Chapter 23: My Roommate Can't Be So Arrogant (I)

  One day after another day.

  In the morning, Ludwig was awakened by Sherlock's knocking on the door.

  A very polite triple knock at the door, neither quick nor slow, would not have disturbed Ludwig even if he had been a light sleeper.

  But Ludwig was a light sleeper.

  The first two years in France were because I was afraid that I would be controlled by the Egyptian mummy in my sleep, and unknowingly sneak into the Louvre to kill people.

  In the following years, it was simply a habit.

  Ludwig opened his eyes slightly and saw that the two-layered, tightly closed door had been quietly and soundlessly opened.

  On a foggy London morning without sunshine, she pulled the curtains and the room was dimly lit. A tall and slender figure stood about one meter away from her bedside.

  Ludwig was startled awake and sat up in bed, "slamming" on the light.

  Soft, warm yellow light from the bedside lamp poured down, shining on her smooth, bare shoulders. The quilt slid down a little due to the girl's movement, revealing the gentle curve of her chest like a southeastern hill.

  Ludwig finally saw the face in front of him clearly.

  He quietly broke in, but after breaking in, he knocked on the door three times like a gentleman.

  "......Mr. Holmes, explain your present conduct."

  Sherlock's eyes swept over the girl's half-concealed body in front of him without any change in expression.

  Facing a naked sleeping girl is like facing a Greek statue.

  As for Ludwig——

  Although I am indeed a pure virgin, the two words "shy" are really something that my heavenly mother never taught me how to write.

  Sherlock waved a piece of paper in his hand.

  "Hurry up, I need your help Vichy, Caesar's cipher, I'm just one sheet away from cracking it."

  Ludwig still didn't understand what was going on.

  "Caesar? Which Caesar?"

  "Probus."

  Ludwig hesitated for a few seconds.

  "Who overthrew Gaul's Caesar?"

  Ludwig finally looked up the obscure "Probus" in his mind.

  Marcus Aurelius Probus, 47th Roman Emperor

  Thanks to France's historical education, she can still vaguely remember this emperor who was in power for only a few short years.

  France has always called itself the "Gallic Rooster", although it is also just to lick the Roman afterglow, but the French government is still very energetic in promoting Roman culture.

  She said incredulously, "You knocked on my door at 4 am just for a Roman emperor?"

  "Not for the Roman Emperor, but for this cipher of the Roman Emperor."

  Sherlock said calmly, but a hint of impatience had already crept into his tone.

  He didn't look at her again and strode out.

  "Vishi, you've organized my books and now my brain is racing so fast I can't be interrupted to look for the ones I haven't read."

  Ludwig was speechless with rage——

  You can't stop to find materials, but you can stop to pry open a door?

  She groaned with a headache, tossed and turned on the bed for a while, but still got up and put on a shirt.

  Walked to the door and turned back again.

  ...Hmm, this isn't in my own empty home...

  ……

  "What do you want me to do?"

  Ludwig was sprawled on the sofa, while Sherlock had converted the dining table into his miniature laboratory, a high-powered microscope sat at one end, its warm handle indicating it had been in use for some time.

  Sherlock was holding a magnifying glass studying a yellowed piece of paper.

  He didn't even lift his head.

  "The scrolls by the fireplace, you've mixed up the ones I've read and the ones I haven't."

  That's because you've scattered them all over the place - in the sofa cushions, on the floor and in the fridge.

  But Ludwig did not say this sentence out loud.

  Facing a man with such focused eyes, whether out of self-interest or respect, she tactfully avoided disturbing him further.

  She sat in an armchair by the fireplace, picking up a stack of newspapers and documents from the case.

  "Hmm, which newspapers did Mr. Holmes look at this morning... The Times and The Sun?"

  Sherlock only read the newspaper while having breakfast, and he flipped through it very quickly. The time for one breakfast was enough for him to quickly browse all the big and small newspapers.

  In addition to British and American newspapers, there are also French, German, and Spanish newspapers.

  On a subsequent sorting, Ludwig even found newspapers in Russian and Arabic script.

  What languages can Mr. Holmes speak? It's dazzling her dog eyes, Sir Conan Doyle must not have given him so many golden fingers!

  For Ludwig, who speaks Chinese when living in China and French when living in France, but can't even speak English fluently, all other languages sound like bird language... This is really too much!

  Ludwig racked his brains trying to recall Sherlock's reading habits, but he couldn't remember anything.

  She's not a pervert or anything, who would shine a spotlight on other people's actions like that and then store them in her mind like film.

  ...not Sherlock Holmes either.

  But...Ludwig took out the Times that Sherlock had looked at yesterday morning and opened it, and indeed, on both sides, he found faint, almost imperceptible creases.

  The newspaper material is soft and will sag downward due to the change in finger support points and gravity when looking at the lower half.

  Having noticed this, Ludwig smoothly picked out the newspapers that Sherlock had not looked at.

  And what about the documents of the case - are they worth looking at? Mr. Holmes, that case enthusiast, might not look at them?

  An hour later, Ludwig yawned and placed two large stacks of newspapers in front of Sherlock.

  Sherlock remained in the same posture as an hour ago, only replacing the magnifying glass with a microscope.

  The blue light shone on his dull gray eyes, which were as lifeless as inorganic matter, yet somehow had a bewitching and enchanting quality to them.

  Wait... what's going on? Is this some kind of sorcery?

  Ludwig thought she must have gone crazy.

  "Mr. Holmes, if there's nothing else, I'm going to bed."

  Sherlock picked up one of them and pulled out seven or eight copies from that half-foot high stack of newspapers.

  "Even without creases, the looseness of the fold lines in the middle of the newspaper can tell that these have been read - apparently, that's where the easiest place to leave marks when reading a newspaper."

  Ludwig: ...since she has the ability to see it at a glance, why wake her up at 4am before dawn and make her do an hour of hard labor!

  Mr. Holmes, you are so wicked, and in the future, you will definitely be suppressed by Dr. Watson three times a day!

  Although he was secretly scornful in his heart, on the other hand, Ludwig's heart still admired Sherlock's words.

  She saw a yellowed parchment on the table that Sherlock had casually thrown aside, with words written in Roman letters that she couldn't understand.

  She had been to Rome and seen the photocopies of ancient Roman letters in a local museum, but she always felt that the punctuation marks on these manuscripts were a bit strange.

  Something feels off, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

  Connecting it with Sherlock's magnifying glass action earlier, Ludwig had an epiphany.

  "Mr. Holmes, is this...cryptography?"

  Steganography, from the Greek words "steganos" meaning covered and "graphein" meaning writing.

  Just like China wrote information on small pieces of silk, put the silk in a small ball, sealed it with wax and had the messenger swallow it.

  As a child, Ludwig was always curious about what happens when you swallow something. How does it come out again? Does it get pulled out?

  Duan An thought for a moment and said, "In nine out of ten cases, we still have to cut open the belly."

  In ancient times, there was no anesthetic.

  So Ludwig could never imagine what kind of mood those messengers were in when they traveled on their mission to deliver the message.

  In the 16th century, Italian scientist Giovanni Battista della Porta wrote messages on eggs.

  He concocted a special ink from alum and vinegar that could penetrate eggshells, leaving marks on boiled eggs.

  There are also some organic fluids that are colorless and easily scorched. When written on paper, they leave no trace, but when held over a flame, the characters appear.

  What is an organic fluid?

  Body fluids, excreta are all organic fluids.

  Previously, I had a small male dog. For some time, Ludwig used the urine of the little male dog to write letters to Anhe, inserting blank paper slips into the purple-flowering shrubs at his door.

  This is also why Ludwig was able to judge the smell of urine so quickly when he first met Inspector Lestrade.

  Sherlock hooked the corner of his mouth: "It took you so long to figure it out, your reflex arc is long enough to strangle yourself."

  Ludwig: “……”

  No, Mr. Holmes, apart from Dr. Watson's daily three meals pressing down on you, there will also be various small black rooms and prisons waiting for you!

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