Once We Lived in Nanjing

Bai Zhen and Wang Ning completed the transmission scheme of AFSK modulated image signals in the simulation experiment, and they excitedly high-fived each other. It was pitch dark, and they couldn't see each other, so they ended up smacking each other's foreheads with crisp sounds. Without stopping for a moment, they immediately began transplanting the whole scheme onto Bai Yang and BG4MSR's Icom725.

Today is Friday, and there are no classes tomorrow. Bai Yang is devotedly accompanying the gentlemen, staying up late into the night with his old man and Uncle Wang.

"private int [] Filter _10Khz（int [] Data）, did you hear that clearly? OVER."

"Understood."

"Repeat it, OVER."

"private int [] Filter _10Khz（int [] Data）."

Ban Xia lit the lamp, wore headphones, and held a pen, recording all the code she heard.

They were actually dictating the code aloud, while Bai Yang had a book "C#:From Entry to Possession" spread out in his hands.

Wang Ning and Bai Zhen were sitting behind him on the bed, with laptops on their knees, checking the code one last time, as if receiving a divine oracle from Huawei's communication experts descending from the heavens.

"What code is this?"

"Uhm… it's an envelope detector program."

"Move it up a bit, let's check the data reception program of the transport layer again."

"What about the data sending function of the transport layer?"

"Package them all, package!"

The clock on the desk pointed to one in the morning. Bai Yang rubbed his eyes and yawned, trying to keep his spirit up. God knows if their method would work, teaching a girl who knew nothing about programming to install a transmission program, the problems involved would cause intense fear. Bai Yang had already felt it—over the past two days, they had hurriedly tutored BG4MSR with basic programming knowledge, force-feeding her like filling a vessel. If knowledge could be transferred like internal energy, then Bai Zhen and Wang Ning would wish they could pull the little girl out of the radio and pass on their decades of amateur radio knowledge directly to BG4MSR, making her head smoke with the gathered essence, making her gain seventy years of skills overnight like Virtual Bamboo.

Sadly, knowledge and intelligence can't be transmitted hand to hand, which is too bad. If it were possible, then Duan Yu's Beiming Divine Art and the Old Immortal of the Star-Picking Great Method could turn others into fools, making it the number one divine martial arts skill, causing everyone who heard about it to lose their courage.

"Is it the Return key next? BG4MXH? BG4MXH?"

The girl's voice brought Bai Yang back from his wild thoughts.

Bai Yang blinked his eyes; indeed, it was deep into the night, and his mind was starting to get foggy.

"Yes, it is the Return key, OVER."

Ban Xia marked a Return key on the paper and started a new line. Recording all information on paper was a good habit, allowing her to refer back to it at any time.

This is, accurately speaking, called a mission log, with each step recorded, traceable in case any issues arise so the source of the problem could be quickly identified.

"statusChart1.Value = re 10（i）;"

"status...Chart1.V...Value?"

"Yes, Value."

In front of Ban Xia, a heavy Icom725 amateur radio stood, with an even heavier CRT monitor to its left and an old, yellowed white plastic keyboard, while chaotic cables all converged on a wall-mounted industrial motherboard by the window. Black, blue, red, white, and gray cables were plugged into the motherboard's ports, with the red and blue LED lights shining in the dim room. These bulky, ancient electronics almost took up all the space on the desk, resembling mountain ranges of varying heights, leaving just a little space for spreading out paper. The girl was enveloped by them, nearly invisible once she bent her head down.

Half a month ago, Ban Xia would not have believed she could achieve all this—looking at these complex electronic components, the messy cables, and adapters, did she really manage all this?

Did she really manage to put together a Super Space-Time image communication system with a pile of electronic waste?

"private void DatasendThread（）."

"private...void DatasendThread（）..."

"While（true）."

"What is this?" asked Ban Xia.

"It's a sending code," replied Bai Yang.

"Will it work this time?" Ban Xia asked.

Bai Yang hesitated for a moment, "This time it should be reliable. The code wasn't written by my dad, but by an expert we hired, who is much better than my dad."

Actually, he also had no confidence in his heart. There might not be a problem with the code, but the problems were not just in the code.

Ban Xia copied all the code onto paper. The code itself was actually very simple; all modules combined were less than four hundred lines.

Then she typed it into the motherboard letter by letter. Ban Xia's two-finger typing speed was extremely fast. She confirmed the code again with BG4MXH to ensure no errors and then took a deep breath.

She sat in the chair, her eyes fixed on the CRT monitor.

"BG4MXH, I'm going to start."

"Okay."

Bai Yang turned his head to look at his old dad and Uncle Wang behind him, pointed at the radio, signaling that they were about to start the experiment.

Wang Ning and Bai Zhen nodded at the same time.

"BG4MXH, guess what, will it succeed?"

Ban Xia's fingers hovered over the keyboard.

"It will."

"What shall we bet on?" the girl asked leisurely.

Bai Yang paused, "Bet what?"

"Betting who loses has to call the winner 'dad'," Uncle Wang sitting behind said, "that's the only thing you guys can bet on."

"Let's bet something big. Let's bet the lives of the seventy billion people in the world!" Ban Xia suddenly grinned, her words taking Bai Yang by surprise, and even made him almost leave his chair, "If you win, then you will have the lives of seventy billion people in the world. If you lose, then they are doomed."

At this moment, Ban Xia seemed like a little devil, holding a remote controller in her hand, and a bomb strapped to the earth. The lives of everyone in the world were in her hands. All she had to do was press the remote controller, and the earth would be blown up, killing everyone; the fate of all humankind hinged on her thoughts, yet she chose to make a game out of it. The little devil found a young Earthling and said, let's bet on something? Let's bet on the fate of all humankind.

This indeed was a massive gamble.

"Are you betting?"

"Are you betting?"

"Not talking? That means you agree!"

"Hey... wait I didn't say I agree..."

Ban Xia's face was illuminated by the eerie blue light emitted from the CRT monitor. She gently tapped her finger, and in the absolute silence, there was a "pop" sound.

Bai Yang sat on the chair, the channel was silent for a long time, and then the girl's voice came:

"You lost, it failed."

It failed.

It ran with errors.

"Because you lost, the seventy billion people in the world have disappeared. Now this world is left with just me. Did I do as I said?"

"I..."

Bai Yang didn't know what to say.

"Relax, I actually didn't kill them..."

Ban Xia turned off the desk lamp, turned off the monitor, and the light in the room faded. She sat alone quietly in the darkness, with no moon outside the window, and it was already 2:30 in the morning.

She raised her head looking at the night sky and said softly:

"They have just turned into stars."