Chapter 35: How Many Is This?
After entering the seventh carriage, Su Xiao quietly moved to the carriage door and locked the doors connecting the front and rear carriages.
Franky was already completely unconscious. To ensure he wouldn't suddenly wake up, Su Xiao took out a syringe and injected it into Franky's back.
This cyborg Franky was somewhat peculiar. The front of his body had been replaced by machinery, while his back remained flesh and blood.
Confirming that Franky wouldn't wake up for a short while, Su Xiao untied the ropes and chains binding Franky.
He tapped Franky's chest lightly. The surface felt soft, but the interior was hard, suggesting there was considerable space inside.
Su Xiao was momentarily stumped. How was he supposed to open Franky's chest? Would he have to forcefully break it open?
After searching carefully, Su Xiao found a switch on Franky's side ribs.
He pressed the switch lightly. With a click, Franky's chest flipped open, revealing three bottles of cola.
Su Xiao didn't touch the cola. Instead, he searched inside Franky's chest cavity. After searching for a long time, he found nothing suspicious.
Gurgle, gurgle.
The cola inside Franky's chest began to deplete rapidly, as if some emergency measure had been triggered.
Half a bottle of cola was quickly consumed. Franky's body trembled a few times but ultimately didn't stand up.
Su Xiao continued searching. Inside Franky's chest cavity, aside from some major organs, everything else had been replaced by machinery.
Finding nothing he wanted in the chest cavity, Su Xiao frowned. The body was only so big—where could that thing be hidden?
He pressed his finger against Franky's arm to sense it. Again, he only detected a steel structure, nothing suspicious.
Su Xiao checked the head, chest, arms, and legs one by one, but found nothing.
This puzzled Su Xiao. Could it be that the thing wasn't inside Franky's body? That seemed unlikely. According to the original story, Franky always carried that thing with him.
Su Xiao fell into thought. If he were to hide something in his body, where would he choose to put it?
First, the object wasn't too big or too small. Second, because it had existed for a long time, it was easily damaged.
Not too big, easily damaged—combining these two points ruled out the possibility of it being hidden in the arms or chest.
Where was the least likely place to get injured during battle? Su Xiao's gaze shifted to Franky's back.
He pressed his finger against Franky's back and sensed inch by inch. When he reached Franky's lower back, his finger paused.
"What's this?"
Su Xiao searched around that area and soon found a patch of artificial skin disguised as real skin.
Lifting the artificial skin, a palm-sized combination lock came into view.
The password had three digits, composed of numbers 1 through 9. 'A(3,9)=9*8*7=504 combinations.' There were 504 possible combinations. Opening it by luck was clearly impossible. Su Xiao began recalling some information.
Tom the Fishman's birthday was March 16th.
Iceberg's birthday was January 3rd.
Franky's birthday was March 9th.
Three birthdays. Su Xiao first tried Tom the Fishman's birthday, 316. After entering the password, a red light lit up, displaying the number 4.
This lock could be cracked five times. After five attempts, it might lock permanently or self-destruct.
Tom the Fishman's birthday was wrong. Su Xiao considered other possibilities.
If he guessed correctly, this password was likely related to Tom the Fishman. Tom's influence on Franky was too deep.
So, the password Franky set, especially a three-digit one, was probably a birthday.
Su Xiao tried the second combination: 313. This was the month combination of the three birthdays, starting with Tom's month.
The password was still wrong. Three attempts remaining. Su Xiao tried 331 again. Still wrong. Two attempts left.
None of the three combinations worked. Two chances remained.
Su Xiao set aside the three birthdays. The password might not be a birthday. Perhaps it was a more important date.
More important than a birthday was... the day of death! Tom the Fishman's death day.
Su Xiao had a headache. Where the hell was he supposed to find Tom's death day? What a pain.
At this point, he had to make it work. He began quickly recalling everything about Tom the Fishman.
First, Tom was convicted for helping Roger build a ship. After his conviction, Tom helped the World Government build the Sea Train to earn a pardon, but the World Government broke its promise and executed Tom on other pretexts.
Tom wasn't executed on the spot. He was shot, seriously wounded, and then transported to the Judicial Island for execution.
Tom was executed in summer. This was evident from the clothing of the citizens and CP agents at the time, specifically late summer.
Su Xiao had stayed in Water Seven for a while and had firsthand experience of the temperature and climate there.
The time was late summer. Tom was sent to the Judicial Island for execution.
Tom wasn't guilty of a heinous crime. He was merely an accomplice. But helping Roger build a ship was a serious matter, so Tom would be tried first, not directly executed.
Moreover, the execution time at the Judicial Island wasn't chosen arbitrarily, especially for a legendary shipwright like Tom, which also involved racial tensions between fish-men and humans.
There were already enough clues: late summer, execution at the Judicial Island, a specific execution date, and Tom's body being sent back to Fish-Man Island for burial.
Su Xiao's mind raced. Finally, he pressed 831 on the combination lock.
Click. The lock opened. Su Xiao took out the item inside. After checking its attributes, he nodded with satisfaction. He then placed something else into the lock, locked it, and tied Franky back up in his original position.
Restoring the scene, Su Xiao returned to the carriage roof through the window. The cold rain pelted him.
He lay flat on the roof, half of his upper body hanging off, and reinstalled the window. Before installing it, he wiped off the water stains.
After doing all this, Su Xiao walked lightly across the carriage roof to the fourth carriage, flipped back into the compartment he had been in earlier. The heavy rain would wash away any footprints he left on the roof.
First, he stripped off his soaking wet clothes, dried himself completely, and threw the wet clothes and towel into the sea. He changed into a set of clothes identical to the ones before.
He not only dried the rainwater from his body but also wiped all the rainwater from the compartment, leaving no fingerprints or footprints.
After finishing, Su Xiao reinstalled the compartment window and let out a long breath.
Su Xiao suddenly noticed that Bubuteni behind him was watching him.
"What? Hungry?"
"Woof."
Bubu Wang wasn't hungry. He was sighing at how complicated the human world was.
"Not hungry?"
Su Xiao looked at Bubuteni in surprise. He had recently noticed that Bubuteni's intelligence had significantly improved.
It wasn't so obvious when Bubuteni was first synthesized, but as his experience grew, Bubuteni displayed wisdom distinctly different from ordinary beasts.
Although Bubuteni's intelligence still couldn't match a human's, he was definitely not stupid—just a bit goofy.
"Bubu, how many is this?"
Su Xiao held up five fingers. Bubu Wang lowered his dog head, as if unwilling to answer such a stupid question.
"Oh? So you're not that smart after all."
Bubuteni rolled his eyes, feeling that his intelligence had been insulted like never before.