Ban Xia strung up the salted fish one by one with rope. They were slender blue fish that didn’t need bait to catch—just a hook, as they couldn’t distinguish between fishhooks and bait. They would bite at anything shiny, sometimes catching four or five on a single line. On fishing days, Ban Xia could enjoy two meals of fresh fish. After cleaning the innards of the blue fish and patting them dry, she would drop them into hot oil, frying them golden brown, crispy outside, and tender inside. The blue fish were especially fatty and tender this season, melting in the mouth with a sweet, fresh taste.

The remaining fish were salted and hung on the balcony to dry.

In the morning light, the girl’s sweaty profile traced out gentle curves, her fair skin nearly translucent in the sunlight, showing faintly red blood vessels. As she stretched up on tiptoe to hang the fish, her spine and waist beneath the black short-sleeve top and shorts resembled early spring willow branches.

She was truly a lovely, delicate girl.

But the next moment, this delicate girl caught an American cockroach flying past her face with lightning speed, crushing it between her thumb and forefinger.

Ban Xia’s Seventy-Two Ultimate Skills: Diamond Finger!

After hanging the salted fish, the girl picked up the plastic basin from the floor and poured the bloody water down the kitchen drain.

The old standing fan in the living room swayed back and forth with a “clack-clack” sound, its head threatening to fall off at any moment. No one knew how many years this fan had been used—the teacher had found it in a garbage heap, yet somehow it still worked.

“Mom, Dad, I’ll wash the clothes first, then make breakfast.”

Ban Xia walked to the bathroom in her blue plastic slippers, making flip-flop sounds. She grabbed the dirty clothes from the washbasin and sniffed them.

A strong sour smell of sweat made her wrinkle her nose and quickly hold them at arm’s length.

Even beautiful young girls have body odor.

“Where’s the soap… where did the soap go?”

The girl stood on one foot, searching around the bathroom with quick movements.

Brown hard soap was used for washing clothes—Ban Xia had stored plenty of it, but fragrant bath soap was hard to find. Especially when stored long-term in humid places, wet conditions would make the soap go rancid and moldy.

“Dad—! Mom—! Have you seen where the soap is? The soap for washing clothes… ah, I found it, I found it.”

She had a very durable wooden washboard.

First soaking the dirty clothes in water, Ban Xia brought over a small stool and began scrubbing.

“Mom, Dad, I haven’t been able to contact him for three days. Do you think he’s ignoring me?”

The girl looked down at the blue jeans in her hands, soap suds and dirty water running through her fingers, lost in thought.

“Will he be online tonight?”

“He said he lives in 2019. Dad, Mom, do you think this is true or false? Does the ICOM 725 have this kind of function? If it’s not true, then he lives in Qinhuai District—why haven’t we run into him in all these years?”

In a world where human civilization had been destroyed, time had changed from clear, precise countable boxes into flowing river water. Ban Xia made a mark on paper for each passing day, drawing a circle. She might be the last person in the universe keeping time, with the entire universe’s time determined by her say-so.

Ban Xia said today was September 5, 2040.

So this vast universe, with its observable radius of 45 billion light-years, was September 5, 2040.

Ban Xia had a thick stack of paper for keeping time. When she ran out of paper, she would carve the time into walls, pillars, floors, tree trunks, and even roads.

In a world with only one person left, was there still any need to keep a calendar?

Ban Xia didn’t know.

She was just following what the teacher did, and after the teacher was gone, she continued the teacher’s practice. This lonely girl walked forward alone, stretching out the history of human existence bit by bit.

Ban Xia had a mechanical pocket watch that needed winding every day, but mechanical watches would gradually become inaccurate, so she found several watches to cross-reference—but the truly most accurate reference was the Black Moon, which unfailingly appeared on the horizon at 6:30 every evening, never late.

When checking the time, Ban Xia only needed to hold her watch and look at the Black Moon rising on the horizon to know if her watch was accurate.

The teacher had said the Black Moon’s punctuality, never a minute off each day, meant its orbit must be a perfect circle, and such a perfect circular orbit indicated it wasn’t a natural satellite.

Ban Xia certainly knew it wasn’t a natural satellite.

When she was born, this world had only one moon.

That was the White Moon.

The girl finished washing the pants, wrung them out hard, then shook them out and hung them on the clothesline in the living room, patting them from side to side.

“If only I could prove to him that I live in 2040.”

“But besides myself, there’s no one else who can verify what I’m saying.”

“Dad, Mom, if only you could speak.”

After breakfast, Ban Xia cleaned the house thoroughly.

A big cleaning had to be done every week. First moving her parents to the balcony, then wiped down all the sofas and tables with a cloth. The solid wood coffee table was very heavy and difficult to move. The original table had been glass but was long since broken, so the teacher had replaced it with wood. Back then, it had taken all the strength of both the teacher and her to carry it up.

The girl hummed gently to herself as she worked.

Ban Xia knew many songs, all taught by the teacher, who had a beautiful singing voice.

In the years when the teacher was still alive, she had led Ban Xia through the empty streets, using the song to drive away nearby wild animals.

The girl cleaned the sofa, then washed the cloth in the bucket, moving on to wipe the cabinets. She took out the handgun from the cabinet to clean it too. The big cleaning was quite water-intensive work, but Ban Xia didn’t lack water. After finishing the living room, she went to the balcony to bring her parents back in, finally cleaning them as well.

Step by step, she made the room clean and bright. Every time she cleaned the house, Ban Xia’s mood would improve along with it. Watching sunlight stream through the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to shine into her heart. This was her home, her fortress.

In this vast world, the entire city was hers, but she only wanted this tiny corner.

She was a snail, and this was her shell.

Whenever the sunset and the twin moons rose, the girl would curl up on her small bed, holding her chubby plastic desk lamp.

Ban Xia removed the magazine from the handgun, checking the bullets inside, removing the 9mm steel-core rounds one by one onto the coffee table with clear metallic sounds.

Finally, she turned the gun around, closed one eye, and looked down the barrel.

Her finger pulled the trigger with a “click,” and the girl smiled.

She continued humming softly to herself as she worked.