Once We Lived in Nanjing

Zhao Bowen's heart slowly sank, sinking into his abdominal cavity, his large intestine, his bladder, all the way down through the floor, sinking into the ground.

A group of people sat in the living room in silence. The channel was also silent. The entire team stayed up all night with BG4MSR until the sunrise when the command center confirmed the mission had failed—no one wanted to face this reality, but reality is such a thing, whether you look at it or not, it's still there. It acted like a mirror reflecting people's wishful thinking; from the beginning of the East Red Plan until now, everyone had been harboring hope. If the fireworks were successful, and even Heng and Ha succeeded, then there was no reason Miss Qiu wouldn't succeed—but what reason could there be in this?

Review the three laws of the Time Slow Delivery. This world just hinders anyone from escaping the great filter. Leaving Earth is the most prudent method, but it's not a 100% successful plan.

Even ordinary space missions have a failure rate, let alone a spaceship journey spanning twenty years. Any single component could malfunction, and once a spaceship has a problem, it turns into junk metal drifting aimlessly on an orbit where there's neither village ahead nor shop behind. The cold, severe reality peeled away everyone's fig leaves until all the dust settled and people realized no one was sure, but everyone still pretended to be confident.

The entire project team reset to zero, leaving old Zhao sitting on the sofa munching on an apple, his heart racing, hands trembling, and forehead breaking out in cold sweat.

Deadly, deadly, deadly, deadly, deadly, deadly, deadly.

He had lost a nuclear bomb.

Fuck.

At this time, a normal person would have had a heart attack. Zhao Bowen hoped his heart would also give him some respect by having one since the ambulance could reach his building in three minutes after calling 120. He'd rather be hospitalized, connected to a ventilator, unconscious—perhaps when he woke up, someone would stand by his bed and seriously tell him: Comrade Zhao Bowen, the crisis has been completely resolved, and your mission is finished!

"Fuck..."

Zhao Bowen said, tightly grasping his hair.

Now no one knew where that nuclear bomb was; it might be lost at any point in time on any segment of the orbit, irretrievable.

"It's my responsibility," Wang Ning said.

The others were stunned.

"I only asked the Buddha to bless the rocket for a successful launch when I was praying at Qixia Temple," Wang Ning sighed, "I forgot to ask for a successful return of the spaceship."

"Then indeed you should die," Bai Zhen said, "Commit suicide as an apology to the Party and the people."

"Phone!" The phone on the coffee table vibrated, and Wang Ning threw it in front of Zhao Bowen, "What should we do next? Is there a chance to retrieve it?"

"It's impossible," Bai Zhen said, "The first key to escaping the great filter is to avoid human interference. The spaceship cut off all contact with the ground once it entered orbit—no one can find it."

"But we know its orbit," Wang Ning said, "Can we send a spaceship urgently to chase it and bring it back?"

"Do you think this is Star Wars?" Bai Zhen rolled his eyes, "Has humanity ever done such a thing in history? Even if you could actually bring it back, then you would become the reason for the mission's failure."

"Fuck."

"Old Zhao! That..."

Bai Zhen turned his head about to say something but was pushed away by Zhao Bowen.

Old Zhao pushed them away, walking out the door without speaking, down the stairs, his body wobbling, head hanging, back hunched, as if he might collapse onto the ground at any moment.

Bai Zhen hesitated to speak.

"Old Zhao... Fuck!"

As expected, he tripped. Zhao Bowen missed a step and slid downwards, bouncing and rolling down to the corner of the building.

Bai Zhen and Wang Ning hurried over to him.

They scrambled to help old Zhao up, but he didn't react at all. He just frowned, pursed his lips, adjusted the tortoiseshell glasses on his nose, and coldly glanced at the two old pals before continuing downstairs.

The two old pals stood there, not knowing what to do. From Zhao Bowen's eyes, they saw resentment. What was he resenting? Resenting the team for being incompetent, resenting the spaceship for being unreliable, or resenting the world for leaving no way out?

But whatever he was resenting, the fact was set in stone. Both old friends knew clearly that Zhao Bowen expressing his emotions was just him acting out in despair; he was out of options.

Such a colossal plan, mobilizing unimaginable human and material resources, ultimately fell short of success.

Old Zhao was crushed.

·

·

·

Zhao Bowen arrived at the usual spot in front of the building where he sat smoking broodingly, only to find that someone had beat him to it.

It was Bai Yang and Lian Qiao.

The two sat side by side, motionless.

"Excuse me."

Old Zhao squeezed in, sitting between the two.

He sat down heavily, his pants covered in dust and even torn, but he didn't care, pulling out a cigarette and lighter from his jacket pocket and lighting up.

"Director, smoking is harmful to your health," Lian Qiao reminded.

"Not many years left for me anyway, so harmful it is," Zhao Bowen responded with a cigarette in his mouth, "What are you two doing here?"

"Discussing if there's still any way to salvage this," Bai Yang said.

"Just the two of you?" Old Zhao sneered, somewhat disdainfully.

"Now you're here too," Lian Qiao said, "Director, does the headquarters have any contingency plans?"

"Yes, there's another rocket, another spacecraft, theoretically we still have one more chance," Zhao Bowen answered, "As long as we can wait two more months, until the next nuclear bomb is ready."

Waiting another two months is indeed just a theoretical chance.

No one knows whether under the threat of the big eye, BG4MSR could last two more months, everyone is pessimistic, the longer we delay, the worse it is for us, that's the consensus.

"Uncle Zhao, could you dig deeper?" Bai Yang asked, "This country is so large, maybe there are secret weapons hidden somewhere, maybe some unparalleled master, perhaps there's still great untapped power..."

"There's nothing left." Zhao Bowen interrupted impatiently, "Where else can I dig? If I dig any further, I'll break through the core of the earth. In all of China, billions of people, but a top figure in any field is just a handful, maybe less than five fingers can actually be of help, whatever could be dug up has been dug up by me, what more do you want me to dig? Want me to dig up Sun Monkey from Five Elements Mountain to help?"

He was really annoyed.

Why can these people ask such stupid questions? Why do these people always fantasize that there's always a solution? Why do these people always think there's always room for recovery? If everything had a perfect solution, everyone had a perfect ending, then where would all the misfortunes and disasters in human history come from? Goddamn it, God has been dead in the gutter for a long time, praying to deities is useless, if it can't be fixed, it just can't be fixed, a dead planet is a dead planet, can you fucking understand, idiots!

He shouldn't have taken over this mess. Let the world be destroyed, better to be done and clean earlier, everyone turns into orange juice to meet Rei Ayanami.

Old Zhao sullenly smoked.

When he was emotionally collapsing, he was utterly hysterical.

"Now it's premature to say the mission failed," Lian Qiao said, "It might just be delayed, maybe the spacecraft will arrive tonight?"

"There is that possibility," Zhao Bowen said, his face as pale as a zombie's, "But technically speaking, it either arrives on time or never arrives."

"I believe it will come back," Lian Qiao said earnestly.

"Yeah," Zhao Bowen said coldly, while inwardly finishing the sentence:

You are such an idiot.