“I told you so! I told you so!” Bai Yang was exasperated, forcefully patting the sofa’s backrest. “Uncle Wang, what did I tell you about time capsules? There are two key points to follow the double-blind principle, and if you don’t pay attention, it’ll likely fail. And what happened? It failed, didn’t it?”
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Wang Ning frowned, starting to get up. “Wait here, I’ll go check if something went wrong somewhere.”
“No, no, no, no, no.” Bai Yang quickly stopped him, pushing him back down. “Uncle Wang, you can’t go. If you go and dig it up again, it’ll be even more hopeless.”
Seeing Wang Ning about to make the same mistake as himself, Bai Yang hurried to stop him.
“But even if I don’t dig it up, that girl still won’t be able to find it, right?” Wang Ning sat back down, puzzled. “If she can’t find the capsules, is it because I dug them up?”
“It might not be you,” Zhao Bowen sat on the sofa opposite them. “According to MSR, there will be a world-ending disaster in the future…”
“What disaster?” Mom was bent over cleaning the table when she heard their conversation and turned to ask. “What level is world-ending level?”
“World-ending level means everyone dies,” Zhao Bowen answered. “All of humanity becomes extinct.”
Mom just laughed, probably thinking these three grown men were still talking like children.
She shook her head and carried a stack of plates into the kitchen.
“Let’s continue. When the world-ending disaster strikes, human society will face extreme chaos, possibly a global war. From the information we have now, this is very likely,” Zhao Bowen crossed his legs. “Yang Yang, that girl specifically told you there were fighter jet wreckages on the streets, right?”
Bai Yang nodded.
“And burned-out tanks and armored vehicles.”
“The scene must be massive. You can imagine how chaotic society would be then,” Zhao Bowen continued. “In such circumstances, how can you ensure the time capsules you buried won’t be dug up? Including Old Wang, Old Bai, you, and me—anyone who knows the exact location of the time capsules might steal them halfway through.”
Wang Ning rubbed his chin, frowning.
“Why would I steal them?”
“The current you wouldn’t,” Bai Zhen cut in. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t five years from now.”
“Is my willpower that weak?”
“This has nothing to do with willpower,” Bai Zhen said. “You don’t know what situation you’ll face.”
Old Wang’s brow furrowed deeply, forming wrinkles. He squeezed his forehead hard, feeling embarrassed about the first experiment’s failure. The mighty Director Wang of the Municipal Commission couldn’t even match up to a high school student.
“Don’t rush, we haven’t even confirmed MSR’s story yet. Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Old Wang picked himself up where he had fallen. “We don’t even know if it’s true or false.”
“Burying ten capsules in one place is quite risky. Once discovered, they’re all gone at once,” Zhao Bowen said. “I think spreading them out might be better.”
“I want to try again,” Old Wang grew more determined with each setback.
“Good, explore again, report again!” Bai Zhen waved his hand grandly, like a steadfast military commander.
After the first experiment failed, Wang Ning attributed it to not burying them deep enough or hiding them well enough. He immediately purchased a second batch of time capsules and began the second experiment over the next three days.
Learning from his mistakes, this time Wang Ning didn’t put all his eggs in one basket, but rather put ten eggs in ten baskets.
For three days, Wang Ning and Bai Zhen drove around Meihua Estate, looking for suitable spots and marking them down. Thankfully, Old Bai worked as a ride-share driver, and Old Wang had a super relaxed job plus was a slacking leader, so they had plenty of time to wander around. Zhao Bowen wasn’t as free—he had to return to school early in the morning and could only come over after work in the evening.
If the first experiment failed because the time capsules were discovered and stolen during future social unrest, then this time Wang Ning scattered all ten-time capsules in different locations. If ten capsules were buried together, they’d all be found at once, but if he put one here and one there, even the person who buried them couldn’t remember all the locations—surely one or two would survive the apocalypse.
After a day of reconnaissance, an exhausted Wang Ning and Bai Zhen returned with their notebook.
He slapped the notebook containing all the planned locations on the coffee table, having Bai Yang check each location with BG4MSR on the radio. They circled the locations that could be preserved and crossed out those that would be destroyed in the disaster. Finally, he pointed at all the circled locations on the map and said: Let’s bury the capsules in these places!
Bai Yang shrugged, not saying a word.
Even if he spoke, Uncle Wang wouldn’t listen. He figured these people would need to hit the wall three times before turning back, so he’d just let them do it.
It wasn’t his money anyway.
As expected, the second experiment also failed.
None of the ten-time capsules reached the girl’s hands. Despite Wang Ning’s careful selection of burial sites, she couldn’t find any of them, causing her to waste an entire day on a futile search.
“This isn’t scientific,” Wang Ning couldn’t understand it. “Ten capsules scattered in different places, why couldn’t she find even one? Little Yang, are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Bai Yang sat on the side eating noodles.
“Then why can’t she find the time capsules?” Wang Ning asked. “Is it because there aren’t enough? Should we try with twenty capsules next time?”
“I think we need to change our approach. If ten capsules don’t work, twenty probably won’t either,” Bai Zhen pondered. “Just hiding them won’t work. If what BG4MSR says is true, and this world will face a human extinction crisis, the social chaos will be beyond any of our imaginations…”
“Old Bai—! Hang up the clothes from the washing machine!” Mom called from the room.
“Ah, coming!” Bai Zhen immediately stood up, continuing as he walked. “The social chaos of that period will be beyond our imagination, just like my son said unless you throw them in a lake, they’ll be hard to keep hidden…”
“Old Bai!” Mom raised her voice.
“Coming, coming.” Bai Zhen quickened his pace, rushing to the balcony.
Watching Old Bai’s figure disappear onto the balcony, Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen exchanged glances, silently admiring how Little Wen was truly a remarkable woman, having trained Old Bai to be so obedient.
“Instead of hiding them, let’s secure them in place,” Wang Ning tried a different approach. “We’ll cast the time capsules into concrete in buildings. That should be secure.”
Bai Yang thought to himself that their thinking was indeed similar.
He had tried the same thing before.
“Yang Yang tried this before,” Zhao Bowen said. “But it failed too.”
“How did Little Yang do it?” Wang Ning asked.
“I dug a hole and poured white glue into it,” Bai Yang answered. “It failed, the capsule didn’t get delivered.”
“White glue? PVA glue?” Wang Ning was stunned. “How could you use that stuff? It becomes useless after long exposure to water. Buried underground with wind and rain, it definitely won’t last twenty years. I plan to use concrete—reinforced concrete to cast the capsules. This should work.”
They sent out Zhao Bowen again.
Associate Professor Zhao brought certification from Nanjing University’s Physics Department to the property management, saying this was a matter of national importance requiring their cooperation. They needed to make a hole behind the stone nameplate at the community entrance that displayed the four characters “Meihua Estate” to embed a vibration monitoring device. This would monitor the continental plate activity changes in Nanjing’s urban area—they suspected that someone on the other side of the Earth was launching attacks using continental shelf oscillators, and they needed to monitor closely for countermeasures.
The community expressed their willingness to sacrifice for scientific research and national security, ready to give their all.
So Wang Ning and Bai Zhen called in a drilling machine, made a hole behind that huge stone sign that was three meters high and seven or eight meters long, buried the time capsule, poured in concrete, and attached tiles.
Old Wang pushed it hard, finding it rock solid, and said it was one hundred percent secure this time.
—And you know what? This time it was secure.
Xia found the tile as instructed, and after breaking it, she saw the cement. Without a doubt, the time capsule was inside.
Then she spent an entire day trying to break through the concrete, but couldn’t get it open.