Tales of the End of the Century

On the fourth day after returning from Yunlong Temple, Lan Susu moved the oscilloscope to the yard and connected it to an external antenna.

The antenna was bent by Tie Niu from an old clothes hanger, with several turns of copper wire wrapped around it, and placed on the highest branch of the jujube tree. Bai Ye stood under the tree, looking up at it for a while, and asked if this thing would work. Lan Susu said they'd only know if it worked after trying it—the frequency of that unknown signal was too low; the indoor antenna only picked up background noise, like a radio crackling with different stations, making a constant rattling sound, and they couldn't hear anything clearly. They could only raise the antenna a little higher to see if they could capture a cleaner waveform.

She squatted in front of the stone table, adjusting the settings for almost half an hour. The green waveform on the oscilloscope screen floated and sank amidst the noise, occasionally revealing a glimpse of its outline before being covered by another layer of clutter. Lan Susu wasn't in a hurry; she adjusted the gain, the filter, and increased the sampling rate little by little. Tie Niu finished chopping a bundle of firewood and came over to squat beside her, watching. Old Hu brought out an enamel mug from the kitchen, stood under the jujube tree, and wisps of steam rose from the mug.

The noise on the screen suddenly receded to both sides, and an extremely faint waveform emerged from the background noise. It was very faint, extremely low, with a frequency of only a few tenths of a hertz. The waveform outline slowly unfolded on the screen, like a person suppressing their breathing to the slowest, most steady rhythm, swaying gently in a very, very far place. The amplitude never widened or narrowed.

Bai Ye stared at that waveform for a long time. From its first appearance until now, it had never stopped. Korsak's signal stopped after knocking on the wall for the last time on Millennium Night, Sergei's breathing signal also stopped after the end of that night of enlightenment, and other slow signals from all directions gradually faded away. Only this one remained. Unhurried, unpressured, simply lit.

"The frequency is still the same." Lan Susu increased the sampling rate of the oscilloscope, making the waveform clearer on the screen, but the outline remained unchanged. "It perfectly matches the characteristics of the early subjects that Sergei marked on the back of the subject list. It's not from the later stages of the rift—the waveforms of later subjects would shift as the rift progressed, and the frequency would become increasingly unstable. The frequency of this signal hasn't changed in over a decade. These are the first batch of people to be transferred."

Tie Niu placed the axe beside the doorframe, walked over, and looked down at the screen. The waveform rose and fell against the dark green background, like a heart beating extremely slowly. "Can you locate it?"

Lan Susu said she could give it a try. She pulled a hand-drawn topographic map from her canvas bag and spread it on the stone table. Old Hu had gotten this map years ago from a retired surveyor while collecting secondhand goods. The scale was inaccurate, and the contour lines were hastily drawn, but it roughly depicted the terrain from Yushugou northwards all the way to the barren wasteland beyond the border. She marked several known coordinates on the map—the location of Research Institute No. 17 was circled in red, the backup repository in blue, and the relay station in black. The three circles formed an irregular triangle, with the area outside the triangle completely blank.

She crossed out all the known coordinates—all confirmed remnants of Project Aurora's signals had fallen silent. The subject files at Institute 17 were sealed in concrete, the backup repository contained only Sergei's empty cabinet and a mirror, and the burned notebooks at the relay station had turned to ash. Only this extremely low-frequency signal, which had been lit since the first time it was seen but had never been touched, continued to operate beyond all known clues.

She kept the antenna aligned with the predicted direction. The waveform on the oscilloscope screen showed no drift; the amplitude and frequency were stable. She stared at the screen for about fifteen minutes, then used a pencil to draw a rough area on the map—a circle extending northeast from Yushugou.

"The direction is right. But the distance is hard to measure—the signal is too weak, and the attenuation is not obvious." She put the pencil on the map. "From here, heading north-northeast, it's roughly north of Yushugou."

"The north side is quite large." Tie Niu squatted in front of the stone table, looking down at the large blank area on the map. Maps from that era were mostly blank outside of towns. Rivers were marked with dotted lines, contour lines were drawn intermittently, and some places were simply blank, with only the words "Unsurveyed" written on them. "From here to the northern boundary marker, it's all wasteland. The road was paved in the past, and many places aren't even marked on the map."

Lan Susu lowered her head and adjusted the antenna's direction several more times. She tilted the antenna eastward, and the signal weakened; she tilted it westward, and the signal weakened again. Only when it was pointed towards north-northeast did the waveform appear cleanest and the amplitude largest. She said, "That's it, no doubt about it."

Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone, stood up, walked to the jujube tree, and closed his eyes. He focused his attention on his breathing, allowing his awareness to expand outward. Since entering the realm of resonance, he had been practicing one thing: discerning specific signals within background noise. The background noise was alive—the sound of wind, insects chirping, Lao Hu's cough, the rustling of the grinding wheel as Tie Niu sharpened his knife, earthworms burrowing in the mud of the vegetable patch—these sounds blended together like a tangled thicket. The signal was a tiny, dim point of light deep within the thicket. It wasn't something seen, but rather a tap on the depths of consciousness, a faint tremor returning. Very faint, but very certain. In the north-northeast direction, at a great distance, there was someone who had been in the same place for a long time. Not days, not months, but much longer. It wasn't a gaze—a gaze is a lamp placed on the edge of awareness, quietly shining. This signal was a spark, buried deep in the ash heap, pressed down, but still burning.

"There's someone in this direction. Not watching, not Sergei. It's someone else. Someone who's been in the dark for a long time."

"About how far?" Tie Niu asked.

"I don't know. The direction and frequency match."

Tie Niu stood up, tucked the axe back into his belt, and said he would check the vehicle. The jeep had been parked next to the poplar stump at the gate ever since the man in gray and Vasily left, a layer of dust covering the hood. He pulled out the dipstick and checked the oil, then inspected the radiator and tires.

Lan Susu packed the oscilloscope into her canvas bag and took out a few more things from the east wing—two blank cassette tapes, a box of spare batteries, and a spare antenna wrapped in her trench coat. She also brought Sergei's notebook—the worn-out notebook with frayed edges, the gold lettering on the cover worn down to just the last syllable. She turned to the page with the dried pine needles and showed it to Bai Ye. Sergei had copied the description from "The Return of the Light" at Yunlong Temple, and in the margin, he had written a line of tiny pencil marks—"Someone is in the direction of the mine." The frequency was stable. There was no distress signal, just light.

Lan Susu said, "When he wrote 'no call for help,' he probably already knew. That person wasn't waiting for someone to rescue them. They were just waiting for someone to come to them. Maybe they waited a long time, or maybe they never expected anyone to come."

Bai Ye folded a corner of the page and closed the notebook.

That evening, Lao Hu cooked a feast—spicy diced pork, garlic-flavored pork belly, and a large bowl of cucumber salad. He didn't add chili peppers to the cucumber salad today, but instead added sesame oil, minced garlic, and a pinch of sugar. Tie Niu ate three bowls of rice. Lao Hu himself only ate one bowl, saying he was full from peeling garlic that afternoon.

After finishing his meal, Old Hu placed his enamel mug on a rock, squatted under the jujube tree, and smoked a cigarette. He asked Bai Ye how long he would be gone this time. Bai Ye said he didn't know, maybe a few days, maybe longer. He'd probably be back when the jujubes turned red. Old Hu said that was fine; he could manage the vegetable patch by himself, and the chili seeds had already been planted, so they could harvest the first crop when they returned.

The next morning, the jeep emerged from Yushugou, its two dim high beams whizzing over the gravel road. In the trunk were dry rations, a case of bottled water, a spare fuel can, Lan Susu's oscilloscope, and Tie Niu's axe. Tie Niu drove, Bai Ye sat in the passenger seat, and Lan Susu in the back. She connected the oscilloscope to an external antenna, which extended out the window, pointing towards the northeast.

As dawn broke, the dirt road was first flanked by farmland, then barren land, then low shrubs, and finally a birch forest. The birch trunks stood straight, gleaming white in the morning light. Occasionally, a wild rabbit would dart out from the woods, run a few steps along the roadside, and then disappear into the bushes. Sunlight filtered through the tree canopy, casting a layer of shimmering gold on the dirt road, and the wheels kicked up small clouds of dust as they rolled over it. The ox rolled down the window, letting the cold wind blow in.

"Has that signal stopped?" Tie Niu asked.

Lan Susu looked down at the screen. The waveform was still there; the frequency hadn't changed since they set off. "It hasn't stopped. It's been on the whole time."

Bai Ye stretched his hand out the window, palm facing the wind. He focused his attention on his breathing, closed his eyes, and let his senses reach out in the northeast direction. The sparks were still there. A little brighter, a little warmer than in Elm Gully. Not the scorching warmth, but the faint, almost imperceptible temperature one feels when placing one's hand over the ashes. Quite a few days had passed since he first received this signal in Chapter 20, and he knew he was finally approaching its source.

"It's right in front of me. It hasn't moved," he said.