NOVEL NEXT Chapter 55 - 55 Training in the Coffee Shop (Middle)
Chapter 55: Chapter 55 Training in the Coffee Shop (Middle)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Chapter 55 – Training in the café (Intermediate)
Girl 3 is a woman who wears glasses, her hair is short and bobbed at ear length, her perfume scent is significantly lighter than that of Girl 1 and Girl 2, with a faint mix of jasmine and rose.
Xiang Kun believed that if he was more familiar with perfume scents, he might be able to identify the brand and model directly, thus deriving the price and the woman’s spending power.
As Girl 3 sat with her back towards him, her face was hidden. She was constantly typing on her laptop keyboard, and from the unobstructed corner of the screen, she seemed to be writing a WORD document.
With Xiang Kun’s keen vision, he could clearly see the few lines of text on the left side of her document.
He could infer that she was writing a novel.
So, she’s a freelance writer, a professional copywriter?
Instantly, Xiang Kun became intrigued and wanted to delve into her writings and discover her pen name.
He hesitated, wondering whether to change positions, to sit diagonally behind her, where it would be easier for him to peep at her screen from a distance.
Before he could make a move, however, Girl 3 stood up first.
A spark of excitement surged in Xiang Kun’s heart – he thought it was the perfect opportunity to glance at the full screen of the WORD document. With his memory, a few seconds would suffice to remember all the content on the page.
However, before Girl 3 left her position, she closed her laptop…
Hmm, good habits.
Instead of going to the restroom, she headed to the bar, ordering a few more dishes, an original muffin, a walnut fruit salad, paid with Alipay code scanning. Xiang Kun murmured to himself, surprised but then he remembered, it’s already noon.
When Girl 3 returned, Xiang Kun got a clear view of her features. She had attractive features and looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with a natural face, gold-rimmed glasses, intensely dark circles under her eyes, indicating lack of good rest. She looked tired.
After Girl 3 sat down, she opened her laptop to the WINIO login screen.
Xiang Kun listened intently to the rhythm of her keystrokes: Tap tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap! Tap!
The last and loudest keystroke was obviously “Enter,” which probably meant a 5-letter, 4-digit password, or vice versa.
Being seated behind her, he couldn’t see the movement of her fingers on the keyboard. If he were seated on the side, he could probably judge the areas of the keys being hit based on her finger movements.
However, Xiang Kun had memorized the sounds of her keystrokes earlier.
While these sounds might seem identical at first, they were indeed different.
Especially for professional typists, who often have a fixed pattern in terms of their finger movements, degree of force applied, and angle of the keystrokes, the sounds produced by different keys theoretically can be distinguished.
Even though Xiang Kun could discern the differences in the sounds, he was unable to match them to the specific keys.
Therefore, he began observing when Girl 3 was typing. Even though he could only see the few lines in the top left corner of the screen, it was enough to match the rhythm of her keystrokes with the letters being typed from her use of the pinyin input method.
Xiang Kun concentrated, the clear clattering of the keyboard all that filled his ears. He could no longer hear other sounds, and in his sight, only the text changing in the corner of the screen under Girl 3’s hair was visible.
Sound of W, got it. Sound of O, got it. Sound of 7, got it. Sound of H, got it. Sound of ], got it. Sound of S, got it…
After more than ten minutes, when the muffin ordered by Girl 3 arrived, Xiang Kun finally matched the nine sounds of her keystrokes when she was typing her login password to their specific characters:
sunny8706.
This was Girl 3’s login password for her laptop system!
Xiang Kun then picked up his mobile phone and ran a search based on the four names seen in the top left corner of her document. He found out that these names were characters from an ongoing romance novel.
And so, Xiang Kun got hold of Girl 3’s pseudonym.
Again, he ran a search based on her pseudonym and found Girl 3’s Weibo.
Up to this point, Xiang Kun felt that it was enough. As he was about to close Weibo, he noticed the work email in the profile of the female writer. It suddenly crossed his mind to try to log into this email account using the WINIO login password newly “acquired”.
He logged in successfully.
Xiang Kun didn’t read the content of the emails. Instead, he exited and closed it right away.
Although the high state of concentration required for the task Xiang Kun just accomplished was mentally draining, the exciting result of deducing other people’s passwords by the sound of their keystrokes was fulfilling.
It’s a pity that this method only applies to specific individuals. If a different person were to sit at the computer, he would have to recollect the sounds of the keystrokes across the whole keyboard and then decipher the input content according to the sound of the keystrokes.
Xiang Kun was in the midst of his practice and was not about to end it. He switched targets. A few customers entered the café while he was “observing” Girl 3.
Two boys, seemingly elementary school students, were labeled Boy 1 and Boy 2. One was fat, the other skinny, both had their T-shirts tucked into their pants. After ordering dishes, they chose a seat, took out several books from their school bags, and laid them on the table.
Their class and names were on the book covers, clearly visible to Xiang Kun from his position.
Well, that’s easy.
Xiang Kun scanned down one of the books, which seemed to be a summer homework book. Hmm, third grade in elementary school.
There were several English textbooks, and it was still a vacation period. Could it be extracurricular lessons?
Had they just finished their lessons in the morning? Had they come to the café to have lunch and do homework?
Just as these thoughts crossed Xiang Kunts mind, Boy 1 and Boy 2 took out their mobile phones almost simultaneously, held them sideways, and then “TIMI–” sounds rang out…
Xiang Kun shifted his attention to a woman, labeled Girl 4, who was dressed in a business suit sitting at a table next to his.
Girl 4 had her hair done up in a bun, was wearing black slacks, a light-blue short-sleeved blouse with a collar flower, and a faint smell of ink on her, indicating she likely worked in a bank. However, her name tag was removed, it wasn’t clear which bank.
She was in uniform, suggesting she had just finished work and had come here.
Taking into account the banking hours, she must have walked here in about
ten minutes.
Xiang Kun checked his map using a mobile phone app. There were four banks within a ten-minute walking radius from the café, China Merchants Bank, ICBC, CCB, and BOC.
With the direction Girl 4 was coming from before entering the café, it could be either BOC or CCB.
Xiang Kun then searched for the summer uniforms of both banks and determined that Girl 4 was an employee of the CCB.
However, it seemed that the CCB’s young lady was a bit under the weather. While chatting on her mobile phone, she was holding her stomach with her other hand, her brows furrowed.
Just as Xiang Kun was wondering whether he could discern whether it was stomachache or some other ailment based on her breath and smell, he noticed a very faint smell of blood and understood something, he slightly shifted his view in embarrassment.
When he shifted his attention back to the café and the new customers walking in, he was surprised to find that a beautiful girl with a ponytail, sitting across three tables directly opposite him, was squinting at him.
The ponytailed girl was referred to as Girl 5.
The two maintained eye contact for two or three seconds, then Girl 5 casually lowered her head, her gaze returning to the book spread out on the table, and began reading as if her previous gaze towards Xiang Kun had been merely daydreaming.
Naturally, this girl became the next target of Xiang Kun’s “observation”.
Girl 5 had entered the café when Xiang Kun’s attention was focused on Girl 4.
She had just placed her order and took a seat with a table number bear, but Xiang Kun was unsure of how long she had been watching him and why she was staring at him – it couldn’t be because he is handsome, could it be because of his baldness? Or perhaps she recognized him from the online videos where he acted bravely for a just cause.
Xiang Kun took a deep breath, he observed Girl 5’s attributes while waiting waiting for her scent to reach him..