Mai Jia - Decoded

Of course, strictly speaking, there are two kinds of simplicity possible in these circumstances. One type is an artificial simplicity. The bastard who created BLACK possessed a rare ingenuity: he was able to create any old cipher he pleased, a cipher that was incredibly uncomplicated for him, but for me was extremely sophisticated, impenetrable. The other type of simplicity is a genuine one that uses cunning as a substitute for sophistication: it baffles you with its ultrasimplicity, it conspires against you, entraps you; it places its key right in front of you, in a leather attaché case.

You can imagine what happened afterwards. If BLACK possessed an artificial kind of simplicity, then I wouldn’t be able to decipher it because the person we were up against — the person responsible for creating it — was a genius of the kind we might not see for another thousand years. Later, I realized that Rong Jinzhen had been ensnared within this simulated and obstinate sort of simplicity; or to put it another way, he had been entrapped by this bogus minimalism, he had been bewitched and deceived by it. That said, it was actually quite logical that he would have been deceived: it was practicably inevitable. On the one hand. . how should I put it? Hmmm, like this perhaps. Imagine that you and I are involved in a boxing match and you’ve just knocked me to the mat. Then, from my corner, another person jumps into the ring to fight you. Now you outmatch this person in every way, but at the very least he is going to be better than me, right? Well, Rong Jinzhen was in this kind of situation. He had deciphered PURPLE, he was the winner in the ring, he had proved his formidability; in his mind he had already come out on top against a superior opponent, and he was ready for the next one. On the other hand, speaking in terms of logic, only an artificial simplicity could successfully bring together and unite the two strange phenomena found in this cipher; otherwise they would be contradictory, in opposition. It was here at this point that Rong Jinzhen committed the error that all geniuses make, because from his point of view for such a high-level cipher to exhibit such an obvious contradiction was beyond the realm of possibility; it was unthinkable. He had broken PURPLE, he was fully aware of the deliberation and meticulousness needed in its construction. So, coming face to face with such a contradictory cipher, his mind was unable to analyse the two elements, unable to open them up; the most heroic efforts left him unable to do more than touch the fringes. That is the strength of artificial simplicity: all a genius could do was to touch its fringes.

In sum, this was where Rong Jinzhen encountered the most damage to his intellect: he had become hopelessly enthralled by this synthetic simplicity and was unable to extricate himself from it. This also demonstrates precisely Rong Jinzhen’s strength and courage in challenging such a redoubtable opponent. His mind thirsted to engage with this genius in hand-to-hand combat, to fight him at close quarters!

I am not like Rong Jinzhen. For me, such artificial simplicity was frightening; it made me despair. Thus this one route for deciphering BLACK was blocked. But since one route was blocked, another one was naturally laid open at my feet. So the real simplicity — that the key to deciphering BLACK was indeed stowed away in a leather attaché case — flashed before me. I felt a supreme happiness, as though I had finally found a way out of my predicament; as if a hand had appeared from out of nowhere to lift the curtain from before my eyes and throw it upon the ground, then trample on it. .

Yes, yes, I was so overjoyed, so excited — whenever I think of this I can’t help but get extremely excited. Over the course of my life, this was my greatest moment, and because of it, my life now is calm, undisturbed, peaceful and long. It was as though heaven had gathered up all the good fortune in this world and out of pity had bestowed it upon me. I felt small; I was only half-conscious; I felt that I had returned to the protection of a mother’s womb. It was a real blessing, like everything being given to you by someone else: you didn’t have to ask for it and you didn’t have to reciprocate; like a tree that simply gives its fruit.

Ah, but the mood of that beautiful moment was fleeting — I couldn’t hold onto it. I try to remember, but my mind is a blank. I can only call to mind that at the time I never even had the chance to confirm my assumption. One reason is perhaps because I feared that it would be exposed; another was perhaps because I was superstitious about the time of day: three in the morning. I had heard that after three in the morning the world belongs to both men and ghosts — this is when the soul and the spirit are at their most powerful. That’s how it was: in the middle of the night, in my silent office, I was like a convict repeatedly pacing back and forth, at once listening to the excited beating of my heart while trying to calm myself down — up until that fateful time, up until three in the morning. Afterwards, I finally pulled out a calculator (the one gifted to Rong Jinzhen by Headquarters, the one capable of over 40,000 calculations) and devoted myself to confirming my absurd and bizarre assumption. I don’t know how much time it took, I only remember that once I deciphered BLACK, I stormed out of the cave in a frenzy (at that time our offices were still underground in a mountain cave), fell to the ground and wailed loudly, worshipping heaven and earth. It was still dark outside, just before dawn.

Fast? Of course it was fast! Don’t you see, the cryptographic key to BLACK was in a leather attaché case!

Ah, who would have imagined it: BLACK had no real lock on it!

The cryptographic key was the number zero!

It was nothing!

Absolute nothing!

Er — um — I don’t know why I am explaining things in so much detail. Let me make an analogy. Let us say that BLACK is like a house concealed far, far away, high up in the vast sky. There are countless doors to this house, all of them identical down to the smallest detail and all of them locked. What is more, only one of these many doors can actually be opened. You can waste an eternity amid all of these doors, none of which you will ever be able to open and which look just the same as the real door. If you fancy entering this building, you must first search through the boundless universe to find where it is hidden and then you must locate the one single door that opens, out of an uncountable number of fake doors. Should you find the real door, you still have to hunt for the one key that can open it. At that time, Rong Jinzhen had not found the key. He had found the house, he had found the one real door, but he had not found the key.

Now, when I talk about searching for the key, as I just said, this involves trying one key after another in the keyhole. Generally, to forge such keys cryptanalysts rely upon their own intellect and imagination: they create a key and try it; if it doesn’t work, they create another and try that, and so on and so forth. This was how Rong Jinzhen spent the year up to the point where he lost his notebook. You can just imagine how many keys he must have gone through. Even to get to that point, you should begin to realize, a successful cryptanalyst doesn’t only need genius; he also needs the luck of the gods. You could say that a talented cryptanalyst has an unlimited number of keys in his mind and there must be one that will ultimately work. The problem is you can never know for certain when you will come upon that key: will it be when you first set out, in the middle of the work, or in the final stages? It is all a matter of serendipity.

Serendipity is dangerous enough to destroy everything!

Serendipity is miraculous enough to create everything!