Notes from the Grey Tower

Chapter 8

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Andymond and I have parted ways and will not interfere with each other. He also didn't bother me for nearly a year after I disassociated myself with my dubious friend in the bar.

"We're not in a relationship anymore," I told Arnold, "I don't like him anymore."

He reminded me: "You looked at Linton's expression just now, as if you were going to eat him."

I don't talk, drink beer, and look out the window. The sun is shining brightly outside the window.

"I'm a psychiatrist. I can make you really not love him. When you see him, it's like seeing the apple tree over there."

I glanced at it and found that the apple trees in the sun were beautiful.

I thought of Andrémon again, with pink apple petals on his shoulders.

"Mr. Garcia is not like you. You know, he's a high-ranking figure in MI6 with a...well, national mission. Now that you've broken up, your feelings for him have become an obsession. It can't be ruled out that someone Use your feelings to his disadvantage."

"Can you do it?" I wondered.

He held up the glass and shook it slightly, and the half glass of blue cocktail was beautiful in color: "As long as you want, I can even erase your memory."

"Surgery? Or medicine?"

"With drugs," he said, "but it's not so troublesome to make you dislike someone, just talk."

Of course I ignored him. I devoted all my enthusiasm to the deciphering work of "Mystery", and I didn't have time to talk to him.

But Arnold is like a ghost, always showing up when you are not prepared, asking you unsuspecting questions. By the time I found out he had become a part of my life and wanted to throw him out, it was too late.

This smiling, psychiatrist who never sees emotions behind the glasses.

One day when I was calculating, the door of the activity room was suddenly pushed open. I thought it was Edgar, and when I looked up, I saw Arnold. He naturally sat down opposite me and put his coat on the back of the chair.

His question was very direct every time: "What do you like about Andemon Garcia?"

I replied without looking up: "It looks good."

In fact, now that I think about it, the reason why I like Andemon so much is not because of his face. I left my parents when I was very young and lived with my uncle. Uncle is kind-hearted and has a bad temper. In my memory, if you like something, you have to work hard to grab it. Andemon's feelings are a little bit of sunshine that I hold in my hand after I have paid a lot. Once I grab it, I am unwilling to let it go. He is quiet and gentle, with such a nice smile, he always accommodates my preferences when we are together. I thought that as long as I paid enough, I could always be with him and spend the next many years quietly.

It was only later that I found out that he was actually just a good-looking pervert. But I didn't realize the latter at the time, so I could only say to the golden glasses: "You look good."

I asked him, "Why are you asking me this?"

Arnold's dark brown eyes stared at my face: "Because I am a psychiatrist. To eliminate the disease, I must know the cause. To stop you from liking Mr. Garcia, I must know why you like him."

I said, "Homosexuality is not a disease."

Arnold took me to a speakeasy. There was a lot of voices inside, the men were shirtless, with tattoos on their biceps, and the prostitutes wrapped their pink arms around the men who came to buy wine. Their lips are bright red, their breasts are high, and their skirts barely cover their thighs.

He pulled me to sit in the corner, ordered two glasses of beer, then took off his gold-rimmed glasses, folded his legs and leaned on the chair, and began to skillfully comment on the women who came and went. Arnold, who took off his glasses, looked much quieter and more delicate. If I didn't listen to what he was saying, I almost thought he was a scholar who stumbled in by mistake.

"Look at the woman next to the bar... yes, it's the one with a D cup. She doesn't talk much, but if you look closely, she actually has a pretty face, and she should be a first-class thing in bed. Alan, maybe you actually like a little bit of sex on the bed ?”

I suddenly felt that I was too innocent when I commented on the coffee shop waitress to Edgar on the banks of the Cam, and I was completely out of the same level as Dr. Arnold.

I asked him, "Do you often come to this kind of place?"

He smiled: "One of the leisure methods."

"Look carefully, the girl next to the oil painting may not be as good-looking as your Anderson."

I glanced in the direction of his finger, weakly: "I like who is my privacy, can I go back?"

Arnold grabbed my arm and pressed me on the seat: "Alan, have you seen so many women, are you really not interested at all?"

This has nothing to do with men and women, the key is that they are not Andymond.

Standing under the apple tree with small pink petals on her shoulders, Andemon smiled at me with bent green eyes.

Arnold said that it takes only one reason to love someone, but many reasons not to love someone. He was looking for the best reason for me to give up Andymond.

In fact, there is no need to look for it, I have given up.

It's just that it will take a while to be truly indifferent.

I'm not a cold-blooded person like Andremon. When we're dating, I spend time by your side. Once we break up, I'll even take back my partner's heart. Everything is wiped clean, leaving no trace of future life.

After Arnold worked hard by my side for a few days, he told me darkly: "Alan, it seems that I have to change my strategy. Mr. Garcia is my immediate boss. If I can't even do such a small thing he entrusted to me , how should I explain to him?"

He said to me apologetically, "I'm sorry to take up a little time of yours every week."

I told myself that since Andrew wanted to throw away the past half a year, there was no need for me to stay. So I tried to match Arnold.

His way of "taking up a little time" is dating.

Every weekend before Linton came to see me, he would come first and invite me to a coffee shop. Most of the time is sunny afternoons, most of the locations are near the windows, and you can see the high blue sky of England from the side. At that time, the situation was a little tense, and the prices started to rise, but the coffee that Arnold ordered was always the most expensive one, and he insisted on paying for me.

We are mostly chatting.

He sipped his coffee: "Allen, I can't come up with an effective treatment plan because I don't know you well enough."

We chatted endlessly, from the current situation, economics and politics to childhood experiences. In the name of his need for treatment, he asked my parents and my first love. I told him how I chased the little girl next door, sang love songs with a rose in my mouth, and got my tongue swollen by the barbs on the stems when I was staying at my uncle's house. Arnold laughed, leaned forward, and the whole coffee shop was looking at him, which made me very depressed.

Later I reminded him that I said so much and you didn't say anything.

Arnold took off his gold-rimmed glasses, took out the lens cloth and wiped the lenses, and did not speak for a long time. His eyes are narrow and long, his nose bridge is high, and he looks much more handsome than he imagined after taking off the glasses. Then he smiled and spoke briefly.

Arnold's family has always served in Her Majesty's army and was asked to be a soldier in the defense of Britain from an early age. He was asked to read a lot of books when he was a child, entered the Royal College of Medicine at the age of seventeen, and graduated with the first place four years later.

"When I was in school, I published some papers on psychology. At first, I thought that such boring things had no readers. When I graduated, someone from MI6 suddenly asked me if I would like to work for the UK in a special way."

"It's boring." I commented.

"Yeah." He laughed, "Our family is rather old-fashioned, so we don't have things like putting salt in the neighbor's milk, squatting at the intersection and waiting for the wind to blow up other girls' skirts."

I also want to sympathize with him, he continued: "Because the girl I like will take the initiative to come to my bed. I had too many girlfriends in college, and my father always couldn't stand it. I took this opportunity to hide in Plimpton Manor coming."

I didn't ask Arnold what his family background was, and I don't think he would have said it if he had.

At the same time, on deciphering the "mystery", Andemon and I were almost standing still.

Deciphering codes is actually a process of finding loopholes in the code designer. Some codes are a sieve, and some codes seem impenetrable. However, no matter how solid the room is, there will always be such a window. All we need to do is feel our way to this window in the dark and push it open to let the light in.

Andrew and I continued to refine the formula I had submitted.

I told Linton my thoughts, and Linton would return my opinion after discussing it with Andymond.

The first two weeks were pretty much clueless.

I wrote the proposal, and Andrew overturned it.

I wrote the plan again, and Andremon overturned it again.

In the meantime, I discovered a weakness of the "fan" cipher machine. It has three revolving wheels and one reflex wheel in its encryption process. Therefore, its encryption method must be reversible. If A is encrypted into F through a reflection wheel, then F must be A after being encrypted. Used properly, this is the Achilles' heel of Mystery. It greatly reduces the number of unknowns in our mathematical formulas.

So Linton had to go to Cambridge two or three times a week.

He even wore a small bow tie on top of his shirt. I leaned over and sniffed: "Perfume."

"Mr. Garcia and I went for a drive by the lake," he said. "He said the air in the suburbs was better for thinking."

My first reaction was why Andremon didn't take me for a ride when he deciphered the code S.

Linton was confident: "He said he likes the way I think about problems, which is very unique."

I reminded him: "That's the way I think about things."

He looked at me rather strangely: "But Alan, you are sloppy, Mr. Garcia can't like you, can't you?"

I think back then I was also a suave and handsome guy by the Kang River. What woman didn't chase after me? Later, it fell on Andermeng, and he was exposed to the password. All the way to the present, he hasn't shaved his beard for a week. Arnold never commented on my appearance, but Edgar began to say that I walked the streets with the beauty of a grown man.

I was very unconvinced: "Your Mr. Garcia really liked me. We have been in love for a year."

Linton's face turned pale all of a sudden: "Impossible, that's Mr. Garcia! Who do you think? - He said he likes me."

"That's the way you think—" I point out, "and that's actually the way I think."

I reminded Linton, as Edgar had reminded me, that homosexuality is illegal, and added: "He's just good-looking."

Linton didn't believe it, so he went to ask Andemon. The pervert Andemon didn't hide it at all, nodded and said, "Yes, Alan and I had a relationship for a year." He comforted Linton: "It's no longer a relationship."

Then he asked Linton to tell me: "Tell Alan that he was just getting by at the time."

I wanted to give Andrew the middle finger, but I couldn't see anyone.

Andemon's sentence "It was only at that time" shows that although I was handsome and charming at the beginning, I don't even have the appearance now.