Once We Lived in Nanjing

The big one is coming.

This was the first reaction of Old Bai and Old Wang upon hearing Zhao Bowen's words.

"Be very careful, Old Zhao, do not do anything foolish," Wang Ning reminded him, "This is a nuclear weapon we're talking about."

"How sure are we that a nuclear bomb can completely eradicate Big Eyes?" Bai Zhen asked.

"At most fifty percent, at least thirty percent," Zhao Bowen replied.

"What's the basis for that assessment?"

"There isn't one."

Zhao Bowen sat down on the sofa, crossed his legs, and touched his pocket, then remembered he had thrown away his pack of cigarettes, so he took an apple from the fruit basket on the coffee table and took a crisp bite:

"The central temperature of a nuclear bomb's fireball can exceed ten million degrees Celsius, while the metal element with the highest known melting point is tungsten, with a melting point of three thousand four hundred degrees Celsius, and the compound with the highest known melting point is hafnium carbide, with a melting point of four thousand two hundred degrees Celsius. Nothing can survive inside a nuclear fireball; this is the most terrifying force in the universe, equivalent to creating a second Sun right in Nanjing City. No matter how powerful Big Eyes is, dare it clash with a star?"

Thanks to greats like Einstein and Oppenheimer, human civilization mastered the technology to release energy from the atomic nucleus last century. The so-called thunderous revelation in silence, the most powerful force is born from the tiniest of things. If humanity were a magical society, this would be the legendary Super Forbidden Skill·Earth Explosion Constant Star.

"Where is it going to explode?" Bai Zhen asked.

"It needs to detonate in an appropriate location. The range of a nuclear bomb's destruction is vast, but the diameter of the nuclear fireball itself is very small, only a few hundred meters. I believe Big Eyes can't withstand the high temperatures and extreme pressure inside the fireball, but the shockwave and nuclear radiation might not be able to destroy it. Therefore, it needs to be close enough to the bomb, within a few hundred meters," Zhao Bowen continued, "So the bomb should have enough power at close range to vaporize Big Eyes, but at long range, its impact on the environment must be minimized, otherwise that girl won't be able to operate."

"What does Zhonghe Industry say?"

"They say they can do it," Zhao Bowen opened the laptop on the coffee table and buried his head in it, "However, they also suggest that we should flexibly utilize the local terrain and buildings in Nanjing, as the city's high-rise buildings can effectively shield against the flash, heat, and shockwaves."

He turned the laptop around, displaying a map on the screen.

"So what we need is a spot surrounded by tall buildings on all sides, right?" Wang Ning said slowly.

"That's easy to find," Bai Zhen said with a scoff.

For the three local Nanjingers present, finding such a place was too simple.

Wang Ning sat up, "That's so like you, Old Zhao. Couldn't streak naked through Xinjiekou, and now you hold a grudge, so you want to blow it up with a nuclear bomb."

Old Zhao continued to pound on the computer, after tapping away for a few seconds, he raised his head to ask:

"Does anyone have the building structure plans for the area around Xinjiekou?"

Bai Zhen and Wang Ning were both stunned.

"Neither of you have it? Then hurry up and get one for me, I need it now," Old Zhao said.

"It's almost 1 in the morning now, where the hell am I supposed to get that from?" Wang Ning spread his hands, "You might not clock out, but other people do, you might not sleep, but other people have to."

Zhao Bowen raised his voice and called out towards Bai Yang's bedroom: "Yangyang! Do you have the above-ground and underground building structure plans for Xinjiekou?"

"How could Yangyang, a student, possibly have that?" Wang Ning said, "Old Zhao, you should wait for daylight and go to the Urban Construction Bureau..."

"Xinjiekou?"

Bai Yang's voice came from the bedroom.

Bai Yang pondered for a moment.

"Uncle Zhao, wait a second—!"

He took out his phone and dialed someone's number.

"Hello? Big young master, hey, it's me. You're not asleep, right? I have a question, the big roundabout at the Xinjiekou subway station, wasn't it built by your dad's company?"

Zhao Bowen proposed overnight to push for the third phase of the East Red Plan; this time, the proposal was not rebutted. BG4MSR stepped out and encountered Big Eyes, going missing for a full day and night, which really scared everyone. Swordman's existence is a huge hidden danger and threat. As long as it remains, the headquarters can't be at peace.

But there was always a big issue with how to execute the plan.

Miss Qiu's withdrawal, delivery, and activation all have solutions, but there's nothing we can do regarding the detonation trigger—the timing and location of Miss Qiu's explosion are the keys to the success or failure of the plan. If the distance is too far, the operation will be in vain. According to the command's plan, to ensure the annihilation of Big Eyes, the nuclear bomb must detonate close up, the closer the better, using the instantaneous ultra-high temperature and pressure to melt and vaporize Swordman within a few hundred meters distance—it would be akin to tossing Big Eyes into the Sun, and the command believes that not even aliens can withstand it.

But the power that even aliens can't withstand is even more unbearable for humans.

The premise of the third phase of the East Red Plan is to ensure that Ban Xia remains unharmed, so there are significant restrictions on the detonation location of the nuclear bomb—it can't just explode wherever we want—the best location right now is Xinjiekou.

This means the detonation location for the nuclear bomb is fixed.

But Big Eyes isn't fixed; it's a mobile entity that can roam everywhere.

How to ensure it and Miss Qiu come together in happy union, ascending to paradise—to trigger the nuclear explosion at the most appropriate moment is a challenging problem to solve.

To tackle this challenge, at the next day's regular meeting, deities of all paths proposed their remarkable and absurd suggestions.

The first method, the trap approach.

Set up a huge trap in Xinjiekou, wait for the prey to fall into the pot. Once Big Eyes steps into the trap, it gets locked down, triggering Miss Qiu to send it to the heavens.

The second method, the figurine approach.

Set up a life-sized figurine of a girl in Xinjiekou, equipped with loudspeakers that constantly play "The Girl Across" or "You Are My Eyes" on a loop for 24 hours—if Big Eyes is an old otaku, it will definitely take the bait.

The third method, the AI-controlled nuclear weapon.

Hand over the detonation authority of the nuclear weapons to an AI—Miss Qiu decides her own fate! As soon as it detects Big Eyes coming close, it triggers the explosion.

(Opponents of this plan considered it the first step towards building Skynet.)

The grand schemes were wild, some even touched upon sci-fi like the Flying Patrol Guidance Method, or the Governor's shoulder-fired launch method. But once we got down to practical operation and implementation, all these paper-made gods were easily debunked.

The engineering team rebuked, you all just talk the talk without considering the practicalities!

Because of this, Zhao Bowen was nearly worried to death.

After returning, he sat smoking at the entrance of the apartment building when Bai Yang ran into him.

"What am I thinking? I'm thinking that waiting for the hare like guarding a tree stump just won't work, it's like a blind cat wanting to kill a mouse. If Big Eyes doesn't go that way, won't we be unable to do anything about it?" Zhao Bowen said to him, "No matter what, we need to take some initiative to ensure Big Eyes definitely gets close to Miss Qiu."

"Then set a bait?" Bai Yang asked, "You can't catch a wolf without sacrificing some kittens, right?"

"Yeah, you can't catch a wolf without sacrificing some kittens. We use that girl as bait, I guarantee it would work," Old Zhao casually exhaled a ring of white smoke.

"That's not acceptable!" Bai Yang immediately objected.

"Yeah, of course, it's not acceptable, which is why this problem is so hard to solve," Zhao Bowen sighed, "We need a bait, but the value of this bait is higher than everything, what should we do?"

The man turned around, his gaze somewhat blurred, and asked Bai Yang:

"Yangyang, do you think there really exists a completely seamless egg in this world?"

Bai Yang was startled.

"Does a flawless enemy truly exist?" Zhao Bowen asked again, "Is there really such a thing as an unsolvable problem?"

Bai Yang frowned.

"I reviewed all of Swordman's data back and forth this morning, and strangely, I feel like I've caught onto something. There must be some characteristic of Swordman that we can exploit... but what could it be?"

"Hmm..." Bai Yang also helped him think, "Super huge eyeballs? Eight long legs? Constant eye contact with people? Never harms animals?"

"What did you say?" Zhao Bowen interrupted him.

"I said Swordman's characteristics."

"What you just said."

"Never harms animals."

"The sentence before that."

"Constant eye contact with people."

"That's it, why does it always make eye contact with people?"