“Come on, BG4MXH, let me comfort you!” The girl pulled back her long legs, hugging her knees. “Look on the bright side, you still have five years. You can do many things in five years. What do you want to do? You can accomplish everything within these five years!”

The other side was stunned for a moment.

“BG4MSR, is this your idea of comfort? OVER.”

Bai Yang thought to himself that her tone sounded like a doctor telling a patient they had five years left to live, and better fulfill any last wishes soon.

What kind of comfort was this?

This was telling him the illness was terminal.

“Uh… let’s put it another way, you still have five years to change this future,” Ban Xia said. “Buck up, young man! You have five years to change the future! To save all of humanity from destruction!”

Strangely enough, though Ban Xia lived in an apocalyptic world fraught with danger.

She was the one comforting others.

Bai Yang lowered his head, leaning against the bookshelf. “But we don’t have any clues, BG4MSR. We don’t know what will happen in the future. Where do we even start to prevent disaster? Should we position nuclear bombs in Earth’s orbit now? Blow that thing up when Black Moon comes?”

“Sure, blow it up!” The girl pumped her fist. “BG4MXH, you have six or seven billion people there. That’s six or seven billion brains. Surely they can think of something. The teacher said your era had very powerful industrial capabilities, with vast numbers of weapons and armies. If you’re not caught off guard, if you can prepare in advance, maybe you could reverse the entire future?”

“Build nuclear missile silos all over the ground! Build tens or hundreds of thousands of densely packed missile silos!” Ban Xia continued. “When Black Moon comes, launch everything! Black Moon looks down and thinks, oh my god, maybe it’ll get scared away.”

Bai Yang suddenly laughed.

“BG4MSR, do you know what a nuclear bomb is? OVER.”

“Yes, I do,” the girl answered. “Because I’ve seen one.”

Bai Yang was startled.

“You’ve seen a nuclear bomb? An intercontinental missile? OVER.”

“No, I saw a nuclear explosion,” Ban Xia said softly. “When I was very young, very far away, in the deep of night, suddenly a sun appeared on the horizon.”

Bai Yang’s eyes widened.

“Later, the Teacher said it was a nuclear bomb that exploded over Zhenjiang,” Ban Xia said. “The hot wind reached us. That night, the sky became so bright, so bright.”

The girl’s tone was calm, but Bai Yang seemed to feel through his headphones that dry, scorching wind blowing from more than a decade in the future. He turned to look outside at the brightly lit city, and his vision seemed to overlap with future Ban Xia’s—

That night, the young girl was held in someone’s arms, standing on a rooftop looking east. The darkness was suddenly illuminated by a massive fireball hanging low in the sky. It was a sun, a rapidly expanding sun. In one second, its volume expanded a thousandfold. Everything at its edges was annihilated, all turning to ash in the extreme heat. But expanding faster than its volume was the air – the supersonic shock wave swept outward to eighty kilometers away within two minutes after the explosion. Standing on a rooftop in Qinhuai District, one could still feel the scorching wind.

It was hard to imagine what desperate situation humanity would face in that era, to resort to using nuclear weapons to destroy cities.

Indeed, his impoverished mind struggled to envision the full picture of world destruction.

If nuclear weapons were involved, what use were underground bunkers and shelters?

One could only pray it wouldn’t fall on their head.

“We can’t do it alone, BG4MSR, you have to help me,” Bai Yang said. “Without your help, we can’t do it, can’t reverse the future of destruction.”

“Leave it to me!” Ban Xia excitedly patted her chest, giggling. “I was going to help you anyway. You help me, I help you – that’s mutual assistance!”

“Right now, most importantly, we lack information. We’re severely lacking crucial information,” Bai Yang said. “BG4MSR, we must know what triggered the disaster, what caused Black Moon’s descent. Do you understand? Without knowing this, we can’t treat the root cause. BG4MSR, you need to tell me everything you know, OVER.”

“But I’ve already told you everything I know,” Ban Xia said.

“Black Moon, and the long-legged spiders that crawl around at night?”

“Yes—” Ban Xia nodded. “That’s all I know. That’s all I remember, what can I do?”

“What about Teacher?” Bai Yang asked. “Did the Teacher leave any useful clues? OVER.”

“Hmm… Teacher…”

The girl touched her chin, thinking carefully.

Though they had lived together for many years, she didn’t know much about her teacher, not even her name, because, in this world of only two people, names were unimportant. In Ban Xia’s eyes, Teacher was a powerful, silent, and strict woman. The teacher was very knowledgeable – she taught her to read and write and made her memorize “Quiet Night Thoughts,” the kind where she’d get her palms smacked if she didn’t learn it well. She taught her hunting and shooting, everything from setting traps to filtering freshwater to processing game. The teacher was also mysterious – she rarely talked about herself, and Ban Xia knew very little about her past.

“Are there any diaries or anything? OVER.”

Bai Yang asked.

“Diaries…”

Ban Xia thought back.

Did the Teacher have a habit of keeping a diary?

Ban Xia shook her head. She had never seen a Teacher write in a diary.

“I don’t know, I’ve never really seen a Teacher write in a diary. Should I help you look for one another day?”

She said this, but Ban Xia figured the chances were slim.

The teacher had left behind very few personal belongings. Ban Xia had carefully preserved them all, storing them in a cabinet. After the Teacher passed away, she sorted through the belongings. There were only three old books among the paper items, and she had never found a diary.

One was “Three Hundred Tang Poems,” which the Teacher often used when making Ban Xia learn characters and memorize poems.

One was an “English-Chinese Dictionary,” which the Teacher often used when making Ban Xia learn the twenty-six English letters, though Ban Xia ended up remembering very few words.

And one tattered hardcover “Journey to the West.”

Ban Xia didn’t know if any books were remaining elsewhere. If not, then these three would be humanity’s final cultural heritage.

She suddenly remembered the two trashy novels she had found at Nanjing Library some time ago.

Those were also part of humanity’s cultural heritage, albeit of the dregs variety.

Unfortunately, it had been very cold then, so she had burned them for warmth. Otherwise, she could have brought them back as decorations.

The two chatted late into the night. Before ending the communication, Bai Yang didn’t forget to remind Ban Xia once more:

“Don’t forget to find the capsule tomorrow. You know the location, right? OVER.”

The specific location of the time capsule had been sent to the girl from Zhao Bowen’s phone. Uncle Zhao had personally come over this afternoon to relay this information, using the same method, except this time the song played wasn’t “Blooming Life” but “I Love You, China.”

“I know, it’s at Crescent Lake…”

The girl suddenly stopped herself.

She giggled, “The rest is classified, can’t tell you.”

Ban Xia sat in her chair, the Icom725 on the table, a small plastic desk lamp giving off light. The lamplight traced the girl’s soft silhouette. She hummed softly, the city outside pitch black, the dimly lit bedroom behind her. In the shadows, the door suddenly moved, followed by a soft “creak—” as it was slowly pushed open.