Nora's actions woke Justin up.
His voice was clear as he asked, "What's wrong?"
He did not look like he was asleep.
Nora did not care about this. She stood up and rushed to the study room. Then, she put on her earphones. Her mother's last words started playing on them.
She took out a pen and paper and listened carefully.
After a while, she suddenly looked up at Justin and asked, "Do you have good hearing?"
Justin hesitated. "Quite."
"Then you do it!"
Nora stood up and got Justin to take her place on the seat. She handed both earphones to him. "Listen carefully to the background noise. There's a metronome. Help me decipher the difference between the beats."
Justin did not understand what she wanted to do, but he did as she asked. He frowned and listened attentively to the recording.
After listening for a few seconds, Justin realized something.
How was this a metronome? It was just noise created by someone knocking on the table.
After studying the intervals between the taps, Justin looked up and said, "This is Morse code."
"Yes, that's right."
Nora picked up the piece of paper and began to decipher the content on it. As she read, she explained, "I don't have very sensitive hearing. In the recording my mother had left behind, the background noise was too rhythmic and soft. I always thought it was the sound of a tap or a clock."
In fact, she had sensed it the last time she heard the voice inside. However, before she could figure out what was going on, she had been distracted by something else. When she returned to it, she could not find it.
She was born with a terrible voice and sang out of tune. That was why she had missed this after so many years.
Today, Justin was analyzing the voice message Iris had sent. When he mentioned a clock in the background, Nora caught on to it.
Now, she had finally figured it out.
Justin:
He raised his eyebrows and finally learned one of Nora's flaws.
He walked to Nora's side and held her shoulder. He suddenly said, "I helped you. Do you want to reward me?"
Nora's attention was all on the Morse code. She casually replied, "What reward do you want?"
"Hmm, sing a song for me?"
Nora:"..."
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him and turned her back to him. She continued to look at the Morse code.
Justin walked over and sat beside her.
Five minutes later, Nora rubbed her forehead.
Justin said, "You can't solve the cipher?"
The Morse code was encrypted.
Nora nodded and asked, "How do you know?"
Justin sighed. "If the evidence your mother left behind could easily be cracked by others, it wouldn't have taken so many years. This secret could only be discovered by you. So I guessed that the Morse code must have been encrypted. Your mother must have hidden a key to the cipher."
Nora nodded.
She put down the piece of paper in her hand and could not help but feel a little discouraged.
She had finally discovered the secret. She thought that the clue to the V16 would be in her hands, but she did not expect it to be another mystery!
Her mother's password book...
The corners of her mouth twitched. "There are so many books left in my mother's study. How can I tell which one is it?"
Besides, her mother had always liked to read.
There were even many books back home in California.
California...
Nora immediately said, "I'll go back to California tomorrow."
Justin nodded.
That night, Nora kept turning in bed and could not sleep no matter what.
At dawn the next day, she woke up. When she went out, she bumped into the three little fellows who were about to eat breakfast and go to school.
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