet Brother-sama." The young man Granty said, and people could hear a little pride in his voice. "Only the strong are worthy of having Brother-sama."

Scotland began to wonder again, what exactly did the researchers in the organization who were instilling common sense into these Granties tell them?