IWOL Chapter 204: Diffie-Hellman

Cui Zuojing took out the sword from his back and handed it to Hades. “My sword is slightly broken. Can you fix it?”

Hades took it and saw the small chip. Brushing it with his finger, he said, “Yes.”

“That’s good.” Cui Zuojing relaxed. This was worthy of being the best weapon shop in Top of the Giant Tree. It’s level wasn’t bad at all.

Correspondingly, the charge was also pretty good.

Hades took the sample that was the size of an outdoor air conditioning unit for design testing and Dong Zheng took the rest back. It’ll be given to him when it was time to start making the final product. They used the remaining points to pay the deposit and went out the backdoor.

It was already raining outside. Fortunately, the rain wasn’t too heavy and so it was nothing to the both of them. Right now, the street was completely empty, and on that empty street under the drizzle of rain, Cui Zuojing sat on the back seat and hugged Dong Zheng tightly. Feeling Dong Zheng’s warmth, he suddenly felt unspeakably relaxed and happy.

“Are you cold?” Dong Zheng asked.

“Not cold!” Cui Zuojing replied loudly. Thinking that since Dong Zheng was driving in front, the rain would definitely drift into his eyes, Cui Zuojing raised his hand over his eyebrows to help him block the rain.

The light stretched their two shadows, which gradually shortened as they approached the next street light.

Dong Zheng parked the little sheep motorcar in Heimdall’s backyard, tucked the key under the seat, and sent a message to Beverly. Now that the car was returned, they could use Fu Zhe’s key and go back to the castle using any door.

But Dong Zheng asked, “Want to go back?”

Unexpectedly, Cui Zuojing shook his head. He and Dong Zheng hid under the wisteria arbor, their held hands tucked in Dong Zheng’s pocket for warmth. The window on the top floor of Heimdall’s main building was lit up. It was likely Heinrich’s office.

Cui Zuojing remembered that there was a similar place in his high school, and it was regarded as a magical place for young couples. Every evening, the head teacher of the self-study class would lie in ambush nearby to catch one or two pairs of unlucky couples.

At that time, he didn’t know what premature love felt like and didn’t understand the ignorance and youthfulness that was unique to adolescence. But now, with a mature and stable person like Dong Zheng, he would often vaguely feel it.

Obviously, the both of them were no longer children.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s just sit here for a while.” Cui Zuojing sat down on the long stone railing and patted the spot next to him.

Dong Zheng sat side by side with him. They sat close to each other, watching the rain fall. As the water fell on the leaves, they made a continuous pitter-patter sound, and from time to time, a very large drop of rain would roll down from the gap between the leaves and fall on their clothes, leaving round, dark marks.

For a while, neither of them spoke. It wasn’t that they didn’t have anything to say. Rather, they were tacitly enjoying the ambiguity that was quietly rising up from this tranquility.

This was a very suitable time for whispering. Cui Zuojing rubbed the calluses on Dong Zheng’s finger and said, “Have you ever been in a relationship before?”

Dong Zheng thought for a moment and said, “It’s not exactly a relationship.”

As soon as Cui Zuojing heard this, he thought there might be a story. He became interested. “What do you mean?”

“I discovered that my orientation was different when I was around 15 or 16 years old, but I kept hiding it. Later, when I went to study abroad, the atmosphere there was more open and many male classmates confessed to me. One of them seemed pretty good. I originally planned to spend a period of time to see if we were suitable, but I soon discovered that he plays around very messily.” Dong Zheng turned to face the young man with curious eyes. After a pause, he continued, “Then I gave up. It was at that time that I discovered that my mental hygiene is still quite serious. Then I returned to China and have never met the right person.”

“Then you have always been single.” Cui Zuojing glanced down. “You’re 27 years old. You can’t always serve with the left wife and right wife, right?”

“What does this have to do with age?” Dong Zheng smiled. “I started a business, and I didn’t even have time to eat or sleep when things got busy. There was no time to think of anything else.”

Cui Zuojing said, “What about when you and your business partners go out for a meal and drinks? Those bosses will definitely like to play. I heard that at your level, there is almost no cleanliness. Even if you don’t want to, there will definitely be people pressuring you to.”

“I wouldn’t be interested even if there were. I’ve said that I have a preference for mental cleanliness, not only for others but also for myself. I really don’t have much thoughts.” Dong Zheng rubbed his head. “Let’s take you as an example. You’re almost as old as me. Don’t you use the same thing…the left wife and the right wife?”

Cui Zuojing whispered, “We’re different. You face more temptations than me. And, I’ve always been 16 years old, not as convenient as you.”

Dong Zheng just laughed. Cui Zuojing saw that he didn’t look like he was deliberately deceiving him to make him happy, and his heart was secretly excited.

In fact, it was normal to have emotional experiences in the adult world. Even lovers were not qualified to point fingers at each other’s romantic past. As long as one can ensure loyalty in the present and the future, that was already great enough.

But the feeling of “his past is as blank as mine, only I can leave prints on him” was so special that the possessive desire hidden inside Cui Zuojing was aroused all at once. He hooked Dong Zheng’s fingers tighter, pretended to sigh, and said, “Well, although it sounds untrue, I will believe your truth.”

The topic was stopped cleverly like this. They felt as if they were dangerously on the precipice of something, and neither of them spoke for a while. The rain became heavier, but the person next to him gave him warmth. Cui Zuojing emptied his brain and thought about nothing else, wholeheartedly enjoying this wet, evening breeze, the pitter-patter of rain, and the blurred lights under the curtain of raindrops.

He rarely emptied himself like this. After arriving in the Pure White Realm, he was engulfed by the torrent of destiny, and there was almost no time to stop and rest like this.

A huge drop of rain hit the back of his hand. Cui Zuojing looked at the water on his hand, and he suddenly heard a voice in his head.

[So cute.]

Cui Zuojing: ?

It was actually difficult to determine that the sound was directly in his head, but to Cui Zuojing, it sounded like Dong Zheng.

He thought he heard it wrong. After all, Dong Zheng didn’t say anything, and it didn’t feel like it’d been passed through Arabidopsis.

Dong Zheng seemed perfectly normal, and so Cui Zuojing was sure he’d misheard it so he didn’t take it seriously.

But he heard that voice again.

[If I kiss him, what kind of expression would he show?]

Cui Zuojing was dumbfounded.

He was almost sure that it was Dong Zheng’s voice just now. He turned his head and looked at Dong Zheng. Dong Zheng was looking out at the deserted street, looking very serious.

Cui Zuojing frowned suspiciously and took the initiative to attack. “If you want to see what I look like, why don’t you try it? If you just think about it, you won’t figure it out.”

Dong Zheng was taken aback. He turned to look at Cui Zuojing, clearly surprised that he’d managed to figure out his inner thought.

Seeing him react like this, Cui Zuojing knew that it really was Dong Zheng’s thoughts. He took a deep breath, stood up, and threw himself into Dong Zheng’s arms, saying loudly, “On the surface, you seem to be thinking about something so serious. Who knew that you turned out to be such a person!”

Now it was Dong Zheng’s turn to be dumbfounded. He hurriedly reached out and hugged Cui Zuojing, leaning back to avoid his fist. “What do you mean?”

“Everything you thought just entered my mind. How would I not know?!” Cui Zuojing hit Dong Zheng’s face with a light punch, not using any force at all. Compared to the nosebleed that Cui Zuojing had given Dong Zheng during the American-Russian championship, it felt more like a tickle. But Cui Zuojing immediately felt distressed and quickly touched Dong Zheng’s tall nose to make sure it wasn’t injured in any way.

Dong Zheng didn’t feel any pain. He wrapped his arms around Cui Zuojing’s back to prevent him from making any more trouble and defended himself, “But I didn’t even want to pass it on to you.”

Cui Zuojing stared at him for two seconds. “Liar, then how did I hear it?”

“Wait a moment.” A speculation floated in Dong Zheng’s mind. He sank into his kernel and saw the light green font floating in the sky at a glance.

[Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm, under construction…]

“Wait for you? Why should I wait for you?” Cui Zuojing said confidently. “You’re secretly making up bad things, and you want to order me to wait for you?”

As he said this, he leaned and kissed Dong Zheng loudly on the lips. Then he sat directly on Dong Zheng’s lap. Leaning close, he began to play with Dong Zheng’s long eyelashes.

This was…

Dong Zheng looked around the kernel. Without him being aware of it, special switches, ports, and lines were quietly being built. Most of them had yet to be completed, but according to their framework, they would extend beyond the firewall, connecting to the outside world.

Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm was an encryption protocol that allows both parties to jointly establish a shared key in an insecure communication channel without knowing in advance. This key can later be combined with a symmetric password to encrypt subsequent communications.

These lines could be connected to other people’s “ports” for communication?

Dong Zheng’s thoughts moved, spreading all the way to the center, following a line that had already been constructed toward Arabidopsis.

The string of thought-turned-data was constantly changing. The public key that would enter the network for transmission and the private key stored in the kernel would undergo complex changes. The information would then be encrypted to ensure that no one else aside from the two parties would be able to intercept it.

[Can you hear me?]

“Yes.” Cui Zuojing placed the two eyelashes that he’d accidentally pulled out on his palm to observe. The shadow of the wisteria leaves fell on Dong zheng’s face, making the lines of his face look extraordinarily deep. “You’ve developed a new ability again?”

[Seems like it.] Dong Zheng took one last look at the big characters that said “under construction,” exited the kernel, and caught Cui Zuojing back to playing with his eyelashes.

Cui Zuojing immediately withdrew his hand and pursed his lips to blow away the eyelashes in his palm. He hooked his arms around Dong Zheng’s neck and looked at him. “What is it?”

“It’s a kind of communication function that would allow me to communicate with teammates through our consciousness without relying on other communication tools or without verbal speaking. But it hasn’t finished construction yet, so I’ll have to test it later.”

Was this “Murphy’s gift”? Dong Zheng thought. Then, he saw Cui Zuojing fingers thoughtfully rubbing his lips, and his throat suddenly tightened.

But this time, he didn’t give it any more thought and directly kissed Cui Zuojing.

“Mmuph!”

A while later, looking at the subtle changes on the young man’s complexion, Dong Zheng hooked the corners of his mouth.

“Just as I imagined, this is the expression.”