Once We Lived in Nanjing

After seeing off Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen, Bai and Bai Yang settled back down on the living room sofa to talk once again about BG4MSR, a topic they had discussed many times before.

Bai was an experienced old HAM, and although he hadn't touched amateur radio much in recent years, he still had the foundational skills, remaining one of the top amateur radio experts in Nanjing City.

In his youth, he dragged Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen with him on expeditions and competitions, collecting piles of QSL cards, now all plastered on the walls of Bai Yang's bedroom. The call sign BG4MXH resonated across the globe; HAMs both domestic and foreign knew that in region 4, there was the famous Mr. BG4MXH, a 59+ broadcasting station—always a 59+ to anyone he contacted.

If this were the Middle Ages, then the noble BG4MXH Baron Bai Zhen would have made a name for himself on the world stage. The young son of the baron, who inherited the call sign BG4MXH, left his hometown for a Western campaign. From speaking Chinese to Pashto, then to Italian and finally English, people everywhere would praise the baron's 59+—

Who are you?

I am BG4MXH.

Ah, you're the famous 59+ baron! Look at the ICOM725 on your back, it's really you! Your 59+, from east to west, sweeps across the sky!

His mother took the cups from the coffee table to wash and then brought over two new cups, filling them up with boiled water.

"Have you been back to see our old house?" Bai Zhen asked.

While pouring water, his mother looked up, "Our old house? You mean the one in Lulou?"

Bai Zhen nodded.

"I have never been back there," his mother said. "You've never been back, so how could I?"

Bai Zhen was not born and raised in Nanjing; he had come to Nanjing to settle down with his parents when he was six. The family originated from Pei County in Lulou Town. Bai Yang's grandparents came to Nanjing to do business in the eighties during the booming reform and opening-up, when the bold ventured out to sea. Back then, Uncle Bai and his wife held jobs at the county credit union and county supply and sales cooperative respectively—an enviable double-income family in state-owned enterprises. However, as they watched the market economy thrive, they heard that it was the bold who became wealthy. So, with gritted teeth and resolution, they resigned and started a business in Nanjing.

But it turned out that indeed it was the bold who became rich, but not all the bold got rich.

After a lifetime of hustling, the most commendable achievement of the elder couple was acquiring two properties before the real estate prices went crazy. Bai Zhen sold both when he got married and bought two new ones—a larger one for himself here in Meihua Villa and a smaller one for them.

They also had a self-built house in their old home in Pei County and went back every year for the Qingming Festival to pay respects to the ancestors.

Pei County, that's right, it's the hometown of Liu Bang, the first Emperor of the Han dynasty, where he served as a local magistrate.

Nowadays, it's a county under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou City.

"What do you think about selling this house and moving back to our hometown?" Bai asked.

"Are you out of your mind?" his mother replied dismissively. "If you don't want this house and want to go back to our hometown, fine, you go by yourself. This house cannot be sold; it must be left for the son."

"I plan to find some time to go back to our old home and do some refurbishment, maybe add a basement or something," Bai Zhen continued.

Bai Yang glanced at his father, slightly surprised.

Although his father verbally expressed disbelief, his actions spoke the truth. Fixing up the old house back in his hometown was indeed a backup plan for himself, wasn't it?

Bai Yang figured that his father's plans to go back home were far from just refurbishing the house. Their old home was in a sparsely populated village with plenty of open land—a sufficient space to spread out. His father was a retired soldier, having served in the military for over a decade. Despite his current job as a rideshare driver making him seem like a middle-aged man with nothing but words, when his family faced a grave threat, this seemingly slack man could become a solid shield.

"Besides the basement," Bai Yang asked, "is there anything else you plan to do?"

"We also need to reinforce the walls, thicken them with concrete and steel plates, it's best if they can withstand 12.7mm caliber firing. The windows need to be blocked off as well, with only shooting ports left open," Bai Zhen replied. "We'll need to dig a well in the basement for a sufficient freshwater supply; without fresh water, we can't hold out for an extended period. Food, power, fuel, medicine, transportation—all of these need to be adequately prepared, to last at least five people for three months."

Bai Zhen was very serious, frightening his mother.

"What's gotten into you, Bai?" she asked.

"I am talking about if the end of the world were to come, we need to prepare early," Bai Zhen answered.

"Then we might as well move to New Zealand or even Australia," Bai Yang took a deep breath. "Fewer people there, vast unpopulated areas, smaller targets."

"You wouldn't survive there either," Bai Zhen shook his head. "Everything has two sides; crowds can bring chaos but also help. Based on my experience, in major disasters, it is not advisable to be too far away from the community—or rather, from the organization."

Bai Yang lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

No one knows what it will look like when disaster strikes.

What if it's like Thanos, with a snap of the fingers, and half the people on Earth disappeared?

Then all efforts would be futile.

But when his father described in a measured tone how to build a refuge, Bai Yang truly felt the impending sense of the end. It finally took shape from the ethereal realm of radio waves into his real life, palpably changing his lifestyle, his father's conversation topics, and the house of their hometown. It was foreseeable that its impact on the world would continue to grow, become more apparent, and ultimately spiral out of control.