Once Upon in Nanjing-Chapter 24 - 11: The Eve

That night, Bai Yang lay in bed unable to sleep.

Lately, he had been struggling with insomnia.

Today was September 29th, and tomorrow would be the last workday before the National Day holiday. The day after, they would start their vacation. Despite being a senior high school student, the Education Bureau had granted them a full seven days off and strictly prohibited any make-up classes.

There was no moon tonight, and the weather hadn't cleared up after the rain. The external unit of the air conditioner hanging outside the wall buzzed persistently. The indoor temperature was set to 25 degrees Celsius. It wasn't too hot or dry but felt stuffy, perhaps because the doors and windows had been shut for too long, causing the carbon dioxide levels to rise. Bai Yang took a deep breath and rested his hand on his forehead.

He was dressed in a white short-sleeve tee and black shorts, with one leg bent, lying motionless on the bed, his mind running wild.

Once the tritium tube arrived tomorrow, he could start making the time-marking object and then stuff it into the time capsule and bury it in the lawn at the edge of the community square.

Where should it be buried?

Bai Yang sketched out a mental map of Meihua Villa's community plaza right before his eyes.

The plaza was very large.

For something as small as a twenty-centimeter time capsule, if he were to bury it randomly, digging it up would require ploughing through the entire area with an excavator.

If he had a metal detector, it would be a lot easier — just like the detectors used by Japanese soldiers in wartime movies to locate landmines, sweeping over the ground back and forth like a lawnmower, beeping when finding a mine. Its principle is simple electromagnetic induction. With a metal detector in hand, he could sweep over the lawn and easily locate the buried time capsule.

Of course, he might also dig up an unexploded mortar shell.

So, a marker was necessary.

Behind a bench?

Or perhaps under a tree?

Bai Yang pondered; without a doubt, the marker was important, but he couldn't bury the time capsule in a place that was too conspicuous and easy to find. After all, it needed to stay hidden safely for twenty years.

If it were hidden in an obvious place, there's no telling if someday in the future, someone like Cheng Yaojin would come out halfway and snatch it away.

The catastrophic disaster that would destroy human civilization was beyond Bai Yang's wildest imagination.

He decided to scope out the site tomorrow, in daylight, and find a few alternative locations. This location must meet these criteria:

First, it has to be concealed.

It must remain undiscovered by anyone for the next twenty years.

Second, it must be safe.

It cannot get lost or damaged in a disaster.

Third, it must ensure that the other person can find it.

It requires an exact set of coordinates so that even after twenty years, someone can still find the burial spot based on them.

Once he had buried the time capsule, he would tell BG4MSR the location so she could dig it up.

Bai Yang sighed deeply.

This was truly interesting.

Could the electromagnetic waves radiated by the radio station actually cross time? The 14.255M Hezi shortwave broadcast by the old ICOM725 shortwave radio—light is electromagnetic too, does it have the ability to traverse time?

Perhaps light does have the ability to traverse time. On any starry night, when you open your eyes and look up at the sky, the entire celestial sphere you see is very ancient.

To you, they are the past, and to them, you are the future.

But can you communicate with them in real-time?

Can the future and the past talk in real-time?

The physics teacher would pound in his coffin: Impossible! The speed of information transfer cannot exceed the speed of light!

Bai Yang turned over on the physics teacher's coffin lid, lying on his side, and looked at the old black Icom725 on the bookshelf. Others often mistook it for a radio, but in reality, its structure wasn't much more complex than a radio—the heart of a radio station is just a simple LC oscillator circuit, and the basic components of an LC circuit are an inductor and a capacitor. Two yuan can buy a bunch of inductors on Taobao, and a large bunch of capacitors. Stringing these two items together can generate a high-frequency oscillating current. For radio stations like the 725 that use quartz crystal oscillators, it's even simpler; the crystal vibrates upon being electrified, like He Leqin stepping on an accelerator pedal, except He Leqin trembles a few times a second while the crystal resonates millions of times a second. The high-frequency oscillation signal that shakes out is then transmitted through a power amplifier and an antenna. This is the principle of a radio transmitter... With such a simple structure, claiming it can travel through time is no more credible than saying one could build a spaceship out of wood planks and nails.

Many things in this world that appear mysterious and profound are nothing but amateur productions once you peel back their exterior shells.

Bai Yang turned over again and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

The room was dimly lit, and the white ceiling of the bedroom could no longer scatter enough light into Bai Yang's eyes. So, to Bai Yang, it wasn't white, but it wasn't black either, like the scene you see after closing your eyes—hard to define as a particular color, it's blurry, dim, as if dancing with the static of an old black-and-white TV set.

Bai Yang reached under the pillow and pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight towards the ceiling.

The bedroom instantly brightened, a huge white spot appeared on the ceiling, and now the path of the light was clear. Bai Yang thought of the propagation of electromagnetic waves from a radio station, how the waves radiated upward from the antenna, reaching dozens of kilometers high to the ionosphere, then being reflected back down—just like the flashlight in Bai Yang's hand now, with the light emitting from the LED, reaching up to touch the ceiling, then reflecting back into a pair of open eyes—

The girl blinked.

Ban Xia lay on her back in bed, staring blankly at the white spot on the ceiling.

She shook the small lamp in her hand, and the spot of light on the ceiling followed suit. Honestly, the game was quite boring; she wasn't a cat, uninterested in flickering lights.

But she had nothing else to do.

She couldn't fall asleep at night.

Ban Xia flipped over to lie prone on the bed, wearing a white tank top and black pajama pants, hugging the pillow and burying her face in it, then lifting her legs and rhythmically slapping them down on the bed with force, banging loudly.

After a few minutes of this, she lay still again, stretched out stiffly on the bed, her face smothered in the pillow, like a corpse.

So annoying.

This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.

Tomorrow—by the day after at the latest, BG4MXH would tell her where to hunt for treasure.

Can this plan really succeed?

So annoying, so annoying, so annoying, so annoying.

If it can't, then I'll take his dog life!

Hmph!

Ban Xia made a slicing gesture in the air with her hand.

No, that won't do, he's the only one who knows me. Where would I find another if he's gone?

Thus, Ban Xia stretched out her hands and mimicked putting a head back on in the air.

It must be because of her period; she doesn't usually get this irritable. Ban Xia lifted her face, sighed deeply, spat out the stray hair in her mouth, then flipped over to lie on her back again, holding the lamp in her hand.

She rhythmically pressed the lamp switch in her hand, making the light flash.

The teacher had taught Ban Xia how to send CW amplitude reports, which is Morse code, but Ban Xia wasn't very skilled with it, as there was rarely a need for it.

Dot-dash, tap-tap-di.

"G."

Ban Xia silently recited in her mind.

Dot-dot-dot, tap-tap-tap.

O.

Dot-dot-dot, tap-tap-tap.

O.

Dot-dash-dash, tap-di-di.

D.

"And what's next is..."

Dash-dot-dash-dash, dot-dot-dash, dash-dot-dash-dot, dash-dot-dash.

LUCK.

"Good luck."

Dot-dot-dot-dot, dot-dash, dot-dash-dash-dot, dot-dash-dash-dot, dash-dot-dash-dash.

"HAPPY."

Ban Xia traced two short arcs and then a long arc in the darkness with her fingers, forming a small smiley face.