Chapter 27 Community Garden Action
On September 30, the tritium tubes finally arrived.
After school, Bai Yang went straight to the Cainiao Station, took out the tritium tube and wrapped it in a small brown paper box. When he opened it, he found white foam and wrapping paper inside. The tritium tube was only two centimeters long, a thin piece of glass, very fragile, and emitted a faint green fluorescence in the dark.
The brightness of the four tritium tubes is almost the same. In a dark room, if you put the tritium tubes on the textbook, you can see the writing on the paper around them. One of them seems to be slightly darker. I don’t know if it is a psychological effect, but it is indeed the tritium tube that has been used the longest.
Bai Yang arranged the four sunflowers in order on the table, and then took down a small wooden photo frame from the bookshelf. In the frame was a small "Sunflowers", a pirated, reduced copy of a replica of Van Gogh's original work.
Next, he disassembled the photo frame, took out the plexiglass and the painting inside the frame, and then used UV glue to stick the tritium tubes one by one on the inside of the wooden frame in a clockwise direction in a predetermined order, one on each edge. After sticking them together, he shone an ultraviolet light on them to make sure they were firmly glued and would not fall off.
Finally, I replaced "Sunflowers" with "Hatsune Miku in Stalingrad", put it back carefully, and fastened the frame.
After turning off the lights in the room, Bai Yang could clearly see the photo frame on the table, and the tritium tube just illuminated Hatsune Miku.
Mission accomplished.
As long as he doesn't say it, no one will know that this thing is a time indicator, they will just think it is a painting.
Bai Yang stuffed the photo frame into the time capsule, then filled the internal space of the capsule with pearl cotton. Finally, he tightened all the bolts with a wrench and shook it hard to ensure that the things inside would not shake violently.
So far, Baiyang’s time-slow delivery has been completed.
Everything is ready, only the east wind is missing.
The next thing to do is to bury it underground.
On the way back from picking up the express in the evening, Bai Yang had already made a precise reconnaissance and found four alternative locations, all suitable for burying the time capsule.
Bai Yang let out a long breath and fell onto the bed.
He chuckled, having finally completed this big project. Shouldn't he be bragging about how awesome he is in his heart?
Awesome!
Awesome!
niubility!
Bai Yang took out his cell phone and checked the time. It was 11:30 pm. He planned to take action at 2 am, so he set an alarm for 2 am. The time capsule and the shovel were under the bed, packed in a backpack... When the time came, he would quietly go downstairs with the backpack on his back, dig a deep pit in the dead of night, and bury the time capsule. Bai Yang named this plan "Community Garden Operation". The key point of this operation was concealment! Concealment! And it was fucking concealment!
If he were caught by the community security, his reputation in this life would be ruined.
I'll talk to BG4MSR later and tell him I'm going to bury the capsule tonight.
If she is willing to wait, he can wait until he has buried the capsule and then come back to inform her. Bai Yang estimated that it would be done around three in the morning. If she doesn't want to wait too late, he can also tell her the specific location when he contacts her tomorrow.
Bai Yang lay on the bed, staring at the screen of his mobile phone. Time passed by minute by minute, and it was getting closer and closer to two o'clock in the morning.
One of the boy's legs hung down and swayed gently, and next to his leg was a black backpack.
The backpack was bulging, the zipper couldn't be completely closed, and a piece of shovel handle protruded.
·
·
·
[Interview transcript excerpt: Difficult times:
Why is it called Time Slow Delivery instead of Time Express?
Express delivery means that after the express is sent out, its transportation speed must be faster than that of you in person. If there is an express sent from Hangzhou to Shanghai, and you deliver it within two days through China Post, this is called express delivery.
But if you carry the express by yourself, walking step by step along the highway to the destination, and you and the goods arrive at the same time, it is not called express delivery.
However, movement in space can be accelerated, but movement in time cannot be accelerated.
When Bai Yang dug a deep hole in the lawn, put the time capsule in it, and filled it with soil, the capsule's time flow speed was no different from his. There was no time tunnel in the hole that led directly to twenty years later. On the timeline, Bai Yang and the capsule moved at exactly the same speed.
The two are moving forward in sync. When Bai Yang comes to see it tomorrow, the capsule will still be in the same place. When he comes to see it next year, it will still be in the same place. Ten years later, it will still be there.
It doesn't move faster than you. To send it to the next twenty years, you will also need twenty years.
It will take eternity for it to reach its destination.
Looking at the whole incident from beginning to end, for Bai Yang, the first delivery of Time Slow Courier was undoubtedly the most difficult. As he had no idea of the rules and mechanisms, he was completely groping in the dark and did a lot of useless work. Although Bai Yang thought he was quite meticulous at the time and had taken into account all the possible influencing factors and avoided all possible interference, he still failed in the end.
The other party didn't find anything.
He didn't understand why. The only reason before him at the time was that Banxia was lying. So after the first failure of transporting the time capsule, Bai Yang's suspicion of Banxia reached its highest point.
So what were you thinking?
I asked.
Is the girl lying? Playing a trick on you?
The boy sitting opposite me hesitated for a few seconds, then turned his head to the window. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could see him nodding:
The first reaction was this.
In the second half of 2020, one day during the National Day holiday in October, the author visited the person concerned for the first time. At this time, half a year had passed since everything was over.
Building 11 of Meihua Villa is a very old building with eight floors and no elevator. When you enter the building, you can see a rusty mailbox hanging on the wall and a dilapidated road bike parked against the wall. Climbing up the stairs one by one, the eighth floor is the top floor. There is a clothesline in the corridor with wet clothes hanging on it.
I knocked on the iron door of room 804, and a young boy opened the door - he was already a college student at that time. He was wearing a simple black short-sleeved shirt, his hair was a little messy, and he was wearing slippers. From the first moment I saw him, I knew that this was the person I was looking for, because this young man was exactly the same as the Bai Yang I imagined in my mind, but he stared at me for a long time with some doubt, probably wondering whether the dusty man in front of him was the writer who had a long conversation with him on WeChat last night.
Bai Yang took the author into his room and said that he was alone at home now as his parents had left him to go traveling.
The room is both a study and a bedroom. The space is not big, just enough for two people to turn around.
The author's attention was quickly attracted by a huge black object on the bookshelf, which looked like some kind of large radio.
That is...
I asked.
I have never seen the heroic amateur radio station that may have saved the world, and I can't help but be curious.
Ah, that's not cheating.
Bai Yang smiled.
That is IC R8600, which was given to me by someone from the Free Committee. A few cents of it were taken away by someone from Nanjing University, who said they wanted to do research on it.
When the first time-lapse video was mentioned in the interview, Bai Yang thought for a long time and asked the author a question:
Teacher Tianrui, what do you imagine time slowing down to be like?
I was stunned for a moment.
What does time travel look like? Maybe you dig a hole in the ground, bury something in it, bury it for 20 years, and then the other party digs it out?
Is it that simple? Bai Yang asked.
How complicated could it be? Isn't it just that simple?
Teacher Tian Rui, let's imagine a situation, Bai Yang said, suppose you live in twenty years, and I want to send you something. I have an idea in my mind now, and I decide to bury the time capsule downstairs tonight, but before I bury it, I will notify you by radio and ask you to dig it up. Do you think you can dig it up?
I frowned and thought carefully.
Teacher Tianrui, do you have this idea: for people twenty years later, what is happening now has become history, so even though this era has not been buried yet, to people in the future, the capsule has been buried for twenty years?
Bai Yang smiled.
I was stunned and nodded.
In fact, this is impossible because it is impossible to dig it out. Bai Yang said, I spent a long time exploring and trying, and the first law I summed up - I call it the Three Laws of Time Slow Delivery. The first law is "The first prerequisite for the success of time slow delivery is that the sender must know the exact location of the express delivery, or the status of the express delivery must be certain, including the spatial coordinates and time coordinates."
On the operational level, the sender must bury the capsule firmly before the time-slow delivery can be implemented. Bai Yang said that before the capsule is buried, its status is uncertain. As long as there is uncertainty, the time-slow delivery is likely to fail.
After saying this, Bai Yang concluded:
In short, any attempt to transport the capsule before it is buried will be rejected. Just like the example I just gave, although I planned to bury the capsule at night, there were a thousand reasons to delay it before I took action, such as changing my mind at the last minute, or falling down the stairs and breaking a bone.
The author digested these words for a while, and then realized a problem:
The first time you used the Time Slow Delivery service, you buried the capsule and then notified Banxia. This fully met the requirements. Why did it still fail?
Bai Yang sighed lightly and asked another question:
Teacher Tianrui, imagine another situation. You are still living in twenty years later, and I am living in the present. You talk to me on the radio and ask me to bury the capsule somewhere, and then you go to dig it... Can you dig it?
He did not give me time to interrupt and went straight on: If we can dig it up, there is a paradox here. Teacher Tianrui, you live in the future and I live in the present. Your request is the cause and I bury the capsules is the effect. How can the cause occur after the effect? Isn't the cause and effect relationship reversed?
At this moment, the author is completely immersed in thinking.
Bai Yang took this question one step further in an absurd direction:
Teacher Tianrui, if you dig a hole in the lawn outside and then notify me via radio to bury a capsule in the same location, what will happen?
Did a capsule suddenly pop out of the originally empty pit?
The author was increasingly surprised.
This question is indeed absurd, but also difficult to explain.
If I live in twenty years, facing a white wall, and use the radio to travel through time to inform Bai Yang to paint a picture on the same wall, what changes will occur to the white wall in front of me?
A painting suddenly appears?
I shook my head, indicating that I couldn't understand and couldn't explain it.
We can only wait for Bai Yang to decrypt it.
No explanation is needed. Bai Yang has deciphered it, because all this will not happen, no paradox will occur, you live in 20 years, and inform me by radio to bury the capsule, but you will not dig it up, you dig a hole and let me bury the capsule in the same place, and the hole will not change at all, it will still be an empty hole.
So, if I live in twenty years, see a white wall, and then use the radio to inform you to paint on the same white wall, the white wall I see will still not change at all?
I asked.
Yes, it was still a white wall. Bai Yang nodded. It was impossible for a painting to suddenly appear out of thin air.
Why is this happening?
The author was quite surprised.
There is no paradox, which is indeed a little easier to understand, but why doesn't the wall change at all? Where did the painting that was painted there 20 years ago go?
The reason for this problem is the same as the reason why my first time-slow delivery failed. Bai Yang sighed, and suddenly he straightened his face and said to the author in a very serious tone:
Because it violates the second law of the three laws of slow time.]
·
·
·
That night, Banxia kept the radio on and waited until three in the morning before she went to bed. How could she sleep at such a critical moment?
She didn't want to wait a moment.
The girl lay on the table, wearing headphones, listening to the subtle noise of electricity, just like sitting on the beach and listening to the endless waves. In the boundless ocean of electromagnetic waves, Banxia stood on tiptoe and looked out. She hoped to see the mast of a small boat appear on the horizon, and that ship would bring important news.
I don’t know how long I waited, until that familiar voice sounded in the channel, and Banxia suddenly became alert.
The other party was panting, and without further ado, he reported his location directly:
"At the west end of the long corridor in the community square, under the middle floor tile!"
Banxia took off her headphones and ran out.
At three o'clock in the morning, she took a shovel and a knife and crawled into the grass of Qi Ren. The square of Meihua Villa community had long lost its original appearance, and the corridor that Bai Yang mentioned was also covered by overgrown weeds. The teacher had warned her not to go in because there were snakes inside, and the whole village was fed with snakes. But Banxia didn't care about that. Her mind was full of that floor tile.
The location provided by Baiyang was accurate enough, and Banxia quickly found the piece of brick. He inserted the blade of a knife into the gap between the bricks and found that it was indeed loose.
She was immediately surprised.
The girl pried up the floor tiles with force, then picked up the shovel and started digging. The more she dug, the more excited she became. What could it be?
What to eat?
But I have enough food.
Drink?
Drinks can't be kept for too long, right?
drug?
I hope it's painkillers. Give me more painkillers.
Banxia muttered excitedly to herself while digging hard, swinging the shovel like the wind. But as she dug, she realized something was wrong.
I dug very deep, but found nothing.
Where are the things?
Did he get the location wrong? Or did he remember the location wrong?
Banxia started digging the surrounding floor tiles again.
I pried up the second floor tile next to it and dug breathlessly to knee depth, but still found nothing but stones.
Dig the third piece.
The fourth piece.
Banxia pried up the floor tiles of the corridor one by one, and then dug deep with a shovel.
No.
No.
No.
None of them.
Why nothing?
That night, Banxia dug up all the floor tiles along half of the corridor like a madman. He was covered in mud and looked miserable. His fingers were covered in blood, but in the end he found nothing.
She leaned exhaustedly against the pillar of the corridor, looking at the rising sun between the tall buildings, her eyes blank and desperate.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
