The moonlight was bright tonight. Ban Xia headed straight for Xinjiekou, her backpack bulging with cameras and wireless routers. This time she was being extra careful not to go too far.
The “Heng Heng” synthetic aperture radar imaging telemetry satellite officially completed its historic mission today, re-entering the atmosphere to burn up. It had served beyond its intended lifespan – the satellite project team had designed it for only 160 hours, but it had stubbornly survived an extra day and night, reporting Big Eyes’ position one final time before its destruction.
It was prowling around the Zifeng Tower area. Seizing this opportunity, Ban Xia rushed to Xinjiekou.
This second deployment already showed more experience than the first. Command headquarters was stationed at Meihua Villa, with the logistics support team working in close coordination. Bai Yang and Lianqiao were watching intently. Compared to the first operation, tonight’s mission was simpler and more direct – Ban Xia didn’t need to visit Base One or Base Two, she just needed to make a round at Xinjiekou and return.
This operation’s principle was “speed.”
One word: “speed.” Speed was crucial in warfare – the faster the better, minimizing time spent in the field.
“She just… needs to go drop off two cameras?”
Bai Zhen still couldn’t understand what this was meant to accomplish.
“Correct,” Zhao Bowen nodded.
“What good will cameras do?” Wang Ning asked. “You’re using them as bait? I don’t see how they’d be attractive.”
Zhao Bowen fell silent, slowly turning his back to everyone with his hands behind him, leaving them with his inscrutable silhouette.
Lao Wang defiantly raised his middle finger at him.
“BG, I can see the New Century Building… reached Xinjiekou, no anomalies detected.”
“All units note, arrived at Xinjiekou, over!”
“Note arrived at Xinjiekou! Over!”
“Arrived at Xinjiekou! Over!”
Ban Xia pulled out the cameras from her backpack, one in each hand. Each camera was tightly bound together with clear tape and fabric strips securing the camera, battery pack, and wireless router. These were remote surveillance cameras she had cobbled together under Command’s guidance. The five-kilometer distance from Xinjiekou to Meihua Villa made image transmission no easy feat. The technical department deemed cables impractical; installing two to three wireless routers along the route could barely support image data transmission. Ban Xia had salvaged several Huawei wireless routers from junk piles, and Command immediately contacted Huawei to rewrite and flash new firmware. When the girl had originally raided Zhujiang Road, she’d dragged back masses of useful and useless electronic waste – in subsequent work, this mountain of trash became a treasure trove: cameras, motherboards, power supplies, network cables, all sorts of common electronic components were available.
Xinjiekou Square was a massive intersection where east-west Zhongshan East Road met north-south Zhongshan South Road, forming a large roundabout with Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s bronze statue standing at its center. This was one of the nation’s busiest commercial districts, teeming with visitors daily before the world’s destruction. Centered on the square, super-tall buildings like the World Trade Center, Golden Eagle Center, and Nanjing Center formed a ring – no wonder Big Eyes liked to lurk here.
Everyone loved prosperous places – this held not just throughout history and across cultures, but even for entities from beyond Earth and its solar system.
Ban Xia set down one camera on this side of the road, then ran across to place the other camera on the opposite side.
This was per Zhao Bowen’s instructions.
Ban Xia herself didn’t understand why this was necessary. Lao Zhao had repeatedly emphasized that the two cameras must be placed separately, as far apart as possible.
Furthermore, the cameras’ lines of sight couldn’t be parallel – they had to intersect.
Ban Xia crouched down to adjust the cameras’ orientation, ensuring their fields of view would converge on the opposite side of the square. With this, her mission was complete.
There was also a small incident.
When heading back, Ban Xia passed through Ke Alley, by the street where she’d been chased a couple of days ago. She was startled.
Under the bright, clear moonlight, the road was covered with fine green branches and leaves. Standing at the entrance, the girl looked down the street to see that all the plants along the entire street had been cut to about one meter high, with perfectly even cut surfaces.
With Ban Xia’s work complete, let’s set that aside for now.
Meanwhile, twenty years ago, Command was busy arranging Miss Qiu’s marriage arrangements. Throughout history, marrying a daughter has always been troublesome, let alone a marriage that crossed time, solar systems, species, and civilizations. As the bride’s family, to ensure the groom Big Eyes could successfully consummate with Miss Qiu and settle all grudges in one blast, over a hundred fathers-in-law at Command were worried sick—
When Lao Zhao found the nuclear industry work group about deploying Miss Qiu, the group excitedly gripped his hands, saying “Finally you’ve come – we’ve already nuked Nanjing 1,400 times in our computer simulations.”
“This is Xinjiekou, the area with the highest density of tall buildings in Nanjing’s urban district. With Miss Qiu’s yield of 10,000 tons, a ground burst detonation at Xinjiekou Square would create a crater roughly 80 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep, with the nuclear fireball reaching a diameter of 200 meters… In other words, drawing a circle with Miss Qiu at the center and a 200-meter diameter, everything within that circle would be destroyed.”
The screen showed a 3D map of Qinhuai District, zoomed in on Xinjiekou. The presenter snapped his fingers, and a large deep red sphere expanded from Xinjiekou’s center.
This sphere was 200 meters in diameter. It was foreseeable that within 0.001 seconds after the nuclear detonation, the ring of high-rises around Xinjiekou Square – the World Trade Center, Golden Eagle Center, Nanjing Center, these glass-curtain-walled skyscrapers – would instantly melt and vaporize.
Steel melts at 1,500 degrees Celsius, glass begins softening at 600 degrees – they’d be like wax sculptures before the nuclear blast’s heat.
“The nuclear fireball has internal temperatures of ten million degrees and overpressure of 2,000 PSI – it’s a miniature sun that will destroy anything in its path!” The presenter’s tone was fierce. “Within one second after detonation, the blast wave will sweep across the entire…”
“Stop, stop, we understand its power enough,” someone interrupted. “What we need to know now is whether it will harm the MSR.”
The presenter pondered for a few seconds.
“Let’s continue then. After Miss Qiu detonates, buildings within a 500-meter radius will be completely leveled. The overpressure in this range can reach 20 PSI – man-made reinforced concrete structures basically can’t withstand such impact. But three kilometers away – around Jiefang Road – the blast wave’s overpressure will drop to 1 PSI, enough to shatter windows but not lethal. And Meihua Villa is five to six kilometers from Xinjiekou.”
On the big screen, another larger hemisphere appeared outside the red fireball, three kilometers in diameter – this was Miss Qiu’s blast damage radius.
“So you’re saying the blast wave from the detonation won’t cause serious damage to Meihua Villa?”
“Correct,” the presenter nodded.
“Don’t forget Bases One and Two – can they withstand a nuclear blast?”
“No need to worry. Bases One and Two are far enough from the detonation center. When the blast wave reaches them, the overpressure will be about 5 PSI. This force can destroy most civilian homes but is helpless against underground hardened facilities. When designing the two bases, nuclear protection was our first consideration.”
“What about radiation?”
“Radiation hazards are greater than the blast wave. In designing this nuclear weapon, we minimized radiation hazards and radioactive contamination. After detonation, within 800 meters of ground zero, ionizing radiation doses will reach 50 Sv – ordinary people would die within five minutes in such radiation… though they’d die from heat or blast waves before radiation could kill them. Beyond one kilometer from ground zero, radiation doses would still be 5 Sv, which can still be lethal to humans – even survivors would suffer radiation sickness. So during the nuclear detonation, personal protection is essential – take shelter, stay inside buildings, the further away the better.”
The attendees exchanged worried glances.
“What about radioactive contamination?”
“According to the weather and wind direction data MSR recorded over the past week plus that Director Zhao provided us, we believe the predominant wind there this season is from the northeast.”
The presenter continued with his PowerPoint, showing a long red tail stretching southwest from the nuclear detonation at Xinjiekou.
This tail was so long it extended beyond the map’s edge.
“Where will it blow to?”
The presenter remained silent, zooming out the map until Nanjing’s entire urban area became palm-sized. Only then did everyone realize the radioactive dust would blow to Wuhu.
“It will create a radioactive contamination zone of nearly a thousand square kilometers,” the presenter said.
“With that wind direction, Base Two would be in the contamination zone,” someone pointed out.
The presenter nodded.
“Yes, so after the nuclear detonation, we can only go to Base One in the north.”
Zhao Bowen sat in the second row of the conference room, though by rank and status, he should have been in the second-to-last row. As a temporary wartime forward commander with authority but no official position, he was far behind everyone present in terms of seniority, capability, and stars on his shoulders. Most times, Lao Zhao maintained control through sheer force of personality – like a toad staring you down, afraid of no one. If it were Lao Bai or Lao Wang standing here, they’d likely back down when challenged by senior leadership.
You defer, I compromise, and the argument drags on until tomorrow morning.
But Lao Zhao was different. As an old chuunibyou and perpetual associate professor, even if Commander Ikari himself were sitting there, he’d dare to snatch those sunglasses glued to his face with 502 adhesive and make him open his dog eyes to see how much time was left.
Time, ah time, Zhao Bowen sighed internally. Despite spanning twenty long years, every second had to be fought for.
“Meeting adjourned!”
The presenter finished his planning briefing.
Everyone rose to leave. Only this last conference room still had lights on in the provincial committee building. At 1:20 AM, even the Organization Department should have gone home, but Command was still meeting.
He should write an article himself, titled “The Command Center’s Lights.”
Lao Zhao sat there, thinking silently.