NOVPUB"It’s so huge..." Zhuge Liang gaped at the creature of extraordinary size; it was his first time seeing such an immense being.
"Yeah, it’s really huge," Gan Ning patted Zhuge Liang’s shoulder, "Do you want to raise one? I can catch a small one for you. Forget about that big one."
"..." Zhuge Liang turned to look at the robust man beside him—one of the renowned generals of the present world, Gan Ning, who had struck terror in the north with his victory in Jizhou. For some reason, Zhuge Liang felt that this man was quite different from the stern, imposing figure he had imagined; he seemed somewhat out of tune.
"Xingba, are you sure that Kun won’t cause any trouble?" Chen Xi asked worriedly; the size of that whale far exceeded his expectations, its hundreds of meters long body was practically an island.
"It shouldn’t cause trouble. Now that I think about it, these Great Kuns are quite good-natured. As long as we don’t provoke them, they won’t attack us," Gan Ning thought for a moment and said, "But those big fish are quite annoying, always following us."
"That’s good, just seeing that Kun is terrifying enough. You even thought about capturing it; I think we better not provoke it," Chen Xi said, frowning to Gan Ning.
Chen Xi’s instinct told him that it was best not to disturb that Great Kun. Its size alone was enough to crush their ships, and coupled with the Cloud Qi and the Light Shield, it was probably considered a sea monster even in the twenty-first century.
"Don’t worry, adviser, I won’t provoke it unless I’m confident," Gan Ning laughed heartily and then glanced at the huge waves caused by the Great Kun’s dive, turned his head, and shouted to the large ship behind, "Set sail!"
"Doo—" A loud horn sounded, and the fleet, led by Gan Ning’s warship as the flagship, started moving southward. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
"Oh, you have this kind of thing?" Chen Xi pointed at the soldier vigorously blowing the horn and laughed to Gan Ning.
"Heh heh heh, this is something the indigenous people of Zhuya County gave me; I found the sound of their horns very uplifting and resonant, so I decided to use them to signal orders," Gan Ning chuckled and said, "Tell the others to accelerate, raise the Cloud Qi!"
After Gan Ning issued his commands, three soldiers each carried a large horn and blew forcefully, one long note followed by two short notes.
The warships behind quickly drew close, and a layer of Cloud Qi slowly emerged around the entire fleet, forming a huge "V" with Gan Ning’s flagship at the tip, and the speed surged forward.
"How about that?" Gan Ning looked at Chen Xi proudly and asked.
Taishi Ci observed Gan Ning and deeply understood his pride; he himself had been equally astonished when he first learned that the Navy could be directed in this manner.
"Indeed a general of merit," before Chen Xi could speak, Zhuge Liang had already grasped the situation, "Truly a novel and wonderful idea, and very practical too. I wonder if General Gan has any other horn commands?"
Gan Ning raised an eyebrow; he had not expected Zhuge Liang to notice right away that he was using horn commands. This was something he had developed after receiving hints from Chen Xi paired with the unintentional actions of Taishi Ci. During the first rehearsal, Taishi Ci had been so amazed that he nearly wanted to prostrate in respect, and now Zhuge Liang had seen through it immediately.
"Hahaha, that’s right, you’re called Zhuge Kongming, right?" Gan Ning laughed heartily and gave Zhuge Liang a thumbs-up, "You’re not bad, really impressive. Ziyi didn’t understand what was going on the first time he saw it, but you saw through it at a glance. Here, take this for you," saying so, Gan Ning took a green pearl out of his waist pouch and handed it to Zhuge Liang.
Originally, Gan Ning had somewhat disregarded Zhuge Liang, the young boy, even thinking he was just a scholar brought along by Chen Xi. He hadn’t expected that the boy would understand the situation as soon as he heard the horn command for the first time. Gan Ning could no longer look down on him. It turned out that Gan Ning was quite good at getting along with much younger, capable individuals.
"Take it, there will be plenty of these things since Xingba here does business with the indigenous people." Chen Xi said with a smile, "Have you compiled a whole set of commands?"
Seeing that Chen Xi did not think much of it, Zhuge Liang accepted the pearl that Gan Ning had given him. It was the first time Zhuge Liang had seen such a green pearl.
"The usual commands are just those few kinds; I’ve compiled a whole set for them. This way, during naval battles, the enemy won’t know what our commands are anymore, and we won’t have to waste time with messengers either," Gan Ning said proudly.
Initially, Chen Xi had asked how a naval battle could be managed without messengers, enabling the entire fleet to act as one. Gan Ning had thought long and hard before finally resolving this issue.
"Very good. What about more detailed commands?" Chen Xi asked with a smile, "Like the way we are talking right now, how would this be communicated?"
"Ah?" Gan Ning was taken aback, feeling that his collection of commands was already unconventional enough, and now Chen Xi’s question was even more outlandish.
"Just kidding, what you have is already enough. Anything beyond that would concern the skills of intelligence transmission." Chen Xi slapped his forehead, realizing he didn’t need to expect so much from Gan Ning; all Gan Ning needed to do was command the navy. Developing something more advanced would be pointless. It would suffice to provide him with a code for secret messages.
"Intellectual transmission?" Gan Ning felt as though he had grasped something.
"Nevermind, let’s play a game and you’ll basically understand," Chen Xi sighed and said, "Does Zifang have a book? Any book will do."
Mi Fang quickly found a thread-bound book and gave it to Chen Xi, "Kongming, just pick a character and say which page, line, and number it is. Then write out the numbers using the yin lines and yang lines."
Chen Xi handed the book to Zhuge Liang, believing that he would definitely understand what he was saying. Sure enough, Zhuge Liang was firstly stunned, but then he realized what was meant. He randomly picked a character and, according to Chen Xi’s instructions, wrote it out using the Eight Trigrams. Then he looked at Chen Xi with a bitter smile.
"I understand; this way no one could ever decipher your code. If necessary, you could even write the code in another code," Zhuge Liang bitterly smiled again and again. The previous codes were simply too weak in comparison, and once everything was converted into yin lines and yang lines, Zhuge Liang understood what Chen Xi had meant before.
Turning yin lines into short sounds and yang lines into long sounds, one could blow through the entire book with a horn, and the person recording would simply need to understand how to convert and which book was being used as a reference to be able to translate it on their end.
"Actually, if one just scrambles the Thousand Character Classic once as the basis, no one could ever break the code," Chen Xi laughed heartily, followed by Gan Ning, Taishi Ci, and Mi Fang, although it was clear that none of them understood.
"Kongming, I’ll leave it to you. Explain it to them and then write a cipher system for the navy, that would be great," Chen Xi said, smiling at the bewildered looks on Gan Ning, Taishi Ci, and Mi Fang’s faces, and handed the whole matter over to Zhuge Liang.
"Alright, I will go back and write a code that even Zichuan can’t crack for you." Zhuge Liang was clearly eager to try, obviously moved by the earlier method of coding, and under deliberate derivation, what was sent could even possibly be a hexagram statement—how could one break that! (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it on Qidian (qidian.com) through recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)
