Once We Lived in Nanjing

"Come on, BG4MXH, let me comfort you!" The girl drew back her long legs and curled up to hug her knees, "Think positive, you still have five years, and in those five years you can do a lot. What do you want to do? You can finish it all within these five years!"

The other side was stunned for a while.

"BG4MSR, are you comforting me? OVER."

Bai Yang thought to himself that her tone sounded like a doctor telling a patient that they have five good years left and to fulfill any wishes before it's too late.

How was this comforting?

It was clearly like saying there was no cure for your illness.

"Uh... let's rephrase that, you still have five years to reverse this future." Ban Xia said, "Cheer up, young man! You have five years to change the future! To save all of humanity from the fate of annihilation!"

Strangely, it was Ban Xia who lived in a crisis-riddled Doomsday World.

Yet she was the one comforting others.

Bai Yang lowered his head and leaned against the bookshelf, "But we don't have any clues, BG4MSR, we don't know what will happen in the future, where do we even start to prevent the disaster? Should we just deploy nuclear bombs in Earth's orbit now? Blow it up as soon as the black moon arrives?"

"Sure, blow it up!" The girl waved her fist, "BG4MXH, there are six or seven billion people on your side, and with six or seven billion brains, we can definitely come up with a solution. Our teacher said that your era has a very strong industrial capacity, a vast number of weapons and armies. If you're not caught off guard, if you can take early precautions, perhaps you could reverse the whole future?"

"Build nuclear missile silos all over the ground! Build tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of densely packed nuclear missile silos!" Ban Xia continued, "When the black moon comes, launch them all! Once the black moon looks down and sees that, my goodness, it might just get scared away."

Bai Yang suddenly laughed.

"BG4MSR, do you know what a nuclear bomb is? OVER."

"I know." The girl replied, "Because I've seen one."

Bai Yang was startled.

"You've seen a nuclear bomb? An intercontinental missile? OVER."

"No, I've seen a nuclear explosion." Ban Xia said leisurely, "When I was very little, from a faraway place, deep into the night, suddenly there appeared a sun on the horizon."

Bai Yang's eyes widened.

"Then the teacher told me that it was a nuclear bomb, it exploded above Zhenjiang." Ban Xia said, "The hot wind reached us; that night, the sky was so bright, so bright."

The girl's tone was calm, but Bai Yang felt he could sense through the headphones the hot, dry, and scorching wind blowing from a dozen years in the future. He turned his head to look outside, gazing at the brightly lit city through the window, Bai Yang felt as if he could see through the eyes of the future Ban Xia—

On that night, the young girl was held in someone's arms, standing on the rooftop looking east, when the darkness was suddenly illuminated by a colossal fireball hanging low in the sky. It was a sun, a rapidly expanding sun. In one second, it ballooned a thousand times in volume; everything within its boundary was obliterated, everything turned to ash in the extreme heat, but faster than its expansion was the air. The supersonic shockwave swept over eighty kilometers in two minutes after the explosion. Standing on the rooftop in Qinhuai District, you could still feel the scorching hot wind.

It was hard to imagine the plight humans would face in that era, resorting to using nuclear weapons to destroy cities.

Indeed his meager brain struggled to depict the full panorama of world destruction.

With nuclear weapons involved, digging bunkers and making shelters was utterly worthless.

One could only pray that they wouldn't land on one's head.

"We can't do it alone, BG4MSR, you have to help me." Bai Yang said, "Without your help, we can't do it, we cannot reverse the doomed future."

"Leave it to me!" Ban Xia patted her chest excitedly and chuckled, "I was going to help you anyway, you help me, I help you, that's what mutual assistance is!"

"The most important thing now is, we lack information, we sorely lack critical information." Bai Yang said, "BG4MSR, we must know what triggered the disaster, what caused the arrival of the black moon, do you understand? Without knowing this, we can't find the right remedy, BG4MSR, whatever you know you must tell me, OVER."

"But I've already told you everything I know," Ban Xia said.

"The black moon, and the long-legged spiders that crawl about at night?"

"Yes—" Ban Xia nodded, "that's all I know, I can only remember so much. What can I do?"

"And the teacher?" Bai Yang asked, "Did the teacher leave behind any useful clues? OVER."

"Um... Teacher..."

The girl tapped her chin, deep in thought.

Despite having lived together for many years, she didn't really know her teacher, not even her name, because in this world where only two people remained, names were of no consequence. In Ban Xia's eyes, her teacher was a strong, silent, and strict woman, very knowledgeable. She taught her to read, made her memorize "Quiet Night Thoughts," the kind where if you didn't get it right, she slapped your hands, taught her hunting and shooting, everything from setting traps, filtering freshwater, to processing game. The teacher was also very mysterious, she rarely spoke of herself, and Ban Xia had only a vague understanding of her past.

"Any diaries or something? OVER."

Bai Yang asked.

"Diaries..."

Ban Xia recalled.

Did her teacher have a habit of keeping a diary?

Ban Xia shook her head; she had never seen the teacher write a diary.

"I don't know, I haven't really seen teacher write a diary. Maybe I could look for it another day for you?"

That's what she said, but Ban Xia didn't think it was very likely.

The teacher had left behind very few personal items, and Ban Xia had stored them carefully in a cabinet. When her teacher passed away, Ban Xia organized her belongings, and among paper items, there were only three old books—she had never found a diary.

One was "Three Hundred Tang Poems," which the teacher often used when making Ban Xia memorize poems and recognize characters.

One was the big English-Chinese dictionary, which the teacher used when making Ban Xia learn the twenty-six English alphabets, though in the end, Ban Xia didn't remember many words.

And there was a tattered and torn, hardcover "Journey to the West."

Ban Xia didn't know if there were any books left elsewhere. If not, these three might be the last legacies of human culture.

She suddenly remembered the two trashy novels she found at Nanjing Library some time ago.

They could be considered part of the cultural legacy of humanity, albeit the dregs.

Unfortunately, it was too cold at the time, and she burned the books for warmth. Otherwise, she could have brought them back as decorations.

The two of them chatted until late into the night. Before ending the conversation, Bai Yang did not forget to remind Ban Xia once again:

"Don't forget to look for the time capsule tomorrow, you know the location right? OVER."

The exact location of the time capsule had already been sent to the girl by Zhao Bowen's mobile phone. This afternoon, Uncle Zhao personally came over to deliver this message, using the same method, but this time, the song that played was not "Blossoming Life" but "I Love You, China."

"I know, at Crescent Lake..."

The girl suddenly stopped herself from continuing.

She let out a mischievous laugh, "What follows is a secret, I can't tell you."

Ban Xia sat on the chair, on the desk lay an Icom725, a small plastic desk lamp shone its light, outlining the girl's soft silhouette from behind. She hummed a song leisurely, outside the window was the pitch-black city, and behind was the dimly lit bedroom. Suddenly, the shadow of the bedroom door moved, then slowly "creaked—" as it was gently pushed open.