“Sparrow sparrow, Crow received, Crow preparing to depart.”

Wang Ning put away his phone. He had gone all out, temporarily setting aside his dignity.

To ensure success, he had even copied Bai Yang’s plan exactly, using the same excuse to get help. There was no reason it shouldn’t work.

The heroic idea of self-sacrifice to save the world arose naturally in his heart. Wang Ning suddenly felt fearless. As they say, a man remains young until death. Although he had grown older, his belly larger, his hair thinner, his crown shinier, and increasingly middle-aged – young girls on the street would walk around him – but when had Old Wang not harbored dreams of becoming a hero?

Who doesn’t want to become light?

Thinking this way, Old Wang’s spine straightened even more.

On the other side, Zhao Bowen received the message and dispatched Crow to the designated meeting point.

Who was Crow’s true identity? To this day we still don’t know. Zhao Bowen never revealed this person’s identity to anyone afterward. Our only knowledge of Crow is that he appeared at an intersection in Qinhuai District on the afternoon of October 14, 2019 – a tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a mask.

Crow retrieved the time capsules that afternoon and headed to Crescent Lake as instructed.

The specific location for hiding the time capsules could only be chosen by Crow himself. In this era, no one else could know this location except him.

The second person in the world to know this location would live twenty years later.

It must be said that the plan designed by the trio of Zhao Bowen, Wang Ning, and Bai Zhen was much more meticulous than Bai Yang’s. Three cobblers surpass Zhuge Liang and three clever minds outmatched a high school student.

The manpower and financial resources commanded by Wang Ning, Zhao Bowen, and Bai Zhen far exceeded Bai Yang’s. With people, money, and resources, they could optimize every link to maximize the plan’s success rate.

Crow threw the time capsules into Crescent Lake, then followed instructions to send the location information to Zhao Bowen via WeChat voice message.

“Ahh—it’s so hot, so hot!” the girl wailed on the channel. “Why is this damned weather so hot? Stuffy and hot? Even the electric fan blows hot air. I’m about to be roasted dry. Isn’t summer supposed to be over?”

Bai Yang, wearing headphones on his end, silently took out the air conditioner remote and lowered the temperature by one degree.

“It’s the autumn tiger, it’s very hot here too, BG4MSR, but I have air conditioning, OVER.”

“Send me an air conditioner!”

“Can’t do that, OVER.”

Ban Xia leaned back in her chair, her bare legs propped up on the desk. She wore only a tank top and shorts, her hair tied in a bun on top of her head. The electric fan behind her was blowing at full force, yet the room still felt like a steamer. Summer was just that unbearable.

“I set four traps in the community today, one each in the east, south, west, and north,” Ban Xia said. “Took a huge effort, completely exhausted me.”

“Sis, remember to add OVER or COMPLETE after each sentence, you always forget, OVER.”

“Forgot.”

“See, you forgot again, OVER.”

“It’s so troublesome, it doesn’t matter if I don’t add it, you know when I’m done talking anyway. Also, who are you calling sis? I’m younger than you.”

“You’re nineteen, I’m eighteen, you’re older, OVER.”

“No no no, you can’t count it that way. You were born at the beginning of this century, born about forty years ago, you’re more than twenty years older than me.”

“Then what should I call you? Little girl? OVER.”

Ban Xia furrowed her brows on the other end, biting her lip and staring at the ceiling.

“No no no, let’s each count our age. You’re eighteen, I’m nineteen, you should still call me sister, but you’re not allowed to call me big sister—”

“Fine, won’t call you big sister. Is Young Miss acceptable? Let’s get back to the traps, how did you set them? Did you dig them? Dig deep holes in the ground and cover them with leaves and branches. OVER.”

“No, of course not. Pit traps are very hard to dig, especially ones big enough to trap large animals. One person can’t do it,” Ban Xia shook her head. “The most common are spring snares with rope loops. Have you seen them? Whether it’s deer or roe deer, once triggered, they’ll be caught by the back leg and hung up.”

Bai Yang was a bit surprised.

“How is it done? OVER.”

“Use trees, trees or bamboo both work. Bend the trunk, but don’t break it,” Ban Xia held a stainless steel ruler, inserted it into a gap in the desk, and slowly bent it with her fingers. “Isn’t a bent trunk elastic? Then use a hook to fix it to the ground, and attach a rope loop to the hook. If an animal steps into the loop, any movement will tighten it, while also pulling the hook loose, and the trunk springs back—”

She released her hand, and the ruler vibrated with a “buzz.”

“The prey is instantly hung up. Simple, right? This is the most basic snare trap. Did you understand?”

Bai Yang scratched his head, thinking it sounded a bit complicated.

He wondered if he should study wilderness survival.

It might come in handy later.

If human civilization was destroyed and surviving humans had to return to an age of farming and hunting, having an extra survival skill couldn’t hurt.

The normal human brain finds it difficult to suddenly accept the concept of “world destruction.”

Everyone is narrow-minded about things they’ve never encountered. What’s the story of the blind men touching the elephant? When facing something never seen before, everyone is blind. Each person can only understand based on their own experience and perspective – the one who touches the trunk says the elephant is like a snake, the one who touches the leg says it’s like a pillar, and the one who touches the ear says it’s like a fan.

Everyone looks at the leopard through tubes, and different life experiences give you different shaped tubes. Some have square tubes and see a square leopard, others have round tubes and see a round leopard. Are any of them correct? None are.

Now facing a concept like “world destruction” – something like Yog-Sothoth or Leviathan – Bai Yang’s first reaction wasn’t fear, wasn’t tension, wasn’t panic, and terror, but rather no reaction at all.

Because this concept was too ethereal, too vast, and too far from daily life. This foolish brain couldn’t trigger a stress response, and couldn’t secrete adrenaline. Without a doubt, global destruction would be the greatest crisis humanity would face, but telling someone the world will be destroyed in five years versus putting a knife to their throat in a home invasion – clearly, the latter would make their adrenaline surge.

But that ghostly Leviathan wouldn’t just hover in the sky forever without descending. When it truly entered your daily life, began changing the world bit by bit, and made you realize it truly existed – everything would be different.

Bai Yang had already touched this behemoth. When he barely glimpsed the true face of this tip of the iceberg, he was nearly crushed by its enormous weight.

He couldn’t personally experience world destruction.

But he could imagine his parents dying tragically in five years, his friends dying tragically, and everyone around him dying tragically.

This terrified him and made him desperately want to change that horrible future.

“BG4MXH? BG4MXH? Can you hear me? Why is there no sound?”

“BG4MSR, I’m here, OVER.” Bai Yang’s thoughts returned to the communication. “BG4MSR, I’m under so much pressure now, OVER.”

“So much pressure you say OVER twice in one sentence?”

Bai Yang was startled.

“Why are you under so much pressure?” Ban Xia asked.

“Do you need to ask? There are only five years left before the whole world is finished, everyone will die. I’m about to despair, OVER.”

The girl fell silent.

The teacher had said that people’s joys and sorrows can’t truly be shared.

Indeed, she couldn’t understand Bai Yang’s feelings.

She was listening to someone already dead feeling anxious about an inevitable outcome.

It seemed a bit comical.

But more cruel.