Reborn in 1950: Shorting the Federal Reserve at the Start

Without any hesitation, Shen Jinghong turned around and took two steps to the front of room 302.

That thud was so heavy; it didn't sound like a book falling, but more like it was about to smash a hole in the floor. On this ship full of spies, that sound was practically the same as sounding an alarm.

"Click".

The thin wire in Shen Jinghong's hand—the hair clip he had just stolen from Ruth—had now become the best key.

The lock cylinder made a slight, crisp sound.

The door opened.

Shen Jinghong swept in like a gust of wind, slamming the door shut behind her and fastening the security chain. The whole sequence of movements was so fluid and fast that even the air outside didn't have time to react.

The scene inside the house was exactly as expected.

Lin Qinghan was kneeling on the ground, her face filled with panic as she gathered up the papers scattered all over the floor.

Beside her was a broken leather suitcase compartment, and a thick, brick-like black notebook lay open on the floor, its dense numbers and symbols like a swarm of startled ants, exposed to the light without any cover.

Upon seeing Shen Jinghong suddenly burst in, Lin Qinghan's face instantly turned deathly pale, devoid of any color.

That was a stress response following extreme fear.

Almost instinctively, she grabbed a paper cutter from beside her, pointing it tremblingly at Shen Jinghong, her voice sharp with tension:

"Don't come any closer! Get out! Get out!"

"Miss Lin, is your way of treating guests to be like holding a knife to your savior?"

Shen Jinghong completely ignored the wobbly little knife, her gaze fixed on the black notebook.

He knows that thing all too well.

That contained the US military's latest communication encryption algorithm prototype, along with dozens of pages of core manuscripts on ballistic calculations. In this day and age, the value of this notebook could be exchanged for ten fighter jets, or even extend the range of China's missiles by 500 kilometers!

This silly girl actually hid this thing in a hidden compartment of the box?

"Help? You're here to take my life!"

Lin Qinghan bit her lip, her eyes almost overflowing with despair. She was convinced that Shen Jinghong and that Ruth were in cahoots, and that their clumsy performance just now was merely a prelude to breaking down the door.

She lunged at the notebook, trying to cover the secrets with her body.

But Shen Jinghong was faster than her.

A long, strong hand reached out and copied the thick notebook into its own.

"Give it back to me!"

Lin Qinghan lunged forward like a madwoman to snatch it, but Shen Jinghong pressed down on her shoulder with one hand and gently pushed her, causing her to fall weakly onto the bed.

"Is this what you're so desperately trying to protect?"

Shen Jinghong flipped through the notes with one hand, the papers rustling.

Lin Qinghan's face was ashen, and she was trembling all over. It was all over. As long as this man walked out of this room and handed this thing over to that FBI agent, she would never see the clouds of her hometown again in her life.

"Please stop looking...please, stop looking..."

Her voice choked with emotion, and her aloof facade crumbled completely, leaving only the helplessness of a patriot in dire straits. "How much money do you want? I have gold bars in the box, I'll give them all to you... just give me back the book."

Shen Jinghong ignored her, his gaze lingering on a certain page for two seconds before his brows suddenly furrowed.

The room was deathly silent, except for the sound of the notebook being turned, as if a verdict was being read to Lin Qinghan.

Suddenly, Shen Jinghong clicked his tongue.

"Miss Lin, it seems your math was taught by a PE teacher."

Lin Qinghan froze, tears clinging to her eyelashes, her face blank: "What?"

Shen Jinghong picked up a pencil from the table, circled the densely packed formulas on the page, and then casually tossed the notebook, which was more important than life itself, back into Lin Qinghan's arms.

"Page 42, line 3. The boundary conditions for the nonlinear partial differential equation are incorrect."

Shen Jinghong pushed up his glasses, his tone tinged with disappointment, "According to your calculations, the missile will have an error margin of at least three kilometers. At that point, forget about hitting an aircraft carrier; you'd be lucky to even hit a bathtub."

Lin Qinghan subconsciously caught the notebook and looked down at the circled equation.

She was a top-tier math genius; she hadn't noticed it earlier due to the prolonged pressure and panic. Now, with Shen Jinghong's guidance, the formula instantly flashed through her mind.

wrong.

That was really wrong.

If a guidance system is designed based on this erroneous data, the consequences would be unimaginable.

and many more.

She suddenly looked up, her eyes, which had been filled with fear, now brimming with disbelief and shock.

This seemingly cynical man, whom she had just mistaken for a spy, actually understood this cutting-edge encryption algorithm at a glance? He could even instantly find that tiny logical error in those hundreds of lines of complex formulas?

How is that possible?

Even her advisor at the University of Pennsylvania couldn't achieve this level of computing power!

"You...you can understand it?"

Lin Qinghan's voice trembled, but this time it wasn't from fear, but from a kind of dread of encountering someone like herself.

"I know a little."

Shen Jinghong shrugged, pulled over the broken chair and sat down backwards, resting his chin on the back of the chair. He looked at the still-shaken Lin Qinghan and said, "Aerodynamics and cryptography are inseparable. When it comes to mathematics, different paths lead to the same goal."

"Who exactly are you?"

Lin Qinghan gripped the notebook tightly, his knuckles turning white. "The FBI doesn't have people like you. If you were one of them, you would have handcuffed me just now."

Who I am is not important.

Shen Jinghong pointed to the floor beneath her feet, which was the direction from which the ship's engine roared, and also the road they were on to return home. "The important thing is that, like you, I think the air on this ship is too smelly, and I want to go back as soon as possible to breathe some fresh coal smoke."

Lin Qinghan was stunned.

"Want to go home?"

"Yes, let's go home."

Shen Jinghong dropped his nonchalant expression, his eyes becoming exceptionally deep. He reached out and gently wrote a line of equations on the dusty table with his finger.

That's Euler's formula: e^(iπ) + 1 = 0.

The most beautiful formula in mathematics symbolizes the perfect unity of different fields.

But here and now, on this perilous enemy ship, it has another meaning.

"Some truths are universal in this world."

Shen Jinghong looked into Lin Qinghan's eyes and said, word by word, "For example, mathematics, physics, and... that touch of red dawn."

Lin Qinghan felt a lump in her throat, and tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

This is a code word.

It wasn't a code word prescribed by the organization, but rather a secret code that resonated with the souls of these wanderers far from home.

Only those who are truly devoted to their motherland and who pursue scientific exploration in solitude can understand the weight of these words.

"Then why did you help me?"

Lin Qinghan wiped her face, sniffed, and regained some composure. "Do you know that if Ruth had found you in my room with this thing, you would have died?"

"die?"

Shen Jinghong laughed, a wild and unrestrained laugh.

He stood up, walked up to Lin Qinghan, and looked down at the girl who was willing to risk her life for a few pieces of paper.

"Miss Lin, you underestimate the men of our China."

He pointed to the ceiling above, which faced the upper deck, the place where the spies and monitors reveled.

"The important thing now is not whether I will die, nor whether this tattered notebook will be discovered."

Shen Jinghong's lips curled into a wicked smile, the expression of a hunter eyeing his prey in a trap.

"The key now is how to give those American agents on this ship a big, shiny green hat."

Lin Qinghan was stunned for a moment. Although she was a high-IQ genius, she was still a beat slow to react to this kind of slang.

"A green hat?"

"Yes, a green hat."

Shen Jinghong winked mysteriously. "For example, let them fight amongst themselves? Or, let them think they've caught a big fish, only to end up with a used shoe?"

Looking at the man in front of her who exuded an "unconventional" aura, Lin Qinghan suddenly felt a huge weight lifted from her heart.

Although she didn't know what he was going to do, her intuition told her—

The Americans on this ship are in big trouble.

"Then... what do we need to do?" Lin Qinghan asked subconsciously.

Shen Jinghong glanced at her watch, her smile gradually fading, replaced by a reassuring calmness.

"You don't need to do anything. You just need to be beautiful and, incidentally, correct that wrong formula."

He walked to the door, pressed his ear against the door to listen for any sounds, then turned back and gestured for Lin Qinghan to be quiet.

"As for the remaining dirty and tiring work... tonight, we'll have a good chat with them."