Banxia lifted Old Huang high and said, “Come on—call me daddy!”

Old Huang turned his head away in disdain.

Having lived for over ten years, he was truly elderly. In the wild, yellow weasels could live up to nineteen years at most. At Old Huang’s age, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was over seventy in human years. In terms of generational hierarchy, he was at least two generations above Banxia. How dare this yellow-haired girl ask him to call her daddy?

“Won’t call me? If you don’t call me daddy, you won’t get anything to eat.” Banxia brought her face close to his, her bright eyes staring directly into Old Huang’s small black button-like eyes. Her white breath swirled slowly in the air. Old Huang turned his head away in disgust again, then wriggled free from the girl’s hands and darted through the door crack in a flash.

He didn’t need Banxia to feed him. He could find food on his own.

Banxia watched as the weasel’s fluffy long tail disappeared through the door crack. She pulled up her denim jacket collar. After entering December, the climate had become somewhat drier. Nanjing’s winters weren’t particularly cold, with temperatures staying above freezing year-round, but Banxia was especially sensitive to cold. She bundled herself up thoroughly even indoors, wearing two sweaters on top and a thick pair of wool pants below. As soon as the temperature dropped, she put on her thermal underwear—truly putting her mother’s mind at ease.

The room was cold and silent. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains. The winter sun was lazy, and the winter world was lazy too. No sparrows chirping on the windowsill, no sika deer or water buffalo clip-clopping past the streets, leaving behind only a cold and desolate city.

Banxia plopped down in her chair and stretched vigorously. Looking outside, she could see the vine-covered high-rise opposite. The identical residential buildings of Meihua Villa and indeed all of Nanjing gave Banxia a sense of security. Each window was a grid, and there were millions of grids across the city, but only one grid had someone behind it. Hide a tree in a forest—this made the girl feel well-hidden. If some big eye were to look down from above, it would only see vast stretches of reinforced concrete buildings below.

Nanjing’s total area was 6,500 square kilometers. Hiding someone less than 1.7 meters tall was very easy.

Bai Zhen, Zhao Bowen, and Wang Ning advised Banxia not to go out during this period—don’t leave Meihua Villa during the day, and don’t leave the apartment building at night. No one knew how strong the Big Eye’s search capabilities were. It had a huge eye, likely gathering external information through visual means—perhaps visible light, perhaps infrared. So the best response to the Big Eye was to hide.

Hide behind thick cement and brick walls. Years ago, Teacher had lived underground with Banxia for a long time, proving that human buildings could provide protection.

Bai Zhen said humans had worked hard to develop for so many years and should have some confidence in themselves. They couldn’t just wet themselves in fear at the mention of aliens—would that make their ancestors proud?

What’s so special about the Big Eye?

What’s so special about Black Moon?

If you’re willing to risk it all, you can even bring down an emperor!

The girl took inventory of her household stores today. She still had 30 kilograms of pickled venison, ham, and salted fish, a jar of fermented bamboo shoots and pickled vegetables, and two large barrels of fresh water. Estimating her food consumption, Banxia figured that with these supplies plus the wild vegetables growing in Meihua Villa, she could hold out for half a month without problems.

All she had to do was stay holed up, buying time for the other side.

The people in that world twenty years ago were working on a solution.

“Mom, Dad, what do you want to eat tonight?” Banxia poked her head out of the room. “We were planning to go octopus fishing these days, but we can’t go out now. We only have ham and salted fish at home—what would you like?”

“No answer means ham and salted fish then?”

“Alright, that’s what we’ll have.”

Banxia decided on ham and salted fish for dinner, but she needed to be careful not to produce smoke while cooking. The night was fine, but cooking smoke during the day could be seen from far away and might reveal her position.

Banxia tried the army’s buried stove method, digging a smokeless stove in the lawn of Meihua Villa. This was taught to her by Bai Zhen. The girl worked with a shovel for half an hour, digging out a rather crude stove. The opening was small, only able to fit a palm-sized aluminum pot. So Banxia took her ingredients downstairs and sat cross-legged on the grass with the aluminum pot bubbling with bone soup, chopsticks in hand. When the broth turned milky white and started boiling, she threw in wild vegetables, venison, and pickled bamboo shoots, cooking and eating one bite at a time, eating until she was steaming hot and drenched in sweat.

This was the world’s last hotpot.

Too bad there was no spicy soup base.

In an environment lacking material conditions, making a hearty meal was troublesome and difficult, with complicated steps and great effort. Banxia had to spend an entire afternoon preparing one dinner, but compared to the happiness of eating steaming hot hotpot on a cold winter night, what did all that matter?

This small joy and happiness made Banxia feel this was what she was born for.

“In this world, there are many things you can’t bring with you when you’re born or take with you when you die.”

“All you can take with you is yourself and your temperament.”

Banxia started humming softly.

“You once had the most beautiful love, you heard the most beautiful melody.”

“Touched someone’s lonely fear.”

“And saw the most beautiful scenery…”

She sat on the lawn, humming songs, her body swaying happily to the rhythm.

“I stumble and rush towards you—”

After dinner, it was time for Banxia to work.

Every night was her working time. Previously it was eleven PM, now moved up to seven PM. Although the people on BG4MXH’s side were working hard to find solutions, Banxia couldn’t just sleep soundly on her side. All work needed her cooperation.

Improving the data transmission system was the first task Banxia needed to complete.

Earlier, under the guidance of BG4MXH and others, she had built an image data transmission system, but before it could be put to use, they lost contact. The connection was cut off for half a month until it was restored the day before yesterday. As soon as communication resumed, a pile of complex and heavy tasks came crashing down, leaving Banxia dizzy. BG4MXH secretly told her there was no help for it—the person in charge now wasn’t him or Uncle Zhao, they were all being managed by others and couldn’t act as freely anymore.

Zhao Bowen’s foresight was correct—building a data transmission system was indeed crucial, the foundation for subsequent work. But Bai Yang and Bai Zhen’s technical skills were too poor. Their AFSK signal modulation scheme was immediately rejected by the expert group. The big shots unanimously declared this thing’s transmission speed was far too slow—using such a pencil-thin water pipe to drain the Miyun Reservoir, how long would that take? Until the year of the monkey?

Zhao Bowen argued reasonably, saying they needed to consider feasibility and operability, considering that the girl on the other side had no technical background, and the simpler the solution the better.

So after multiple rounds of discussion and mutual compromise, they decided to upgrade the AFSK modulation method to PSK, while also bringing in two technical experts from China Telecom Jiangsu Branch to help build the link.

Banxia would have to wait a few more days to see Nanjing’s night view from twenty years ago.

BG4MXH consoled her saying it was fine, this was a technical upgrade that would allow transmission of more and clearer pictures—a good thing.

“BG! BG! Can you hear me?” Banxia grabbed the microphone and started calling, “I’m starting work!”