I'll also work hard to conquer the dungeon today.

Chapter 73, Section 1.5: The Password
Mu Yegui stood in front of the study door, gently turning the doorknob, only to find it locked.

“Sometimes I also want to learn Xiao Yin’s impolite way of unlocking doors.” Mu Yegui looked down at the doorknob, raised his hand and punched it. With a ‘click’, the doorknob came off and the door opened naturally.

Forced unlocking is indeed the most direct and simplest method, but it can only be used once, since the lock will break after one use.

Shu Ming's study was very neatly organized, and the most eye-catching item was the black box in front of his desk.

Mu Yegui walked up and picked up the black box. It was exactly the same as the one she had seen in the photo. Sure enough, it was in Shu Ming's study. She wondered how he had gotten it.

There was a form under the box, which looked like the Virginia Cipher.

She turned the box around on all six sides and accidentally pressed a button on top. Five lines of letters then appeared, and it seemed that she needed to enter the correct letters to actually open it.

There are 26 letters in total, and if you include the possible repeats, there are approximately 26 to the power of 5, which gives you about 11881376 possible combinations.

Mu Yegui picked up the alphabet chart, flipped it over, and found the wealthy businessman's name written on the back. She suddenly thought of the gold bars engraved with letters in the bathroom cabinet; the wealthy businessman was also related to money, so she could try to decipher it.

The letters on the gold bar are 'RRSQQ'.

The Virginia cipher consists of plaintext, key, and ciphertext; only by possessing two of these can the rest be solved.

If we interpret the meaningless letters on the gold bar as plaintext, then where should the key or ciphertext be hidden?

The gold bars engraved with letters seem strange in themselves; could they be a hint?
Gold bars generally represent wealth, and in the Kingdom's alphabet, they are called 'MAMON,' derived from the name of the demon Mammon.

The Virginia cipher uses a table with 26 letters horizontally and 26 letters vertically arranged in a sequential, one-letter order.

If the horizontal axis represents the key, then the vertical axis represents the plaintext. By comparing the two, we can deduce that the ciphertext is 'DREED'.

Mu Yegui was slightly taken aback. DREED means greed, the so-called seven deadly sins. Could it be that the password for the puzzle box is DREED?
She turned the combination lock to arrange the letters into DREED, but nothing happened.

DREED is incorrect...

Mu Yegui did not think his interpretation was wrong, so there must have been a missing step.

The Virginia cipher is a variant of the Caesar cipher, so why would we need to use the Caesar cipher at all?

The Caesar cipher is a shift cipher that is much simpler than the Vigenère cipher. However, it still requires a cipher table to be created when deciphering it. But compared to the Vigenère cipher, it has only 26 to the power of 2 combinations, which can be completely deciphered by simply arranging them.

However, Mu Yegui didn't want to spend that much time on it; after careful consideration, he thought that establishing a connection should be achievable.

If we used a lookup table to decipher the numbers on the gold bars, we can also consider the relationship between the ciphertext and the key. 'MAMON,' representing wealth, is derived from Mammon, a demon who loved money to an extreme, and is also the representative of greed among the seven deadly sins.

Based on this connection, if the ciphertext is the same, then a number is needed to derive the plaintext from the Caesar cipher.

The seven deadly sins, ranked from most serious to least serious, are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.

If we really interpret it this way, then we get the number 5, which ranks fifth in greed.

This allows us to create the plaintext and ciphertext tables.

Plaintext table: VWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU
Ciphertext table: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Substituting the ciphertext 'DREED' into the code, we get the plaintext 'YMZZY', yet another meaningless number. Mu Yegui casually turned the combination lock, arranging the letters into 'YMZZY'. With a 'click', the mechanism box emitted a dazzling light, instantly dissolving and folding away, revealing a deep, ocean-like, prismatic gem suspended above the slot inside the mechanism box.

The sound of a key turning came from the living room. Mu Yegui didn't have time to take a closer look before squatting behind the desk with the unlocked lock in her arms.

She accidentally spent too much time, but unfortunately the study door faces the main entrance, so she would definitely be discovered as soon as she went out. However, the lock that fell to the ground would also give her away.

Or should we just go all the way and get rid of Shu Ming?

Mu Yegui shook her head. No, no, she hadn't guessed the truth yet, and besides, the other party hadn't really hurt her. She couldn't move for the time being.

"Hey, you expressionless face, do you remember the pills I bought in the capital of the Fairy Tale Kingdom that could make us grow bigger or smaller? You said I was buying things randomly back then, but I think this is exactly when you need them the most. If we turn into tiny people, we can sneak out!" Mu Yin said in a low voice.

Mu Yegui paused for a moment, then took out an unopened small box from his pocket. The box was labeled "Big" on the left and "Small" on the right, a very simple and crude style that screamed counterfeit.

Is this thing really a prop?
It looks rather shabby...

"Eat quickly! The shopkeeper said it can change size!" Mu Yin urged, as footsteps grew closer.

Mu Yegui pursed his thin lips, and finally opened the right lid, poured out a pill, placed it in his palm, and swallowed it in one gulp.

Ten seconds later.

Mu Yegui looked down at the clothes that had grown larger and the hands that had shrunk in silence.

Mu Yin remained silent; the outcome seemed to be different from what he had imagined…

He imagined the pill that would make him grow bigger or smaller would shrink to the size of a fingernail, but in reality, after taking it, Mu Yegui turned into a ten-year-old child.

After spending decades growing from a ten-year-old to a sixteen-year-old, this pill caused me to go back to square one.

"I wasn't tall to begin with, and now I'm even shorter," Mu Yegui said softly in a sweet, childlike voice, looking down at her hands.

Mu Yin: "..." He is 160cm tall, but he was 118cm tall when he was ten years old. This height is really embarrassing, like a black history. Although he seems to be not much different now than before, he is still a short man.

"Xiao Yin, I don't want to see you for the next three days. Could you please reflect on your actions?" Mu Yegui, clutching the large puzzle box, shrank into the space between the chair and the desk and said in a low voice.

"Waaaaah, you call me 'Sweetie' when you need me, but you tell me to get lost when you don't. I'm so heartbroken." Mu Yin pretended to cry, trying to salvage her image in Mu Yegui's heart.

"I never said anything like that, Xiao Yin, you're overacting." The cold and ruthless Mu Yegui exposed Mu Yin without hesitation.

The study door was slowly pushed open, and footsteps grew closer.

Mu Yegui looked down at his body and then at the gem in the glowing, open mechanism box in his arms, thinking that if no one had noticed this, the person must be blind.

I was startled awake from my deathbed! This chapter was written in just half an hour after I suddenly sat up at four in the morning. I was amazed at myself.

The correct English for "greedy" is "greed." There are quite a few typos in this chapter, but they're unavoidable due to their connection to later plot developments. I'll try to correct them later.

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(End of this chapter)