Rat poison?

Bai Yang immediately began searching.

These days, it was hard to find elderly men selling rat poison from street stalls. Those old vendors used to arrange dead rats in a circle on the ground around their stalls—quite ritualistic and intimidating. To rats, this must have appeared as a terrifying festival of evil gods.

Bai Yang could only search online.

These days, rat poison brands have taken on a fantasy-style flair. Just as Bai Yang’s eyes fell upon a product called “Rat Extermination Divine Tool,” before he could even shudder, another called “Rat Extermination Divine Emperor” popped up.

There was also:

Death-to-Rats

Rat-Toxin Supreme

Rat-Slayer King

Rat-Sweeping Ridge

Wait, something seemed out of place there.

For long-term storage purposes, Bai Yang tried to select inorganic chemical rat poisons while avoiding organic compounds or biological agents like botulinum toxin.

After careful consideration, Bai Yang decided zinc phosphide was the most suitable. Made from red phosphorus and zinc powder, its composition was simple and wouldn’t deteriorate.

Order placed!

The next day.

Wang Ning and Zhao Bowen had finished burying the time capsules. They buried ten stainless steel capsules underground. Wang Ning confidently assured there would be no problems, stomping his foot firmly on the filled earth as he told Zhao Bowen: “Buried this deep, ten capsules, guaranteed one hundred percent safe for twenty years.”

They had called in a small excavator to dig two one-meter-deep holes, each half a meter square, and buried five-time capsules in each hole. The property management hadn’t caused any trouble because the community property manager was the nephew of a close friend of Zhao Bowen’s classmate’s mother. With this distant connection, Zhao Bowen brought certification from Nanjing University’s Physics Department to the property management, explaining that NJU was conducting a small physics experiment and hoped for the community’s cooperation.

The experiment involved digging holes in the ground and burying some items. Zhao Bowen claimed it was a shallow ground temperature monitoring experiment, and the buried items were thermometers that would record temperature changes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He said this had great significance for plant root research and urban landscaping planning. As for why they chose Meihua Estate—well, it was supposedly an auspicious location.

The property management gladly agreed. For the sake of scientific research, they would spare no effort.

Wang Ning gained a new appreciation for Zhao Bowen’s ability to spin tales.

“You’re that certain?” Zhao Bowen asked.

“It’s not like we haven’t done time capsules before,” Wang Ning said. “Years ago, when I first started working, the company organized an activity where everyone had to write a letter to their future selves, to be opened more than ten years later. We used a time capsule then too, sealed everyone’s letters inside and buried it underground.”

“What happened then?” Zhao Bowen asked. “Did you dig it up when the time came?”

“We did,” Wang Ning answered. “Everything went smoothly, all the letters were there. Don’t listen to Little Yang rambling on about this interference and that interference. In reality, where would all these interferences come from? Who would constantly think about this thing? Old Zhao, let me tell you, once you bury a time capsule and leave it undisturbed for a week or two, no one touches it after that.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone pretty much forgets about it,” Wang Ning put both hands in his pockets. “Everyone’s busy with work, spending time with their wives after work, and sometimes there’s overtime for civilized unit evaluations. Who would constantly think about a capsule?”

“What did you write in your letter?”

“In my letter, I wrote that in ten years I would be the Director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, so I started with ‘Greetings, Director Wang,'” Wang Ning smiled. “Young and inexperienced, like a newborn calf unafraid of tigers.”

“No worries, there’s still a chance,” Zhao Bowen said. “Chief Wang, you’re only four ranks away from Director Wang.”

“No chance in this lifetime. I’ll probably retire as a section chief at best,” Wang Ning shook his head. “But Little Yang says the world will end in a few years anyway, everyone on Earth will die, so being section chief or department director won’t mean anything. I should resign tomorrow and spend my remaining time doing everything I’ve wanted to do.”

“Like streaking through Xinjiekou?” Zhao Bowen asked. “You’ve wanted to do that for a while, haven’t you?”

“Get out of here, you’re never serious,” Wang Ning raised his foot to kick at him. “And you’re an associate professor? Aren’t you worried about being a bad influence on students?”

“I want to streak through Xinjiekou,” Zhao Bowen said. “What kind of place is Xinjiekou? The world’s most prosperous commercial street. Streaking there would be meaningful.”

“Besides affecting city appearance and corrupting public morals, what meaning could it have?”

“You don’t understand, it’s called performance art,” Zhao Bowen said.

“I can’t understand you intellectuals,” Wang Ning shook his head. “Let’s talk seriously, Old Zhao, what do you think about what Little Yang said?”

“Hard to say,” Zhao Bowen pursed his lips, looking up at the surrounding residential buildings. He stood in the shade of a camphor tree, wearing a white polo shirt. “To be honest, I’m also confused. Subjectively, I don’t believe time travel exists—no theory can support such a phenomenon. But we can’t explain that Number 25 either, right?”

“Did you manage to borrow the electromagnetic anechoic chamber?”

“Working on it, working on it,” Zhao Bowen said. “Last night I went through materials all night, the first time I’ve stayed up that late since self-evaluating for associate professor. In my limited knowledge, humanity currently has no definitive theoretical basis to explain this phenomenon. Theoretically, it shouldn’t exist. We’re like blind men riding blind horses—no theory, we can only proceed with experiments first.”

Wang Ning looked down at the ground, stepping on it with his shoe sole, leaving several footprints in the soil.

“Relying on this?”

“For now, yes,” Zhao Bowen said.

“As a modern physics experiment, isn’t this too crude?” Wang Ning asked.

“There are plenty that are even cruder,” Zhao Bowen laughed. “As long as it achieves its purpose, who cares if it looks primitive.”

He patted Old Wang’s shoulder.

“If the experiment succeeds and verifies what Yang Yang said is true, that’s when our real troubles begin… Let’s go, the sun’s coming out. Let’s get something to drink.”

Wang Ning sighed and followed him back.

It was hard to say whether they were lucky or unlucky.

Because Wang Ning’s experiment didn’t verify what Bai Yang had said. This wasn’t because Bai Yang was lying or deceiving everyone, but because the experiment failed. If this experiment would ultimately reveal a terrifying fact that would cause horror or even breakdown, then its failure undoubtedly gave everyone time and space to catch their breath and comfort themselves—as long as the lid stayed closed, no one could see whether there was a death sentence lying underneath.

That night, Bai Yang contacted BG4MSR and, according to plan, had her go to the burial site to dig up the time capsules.

As Bai Yang had expected, she couldn’t find the ten stainless steel capsules.