Black screen.

Black screen.

Black screen.

Bai Yang slowly leaned closer to the screen, reaching out to tap the computer monitor.

“No signal?”

Suddenly, a stark black and white face emerged from the darkness, like a deathly pale corpse submerged in thick black water. This startled Bai Yang so badly that he nearly knocked over his chair.

“Whoa!”

What kind of death lighting was this – she was shining a flashlight up from under her chin, casting dark shadows on her philtrum, between her eyebrows, and her forehead. With her deathly pale face and that ominous shadow between her brows, she looked exactly like a freshly minted Black and White Impermanence. Bai Yang never imagined this girl’s first appearance would be as a female ghost.

Fortunately, she quickly changed the direction of the light. As the lighting shifted, the face on the screen came to life. Bai Yang could finally see it was the face of a fair and delicate girl, with sweaty bangs falling across her smooth forehead. Her eyes were particularly striking in their contrast of black and white. She opened them wide, bringing her left eye close to the camera to peer at something, then switched to her right eye, rolled her eyeballs around, stepped back, crouched down, and held up a paper board with large bold characters:

“Can you see me?”

In this video transmission state, the two sides couldn’t communicate in real time or speak. It was like watching TV – people outside the TV couldn’t communicate with those inside, they could only hold up signs to each other.

The girl held the board up to the camera lens for half a minute, estimating that the other side should have had time to read the words. Then she crouched down again, temporarily disappearing from the camera’s view. When she reappeared, she was holding up another message.

“Your photos were beautiful!”

Then she disappeared from view again, stood up holding the sign, shining her flashlight.

“Thank you!”

Bai Yang thought to himself that this was quite a laborious way to talk, but being able to see a real person made it worth the effort.

They had spent so much time, thought, and energy, wasn’t it all just to meet face-to-face? Humans are visual creatures – only after seeing a face does it count as truly knowing someone.

“Oh—” Two hands suddenly landed on Bai Yang’s shoulders, followed by a heavy weight on his back that made him stagger. Lianqiao had appeared behind him without warning, half her body pressing down on him as she tilted her head to look at the screen. “Why can’t we see her face? We can only see a chin. Tell her to crouch down a bit.”

“I can’t talk to her right now… hands off, hands off, you’re crushing me, sister.” Bai Yang patted Lianqiao’s wrists. “This is one-way video transmission. We’re watching a silent film right now.”

The girl on the screen changed to another board. This time she took longer to write, and the board showed messily:

“Let’s still switch every five minutes (crossed out)”

“Can you see clearly on your end? This camera doesn’t seem very good (crossed out)”

“Is the lighting a bit dark on my end (crossed out)”

“Can you see clearly on your end? This camera seems to be acting up, and I changed to very thick curtains, the room is very dark.”

“It is very dark,” Lianqiao said. “It would be better if we could connect during the day. It’s a shame we can only see the pretty girl at night. But at least this time that big eye isn’t here to interfere. Where is that thing now?”

“Probably still wandering around Nanjing city,” Bai Yang said.

“That thing is such a nuisance… hey hey hey hey what’s this silly girl trying to do?” Lianqiao’s expression suddenly changed.

Bai Yang turned to look.

“I’ll perform a backflip for you!”

Those few large characters scared their souls right out of their bodies.

“Stop her, stop her!” Lianqiao forcefully patted Bai Yang’s shoulder.

“How… how do we stop her?” Bai Yang was flustered. “I told you she can’t hear what we say, we only switch transmission direction every five minutes! We can’t do anything right now…”

While Bai Yang was speaking, the person on screen had already climbed onto the bed. The camera could only see a section of slim legs.

“Damn, what if she accidentally falls? What if she gets hurt?” Lianqiao was anxious, sweating like a parent worried about their child. “This is nonsense, what’s she doing backflips for in such a small room?”

Bai Yang’s hands hovered nervously above the desk. He wanted to find something to solve the problem, but looking around, there was nothing useful.

“I-I-I-I-I-I’ll go call someone… I…”

He suddenly froze.

On-screen, that slim figure leaped up, rose into the air, flipped backward, and landed steadily. The camera’s refresh rate couldn’t even keep up with her movement. Bai Yang and Lianqiao only saw a blur before the girl was standing gracefully on the floor, landing precisely in the circle of a flashlight beam.

She wore a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans. The camera’s view still couldn’t see the girl’s face, only her spreading her arms and slowly bowing.

Lianqiao and Bai Yang were both silent for a long time.

After a while, Lianqiao finally said:

“She must have practiced for a long time.”

She must have practiced for a long time – that flowing set of movements, doing a backflip in a cramped bedroom, rising lightly, landing precisely, as graceful as a dancer. She must have practiced for a long time, for many years, and today she finally found her audience.

Five minutes later, the data link switched, and it was Bai Yang’s turn to transmit a video signal while the other side received it.

Bai Yang had a stack of A4 paper, writing on it with a marker, answering questions one by one.

“We can see you.”

“If you think the photos are nice, I’ll go take more for you tomorrow.”

“The lighting is a bit dark, but the camera is working normally, no need to change it. We can see clearly. Also, please don’t do any more backflips, it’s too dangerous. What if you fall?”

Bai Yang held up the paper to the camera.

He didn’t know if she saw these messages, as there was no prompt or feedback. For feedback, they’d have to wait five minutes for the data link to switch transmission direction again. After switching, Bai Yang would receive image data and get the girl’s response. Everything Bai Yang was doing now felt like talking to a computer.

This was quite an inefficient way to communicate – your five minutes, my five minutes, turn-based like a game. Modern people used to real-time communication might find it hard to bear. These days, if someone doesn’t reply to WeChat or QQ messages for five minutes, you assume they must be using the bathroom; if they don’t reply for ten minutes, they must have drowned in the toilet.

Writing on paper made Bai Yang feel like he was writing letters.

He had never written letters before. People from his father’s generation might have sent letters when they were young. Letter writing was an ancient form of communication, but here he was transmitting paper messages via radio waves traveling at the speed of light.

Rather retrofuturistic, wasn’t it?

“Yang Yang! Are you chatting?” Zhao Bowen pushed open the door. “Remind her that we’re about to launch phase two of Operation Dongfanghong…”

“Got it,” Bai Yang said.

“Mm, let her know we’re arranging the specific plans… wait, let me take this call.” Old Zhao’s phone suddenly rang in his pocket. He closed the door and stepped out. “Hello? It’s me… mm, mm, what? Brussels? What meeting? Nonsense, where do I have time to go out now? Ladies and gentlemen, every minute is precious on our end, understand? The situation is urgent – every minute wasted pushes the world one step closer to destruction. No time to waste words with foreigners. Look, you can ask Old Wu and the General, one’s the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, one’s Base Commander, they’re perfect for this role.”

After ending the call, Zhao Bowen pushed the door open again to see Bai Yang and Lianqiao turning their heads with serious expressions.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, we have plenty of time.” Old Zhao waved his hand. “I was just scaring them. You know, these people can’t wait to dump everything on you so they don’t have to take responsibility. When you’re out in the world, you need good ball skills – when the ball gets kicked to your feet, you need to know how to kick it away…”

Zhao Bowen spoke like an old hand.

“This is your Uncle Zhao’s wisdom from years of surviving in the workplace, standing strong and never falling.”