Once We Lived in Nanjing

Tonight the moonlight is bright, Ban Xia headed straight to Xinjiekou with a bulging backpack, carrying cameras and wireless routers. This time she was extra cautious, not to walk past the intended spot.

The "Humming" Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging Remote Sensing Satellite officially completed its historic mission today, re-entering and burning up in the atmosphere. Technically, it served beyond its due, having been designed for only 160 hours of life, yet it tenaciously survived an additional day and night and reported the location of the "Big Eye" one last time before crashing.

It lingered around Zifeng Building, seizing this chance, Ban Xia headed straight for Xinjiekou.

The second deployment was more experienced than the first. The command center was stationed at Meihua Villa, with the logistics support team closely cooperating, and Bai Yang intensely monitoring. Compared to the first operation, tonight's operation was simpler and more straightforward — Ban Xia no longer needed to go to First Base or Second Base. She just needed to swing by Xinjiekou and return.

The essence of this operation was "speed".

One word, "speed", the value is in swift action, the faster the better, to minimize time spent outdoors.

"She just...needs to throw a couple of cameras?"

Bai Zhen still couldn't comprehend the purpose.

"Yes." Zhao Bowen nodded.

"What can the cameras do?" Wang Ning asked, "Do you really treat them as bait? I don't think they have any allure."

Zhao Bowen fell silent, slowly turned his back, hands clasped behind him, leaving a profound silence behind him.

Old Wang gave him a fierce middle finger.

"BG, I've seen the New Century Building... Xinjiekou has arrived, no abnormalities detected."

"All groups be aware, have reached Xinjiekou, over!"

"Attention, arrived at Xinjiekou! Over!"

"Arrived at Xinjiekou! Over!"

Ban Xia took out the cameras from her backpack, one in each hand, each camera tightly bound with transparent tape and thin cloth strips together with a battery panel and wireless routers. This was a remote surveillance camera assembled under the instruction of the command center. From Xinjiekou to Meihua Villa is five kilometers, a challenging distance for image transmission. The technical department deemed using cables impractical and barely managed to support image data transmission with two to three wireless routers spaced along the route. Ban Xia fished out several Huawei wireless routers from a pile of trash, and the command center immediately got Huawei to rewrite and flash new firmware—initially, the girl had looted Zhujiang Road, dragging back large amounts of electronic waste both useful and useless. In subsequent work, this mountain of trash turned into a treasure trove, equipped with cameras, motherboards, power supplies, and network cables; common electronic components were plentiful.

Xinjiekou Square is a vast crossroad where east-west Zhongshan East Road meets north-south Zhongshan South Road, forming a large roundabout, at the center of which stands a statue of Sun Yat-sen. This is one of the nation's busiest commercial districts, bustling with visitors daily before the world's destruction. Centered on the square, with towering buildings such as World Trade Center, Guojin Center, and Nanjing Center, it's no wonder the "Big Eye" likes to lurk here.

Everyone loves bustling places, not only in ancient and modern times domestically and abroad, but even beings from outside of Earth are no exception.

Ban Xia placed one camera on this side of the road and then ran across to the other side to set down another.

This was instructed by Zhao Bowen.

Ban Xia herself didn't understand why it had to be done this way, but Old Zhao stressed emphatically, the two cameras must be placed apart, the farther the better.

And the two cameras' angles should not be parallel—they must intersect.

Ban Xia crouched down to adjust the camera angles, ensuring the lines of sight of both cameras could meet across the plaza. With that, her task was complete.

There was also a little incident.

On her way back, passing by the alley where she was chased a few days ago, she was startled.

Under the bright moonlight, the road was covered with tiny green leaves and branches. The girl stood at the intersection, looking down the street, noticing that all the plants along the street had been cut to a unified height of just over a meter.

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Ban Xia's work was mostly done; let's leave it at that for the moment.

Switching scenes, twenty years earlier, on the other side, the headquarters was busily arranging the wedding details for Miss Qiu. Marrying off a daughter has always been a hassle since ancient times, not to mention a marriage that transcends time, galaxies, species, and civilizations. As the bride's family, to enable the "Big Eye" groom to successfully spend the wedding night with Miss Qiu and conclude past grievances, hundreds of fathers-in-law in the command center were really stressed—

When Old Zhao approached the Zhonghe Industry working group proposing Miss Qiu's deployment, the working team excitedly grasped Old Zhao's hands, saying you finally arrived. We've already bombed Nanjing in the computer 1,400 times.

"This is Xinjiekou, the area with the highest density of high-rises in Nanjing City. Miss Qiu has a yield of 10,000 tons. If detonated at Xinjiekou Square by ground explosion, it could create a crater approximately eighty meters in diameter and twenty meters deep. The nuclear fireball radius could reach two hundred meters… which means, drawing a two-hundred-meter diameter circle with Miss Qiu at the center, everything within this circle would be annihilated."

The large screen displayed a 3D map of Qinhuai District, zooming in on Xinjiekou. The speaker snapped his fingers, and a deep red sphere expanded at the center of Xinjiekou.

This sphere had a diameter of two hundred meters. Predictably, within 0.001 seconds after the nuclear bomb explodes, the high-rise buildings surrounding Xinjiekou Square—World Trade Center, Guojin Center, Nanjing Center—all of these glass curtain skyscrapers would instantly melt and evaporate from existence.

The melting point of steel is fifteen hundred degrees Celsius, and glass begins to soften at six hundred degrees Celsius. Under the high temperatures of a nuclear blast, they would be like wax sculptures.

"Inside the nuclear fireball, there's a temperature of ten million degrees and a pressure of 2000 Psi. It's like a mini Sun—Gods block, kill gods; Buddhas block, kill Buddhas!" The speaker's tone was incredibly harsh, "Within one second of the nuclear blast, the blast wave will sweep across everything..."

"Stop, stop, we are already clear about its power," someone interrupted him, "What we need to know now is whether it will cause harm to MSR."

The speaker pondered for a few seconds.

"Let's continue then. In a five-hundred-meter radius from where Miss Qiu exploded, the buildings will be completely leveled. Within this range, the overpressure can reach 20 Psi. Human-made reinforced concrete structures essentially cannot withstand such an impact, but beyond three kilometers—over at Jiefang Road, the overpressure of the blast wave drops to 1 Psi, enough to shatter windows, possibly causing injury, but not fatal. And Meihua Villa is five or six kilometers away from Xinjiekou."

The big screen added another larger hemisphere outside the red fireball. This hemisphere had a diameter of three kilometers, representing the lethal range of Miss Qiu's shockwave.

"So, the shockwave from its explosion won't seriously damage Meihua Villa?"

"Yes," the speaker nodded in confirmation.

"What about First Base and Second Base? Can they withstand the nuclear blast?"

"Don't worry, First Base and Second Base are sufficiently far from the center of the nuclear explosion. When the blast wave reaches their location, the overpressure is about 5 Psi. This force can destroy most residential buildings, but it can't do anything to the underground shelters designed for nuclear resistance. Our primary consideration when designing these bases was nuclear defense."

"And what about the radiation?"

"Radiation hazards are greater than the shockwave. We designed this nuclear bomb trying to greatly reduce radiation hazards and radioactive contamination. After the blast, within an eight hundred meter radius from the center, the dose of ionizing radiation can reach up to 50 Sv. Ordinary people would die within five minutes in such a radiation environment... however, they would likely already be dead from the high temperature or the shockwave before dying from radiation. Beyond one kilometer from the center, the radiation dosage still reaches 5 Sv, enough to be fatal to humans, and even if one were lucky enough to survive, they would suffer from radiation sickness. So, in the event of a nuclear explosion, it's crucial to protect oneself, hide away, and seek shelter in buildings—the further, the better."

Participants exchanged concerned glances.

"What about radioactive contamination?"

"According to the data from Director Zhao and the weather and wind direction recorded by MSR over the past week, we believe that the prevailing winds during this season are from the northeast."

The speaker continued with the PowerPoint presentation, dragging a long red tail southwest from the center of the nuclear explosion at Xinjiekou on the map.

This tail was so long it extended beyond the map.

"Where will it blow to?"

The speaker didn't respond, zooming out on the map continuously until the entire city of Nanjing was reduced to the size of a palm. Only then did everyone realize that the radioactive dust was blowing all the way to Wuhu.

"It will form a nearly thousand-square-kilometer area of radioactive contamination," the speaker stated.

"If it blows in that direction, then Second Base will be within the contaminated belt," someone pointed out.

The speaker nodded.

"Yes, so after the nuclear explosion, we can only head north to First Base."

Zhao Bowen sat in the second row of the conference room. According to his status, he should have been seated in the second-to-last row. As a temporarily appointed wartime frontline commander, with no formal position and significant authority, he was less experienced and decorated than the others present. Often, Zhao managed to dominate the room through sheer presence, unafraid of anyone like a toad staring down. If it were Bai Zhen or Wang Ning standing there, they might have been too intimidated to push back against a major leader's difficulties.

You hedge, I compromise, and the squabbling continues until tomorrow morning.

But Zhao was different. As an eternal associate professor, even if Commander Ikari sat in front of him, he would dare snatch the sunglasses glued to his face with superglue 502 and force him to see how much time was left.

Time, oh time, Zhao Bowen sighed silently in his heart. Though separated by the lengthy span of twenty years, every second was fiercely contested.

"Meeting adjourned!"

The speaker concluded his planning arrangement.

Everyone stood up to leave, and only this last meeting room in the provincial party committee building remained lit. It was one-twenty in the morning, the Organization Department should have closed, but the command headquarters was still meeting.

He should also write an article when he returned, titled "The Light of the Command Headquarters."

Zhao Bowen sat there, silently thinking.