The next day was Monday. Tests began early at school, one after another – math followed by English. Entering senior year was like descending into hell, especially torturous for Young Master He, who frequently quoted the famous words of Elder Ji Xianlin to express his strong dissatisfaction: “Tests all day long, either you’re testing or I’m testing – what the hell are we testing for!”
Right! ***once said that during tests you could work together – if I don’t know something and you’ve written it, I could copy it and learn something from that!
Bai Yang and Yan Zhihan, sitting nearby, applauded in agreement.
“Then Little Bai Yang, why don’t you let me copy your test paper?” He Leqin leaned over and asked.
“Get lost.”
In the following period, Bai Yang became completely immersed in his studies with no cure in sight. Every night after returning home, he faced mountains of English reading comprehension and math papers. The IC725 shortwave radio sat untouched, and gradually, he forgot about that strange radio station he had once connected with.
He didn’t tell anyone about being stood up and left waiting on the street for two and a half hours. At first, he was still bothered by it and wanted to go back to demand an explanation, but as he became engulfed in the complex and heavy schoolwork, busy dealing with various tests, time passed day by day, and soon he forgot about it too.
The only lesson that remained in his heart was: things online… no, things over radio waves were virtual, and he couldn’t grasp them.
Half a month later, when his father mentioned there was a fox hunting competition locally, held at Purple Mountain during the National Day holiday break, and asked if he wanted to go watch for fun.
The so-called fox hunting competition was a radio direction-finding sports competition.
Radio direction finding is an important member of amateur radio sports. Simply put, it’s a treasure-hunting game where the competition organizers hide several radio stations at different locations in the mountains beforehand. These stations continuously broadcast signals – “I am Fox One! I am Fox One!” “I am Fox Two! I am Fox Two!” – and the participating HAMs must use their handheld radios to receive the signals, determine the locations of the Fox stations, and find them all.
During the fox hunting process, HAMs need to use Yagi antennas.
A Yagi antenna is a highly directional antenna. The simplest Yagi antenna has three horizontal elements and one vertical element, forming a character that looks like “丰”. This thing loses signal reception with even the slightest deviation, so it can be used to detect the direction of signal sources.
A HAM holding a Yagi antenna becomes a human scanning radar, turning the antenna round and round – wherever the signal is strongest, that’s the direction of the fox station, like a dragon-seeking dowsing rod.
Sounds interesting, right?
His father said it was really just old toads gathering together, and compared to the competition itself, the drinking and BBQ afterward were more fun.
His father’s words pulled Bai Yang out of his mountain of books and ocean of test papers, pulling him back into the HAM circle, and he began to feel restless again.
Today was Friday, and tomorrow would be the last Saturday before the National Day holiday.
So, on a dark and quiet night, Bai Yang sat at his desk, drew the curtains, connected the power supply, turned on the radio, put on his headphones, and thought about adjusting the frequency, but hesitated for a few seconds, didn’t adjust it, and finally made a call on channel 14.255MHz.
From an omniscient perspective, we readers now know that Hertz’s electromagnetic wave sent from Karlsruhe, Germany, one hundred and thirty years ago first changed the world.
Then on September 27, 2019, the electromagnetic wave sent from that ancient IC725 in Unit 2, Building 11, Zhongqin Yuan, Meihua Mountain Manor, Qinhuai District, Nanjing, changed the world for the second time.
Bai Yang connected with that strange radio station again.
BG4MSR.
“2040?”
When Bai Yang heard this year, his first reaction was that someone’s brain had short-circuited.
Either her brain had short-circuited, or his brain had short-circuited, but one of them had short-circuited.
“BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH, what did you just say? Could you please repeat it? Twenty what? Two-zero what? OVER.”
He released the mic.
The other side quickly responded.
“BG4MXH, this is BG4MSR, repeating, two-zero-four-zero! Today is September 27, 2040! OVER.”
Bai Yang sat in his chair, pulled out his phone to check the date and time, and then tilted his head to look at the colorful SQL cards posted on his bookshelf. He pondered deeply – although it was wrong of you to stand me up last time, miss, you don’t need to come up with such an absurd excuse to brush me off, right? You could say your bicycle got stuck in traffic, or the subway was delayed due to heavy rain, or your WeChat Pay encountered counterfeit money – any of these would sound more convincing than saying it’s 2040, right?
For a moment, Bai Yang didn’t know how to respond.
He had connected with BG4MSR again tonight, and following the principle that all HAMs are family, he didn’t want to pursue responsibility for being stood up and left waiting. After so much time had passed, Bai Yang’s anger had long dissipated, and he didn’t even care for an apology, but what surprised him was – this girl asked him why he hadn’t shown up for their appointment!
This was utterly ridiculous.
Who exactly hadn’t shown up?
Heaven knows, he had stood at that intersection from six o’clock until eight-thirty, and hadn’t even eaten dinner!
A thief crying “stop thief” – trying to turn the tables, huh?
So both sides began to argue, each insisting they had waited at the intersection until very late but hadn’t seen anyone show up.
Bai Yang: I guarantee my integrity, I waited at the intersection until eight-thirty, but I didn’t see anyone in a white shirt and black backpack pushing a bicycle.
Ban Xia: I also guarantee my integrity, I waited at the intersection all night, until dawn, but I didn’t see anyone come to the appointment.
Bai Yang: Then what’s going on here? One of us must be lying.
Ban Xia: I’m not lying.
Bai Yang: Were you dressed as you described?
Ban Xia: Of course.
Bai Yang: Then I can confirm I didn’t see you at six o’clock, did you get the location wrong? The intersection of Mu Xu Yuan Street and Zhongshan Men Street.
Ban Xia: I was under the overpass.
Bai Yang: Right, under the overpass… What’s going on here? The location’s not wrong, did you oversleep? Like maybe you slept for two days and went the day after.
Ban Xia: You’re the one who overslept! My schedule is very regular, and I checked the date before leaving – September 8th! Rather, did you get the date wrong?
Bai Yang: No, it was Sunday, September 8th.
Ban Xia: September 8th, 2040?
Bai Yang: September 8th, 2019.
Ban Xia: What?
Bai Yang: What?
This girl’s brain must have short-circuited.
Are there no normal people playing with shortwave radio these days?
Bai Yang didn’t want to continue the conversation, he still had class tomorrow, and there was no point in talking nonsense all night. The weekend during the National Day holiday had been adjusted, and they had to attend two days of classes.
“BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH, let’s end it here for tonight, I need to go take a shower, OVER.”
“BG4MXH, this is BG4MSR, you say it’s 2019 on your end, how can you prove what you’re saying? How can you verify your identity? OVER.”
Bai Yang couldn’t help but laugh – shouldn’t he be the one asking these questions?
“BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH, I should be the one asking you these questions, how do you prove your identity? How can you prove it’s 2040 on your end? Why don’t you tell me the winning numbers for the next Double Color Ball lottery, if you get it right, I’ll believe you, OVER.”
“BG4MXH, what is the Double Color Ball? OVER.”
“BG4MSR, if you don’t know about the Double Color Ball, then you can tell me next year’s college entrance exam answers, OVER.”
Bai Yang was just talking nonsense – you say you’re from twenty years in the future? Then please prove it, if you have the ability, tell me the lottery winning numbers, or next year’s college entrance exam answers.
At the same time, his mind wandered – if what she said was true, that would be incredible. Her world’s future would be his world’s past, so she could tell him everything that would happen in the future. Wouldn’t that mean he could predict the future? Becoming rich overnight wouldn’t be a problem, getting into Tsinghua or Peking University wouldn’t be a problem, he would be able to cheat his way to the peak of life.
But this was just imagination – even thinking with his backside, he knew it was impossible.
“BG4MXH, what is a college entrance exam? OVER.”
“BG4MSR, you don’t even know what a college entrance exam is? You can ask your parents or other friends, they know, OVER.”
Bai Yang said lazily, he wanted to see how long this clumsy lie would continue.
“BG4MXH, there is no one else here, OVER.”
No one else?
Bai Yang was stunned – what did that mean?
A few seconds later, she added:
“In 2040, I’m the only person left in the whole world.”