Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 165 One Wave After Another (This cat is unlucky enough to catch a cold)
Li Wei's expression remained calm, without the slightest fluctuation.

He knew Anthony wouldn't come looking for him with good intentions, and that proved to be true.

As mentioned before, as soon as Anthony got off the car, he went to find someone to figure out what was in that black punch card. What he didn't tell Levi was that he wasn't looking for an ordinary person, but Dr. Franco Tester—a famous scholar who had made great achievements in the field of difference engines.

The latter was very interested in the black punch card that Anthony brought, and said he would study it carefully and asked Anthony to come back in a couple of days.

Two days later, when Anthony returned to Dr. Tester's residence, it was in complete disarray.

"So you mean when you came here, this place had already become like this?"

Li Wei pointed to the room in front of him, which was a mess, with signs of ransacking everywhere, as if it had been visited by a group of thugs.

"Yes, the only survivor is this young lady."

Anthony pointed to the girl standing not far away, watching them warily. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, with blonde hair and very ordinary clothes.

"Who is this?"

"Dr. Tester's granddaughter, I found her hiding in the fireplace."

"So, the attack happened not long ago?"

"That's right, just this morning."

Anthony nodded, then looked at the girl.

“Miss Tester, this is Mr. Levi. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s the most famous detective in the entire empire. He’ll definitely be able to find Dr. Tester.”

"………………………"

Li Wei half-opened his eyes, looking at Anthony with the gaze of someone looking at an idiot, but he still didn't say anything. After all, this was a case, and Anthony was, in fact, a member of his team, although, in Li Wei's opinion, their team was completely disorganized, with not a single member being a full-fledged MI7 officer…

"Forget it, I'll do it."

Li Wei gestured for Anthony to move aside, then stepped in front of the girl and stared at her.

"Hello, miss, my name is Li Wei."

"I am Qi Ya Tester."

"I know you must be very anxious right now. Can you tell us what happened? If possible, the more details the better."

"…………………"

The girl glanced at Anthony, then at Levi, and bit her lip.

"Grandpa has been studying that strange punch card for the past two days."

she spoke.

"It was the same today. After he finished breakfast, he locked himself in his study. I was reading when suddenly a group of people rushed in, which startled me. I don't even know how they opened the door. Then Grandpa told me to hide, so I did and hid behind the fireplace. Then I heard Grandpa yelling at them, and then those people... they seemed to hit Grandpa, and then they ransacked the place, as if they were looking for something... I don't know. I stayed hidden there until it was quiet outside, and then I heard this gentleman's voice..."

As she spoke, the girl glared fiercely at Anthony.

“I heard his voice, so I climbed out of the fireplace.”

It was clear from her behavior that she believed her family's troubles were all caused by Anthony.

That's actually true.

"Are they here to find punch cards?"

"Yes, they asked Grandpa where the punch card was, but Grandpa didn't say... but I think they probably didn't know what it was."

"Oh? How do you know?"

Upon hearing this, Li Wei immediately became interested.

"Because when they asked Grandpa, they said 'that black piece of paper,' and no one who understands the difference engine and mechanical principles would refer to a punch card that way."

"Yes, that makes sense."

Just like with CDs, older people who aren't familiar with them will only say "that round disc." As for whether it's a CD, VCD, or DVD, they won't know.

"Did your grandfather say anything about that punch card? What secrets did it hold?"

At this moment, Anthony also rushed over and stared at Qi Ya. The latter looked at Anthony with dissatisfaction, but still pouted and answered his question.

"If you're hoping to find out what secrets are inside, you're in for a disappointment, sir. That card is just a bunch of useless data."

"Scrap data?"

"That's right, it's data that's completely unprocessable. I don't know where you got this, but its card reading logic is stuck in an infinite loop... Simply put, its data is meaningless to the difference machine, and the loop generates a large amount of data that the difference machine can't process..."

At this point, the girl lowered her head dejectedly.

"My difference engine was destroyed because of this."

"How, how is it possible?"

Anthony was stunned by the girl's answer.

"So, there's no secret in that card?"

"Yes, the data itself does not contain any top-secret information. I think it should be a card that has been scrapped."

"how so……………"

Upon hearing the girl's answer, Anthony lowered his head in disappointment, while Levi frowned and looked serious.

"Miss, may I understand it this way: this card will consume a lot of the difference engine's computing resources?"

"Yes, its punching method is somewhat special, as is the data stored inside, which seems to be some kind of particularly complex calculation equation. As you know, the difference engine also runs programs through calculation. Therefore, when it reads the contents of this punched card, it will automatically begin to calculate and reconstruct the internal program content. However, the calculation method used by that black card is very... cumbersome, which requires the difference engine to allocate a considerable amount of resources to calculate. What's worse, it ultimately cannot calculate the result."

As Qi Ya spoke, she sighed helplessly.

"At least my differential press is completely ruined because of this, and it will need to be repaired again, with all the feed rods and gears reset..."

Although I couldn't understand what she was saying, I figured it was something like reinstalling the system.

"Why……………"

Anthony was utterly dejected; the news from Qi Ya had clearly frustrated him. He had initially thought the punched card would contain some top-secret intelligence from a spy.

“I don’t think so.” However, at this moment, Li Wei spoke up.

He looked at Qi Ya and asked.

"Miss Tester... I'd like to ask, does that card require the computing power of the difference machine?"

"Yes, don't be fooled by the fact that punch cards are just simple cards with a few holes; the placement and number of these holes are very important..."

At this point, Qi Ya seemed to get excited as well.

"Only with accurate quantities and accurate locations can we read accurate data and then reconstruct it. This requires a very long process and cannot be done casually..."

"Then, I would like to ask..."

Li Wei interrupted Qi Ya's explanation; he got a headache just hearing about it.

"What would happen if this punch card were read by those towers in Bisubaru? I remember those towers store all the data about the Bisubaru region?"

"Hey?"

Both of them were taken aback by Li Wei's sudden question.

"You mean the central data tower? Hmm..."

Qi Ya frowned and quickly began to make an estimate.

"In terms of computing power, the Central Data Tower is definitely stronger, but the reading of this card uses a complicated equation structure that requires a lot of computing power to solve. Hmm, this will slow down the information processing speed of the Central Data Tower."

What if it can't be solved?

Li Wei stared at Qi Ya and said, word by word.

"There are no unsolvable equations in this world; numbers are..."

"If it would take a hundred years to solve it, then it would be meaningless."

Li Wei interrupted Qi Ya again.

"If it consumes a large amount of computing power in the central data tower, rendering it unable to function, do you have a solution to this problem?"

"this…………………"

Qi Ya frowned again, then muttered to herself.

"As it stands, this equation is extremely complex and will mobilize the full power of the entire difference engine. This will have an immeasurable impact on the upper-level data. If we want to completely eliminate this impact, we can only reset all the gears and radix axes of the entire central data tower..."

As she spoke, Qi Ya's face turned deathly pale.

"By the Holy Lord, that contains all the information about the Bisparu region! If it stops working, the entire Bisparu region will be paralyzed!"

Sure enough.

Hearing this, Li Wei nodded; he understood what was going on.

"Now we know what that black punch card is for."

"Boss, you found out?"

"Yes."

Looking at Anthony and Qi Ya, Li Wei nodded.

“Miss Tester just said that this card will paralyze the differential machine that reads it, rendering it unusable. The only way to repair it is to reset it, but that will erase all the data stored inside…is that right?”

"Yes."

Qi Ya nodded.

"That's the purpose of this card."

"Hey?"

Both of them were taken aback by Li Wei's answer.

"You mean... you damaged the difference engine?"

"Yes."

Li Wei stared at the two of them.

"This is a weapon, a weapon specifically designed to destroy the differential machine database, a virus!"

Indeed, while listening to Qi Ya's account, Li Wei felt her description sounded familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before. Then he realized, wasn't this the same thing as the computer virus in his world?
“Anthony, do you remember?”

Li Wei looked at Anthony.

"You were wondering before why they insisted on sending this researcher, who can't even take care of himself and has absolutely no espionage skills, here on his own. Now the situation is clear. I suspect that researcher is the creator of that black punch card, and the organization you mentioned may have realized the power of his creation and therefore bribed him. But the difference engine is a specialized thing; no one understands it as well as its creator, so they had to have that researcher come here himself!"

"That makes sense..."

Upon hearing Li Wei's analysis, Anthony immediately perked up.

"Indeed, that makes all the sense!"

Anthony was just as clueless as Levi about the difference engine and the database, but as soon as he was told that the black card was a weapon and the researcher was the weapon's creator, Anthony immediately understood.

“Indeed, this is no longer the era of Luddism's rise. All difference engines are strictly protected; it's not as simple as a bunch of workers smashing them with hammers and steel pipes. But this card is different. Although its color is a bit strange, it's just a punch card. Nobody will pay any attention to that! They can walk in openly, insert this thing into a card reader or something, and then just leave… Damn it…”

"More than one..."

However, at this moment, Qi Ya's voice rang out again. The two turned their heads and saw the girl staring blankly at them.

"When those people took Grandpa away, they said... this was the only one left, so... there was more than one punch card..."

"Okay, now we know where the problem lies."

Li Wei gathered his thoughts and began to ponder again. This problem was clearly more serious and urgent than the kidnapping of the Grand Duke's daughter.

"In short, let's find that old doctor first."

(End of this chapter)