With everyone in the group working together, this password was quickly decoded as well.
This string of numbers consisted entirely of the digits 0, 1, and 2, with 0 never appearing consecutively, suggesting it could be a separator. This naturally made people think of Morse code.
Viewing 0 as a separator, converting 1 to “.” and 2 to “-“, they obtained a string of Morse code:
–.-..-…-…..-..-.-…–..-.-..-.-…..-.-…..-…-.-.-..
According to the Morse code chart, this could be translated into a string of English letters:
GDBBEAICEADCECHCHBCB
Then, following the conversion method from the string of letters in “The Lonely Desert Highway”, they continued to decode:
74225193514353838232
Converting to the nine-key grid:
SBJYJILVUE
According to the Shuangpin method, this meant “soujingjilvshe.”
The players in the group didn’t spend much time reaching this step, because they already had a standard solution for decoding the password, and the Morse code in this string was a relatively common encryption method, not difficult to solve.
Qiao Liang was somewhat excited. This feeling of many people solving puzzles together and being personally involved made him feel thrilled.
“The second string of password only added two steps without changing other encryption methods. The subsequent steps remain the same: converting letters to numbers, numbers to a nine-key grid, and then to Shuangpin.”
“Why not switch to more encryption methods?”
“Is it because Mr. Pei’s knowledge is limited, only knowing these few encryption methods? Or is it simply laziness?”
“Oh… no, no, no, thinking like that seems a bit excessive.”
“Mr. Pei probably felt that finding a password hidden so deeply in ‘Game Producer’ was already quite difficult, so he decided to be lenient and lower the difficulty of decoding this password?”
“Is this a mercy for players who’ve worked hard to solve puzzles?”
“Hmm! It must be so.”
Without overthinking, Qiao Liang immediately opened the TPDb website and found the search box.
The two passwords combined were “pingfendewangzhan” and “soujingjilvshe.”
So, Qiao Liang first entered “jingjilvshe” in the search box on the TPDb page and pressed search.
No results.
Then he entered “jyjilvue,” again with no results.
“It seems… I need to enter Chinese characters?”
Qiao Liang thought about it. This pinyin had ambiguities. Could it be “Jingji Lvshe” (Thorny Lodge), “Jingji Lvshe” (Economic Lodge), or “Jingji Lvshe” (Silent Lodge)?
There were many homonyms.
Of course, trying all the homonyms might also be a solution, just a bit clumsy.
But Qiao Liang remembered the previous poster.
Behind the bloody handprint on the poster was a special red symbol with an obtuse triangular shape similar to a house’s pointed roof, and beneath it was a string of English: PalpitationHotel!
“Palpitation” means “heart palpitation,” so the name of this lodge was very clear—it should be “Jingji Lvshe” (Palpitation Lodge)!
The meaning of “Jingji” (palpitation) is “inexplicable fear causing restless trembling” or “sudden heart palpitations to the point of fainting.” This means the fear doesn’t come from a sudden shock or a terrifying atmosphere, but rather from a seemingly not-so-exaggerated environment where one suddenly, due to some unknown premonition, experiences extreme fear!
Qiao Liang was very happy, as solving this puzzle seemed within reach!
He quickly searched for “惊悸旅舍” (Palpitation Lodge) in the input box, and indeed, the page changed!
All the information on the original TPDb website disappeared, and clusters of black emerged from the page, dyeing the entire webpage pure black.
Then, two input boxes appeared in a prominent position in the center of the screen.
There was no prompt information around these two input boxes, just two lonely empty boxes.
Qiao Liang first entered the two previously decoded passwords into them, respectively, and pressed Enter, but there was no response.
He thought for a moment, then entered his Tenda account and password and pressed Enter.
Still no response!
Qiao Liang: “?”
He tried many more combinations, including the two original passwords, the decoded Shuangpin characters, Chinese characters, and so on, but still there was no response.
Considering that it might not require pressing Enter, he tried pressing Space, CTRL, TAB, SHIFT, and other keys, but those also had no effect!
Entering the account and password in reverse order also yielded no response!
After trying for half an hour, Qiao Liang was dizzy.
He had tried many combinations, yet those two input boxes just hung there on the page, unresponsive to all attempts!
Calming down, Qiao Liang checked his fan group and, sure enough, no one had found the solution. Everyone was stuck at the input box step.
No one knew what to enter!
Qiao Liang stopped trying and began to think.
Clearly, up to this point, everyone’s puzzle-solving had been correct.
They were stuck at the input box step because they were missing some critical information. There seemed to be no clear hint about what exactly to enter.
Qiao Liang frowned deeply, pondering the possibilities.
“Are there more clues hidden in other games with specific requirements for what to input?”
“Or have I missed some information?”
“So far, not a single player has successfully passed this step, which indicates this is another puzzle for everyone…”
…
At this moment, Pei Qian was in his office, monitoring the players’ puzzle-solving progress on the forums.
“…Damn, the clue in ‘Game Producer’ was found so quickly???”
Pei Qian was also deeply discouraged.
He had thought the clue in “Game Producer” was hidden very deeply and should have lasted much longer.
Because “Game Producer” had many endings, and the “Total Loss” ending was one that very few players reached. Most people would just need to make a few correct choices to avoid reaching this point.
This happened to be Pei Qian’s favorite, most anticipated ending, which is why he had inserted the second password into the corner of the second-to-last scene of this ending.
But shortly after the first password was decoded, this second password was found and quickly decoded!
Of course, the rapid decoding was mainly because Pei Qian hadn’t adopted other encryption methods. Compared to the first one, he had merely added the step of converting numbers to Morse code, making it relatively simple.
Players who had decoded the first message had already mastered the method and could just follow the same process.
For the second password, Pei Qian had wanted to make it more complex, but time was tight. Pei Qian didn’t have such profound knowledge reserves and was reluctant to seek help from others, so he had taken a shortcut, thinking people wouldn’t find it so quickly.
Reality had slapped him in the face—these players were too crazy!
Fortunately, there was still the final third of the puzzle content as the last line of defense.
“You must hold on for me!”
Pei Qian checked and saw there were still three weeks until settlement. It was probably impossible for this puzzle to block all players, but as long as it could reduce the number of players buying the game before settlement, it wouldn’t be wasted effort!
Then, Pei Qian looked online at people’s evaluations of the OTTO E1 phone.
It had been two days since the launch event, and most of the first batch of review media videos and reports had come out. The buzz around the launch had peaked yesterday.
The long advertisement that Chang You had recited at the launch had sparked discussion, with many people online attempting to challenge this advertisement. Many had specifically recorded videos and uploaded them to the AiLiDao website, garnering high view counts.
The original launch event video was also posted on the AiLiDao website, with its popularity even surging to the top three in the digital section, even achieving the feat of being on the homepage for a day.
Generally speaking, it’s very difficult for tech brand launch events to reach such high rankings.
Because of other brands’ launch events, whether for computers, phones, or other digital products, the information density of the content is often very low. Most of the content consists of marketing rhetoric that could be completely summarized in a few sentences.
Moreover, when those major manufacturers hold launch events with full live streaming, people who are truly interested have already watched them and won’t watch the video again.
Therefore, videos of the entire launch event don’t usually get high view counts.
Instead, it’s the sarcastic videos that condense the launch content into three to five minutes that can generate good buzz.
But the recording of OTTO Technology’s launch event was completely different.
First, the content of the launch was extremely concise, all condensed into less than an hour, and throughout the presentation there were many humorous moments, with high information density and good entertainment value.
Second, many people online hadn’t paid attention to the launch at all. They only learned about it after Chang You’s rapid-fire speech trended online, and then they watched the video to find out what was going on.
As a result, the view count of the launch recording went up, and the problems of low heat during the live stream and insufficient online attention were completely compensated for!
In addition, with no major manufacturers holding new product launches recently, digital review content creators clustered around creating OTTO E1 phone review videos, so this phone suddenly attracted the attention of a large number of digital enthusiasts!
Pei Qian carefully watched all the OTTO E1 phone review videos, and the situation could be described as mixed.
The worrying part was that these review media didn’t hesitate to speak highly of this phone!
These review media detailed the various advantages of this phone during their introductions, saying it had “solid materials,” and also gave detailed explanations of the various benefits that came with it.
This seemed to be the aftereffect of Tenda’s “providing food, accommodation, and gifts” during the launch event.
The positive part was that after a period of hype, internet users’ contrarian psychology had emerged!
Although the review media’s evaluations were all good, some negative points about this phone had surfaced, such as: expensive, heavy, and impossible to get!
“Expensive” and “heavy” need no explanation; this phone had undoubtedly earned the nicknames “half-jin phone,” “gull half-jin,” while also being called a “noble phone” and an “IQ tax product.” Although these were misunderstandings, they also confused some of the spectating masses.
However, at the launch event, Chang You had already conducted a full-scale, no-blind-spot self-deprecation regarding these two issues, so the online mockery now seemed somewhat irrelevant.
These two points didn’t generate much response, but instead gave the OTTO E1 phone a “truly valuable item” tag.
The most critical negative point was still that it was “impossible to get,” leading many internet users to view this as a deliberate marketing activity!