That “A living person?” also stunned Bai Yang.

According to shortwave radio communication rules, the standard response was to acknowledge receipt of the signal, then identify yourself and report your call sign.

What was this ghost-seeing kind of reaction about?

A few seconds later, the other party spoke again, shouting excitedly: “Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Is there someone there?”

Bai Yang frowned as he listened.

In radio communication, these were the worst kinds of people to run into—those who knew nothing about the rules, didn’t follow protocol, didn’t report call signs, didn’t report signals, didn’t report location, just randomly burst into channels shouting nonsense. Bai Yang immediately felt disdain. Where did this newbie come from? How did they pass the exam?

Although he was also a newbie.

And hadn’t taken the exam either.

“This is BG4MXH, QTH Qinhuai District, Nanjing City, receiving your signal, your signal is 59, OVER.”

See, that’s a professional response.

Bai Yang released the button on his handheld microphone.

The other side spoke again.

“What what? Are you a living person? Where are you now? How many people are on your side? Are there any casualties? What’s the casualty situation? What supplies do you lack?”

The other party was so excited they were almost screaming.

Bai Yang was startled. Good lord, where did this lady come from? Aren’t you afraid of the Radio Commission showing up at your door, yelling like that?

Radio communication had a set of established rules and regulations: no loud noise on channels, no-nonsense talk on channels, no profanity on channels, and no randomly interrupting others’ communications. You had to be civilized, courteous, and show love for the community—all radio operators were friends.

If you dared to curse on the channel—

Radio Commission: We’ll be at your doorstep immediately!

Bai Yang instinctively wanted to avoid this strange person, just like how anyone would avoid someone who suddenly rushed up to you on the street spouting nonsense.

“73! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

In his panic, this rookie Bai Yang just wanted to run.

“Wait! Don’t go! Don’t leave!”

The other party became anxious immediately upon hearing he wanted to leave.

“S-sorry fellow operator, my mom is calling me to go to sleep, 73 to you.”

Bai Yang said.

“Your mom? You still have a mom?”

The other party was shocked.

With a “click,” Bai Yang turned off the radio, thinking: what a nutcase.

The next day.

Bai Yang emerged bleary-eyed from his room. His mom was mopping the floor, the TV on the cabinet was playing morning news, and his dad sat at the table scrolling through Today’s Headlines.

“Move your feet.” Mom nudged Bai Yang’s slippers with the mop. She had to wait for Bai Yang to get up before she could mop his room. “What time did you go to sleep last night?”

“Twelve.” Bai Yang turned to the bathroom to wash up. He grabbed his light blue toothbrush cup from the sink, squeezed toothpaste with two fingers, and then turned on the faucet with a “whoosh” as the white water stream filled the cup, overflowing with foam.

“Go to bed earlier at night.” Mom was very dissatisfied with Bai Yang’s sleep schedule. “If you don’t sleep at night, you can’t get up in the morning, and you waste all the precious morning hours sleeping…”

“Okay okay, I know!” Bai Yang said with a mouthful of toothpaste foam. “I’ll sleep early, definitely sleep early.”

“The college entrance exam is coming up, just one year left. Put that radio aside and focus on studying. Use these last ten months to review and strengthen what you’ve learned. There’s still room to improve your scores in six months…”

Mom started nagging again.

In one sentence, she could reduce the time until the college entrance exam from one year to ten months to six months. Round it up and it might as well be tomorrow.

“That’s not a radio!” Bai Yang said unclearly. “That’s a transceiver!”

“That’s a radio.” Mom said. “Just because it’s bigger doesn’t mean it’s not a radio, does it?”

“That’s a shortwave transceiver!” Bai Yang spat out all the toothpaste foam at once, gargled with a gurgle, and argued loudly over the rushing water sound. “Radio transceivers can save lives in extreme conditions. If our family experiences an earthquake, flood, tsunami, or other natural disasters, even the apocalypse, when all phone and TV signals are cut off and everyone loses contact, only radio transceivers can…”

“Only radio transceivers can contact the outside world, right?” Mom finished for him.

Bai Yang was stunned. “Yeah.”

“What does that have to do with your college entrance exam?” Mom said. “Why worry about the apocalypse? As long as Earth doesn’t explode, you still have to take the exam. Stop talking about all this nonsense.”

Bai Yang finished washing up and came out of the bathroom helplessly. Dad was still sitting there scrolling through headlines.

During his reasoned argument, Dad had played dead the whole time.

Father and son exchanged a glance, both expressing resignation at the stubbornness of middle-aged housewives.

Back in the day, Dad had been a skilled operator in Nanjing’s HAM circle. In Dad’s words, among all the toads in the world, few could cultivate to become spirits, and only he could become Ouyang Feng.

Bai Yang asked what about Uncle Zhao?

Dad said your Uncle Zhao became Ouyang Ke.

Sadly, nowadays Dad was one-quarter retired, one-quarter given up, and one-half buried, having long faded from the HAM circle. He kept the radio just to use as a receiver, no longer living those passionate years of the past.

Bai Yang regretted meeting him so late.

If only he had known his dad earlier, they could have competed together.

“Did you make contact last night?”

Bai Yang sat down at the table to eat breakfast. There were four soup dumplings on his plate. Dad asked in a low voice.

“Made contact with someone on 14 megahertz,” Bai Yang answered quietly. “14255.”

“Where from?”

“Don’t know,” Bai Yang said. “Unlicensed station.”

“Enemy spy from across the strait? Ah, offered you dollars to defect?” Dad said. “If they do, quickly agree, take the money then report them. You’ll get not just dollars but also 500,000.”

“It was a girl,” Bai Yang said. “A weird girl, couldn’t understand what she was saying.”

“A girl? The enemy’s spending big. Might be Pansy.”

“So what if it’s Pansy.” Bai Yang ate the soup dumplings one by one. “Didn’t even give a call sign, don’t know the QTH either. Dad, there’s nobody on those channels you recommended.”

“What about 14270?”

“No one.”

Dad sighed: “It was quite lively in the early years, like a vegetable market, but now fewer and fewer people play with this. Why don’t you buy a handheld? More people are on UV bands. Get a Baofeng UV5R, legendary first generation, just 100 yuan, can even do satellite.”

Bai Yang had personally experienced how cold the amateur radio scene had become. The empty channels were like deserted streets, letting Bai Yang shout all he wanted, not even an echo in response.

“Teacher Liu posted the math homework in the group chat, Xiao Yang remember to check,” Mom came out after finishing mopping. Bai Yang and Dad immediately stopped talking. Discussing the radio—which was just a radio in Mom’s eyes—was dangerous. Mom not selling that antique on Xianyu was already great mercy; the Bai father and son duo couldn’t be ungrateful.

“I know.” Bai Yang lowered his head and took a big gulp of soy milk, calculating in his mind that he had to try again tonight. He wasn’t willing to give up like this. What if he successfully contacted someone across the ocean? Then he could show his mom a legitimate reason—I’m playing with this actually to learn English! Practice speaking! It helps with the college entrance exam!

As long as he didn’t contact Japanese people.

Because Mom wouldn’t acknowledge that what they spoke was English.