Next, Bai Yang turned on the IC725 shortwave radio and made contact with BG4MSR, who was indeed waiting for him on 14255.
“BG4MSR, BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH. I’ve prepared a time capsule and plan to send it to you in two days. I hope you’ll receive it. If you can receive the time capsule, then I’ll believe everything you’ve said, OVER.”
“BG4MXH, a time capsule?”
“BG4MSR, it’s like a stainless steel can that can be sealed. Things inside can be preserved for many years. I need you to provide an address, and give me a QTH where the time capsule can be safely buried for twenty years without damage. Can you do that? OVER.”
“A safe location… let me think…”
“BG4MSR, your voice doesn’t sound too good, it’s weak. Is something wrong? OVER.”
“Oh… sorry, my stomach hurts a bit.”
“Stomach ache? Are you sick? BG4MSR, do you have medicine? OVER.”
“It’s nothing, just menstrual cramps.”
“Men…” Bai Yang held the microphone, and as a pure-hearted high school boy, he had never considered that girls had such issues. He started and stopped several times, “Then… do you have that… that…”
He stammered for a while.
“Sanitary pads?”
“…Yes.”
“Oh, I have those,” the girl answered. “I’m not short on those.”
Bai Yang sighed in relief. Looks like he wouldn’t need to help buy any.
“BG4MSR, BG4MSR, let’s get back to business. I need you to provide a sufficiently safe location for burying the time capsule, understand?” Bai Yang continued, “I remember you live near Muluxuan Street. Then it’s best to find a spot nearby to ensure it can safely reach you, OVER.”
Only the girl could find this location because only she knew which places remained intact and which had been destroyed completely.
The channel was silent for a few seconds, then the other party spoke.
“BG4MXH, do you know Meihua Villa?”
Bai Yang was stunned, almost jumping up.
Of course, he knew Meihua Villa, how could he not know it – he lived there!
“BG4MSR, I know Meihua Villa, OVER.”
“I live in Meihua Villa. Meihua Villa remains well-preserved in my era, without serious damage, so you can find a place within Meihua Villa to bury the time capsule, OVER.”
Bai Yang couldn’t speak for a long while.
Did she live in Meihua Villa too? What an incredible coincidence!
Was this not some big sister from the neighborhood playing a prank on him?
Bai Yang thought hard but couldn’t recall knowing any such neighbor.
“BG4MXH?”
“I’m here, I’m here… BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH. Let’s verify the location then. You live in Meihua Villa, so you must be very familiar with it. Let’s pick a spot. If we both think it’s suitable, we’ll bury the time capsule there,” Bai Yang replied. “How does that sound? OVER.”
“Good, OVER.”
“BG4MSR, at Meihua Villa’s main gate, entering from Muluxuan Street, facing the pedestrian and bicycle paths inside the complex, there’s a lawn on the left with a row of bulletin boards. Do you know it? OVER.”
Bai Yang knew the complex’s layout by heart, having passed by that route just today after school.
“I know the lawn, now it’s very, very tall grass, but there are no bulletin boards, OVER.”
“What happened to the bulletin boards?”
“Gone, probably evaporated, OVER.”
“What about the trees on the lawn? Are the trees still there?”
“Trees?” There was a pause in the headphones. “There are no trees.”
Entering Meihua Villa’s main gate, there was a security booth in the center, with two wide driveways on either side. Beyond the driveways were pedestrian and bicycle paths paved with white square tiles. Outside the paths were green belts with lawns, and on the lawns grew sturdy camphor trees with dense branches and leaves.
Bai Yang closed his eyes, and the familiar scene naturally appeared before him.
“Where did the trees go?”
“Probably evaporated along with the bulletin boards, OVER.”
Eva… evaporated.
Good grief, that word was truly terrifying.
“BG4MSR, do you know what catastrophe happened to Earth back then? OVER.”
“Umm… it happened when I was very young, I’m not too clear. I only remember being led around running by the teacher, and red nights, black moons, and huge shadows crawling between high-rise buildings. I don’t know what they were or where they came from. The world was very chaotic those years, most of the time I was hiding deep in sewers or air raid shelters, rarely coming to the surface,” the girl said. “During those days, you could hear constant booming sounds at night while sleeping, like thunder. The teacher said it was the military.”
“Then what happened?”
“Later… one day, it was a bright sunny day, the teacher brought me up from underground, but only the two of us were left in the entire city,” the girl continued.
“What about your teacher?” Bai Yang asked. “Where is she now?”
“Buried downstairs.”
Bai Yang was stunned.
“BG4MSR, you mentioned huge shadows crawling between buildings. Where did those things go?”
“Disappeared. After everyone died, they disappeared.”
Bai Yang sat dazed in his chair. He had thought it would be some super-scale natural disaster, like melting ice caps causing sea levels to rise and submerging land or global super-earthquakes triggering massive tsunamis or volcanic eruptions, or even global nuclear war with nuclear bombs leveling cities – but these worst-case scenarios in Bai Yang’s mind were far less terrifying and bizarre than what BG4MSR described.
What she described couldn’t possibly be a natural disaster.
At this moment, Bai Yang could only hope this girl was playing with him. He had spent so much time, energy, and money, yet he would rather it all be wasted effort, rather the time capsule never be received by anyone – as long as it proved the other party was lying, that would be the best outcome.
What were the odds that everything BG4MSR said was true? One in a quadrillion, no more than that.
With such a low probability, he wouldn’t hit it, right?
If he did hit it, he should go buy lottery tickets and do multiple choice questions blindfolded in next year’s college entrance exam.
“BG4MXH? BG4MXH? Shall we continue searching? OVER.”
“Yes, yes, yes, let’s continue. Let’s go a bit further in. From the main gate, at the end of the driveway, there’s a flower bed planted with purple-leaf barberry and abelia. Behind the flower bed is the community square, with a white corridor for walking and enjoying the cool breeze. Do you know it? OVER.”
“I know it, overgrown with weeds, OVER.”
“Is it still well preserved?”
“It is, OVER.”
“It hasn’t been plowed over by anything?” Bai Yang asked. “Or had any big craters blown in it?”
“No.”
“Good, then let’s bury the time capsule there. However, I can only tell you the exact location after I’ve buried it.”
Logically speaking, since the other party was from the future – if she was from twenty years in the future – then in her era, the time capsule would have already been buried for twenty years. BG4MSR could even go dig up the time capsule tonight, although Bai Yang hadn’t buried it yet.
That’s what Bai Yang thought at first.
But when it came to actually doing it, he realized it wasn’t possible.
Because he didn’t know the exact location yet.
Digging a deep hole in the community lawn to bury a time capsule was undoubtedly destructive behavior. It couldn’t be done in broad daylight or security would catch him. It had to be done secretly in the dead of night, being careful not to be discovered. So this matter required improvisation – if conditions weren’t right, he might have to change the burial location at the last minute. Under these circumstances, how could Bai Yang tell the other party the exact location in advance?
Only after he had buried the time capsule and everything was settled would he have the capsule’s accurate location information.
This was the first time Bai Yang noticed a key point about delivering time-slow mail, also the first essential element: at least one party must possess the exact information, including precise temporal and spatial coordinates.
But subsequent events would prove that he had still thought about the problem too simply.