Once Upon in Nanjing-Chapter 28 - 14 Goodbye to Your Highness

Ban Xia leaned against the collapsed pillar of the corridor, sitting there until dawn. The morning sun shone on the overgrown weeds, and a breeze carried the scent of the earth. Everything was awakening, but this city alone would not wake up, never again.

The shovel and knife lay on the ground. The girl looked down at her hands, covered in dirt, her joints aching.

She tilted her head back, resting it against the rough concrete pillar, gazing blankly at the sturdy frame above. Constructed from interlacing prefabricated slabs, the grid formed a corridor propped on pillars, unable to protect from wind and rain, but suitable for climbing vines. Perhaps in the era before the world's destruction, this corridor would have been draped with a thick green blanket of dense vines and leaves.

But now, everything was gone. Half of the corridor had collapsed, charred black. Weeds grew everywhere in this world, except bare on this corridor.

Her hands hurt.

A throbbing pain, the index and middle fingers of both hands swollen as big as buns, turned out this way from aggressively pressing against stones.

She dug too hard, too desperately, too madly last night, ignoring the injury to her hands.

From three in the morning until six, she dug for over three hours, turning over every floor tile, and towards the end, Ban Xia became desperate. She even felt that she was not in Nanjing of the year 2040, but a parallel universe cut off from the world, where except for radio waves, she could send nothing out, and except for radio waves, nothing could get in.

Now she calmed down and sat silently pondering where things had gone wrong.

Where had the time capsule gone?

Had it been dug up by someone in the past twenty years?

The girl sat on a bench, slumping against a pillar lost in thought, her legs bent, eyelids drooping, her thick eyelashes trembling slightly.

Out of nowhere, a sparrow hopped around on the ground, tilting its head to look at the girl, fluffy like a ball. Ban Xia estimated in her mind the difficulty of catching it to make soup but then abandoned the idea. Catching birds required a net; it was too hard with bare hands.

Ban Xia had no concept of Time Slow Delivery. In her imagination, it was a simple process – agree on a location, the other party buries the time capsule, then she digs it up.

Just that simple.

But as it turned out, this simple process failed.

This means that Time Slow Delivery was not as simple as she thought.

Sigh.

Ban Xia exhaled a sigh.

She couldn't figure it out.

She wasn't a particularly clever person.

It was time to ask the teacher.

The teacher knew everything; maybe she could get some inspiration from them?

The girl picked up the shovel and knife from the ground, got up from the ground, dusted off the dry soil and dust from her body, and disappeared into the bushes.

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That evening.

Bai Yang finished taking a shower, sitting down at the table before drying her hair, rubbing a towel over her head while swiftly turning on the radio.

They had a tiring afternoon. After watching "The Captain" at Wanda Cinema, Yan Ge insisted on visiting the cat café, and so the three of them went in search of a cat café - which turned out to be not only cats but also dogs and ducks. At the cat café, Bai Yang encountered a proud British shorthair. While other cats were fighting over cans of tuna cat food, the British shorthair sat on the cat tree as solid as a rock, ignoring everything below. It was so arrogant that Bai Yang and the others thought it looked like the actual cafe manager. Yan Zhihan commented that these celestial cats appeared to be kept to attract customers, but perhaps they were the true owners, holding meetings after closing to discuss the day's sales and which humans were the most compliant. And that British shorthair sitting atop its throne: "First, let me meow a couple of words..."

Before Yan Zhihan could finish, the British shorthair leaped down, knocking over the lemon tea served by the waiter.

Wetting He Leqin's pants.

"BG4MSR, BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH, how's it going? Did you get the time capsule? OVER."

Bai Yang squeezed the microphone calling out.

"...What? No? No time capsule?"

Bai Yang was stunned.

"Sister, are you sure you dug in the right place? OVER."

"Yes, yes, it's underneath the corridor in the community plaza, under the floor tiles, OVER."

"Nothing?"

"Dug it all up but still nothing?"

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"BG4MSR, it's a stainless steel canister, about as long as a mineral water bottle, OVER."

"Didn't see it?"

Bai Yang sat dumbfounded on the chair, then clutching the hand mic he said: "BG4MSR, please wait for me for a moment, OVER."

He then took off the headphones, put on his pants, and dashed out.

"Yang? Where are you going?"

"Be right back—!"

After changing into his shoes in the entryway, Bai Yang sprinted downstairs and hurried to the spot where he buried the time capsule last night. He didn't care about trampling the lawn, cutting straight across the flower beds.

His feet landed on the tiles of the corridor; panting, he crouched down to inspect the area. It was exactly as Bai Yang had restored it last night. After burying the time capsule, to prevent anyone from discovering it, he meticulously filled the earth back in and reset the tiles to their original state, even cleaning the ground... Bai Yang found no trace that anyone had touched it; even the light scratches on the tile had not changed.

Sitting on the bench, he took deep breaths and wiped off his sweat.

No one had touched it.

The time capsule was still there.

Why didn't she dig it up?

Bai Yang walked back home step by step, pondering as he went.

Could it be that in the next twenty years, someone really intercepted and took the time capsule?

What are the odds of that happening?

He had already confirmed with BG4MSR that the community square had not been destroyed, no huge holes had been blasted open, and the ground hadn't been dug up. The time capsule wouldn't just expose itself unless someone deliberately dug it up. But who would do that? With the hidden spot Bai Yang carefully chose, who would know there was a time capsule buried there?

Bai Yang entered the apartment building, slowly ascending the stairs.

He thought about some criminal cases where the killer buried bodies or bones underground for decades without them being discovered.

So the possibility of the time capsule being intercepted halfway was very, very small.

Therefore, another possibility was very, very likely.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

That is she never went to dig at all.

If one applies Occam's razor, slicing away all unreliable speculations, the last remaining, most logical outcome was obvious—Bai Yang had been played.

This was all nonsense.

The shortwave radio could never truly transmit signals across time and space (Einstein and Maxwell could rest in peace now), BG4MSR was actually residing in a building in Meihua Villa, this drama queen just wanted to prank Bai Yang, so she made up a story to play him like a fiddle; maybe at this moment, she's leaning on the balcony, looking at Bai Yang bustle about with great interest, what a wicked sense of humor.

Bai Yang was quite frustrated.

Now, looking back at these events, whether it's this time capsule or the meeting half a month ago, it was clear—she was just acting. How could he have been so bewitched before?

He felt he owed an apology to his physics teacher laid in the coffin. As a high school senior who always passed his physics exams, he actually believed in such nonsense about super space-time communication!

All those years of education had been devoured by He Leqin.

Did he get so dizzy just hearing a girl's crisp voice that he couldn't tell north from south?

To think he even earnestly wrote her a letter.

So adolescent.

So embarrassing.

Bai Yang covered his face.

Thank goodness no second person knows about this, otherwise, it'd mean social death.

He sighed. It was over. Once he got back, that girl would probably reveal the riddle, and even if she didn't, he had to. There's no point in continuing this play.

He didn't want to accompany her in this game anymore.

What skill is there in sneakily causing trouble from the shadows? If you have the guts, come out to meet and fight tomorrow.

Goodbye!

73!

Farewell!

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