Once We Lived in Nanjing

At this moment, nobody knows what the hell Zhao Bowen is doing.

However, the Reverse Future World-saving Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Command Center still sends him WeChat messages and emails on schedule, reporting the latest developments and conveying the newest intelligence, but he has never replied.

"Which mental hospital is it in Shanghai?" Bai Zhen asked, "Let's call and ask if there's a patient named Zhao Bowen who has been admitted recently."

"There are way too many Zhao Bowens in the whole country." Wang Ning casually unplugged the audio cable from the motherboard's interface, "Where is the DHMI cable?"

The Celeron 3150 industrial motherboard is powerful enough to run an XP system, which allows Bai Zhen to enjoy the freedom of playing Red Alert.

They built a super space-time camera using the industrial motherboard as the core, connected to a monitor, camera, keyboard, and radio station; but while it sounds simple, putting it all together is a complete mess.

It's chaotic on Bai Zhen and Wang Ning's end, one can only imagine what Ban Xia's situation is like.

Still, the main problem lies in programming.

Bai Zhen's mediocre programming skills not only boldly volunteered to teach the young girl how to write software, he confidently swore it was no issue, that he could handle this small problem as it was only writing a minor piece of software—during the entire data transmission process, the only part Ban Xia needed to independently write was a very small initial segment of the program, meant to receive subsequent codes. As long as that part was installed correctly, larger, more complex software could be directly transferred over.

Bai Zhen's plan was ticking away perfectly; he skillfully demonstrated on his computer for others, his typing flowed like streaming water, flipping through pages swiftly, and using Ctrl C and Ctrl V with ease, appearing every bit like a top-notch hacker.

"Look! Look! Once it's installed correctly, the first step of the Long March is taken! The first heap of a mountain of crap is piled up!"

Bai Zhen patted the laptop on the sofa, its screen displaying his remarkable essay crafted using his many years of experience in C language and skillful use of copy-paste.

"Upcoming video compression software, image processing software, signal modulation software, dummies package, CAD suite, Unity, Unreal 3, World of Warcraft, StarCraft—everything can be transferred and installed with one click!"

Bai Yang couldn't help but see his dad in a new light.

He almost started rubbing his temples and circling his eye sockets.

His dad wasn't just an ordinary ride-hailing driver; he was a ride-hailing driver who could copy and paste!

Bai Zhen was full of talk, but by the time they got to BG4MSR, it turned into a disaster.

"BG4MSR, let's check it one more time, one more time—" Bai Yang sighed, hugging the laptop, "Let's go through the code again, see where exactly the problem lies, OVER."

"Um, okay, let's go through it once more."

Another late night.

Ever since diving into the programming process, Ban Xia and Bai Yang had been caught in endless self-checking and self-revision, not understanding why a small few KB software could result in over a dozen different errors—the entire software was 4KB in size, four thousand bytes in data volume, and statistically, twelve different errors occurred, averaging one error per three hundred thirty bytes, with each bug fix by dad resulting in two new bugs. The bugs included but were not limited to black screen, black screen, and black screen.

The same code would present different bugs at different times, on different dates, and even the direction the motherboard was placed affected the bugs.

Wang Ning joked that Yang's dad had written a feng shui software.

It would be perfect for direction-testing a graveyard; just forget about holding a compass and hold the motherboard—if a bug appears in one direction, that direction is seriously ominous.

"I can't watch anymore, BG4MXH, I can't bear to see it anymore, it's making my eyes hurt." Ban Xia rubbed her eyes, she had already spent three days on this, looking at the teacher's drafts by day and Bai Zhen's code by night, hard to say which was more chaotic and nonsensical.

It was really tough on her.

"Hang in there a little longer, young lady, my dad said if it doesn't succeed tonight, he will find someone more professional to help. The darkest hour is just before the dawn; if we get through this, success is definitely coming, OVER." Bai Yang felt like an old snake oil salesman preaching success.

"I don't want to struggle with this any longer, it's too hard, too hard, I simply can't learn it…" Ban Xia looked pitiful, squatting on her chair, her knees hugged tight, sniffling and sobbing, "I can't learn it!"

Bai Yang thought that was it, she's disgusted with learning.

A child being perpetually at the bottom of the class and not keeping up with the progress leads to an aversion to learning.

What should a parent do in this situation? Bai Yang's mind quickly spun, how should one handle a child's aversion to learning?

Canceling the account, starting over.

Pfff.

Move with emotion, impart with reasoning, foster self-confidence, and tempt with sincerity.

"Young lady, listen to me, this is a challenge we must overcome. You've solved so many difficult problems, are you still afraid of this one? Let's try one last time, okay? OVER."

"Really?" the girl sniffled, "This is the last time, okay?"

"Yeah, the last time, OVER."

Bai Yang was quite the scoundrel, not knowing which 'last time' this was supposed to be, as each time was always 'the last time'.

Obviously, this 'last time' had failed as well—

"Cheer up, failure is the mother of success, let's strike while the iron is hot, let failure give birth to success right away, miss! One last time, this time we can definitely succeed!"

"Miss, I've found the key to the problem! One last, last, last time!"

"I swear to the heavens, tonight is the la—st— time!"

"I can't do this anymore! I can't!" Ban Xia threw herself onto the bed, hugged her pillow, and buried her face in it, "Brother, please spare me, let me be, I'll do anything else, just don't make me stare at these codes anymore... I'm in agony."

"Miss."

"I can't do this anymore."

"Miss."

"I can't do this!"

"Miss."

"I—can't—do—it—anymore!"

"Do you want to see the Confucius Temple, miss?"

Ban Xia kept her head buried in the pillow, lying motionless on the bed, holding the microphone for a long time before she mumbled, "Yes."

"Do you want to see the Qinhuai River?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to see the malls and cinemas at Xinjiekou?"

"You only know how to tempt me with these! You are a devil!" The girl angrily got up, yelling into the microphone, "Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!"

"If you don't establish the image transmission link, I can't send you the photos, miss, I promise, if you can fix it, whatever you want to see, I'll photograph it for you, I'll take you all around Nanjing, okay? OVER." Bai Yang enticed and pressured.

"Devil! You wish to trade my soul for the benefits you promised!"

"Okay or not?"

"Um… okay, it's a deal then." Ban Xia hung her head low, slowly got up, "You better remember to take those photos for me, I want Confucius Temple, Qinhuai River, and also Xinjiekou!"

"Alright, I promise you, I will take them, OVER."

"One last time then."

The girl sat back in her chair, took a deep breath, gathered her messy hair to the back of her head, then slapped her cheeks, telling herself: You can do it! Ban Xia! You can make it!

Twenty minutes later.

"I can't do it..."

The girl looked at the error-filled program, sighed deeply, her heart felt as good as dead.

She didn't understand why humans had to invent something as torturous as this, C language, damn it.

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(Today, the author ran around all day, attending the annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen.)