Once We Lived in Nanjing

Very strange.

For some reason, the Big Eyes do not harm animals.

This is the result of Ban Xia's observations; herbivorous animals living in the Qinhuai District area are still active normally, their activity frequency has decreased slightly, but that is due to seasonal temperature changes—a herd of bison from Nanjing Agricultural University to Meihua Villa and then to Xuanwu Bay; they walk back and forth each day leisurely strolling, Ban Xia is very familiar with them, and their movements have not been disturbed by the appearance of the Big Eyes, nor has their number decreased, they still go back and forth strolling leisurely.

Ban Xia continued to observe for two days and confirmed that the bison really did not care about the sudden appearance of the Big Eyes.

Not only the bison, but other animals also did not care.

"BG, what does this mean?"

"It means that the Big Eyes only target humans?" Bai Yang thought for a moment, "It's not interested in other creatures, Miss, OVER."

"Why?"

Ban Xia leaned back, sitting in the dark frowning.

She thought it was abnormal; if a huge threat appeared in the Qinhuai District, the sensitive animals would have detected it immediately. The Big Eyes clearly represented a very dangerous unknown object, they are the culprits causing human extinction, but why weren't the animals afraid of it?

"Are you asking why the Big Eyes only target humans, Miss?" Bai Yang said, "We are also pondering over this question. The decoding team is analyzing the drafts left by the teacher. As of now, we believe the arrival of the Black Moon and the Big Eyes are to destroy humanity, but why they want to destroy humans is still unclear, OVER."

The girl took a deep breath.

This was a very important question—why the Black Moon had arrived, why the Big Eyes wanted to exterminate humans; it directly related to whether the people of 2019 could change the future. Without an answer to this question, everyone was still in the dark.

The decoding team bore a heavy responsibility; the teacher's manuscripts were currently their only source of collected information, but manuscripts were, after all, just drafts, consisting of small pieces that the team had repeatedly studied. The people in the decoding team had practically worn out the drafts, enlarging every character to the size of a basket on the wall, like Bodhidharma meditating in a cave, staring hard hoping for sudden enlightenment.

Currently, the decoding team could confirm very little information; one being that the Black Moon might have a significant connection with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy—it could not be ruled out that the center of the Galaxy was the origin of the Black Moon—old Zhao had already submitted a proposal hoping to mobilize domestic and international astronomical observation resources to observe the center of the Galaxy, hoping to discover anomalies, but this was a damn huge plan. The Shanghai Observatory remarked do you know what you're saying? The center of the Galaxy is a massive structure spanning 6000 light-years, and moreover, it is 26,000 light-years away from us—we can only see what it looked like 26,000 years ago, so what exactly do you want us to see?

Old Zhao said they can look at whatever they want but turn the telescope that way.

The Shanghai Observatory vehemently protested that this was armchair guidance.

Another piece of information the decoding team could confirm was the number 25473000, twenty-five million four hundred seventy-three thousand; they believed this was a count.

It was the teacher's estimate of the total number of Big Eyes that had descended upon Earth.

This number was terrifying, so large as to drive one to despair.

Based on a global population of 6.5 billion people, if the Black Moon deployed 25 million Big Eyes on Earth, each Big Eye only needed to kill 260 people to completely exterminate all of humanity.

"Oh right, Miss, there is another term, found in the teacher's drafts, which the decoding team couldn't figure out the meaning of, they asked me to inquire with you, OVER," Bai Yang said.

"Go on."

"The Fruit," Bai Yang said, "Do you recall this term? OVER."

"The Fruit?"

The girl paused.

What is the Fruit? Apple? Pear?

She put down the handset again, took an old yellowed copy of Journey to the West from the shelf, using a small flashlight, based on the page number reported by BG4MXH, she turned to the designated page—under the small white circle of the flashlight, Ban Xia saw the term "The Fruit" written quite abruptly in red pen on the edge of the page. It was not known whether the pen tip was broken at the time of writing, but the red ink had bled extensively, resembling a dark red bloodstain, making these two characters seem as if they were soaked in a pool of blood; Ban Xia had definitely seen it before but had not paid much attention.

"BG, I don't know what this term means, the teacher never mentioned it to me," Ban Xia shook her head, "Does this term have any special meaning?"

"I don't know either," the boy in the headset sounded a bit helpless, "The information in the draft is too chaotic and fragmented, the decoding team believes this term is very important, OVER."

"Does your shoulder feel sore? Want me to give it a rub?"

Suddenly, a young woman's voice faintly rang through the earpiece.

Ban Xia's ears immediately perked up.

"Don't... don't... I'm in the middle of a conversation, Sister Qiao!"

"Who's that?" Ban Xia asked, "BG, who was that talking just now?"

"It's the counselor, the one sent from above, just arrived today, no no no no no—do you want to kill me? My shoulder's gonna dislocate, aaah it's really going to dislocate, help, it's dislocated, it's dislocated..."

Next, Ban Xia heard a crisp crack of bones, followed by a pig-slaughter-like sharp, painful scream.

Listening made Ban Xia shrink his little head.

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"Look at that frail body," Sister Qiao sneered softly, pushing Bai Yang's back, "With that physique, how are you going to shoulder the responsibility of saving human society? Before the revolution succeeds, your own body will collapse first. Starting tomorrow, get up at five thirty in the morning and go for a five-kilometer run with me."

"You want my life," Bai Yang grimaced, massaging his shoulders, "Counselor, Sister Qiao, you're setting fires left and right as the new official, and you're adding tasks for me before doing anything else?"

"To train your will and strengthen your physique, is that a task?" Sister Qiao turned and walked out, "Don't forget, wake up at five thirty tomorrow morning. I'll be waiting downstairs for you."

"Five forty!"

"Five thirty."

"Five thirty-five! Considering I've been working all night, please give me five minutes' leniency, just five minutes!"

Sister Qiao stood at the door, glanced at Bai Yang for a moment, and nodded, "Alright, five minutes."

She was about to leave when Bai Yang called out to her again:

"Wait, Sister Qiao!"

"What now?"

"Could you perform that again?" Bai Yang asked, "That thing."

"What thing?"

"That really cool thing, you had us all awe-struck, leaping to catch a dumpling with one hand!" Bai Yang was eager, "I have a frisbee here, how about I throw a few for you to catch?"

Sister Qiao's face fell.

"Tomorrow morning, get up at five twenty-five!"

Ignoring Bai Yang's whining, Sister Qiao left his room. As she entered the living room, Zhao Bowen had just returned from a meeting, bustling in and collapsing on the sofa, all sweaty.

"Damn, these freaking people really give me the creeps."

"What happened?" Bai Zhen and Wang Ning asked.

"To put it simply, some think we're too motherly, fussing about this and that, and propose we should fully expand the military, transform the city into fortresses and strongholds, and fight it out with the Dark Moon."