After Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen left, Old Bai and Little Bai sat back down on the living room sofa. They had discussed the BG4MSR matter many times between themselves.
Old Bai was an experienced HAM operator. Although he hadn’t touched amateur radio much in recent years, his foundation remained solid. He was still one of Nanjing’s top amateur radio experts.
In his younger years, he’d gone on expeditions and competitions with Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen, collecting piles of QSL cards that now covered the walls of Bai Yang’s bedroom. The callsign BG4MXH had once resonated worldwide – HAM operators both domestic and international knew that in Region 4, there was a renowned Mr. BG4MXH who was a 59+ transmitter, giving everyone 59+.
If this were medieval times, the noble Baron BG4MXH, Lord Bai Zhen, would have made his name across the world map. His young son and heir to the BG4MXH callsign, the young baron Bai Yang, leaving home to join the western expedition, from east to west, from lands where they spoke Chinese to Pashto to Italian and finally to English – people everywhere would praise the Baron’s 59+—
“Who are you?”
“I am BG4MXH.”
“Ah, so you’re the renowned 59+ Baron! Looking at the ICOM725 on your back, you are him! Your 59+ spans from east to west across the heavens!”
Mom took the cups from the coffee table to wash them and brought back two new ones filled with boiled water.
“Have you been back to see the house in our hometown?” Bai Zhen asked.
Mom, who was pouring water, looked up. “The house in our hometown? In Lulou?”
Bai Zhen nodded.
“Haven’t been back,” Mom said. “You haven’t been back either, how could I go?”
Bai Zhen wasn’t native to Nanjing. He had moved there with his parents when he was six years old. Their hometown was in Lulou Town, Pei County. Bai Yang’s grandparents had come to Nanjing to do business in the 1980s, during the height of Reform and Opening Up, when all the bold ones were “jumping into the sea” of business. Back then, Grandfather and Grandmother Bai both worked in state-owned units – one at the county credit union, the other at the county supply and marketing cooperative. They were among the elite of the elite. But seeing the market economy booming and hearing that all the bold ones were getting rich, they gritted their teeth, resigned from their positions, and went to Nanjing to do business.
Reality proved that while all who got rich were indeed bold, not all who were bold got rich.
The elderly Bai couple struggled their whole lives, with their only notable achievement being the acquisition of two properties before housing prices skyrocketed. When Bai Zhen got married, they sold both properties and bought two new ones – a large one in Meihua Villa for Bai Zhen, and a smaller one for themselves.
They still had a self-built house in their hometown in Pei County, where they returned every Qingming Festival to sweep the ancestral graves.
Pei County – yes, the hometown of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, where he had served as a patrol officer.
Now it was a county under Xuzhou city.
“What do you think about selling this house and moving back to our hometown?” Old Bai asked.
“Are you crazy?” Mom didn’t humor him. “If you don’t want this house and want to go back home, fine, you can do it yourself. But we can’t sell this house – it needs to be kept for our son.”
“I’m planning to go back home sometime and renovate the old house, add a basement and such,” Bai Zhen continued.
Bai Yang glanced at his father with slight surprise.
Though his father claimed not to believe, his actions were honest – wasn’t this return home to renovate the old house just a way of leaving himself a backup plan?
Bai Yang figured it was far more than just renovating the house. Their hometown was in the village, sparsely populated with plenty of open space – enough room to maneuver. His father was a veteran who had served in the military for over a decade. Though he now drove for DiDi and seemed like a middle-aged man good for nothing but talk, when his family faced a major threat, this lazy old man could transform into an impenetrable shield.
“Besides adding a basement?” Bai Yang asked. “What else needs to be done?”
“We need to thicken the walls with concrete-reinforced steel plates, preferably strong enough to withstand 12.7mm caliber shots. Also, need to seal up the windows and leave gun ports,” Bai Zhen answered. “The basement needs a well for adequate freshwater supply – without freshwater, you can’t hold out long term. Food, power generation, fuel, medicine, transportation – everything needs to be well-stocked, enough for five people to last three months.”
Bai Zhen’s serious demeanor scared Mom.
“Old Bai, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m saying if the apocalypse is coming, we need to prepare early,” Bai Zhen replied.
“Why not move to New Zealand then, or Australia would work too,” Bai Yang took a deep breath. “Those places are sparsely populated, uninhabited – smaller targets.”
“You wouldn’t survive in those places either,” Bai Zhen shook his head. “Everything has two sides. Crowds can bring chaos, but they can also bring help. From my experience, during major disasters, you can’t separate from the organization, or at least can’t stray too far from it.”
Bai Yang lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
No one knew what the disaster would look like when it came.
What if it was like Thanos – a snap of fingers, and half of Earth’s population disappeared?
Then nothing they did would matter.
It wasn’t until his father described building a shelter word by word that Bai Yang truly felt the reality of facing the apocalypse. It had finally materialized from the ethereal radio waves into his real life, tangibly changing his life, changing his father’s conversations, changing their old house. Predictably, its changes to this world would become increasingly significant obvious, and unstoppable.
He would never be able to return to normal life – going to school every day, watching movies at Wanda on weekends, eating in Xinjiekou, riding bicycles with Brother Yan – all those familiar, playful daily routines would vanish, disappearing into ashes in the not-too-distant future.
Never to return.
Bai Yang suddenly felt afraid.
Though the apocalypse hadn’t arrived yet, looking back at his past life, everything felt different – even an apple on the coffee table suddenly seemed precious.
Humans were indeed such creatures – taking things for granted when they seemed endless, only learning to cherish them when about to lose them.
Bai Yang looked at his parents’ faces. He dared not imagine how his life would be destroyed. Would his father survive? Would his mother survive? Would all his relatives, friends, and classmates survive? What fate would they face? Would He Dashao and Yan Zhihan die? How would they die? Would it be painful?
A sense of helplessness gripped Bai Yang’s limbs. He was terrified to discover that though he knew the outcome, he was powerless to change it. It was like a tsunami carrying hundreds of millions of tons of seawater – slow-moving but unstoppable. What could the power of a single person amount to in its face?
He tried to look ahead, and at that point, five years in the future stood a black, endless wall looming before him. Everyone would be shattered against that wall.
The frightening thing was, that no one could postpone that day’s arrival. The whole world could only watch helplessly as they awaited their doom.
The next day.
Wang Ning received five brand-new time capsules.
The Taobao seller probably couldn’t understand why this customer wanted to buy so many time capsules, and thoughtfully included a note in the package.
It read: The capsules contain no copper – useless to smelt; no silver – useless to sell; no gold – useless even to donate.
As agreed, Wang Ning prepared the disposable medical supplies, tritium tubes, the world-famous painting “Penguin and Mini in Court,” and beyond what was agreed, copper sulfate pentahydrate crystals.
Wang Ning was being clever here. The disposable medical supplies and tritium tubes were items everyone knew about, so he wanted to include something only he knew about in the capsules. This way he could remain independent of the plan, preventing everyone from conspiring to fool him.
On such a major matter, he wouldn’t fully trust anyone, including his old friends Zhao and Bai. He only trusted himself.
The copper sulfate pentahydrate crystals were also a simple time recorder. Anyone who studied high school chemistry knows that copper sulfate pentahydrate crystals are light blue, but they gradually weather over time, changing from light blue to colorless crystals. Wang Ning put both a pack of copper sulfate and a desiccant in the time capsule as a time-recording method beyond the tritium tubes.
After twenty years in a dry environment, the copper sulfate pentahydrate crystals would completely weather into anhydrous copper sulfate, finally becoming unrecognizable white crystals.
Only if BG4MSR correctly answered both the tritium tube brightness and the crystal color would Wang Ning believe this was real.
And besides Wang Ning himself, no one else would know about the additional copper sulfate crystals in the time capsules, eliminating the possibility of being fooled by a conspiracy. This was his verification method.
After sealing the time capsules, Wang Ning wrapped them in layers of plastic and finally called Little Zhu according to the original plan.
Wearing a tank top and shorts with plastic slippers, Wang Ning hurriedly went downstairs carrying two large bags. Little Zhu was already waiting below, wearing sunglasses, a mask, and a baseball cap, completely covering his face.
Wang Ning looked him up and down, nodding in satisfaction.
No one could tell it was Little Zhu.
“Brother Wang, what do you need me to do? Why are you in such a hurry?” Little Zhu was curious. “Help you deliver something? What you’re carrying?”
Wang Ning’s expression suddenly fell.
“Ah, Little Zhu, you must help Brother Wang with this favor.” Wang Ning’s eyes filled with tears, his tone anguished, speaking quickly while looking back upstairs as if being pursued. “Otherwise I’ll go jump in Xuanwu Lake… your sister-in-law has thrown me out!”
Little Zhu was shocked.
“What happened, Brother Wang? What’s going on between you and sister-in-law?”
“Your sister-in-law says I’m having an affair,” Wang Ning said lifelessly. “Says I’m cheating, wants to divorce me.”
Little Zhu was aghast.
By rights, he shouldn’t meddle in his leader’s family affairs.
Couples might fight at the head of the bed but reconcile at the foot – if an outsider like him interfered, once they made up, he’d be in an awkward position all around.
“You must help me.”
“Okay, okay, Brother Wang, just tell me what to do, I’ll… I’ll do whatever’s needed.”
“Please help me take away the evidence of my alleged affair, quickly, take it away as soon as possible,” Wang Ning heaved a long sigh. “She says as long as these things stay in the house one more day, I can’t sleep in the bed for one more day… she only found one, and all hell broke loose, if she finds all of these, it’ll be the death of me.”
Little Zhu’s gaze fell on the black plastic bags in Wang Ning’s hands, and he was suddenly startled.
These were Brother Wang’s affair partners?
Why were they packed in several bags?
“Bro-Brother Wang, what… what’s in these bags?”
Little Zhu prepared to run.
Wang Ning stepped closer, looked around to make sure no one was nearby, and whispered mysteriously:
“Onaholes.”
Little Zhu turned to stone.
“Your sister-in-law says using these things means I’m unfaithful to her, withholding my conjugal duties, evading taxes. She chopped up the one she found with a cleaver, scared me half to death, so I quickly rescued the rest, but now I have nowhere to put them. I don’t want to throw them away, you know, they’re all carefully selected good items, Tenga, it would be a waste to destroy them,” Wang Ning continued. “So please help me pass them to my friend for temporary storage, I’ll retrieve them when things cool down.”
“Brother Wang, you’re – going to – take them back?”
“Of course, after all, they’ve been with me for so many years, there’s emotional attachment.”
Little Zhu nodded blankly.
Even with another head, he couldn’t have imagined Brother Wang calling him over to help with this. And pass them to a friend for storage? What if the friend used them?
He lifted the black plastic bags – they were heavy. Little Zhu peeked inside and could vaguely see a voluptuous image, flashes of white flesh and curves.
The pure and innocent Little Zhu didn’t look further, quickly averting his gaze – don’t look at what you shouldn’t.
Meanwhile, he secretly thought:
Damn, so many? Brother Wang was running a manual harem?
Wang Ning then told Little Zhu the specific meeting location and time, saying the contact would be easy to find – look for someone wearing sunglasses, a mask, and a hat like him in this hot weather. After finding them, don’t talk much, just hand over the bags. Little Zhu nodded, finally understanding why Brother Wang wanted him covered up so thoroughly – transporting these things indeed needed some concealment.
Little Zhu set off with the bags.
The plan began to move.
Wang Ning watched his figure disappear at the community entrance, dropped his expression, took out his phone and dialed:
“Crow crow, the package is on its way.”