Once We Lived in Nanjing

"Sparrow, Sparrow, this is Crow, ready to set out."

Wang Ning pocketed his cell phone; he was all in, setting aside his pride for the time being.

To ensure success, he even replicated Bai Yang's plan exactly, using the same excuse to seek help. There was no reason it shouldn't work.

The heroism of self-sacrifice to save the world spontaneously sprung up in his heart, and Wang Ning suddenly felt fearless. There's a saying that a man dies young, even though Wang Ning was getting older, his belly growing, his hair thinning, his crown shining brighter, greasier by the day—and young girls on the streets would skirt around him—but when did old Wang ever lose his dream of becoming a hero?

Who doesn't want to become light?

With that thought, Old Wang's spine straightened even more.

Meanwhile, Zhao Bowen received the message and assigned Crow to rendezvous at the designated location.

Who truly is Crow? To this day, we still do not know. Zhao Bowen has never revealed Crow's identity to anyone in the time since, and our only knowledge of Crow is that he appeared at a crossroads in Qinhuai District on the afternoon of October 14, 2019, a tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a mask.

Crow retrieved the time capsule that afternoon and followed instructions to go to Crescent Lake.

Only Crow could choose the specific hiding spot for the time capsule, unknown to anyone else in this era except for him.

And the second person in the world to know this location would be someone living twenty years later.

It must be said that the plan designed by the trio of Zhao Bowen, Wang Ning, and Bai Zhen was much more meticulous than Bai Yang's; three cobblers combined make a Zhuge Liang, and three clever minds are naturally stronger than a high school student.

With the financial and human resources at the disposal of Zhao Bowen, Wang Ning, and Bai Zhen far exceeding Bai Yang's, they had the capability to do their best at every step of the plan to increase the probability of success.

Crow tossed the time capsule into Crescent Lake, then followed instructions to send the location information to Zhao Bowen via a voice message on WeChat.

···

···

···

"Ah—it's so hot, so unbearably hot!" the girl wailed over the channel, "Why is this damned weather so hot and stuffy? The fan just blows hot air, I'm being baked dry. Isn't summer supposed to be over?"

Bai Yang, on the other end, silently pulled out the remote control for the air conditioner and turned the temperature down a degree.

"Autumn tiger, it's really hot on my side too, BG4MSR, but I have air conditioning, OVER."

"Send me an air conditioner!"

"Can't do that, OVER."

Ban Xia leaned back in her chair, long legs draped over the table, wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts, her hair tied up in a bun on top of her head. Despite the electric fan blowing behind her, the room was still as hot as a steamer; summer was just that unbearable.

"Today I set up four traps in the neighborhood, one in each direction—north, south, east, and west," said Ban Xia. "It took a ridiculous amount of effort, totally exhausting."

"Sis, remember to say OVER or 'end' after you finish speaking, you always forget, OVER."

"Forgot."

"There you go forgetting again, OVER."

"It's such a hassle, doesn't matter if I don't say it, after all, you know I'm done talking, and besides, who are you calling sis? I am clearly younger than you."

"You're nineteen, I'm eighteen, that makes you older, OVER."

"No no no, you can't count it like that. You were born at the start of this century, nearly forty years ago, so you're over twenty years older than me."

"Then what should I call you? Little girl? OVER."

Ban Xia frowned at the other end, biting her lip and staring at the ceiling.

"No way, no way. Let's each keep to our own age calculations. You're eighteen, I'm nineteen, you should still call me sister—but don't you dare call me 'big sis'—"

"Fine, not big sister, but how about Miss? Let's continue talking about the trap, how did you set it up? Did you dig it? Dig a deep pit on the ground and then cover it with some grass, leaves, and branches? OVER."

"No, of course not, digging pits is difficult, especially the kind that can trap large animals, one person can't do it alone." Ban Xia shook her head, "The most commonly used is a spring snare with a noose. Have you seen it before? It's the kind that can hang up the hind legs of a deer, roe, or anything once triggered."

Bai Yang was a bit surprised.

"How do you do that? OVER."

"You use a tree, or bamboo works too. You bend the trunk without breaking it." Ban Xia held a stainless-steel ruler in her hand, inserting it into the crack of the table, and slowly bent it with her fingers, "A bent trunk has elasticity, right? Then you use a hook to pull it down to the ground and secure it there, with a noose attached to the hook. If an animal steps into the noose, as soon as the noose is tugged, it tightens, and at the same time, the hook is pulled loose, and the trunk snaps back—"

She released her hand, and the ruler vibrated back and forth with a "buzz."

"Suddenly, the prey is hung up. It's pretty simple, right? This is the simplest noose trap. Did you get it?"

Bai Yang scratched his head. It sounded a bit complicated.

He pondered whether he really needed to learn wilderness survival skills.

Maybe it could be useful in the future.

In case human civilization is completely destroyed, and the surviving humans had to return to the farming and hunting era, having an extra survival skill couldn't hurt.

The normal human brain finds it very difficult to suddenly grasp the concept of "world destruction."

For anything they have never encountered, everyone is narrow-minded. What is 'the blind men feeling the elephant'? Faced with something they've never seen before, everyone is blind. People can only recognize the other side based on their experiences, from the perspectives they can understand. The one who feels the nose says the elephant is like a rope, the one who feels the leg says the elephant is like a column, the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a fan.

Everyone looks at a leopard through a tube. Different life experiences give you tubes of different shapes. Someone with a square tube sees a square leopard; someone with a round tube sees a round leopard. But which is correct? None of them.

Now facing the concept of "world destruction," something like Yog-Sothoth or Leviathan, Bai Yang's first feeling is not fear, not nervousness, not panic-stricken, but rather no feeling at all.

Because this concept is too unreal, too vast, too far removed from everyday life, the silly brain just can't react, adrenaline doesn't get secreted. No doubt, worldwide destruction will definitely be the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced, but telling you that the world will be destroyed in five years versus an intruder with a knife at your throat, it's clearly the latter that will make your adrenaline surge.

But that ghostly Leviathan won't always be floating in the sky without falling. Once it truly enters your daily life, begins to change the world bit by bit, and makes you realize it truly exists—that's when everything changes.

Bai Yang has already touched this beast. As he glimpses just the tip of the iceberg of its true form, he is nearly crushed by its immense weight.

He can't personally experience the destruction of the world.

But he can imagine the death of his parents, his friends, everyone around him in five years.

This terrifies him, drives him to desperately try to prevent that terrible future.

"BG4MXH? BG4MXH? Can you hear me speaking? Why is there no sound?"

"BG4MSR, I'm here, OVER." Bai Yang's thoughts returned to the communication, "BG4MSR, I'm under so much pressure right now, OVER."

"So much pressure that you said 'OVER' twice in one sentence?"

Bai Yang was startled.

"Why are you so stressed?" Ban Xia asked.

"Do you even need to ask? In five years, the whole world is going to be finished, everyone will die, I'm almost in despair, OVER."

The girl was silent, pondering.

The teacher had said that the joy and sorrow of individuals are not intercommunicable.

As expected, she couldn't fathom what Bai Yang was feeling.

She was listening to someone who had long been dead, panic over a destined end.

This seemed a bit comical.

But even more cruel.