Old Wang said that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas at Qixia Temple were more spiritually potent than those at Jinling Temple. The deities at Jinling Temple had focused all their divine powers on matters of romance, each one being a destroyer of relationships. At this crucial moment of Miss Qiu’s departure, they absolutely could not go to Jinling Temple to burn incense. Old Wang even ordered everyone in the command center to avoid Jinling Temple recently, taking detours rather than passing by.
“BG, oh BG, I still can’t understand why we need to throw two cameras over there. What’s that for?”
“Bait,” Bai Yang answered. “It can attract the Big Eye, I guess, OVER.”
“Why can it attract the Big Eye?”
The girl was very curious.
“Didn’t you say before that it always makes eye contact with you? I figure this thing must have some mechanism for tracking human gazes. When you stare at it, it stares back at you. So we’re using the camera’s gaze as bait to lure the Big Eye into the ambush zone, OVER.”
Bai Yang thought he had come up with a reliable answer.
“But how can cameras have a gaze?” Ban Xia became even more confused.
Cameras were one-way information transmission links and one-way valves for information flow. The observer could see the observed, but the observed could never see the observer. With surveillance cameras all over Nanjing’s streets, who could see the person sitting behind the monitoring screen through the camera?
If this were possible, the consequences would be terrifying—people on TV could see people outside the TV, and news anchors on Evening News could simultaneously see hundreds of millions of Chinese people at 7 PM.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese people appeared in one’s pupils simultaneously—it was impossible to imagine such a scene.
Bai Yang scratched his head; he also felt this was impossible.
“He also told me to place the two cameras as far apart as possible, with intersecting lines of sight. Why is that?” Ban Xia asked glumly.
“Perhaps it’s to determine the nuclear bomb’s detonation point? Like the convergence point of machine gun fire on fighter planes—where the lines of sight intersect is where the nuclear bomb will detonate,” Bai Yang came up with another answer he thought was reliable. “We must put this thing in the predetermined position, otherwise we can’t kill it. Even nuclear weapons have limited power… what do you think? OVER.”
“Hmm… never mind, never mind, never mind! I don’t want to discuss these things. I’m so tired—!” The girl collapsed in her chair, covering her neck and pouting. “I spent so long last night climbing lamp posts to install wireless routers, and my back still hurts. The injuries from falling into the sewer haven’t healed yet, and I’m out here risking my life working. I’ve worked so hard, I want to hear some nice words!”
“Thank you for your hard work, young miss. On behalf of Earth’s seven billion people in 2019, I extend our sincere gratitude and regards, OVER.”
“More!”
“Young miss, our gratitude for you flows like the endless river, stretching thousands of miles, OVER.”
Bai Yang was quite the awkward guy.
“I don’t want gratitude, praise me, praise me, praise me, praise me!”
“Today I took the Analects from the bookshelf, randomly opened it, and the first line I saw was: ‘The Master said the young miss is number one under heaven.'”
“More!”
“Then I took Zhuangzi from the bookshelf, randomly opened it, and saw that Zhuang Zhou said he dreamed of you.”
“Something else!”
“I bring you a message from the UN Secretary-General. He said the people of the world will never forget your great contributions. They want to build a statue of you in the Alps, OVER.”
“The UN Secretary-General? Who’s that?”
“His name is Kakarot, OVER.”
“Oh…” Ban Xia nodded half-believingly. She hesitated for a moment, then said: “Well, thank Kakarot for me, and make sure the statue looks pretty.”
After ending the communication, Bai Yang sat silently in his chair for a long while. A pair of strong yet slender hands fell on his shoulders, squeezing them.
“I can tell you’re not happy at all, yet you have to pretend to be energetic and upbeat during communications, even telling her jokes,” the person behind him said while massaging his shoulders. “Are you tired?”
“Sister Qiao.” Bai Yang said softly, “Can you help me turn off the light?”
“Okay.”
Lian Qiao turned off the bedroom light, and the room immediately went dark. There was still a yellowish streetlight from outside, but no pedestrians or vehicles on the road. It was already past 1 AM, and the city had gone to sleep.
Bai Yang sat silently in the darkness, leaving a motionless, blurry silhouette by the window, like a soulless shell. Lian Qiao came over and put her hands on his shoulders. Only when feeling the warmth and strength from Lian Qiao’s palms did Bai Yang move slightly. He raised his hand to cover Lian Qiao’s, gripping it tightly.
Lian Qiao patted the back of his hand.
“Will the plan succeed?”
“At this point, with the nuclear bomb launching tomorrow, you’re still thinking about this?” Lian Qiao chuckled softly.
“But we’ve been rushing forward non-stop until now, without any time to catch our breath. When have we had time to think things through?” Bai Yang crossed his legs. “Besides, what’s the use of thinking? Thinking just wastes time. Every second spent thinking is another second closer to doomsday.”
“We’re all running blindfolded,” Lian Qiao nodded. “Who knows if it will succeed? Let’s just do it first.”
“But…”
“But can that little girl be saved this way? Will the nuclear weapon not harm her?” Lian Qiao said.
Bai Yang opened his mouth but said nothing.
“Little Bai, no one can give you an answer to this question. Everyone wants to save her—your dad, Uncle Wang, Director Zhao—which father wouldn’t want to save his daughter?” Lian Qiao bent down and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, her soft hair falling. “But the success of the mission is above everything, the interests of all humanity are above everything.”
“How cruel.”
“Yes, you’re the principal offender, I’m an accomplice, we’re all accomplices.”
Bai Yang’s body slowly leaned forward, his forehead hitting the desk, motionless.
He dared not think.
Once he started thinking, his mind would be in chaos.
If they completed the mission, would the future change?
If the future could be changed, what would happen to the young miss?
Just as Lian Qiao said, don’t think, just run blindfolded. This was a hundred-meter sprint racing against time. No one had time to stop and think slowly. What you needed to do was focus on the target and give it everything you had.
First, give it everything, then see success or failure.
Bai Yang raised his head to look outside the window. Outside was a quiet night, with only a few lights still on in the buildings opposite. Tomorrow the Long March 5 Y3 rocket would launch carrying that nuclear bomb. At this moment, that pure white heavy rocket stood silently in its service tower two thousand kilometers away, beneath a brilliant starry sky.
Whether in 2019 or 2040, this was the moment of calm before the storm.
“If you’re tired, go to sleep, get some good rest.”
Lian Qiao patted his back and turned to open the door, then suddenly turned back to say:
“Remember to get up early tomorrow.”
At 20:45 on December 27, 2019, the Long March 5 Y3 carrier rocket ignited and lifted off from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center, flying toward the distant future twenty years away.