With the remote control system complete, the next item on the agenda was the image transmission link.

Over the weekend, Wang Ning and Bai Zhen discussed in detail the technical aspects of using the Icom 725 amateur radio for image transmission.

“We use cameras, right?” Ban Xia squatted on the living room floor, holding the UV9R transceiver, with mountains of cameras piled in front of her. “I brought back lots of cameras, might have emptied all of Zhujiang Road.”

Over the past week, the girl had been scavenging Zhujiang Road daily, bringing back massive amounts of electronic waste.

LCD monitors, computer towers, motherboards, coaxial cables, cameras, mice, keyboards – useful or not, recognizable or not – all were stuffed into sacks and hauled back on a small cart.

This was a garbage collector’s paradise.

“I have many cameras here, which one should I use?” Ban Xia asked.

After establishing the remote control system, communication had indeed become much more convenient. The most notable change was that the girl no longer needed to stay stationed in her room.

She could wander around the house with her handheld radio.

“Best to use a UVC camera, OVER,” Bai Yang’s voice came through the radio.

“BG4MXH, what’s a UVC camera?”

“UVC stands for USB VIDEO CLASS, it’s a standard protocol,” Bai Yang answered. “Simply put, it’s a driverless camera – plug and play, very convenient, OVER.”

“So which one is the UVC camera?”

Ban Xia picked through them casually. There were so many cameras – dome-shaped ones, cylindrical ones, rectangular ones, and some with stands like small desk lamps.

“Most webcams are UVC cameras, including all the ones you found,” Bai Yang said. “Just pick one that still works normally, OVER.”

Establishing an image transmission link was much more complex than the remote control system.

Wang Ning said that purely analog repeaters like the GR3188 weren’t too different from the 725 at the communication protocol level, because it was composed of two base stations – all one family, speaking the same language. As long as the hardware pathway was built correctly, with the repeater and 725’s rear aligned with mouth, and mouth aligned with the rear, the whole link could muddle along.

But image transmission was different.

The image data captured by the camera needed to be transmitted to Bai Yang through the 725, but the camera and amateur radio weren’t family. The webcam was a new generation, and the amateur radio was an antique. Their data exchange would undoubtedly be like chickens talking to ducks – unable to understand each other. So they needed a powerful translator, a core machine, and a connecting hub to handle the transcoding function.

Converting image data into signals that amateur radio could transmit – without question, the best candidate for this task was a computer.

The computer was both the most convenient and most powerful platform. If Ban Xia could find a computer that worked normally, all problems would be solved.

“Useless, these computers are all useless,” Ban Xia shook her head. “They’re all rusted beyond recognition, no response even when plugged in… Oh my!”

She suddenly exclaimed.

“What’s wrong? Young lady? What happened?”

Several seconds later, the girl replied:

“It exploded, this motherboard exploded, lots of smoke… cough cough… I need to get some air.”

With no usable computers, Wang Ning and Bai Zhen settled for the next best thing – they began discussing the feasibility of development boards and Raspberry Pi in this system.

“What system does Raspberry Pi use?” Wang Ning asked.

“Linux,” Bai Zhen answered.

“Are you good at Linux platform development?” Wang Ning asked.

“I’m best with single-chip microcomputers and DOS, you know how many old-timers in the military use DOS,” Bai Zhen said. “I know a little Linux.”

“To what extent?”

“I can spell it.”

Ban Xia ran to the balcony, opened the window to let in the night breeze, and then leaned against the railing, gazing outward leisurely.

“I feel my life has meaning again,” she suddenly said.

Bai Yang was startled.

“Why do you say that? OVER.”

“Before contacting you, I just lived day by day, not knowing why I was still alive in this world or what I should do. After the teacher was gone, I lived alone in the house, often sitting still for entire days without speaking. Gradually, I even forgot how to talk because no one talked to me anymore. I couldn’t talk to myself, right? Always talking to yourself leads to mental illness, so I had to force myself to sing,” Ban Xia said. “Without singing, I would have become mute. It’s good you contacted the current me – if it had been two years later, I could only talk to you like this: Woo woo! Woo!”

She giggled.

“But now I find life so interesting! Finally, there are things to do, whether it’s collecting garbage from Zhujiang Road or modifying the repeater and 725. When I go to bed at night, I can think about what to do tomorrow. This kind of life is wonderful, I love it so much.”

“Uh… don’t you find all this troublesome and boring?” Bai Yang asked. “Don’t you get tired of it? OVER.”

“Not at all,” Ban Xia said.

“Young lady, you’ll need to learn programming later, don’t speak too soon,” Bai Yang reminded her. “That’s even more boring and difficult, OVER.”

“Bring it on!”

Ban Xia was full of confidence – what could be harder to endure than her previous life?

–Two days later, she was rolling on the floor:

“I quit I quit I quit I quit! It’s just against me! This isn’t scientific! This isn’t comprehensible! The code I input was all correct, why won’t it run?”

“BG4MXH, after the image transmission link is established, what data do you need?” Ban Xia asked. “We can only contact you at 10 PM, it’s already dark outside then, what can I photograph?”

“We’re still discussing that,” Bai Yang answered. “Young lady, image transmission isn’t the key point – the key is to broaden the data transmission link. Currently being limited to radio voice communication is too restrictive. We need to pave the road first; only when the road is paved can bigger vehicles pass. Can you understand that? OVER.”

The girl nodded.

She could understand what Bai Yang was saying, but she didn’t know what they could do after broadening the data channel.

It was obvious that Ban Xia knew almost nothing about the world-ending disaster of the past.

And there was too little information left in this world about that disaster. Human civilization had been destroyed in an extremely short time, seven billion people left no remains. Only crashed planes, burned-out cars, and crater marks on the ground hinted at the resistance that once existed. Detailed records might still exist somewhere on Earth – perhaps in Greenland, in the depths of the Pacific, or the Cheyenne Mountain North American Aerospace Defense Command – all places Ban Xia could never reach.

Though puzzled, the girl still carried out all the work according to plan.

Maybe they had some method?

–Actually, Bai Yang didn’t know of any method either; he was just following Zhao Bowen’s instructions to push the work forward before his return.

If at this moment, among the world’s seven billion people, one person had a complete plan in mind, that person was undoubtedly Zhao Bowen.

Bai Yang didn’t know where Old Zhao was now. He hadn’t called asking for applause in a long time, disappearing without a trace for many days, as if he’d vanished from the earth.

Sometimes Bai Yang’s mind wandered, thinking Uncle Zhao had probably been locked up as a mental patient, his phone confiscated, explaining the long silence – as he thought about it, this scene appeared in his mind: Zhao Bowen locked in an intensive isolation ward, hair disheveled, eyes sunken, desperately banging on the iron door shouting at nurses “Let me out! If you don’t let me out the world will be destroyed!” Then the other patients would burst into laughter, and a more senior mental patient next door would calculate on his fingers and comfort him, saying “Young man, don’t worry, the Arhats will descend when the time comes, great divine dragon power.”

If that were true, the world really would be finished.

With Bai Yang’s little brain, he couldn’t guess what Zhao Bowen was planning. Uncle Zhao seemed to be playing a grand game of chess.

Bai Yang was waiting for Zhao Bowen’s next move.

Just as Uncle Zhao’s chess piece was about to fall, BG4MSR suddenly transmitted news that would make everyone present jump up.

This was a major turning point, pushing Bai Yang and the others one giant step closer to the truth about the apocalyptic disaster.

This giant step was thanks to a slipper.

It was one small step for a slipper, but one giant leap for all humanity.