Ban Xia crouched down, brushing away the soil from the sphere’s surface. In the moonlight, she could barely make out its deep red color. There seemed to be white lettering and numbers, but they were too worn to read clearly. She had nearly tripped over this thing twice—what a fateful encounter.
The dirt-covered Miss Qiu had been here for who knows how long, perhaps even nudged around by wild boars. How else to explain why it wasn’t sitting properly inside the reentry capsule, but had rolled into the crater? Ban Xia knelt and wrapped both arms around the large sphere. It was hard to imagine that when detonated, its power would equal ten thousand tons of TNT. About thirty centimeters in diameter, half-buried in soil, it possessed a weight disproportionate to its volume. The girl tried twice to lift it but failed, finally having to roll it out instead.
It was heavy.
Miss Qiu rolled to a stop next to Ban Xia’s shin.
How amazing that such a tiny sphere could destroy the entire Xinjiekou district when detonated. Where was all that energy hidden?
Ban Xia wondered.
Humans truly possessed incredible power.
She took out a small knife, unscrewed two bolts, and removed a palm-sized cover, revealing the nuclear weapon’s control window.
The removed cover was very light yet sturdy. Ban Xia tried bending it—it seemed to be some kind of high-strength plastic, two millimeters thick, with a red-painted exterior and black interior. This must be the carbon fiber BG had mentioned.
Beneath the cover was the control window, different from what Ban Xia had imagined. Instead of a keypad, there were six mechanical number wheels, with a thin key slot beside them. Everything was arranged very compactly on the small panel. Unlocking the nuclear weapon was simple: insert the key, enter the code, and unlock the weapon.
The sign of successful unlocking was red turning to green—Ban Xia had thought this meant a red light turning green, but upon seeing the weapon she realized her mistake. The red on the control panel wasn’t a light, but a semicircular metal dial painted deep red, with yellow characters reading “Circuit Open.”
One could imagine that after unlocking, the dial would turn to its green half.
The weapon’s design direction surprised Ban Xia. It demonstrated high integration and mechanization—truly mechanical rather than electronic or digital. To resist the long passage of time and harsh environments, the designers had extensively used mechanical structures in the narrow space between the outer shell and the explosive. It was an intricate mechanism, with many moving parts that didn’t require electricity, improving reliability.
The girl replaced the control window cover and let out a breath.
Now everything was ready. She just needed to receive the key to unlock it.
Once unlocked, Miss Qiu would enter a ready-to-trigger state. The trigger’s final safety would be released, transforming it into the world’s most dangerous weapon.
“BG, mushroom picked, confirmed intact.”
The living room had been silent for a long while. No one had expected that after overcoming so many obstacles, they would be stumped at the final step by a tiny USB drive. How could they ensure the key’s safe delivery to the girl?
This problem seemed simple at first glance, but upon careful consideration, it was nearly impossible. The trouble lay in those words “ensure safety”—they fundamentally conflicted with the Three Laws of Time Slow Delivery that headquarters had always relied on. The key to deceiving the great filtering mechanism through Time Slow Delivery was to place things in mortal danger before revival, first eliminating as much information as possible from the delivery—equivalent to placing it in a high-risk environment where it was nearly lost.
And this was something the client—the nuclear project team and their backers—couldn’t accept.
No one could bear the responsibility of losing a key that might reveal nuclear weapon unlocking mechanisms.
So the client had only one requirement:
Safety.
This safety wasn’t just physical, but also political, and the latter couldn’t be ignored because it was the headquarters’ source of authority. When you want to rely on a powerful system’s strength to achieve your goals, you must follow its rules and accept its limitations. Complete freedom was impossible. To put it bluntly, these difficulties were self-imposed by humans, yet they existed and couldn’t be bypassed. Zhao Bowen sighed, deeply understanding this point—it was probably the inherent limitation of human society.
Old Zhao, Old Bai, and Old Wang sat at one end of the coffee table, the nuclear project team representatives at the other, both sides looking displeased.
“This thing is too troublesome.” Wang Ning pulled out a tissue to wipe his nose. “According to you, we can’t use a time capsule in the lake or build it into a wall.”
“No, you can’t.” The nuclear project team shook their heads.
“Then I’m out of ideas.” Wang Ning shook his head, tossed the tissue in the trash, stood up, walked around the coffee table, and headed for the door. “It’s too stuffy in here. I’m going out for some fresh air.”
“I’ll get some fresh air too.” Bai Zhen quickly stood up.
The two went downstairs to the residential complex.
“These bastards don’t trust us at all,” Wang Ning said. “They’re guarding against everything like we’re thieves.”
“That’s normal. Some of those guys are from the Central Security Committee or National Security field agents—those two who barely spoke aren’t from the nuclear corporation,” Bai Zhen said. “I dealt with them before in the military. I can recognize their style at a glance.”
“You dealt with them? Never heard you mention it. What did they need your help investigating?”
“Oh, I was the one being investigated.”
“Damn.” Wang Ning said, “So you have a record? They’re here because of you?”
“Bullshit, what record? Do you think they’re watching me? They’re watching the key.” Bai Zhen spat. “The basic principle in this line of work is to assume the worst. Better safe than sorry. From their perspective, burying a nuclear weapon key in a residential complex for twenty years is completely unacceptable. Who knows what you are? What if you dig it up tomorrow?”
“Who the hell would dig it up?”
“You never know who might be bought off in the future,” Bai Zhen said. “We need to maintain this vigilance.”
“Fine then.” Wang Ning said, “If this won’t work and that won’t work, how do we deliver the key?”
Bai Zhen remained silent.
When the two returned upstairs after walking around the building, Zhao Bowen and the nuclear project team were already arguing—more accurately, Old Zhao was cursing one-sidedly.
Old Zhao was just being himself, unafraid of clients, cursing as usual.
“This risk must be taken!” Old Zhao was angry. “Politics, politics—physics doesn’t care about your politics!”
The nuclear project team was helpless, trying to pacify Zhao Bowen: “Director Zhao, please calm down. We have no choice either. These are orders from above. This involves nuclear weapons—it’s not a small matter, we can’t be careless.”
“They’re waiting over there!” Zhao Bowen pointed at the bedroom door, red-faced and neck bulging. “That little girl is under mortal threat and could be discovered by the assassins at any moment. Every minute is precious. If we miss the opportunity and it leads to uncontrollable consequences, who can bear that responsibility? You? Me? Everyone here—who can bear that responsibility?”
“Director Zhao, please… sit down. We can discuss this reasonably. Nothing’s impossible to talk through.”
“Talk! Talk! What time is left for talking!”
“Director Zhao, we’re not saying you can’t do it, but you haven’t proposed any reliable plan either, right?” The nuclear project team felt somewhat wronged. “Even taking a step back, you admit using a time capsule isn’t reliable. If we build it into a wall, it completely violates Time Slow Delivery’s double-blind principle. The result would most likely be a failure—wouldn’t that also miss the opportunity?”
Zhao Bowen fell silent.
Indeed, he couldn’t come up with any reliable plan himself.
They had only used the build-into-wall slow delivery method once, embedding the time capsule deep in the stone of Plum Blossom Manor’s main gate. But this way, BG4MSR couldn’t retrieve it. The more sealed and solid the burial, the higher the probability of reaching the destination, but also the harder to retrieve. If encased in thick reinforced concrete, it couldn’t be opened without destructive means. Forget that the girl had no such means—even if she did, the key would likely be destroyed in the process.
If not sealed securely enough, just hidden in a hole in their wall, it might not successfully pass through the great filtering mechanism’s screening.
Old Zhao’s brows were tightly furrowed. This tiny thing was truly a huge problem.