Chapter 47, Side Story 3: Radio Waves from the Past
I. Old Radios and Electrical Noise
On a late autumn afternoon in Haicheng, a drowsy tranquility permeated the "Yuran Flower House." Sunlight streamed through the greenhouse glass and the street-facing shop windows, casting dappled shadows on the wooden floors and various flowers and plants. The air was filled with the bittersweet scent of autumn chrysanthemums, the sweet fragrance of osmanthus, the warm aroma of hay, and a faint, lingering smoky aroma from the embers of yesterday's fireplace.
Su Ran sat behind his workbench, wearing reading glasses, repairing an old pair of flower shears with a loose handle, using the bright light from the window. His movements were slow and steady; his fingers, though slightly deformed from years of labor and wear and tear, were still flexible.
Xiaoman lay on the soft cushion at his feet, its injured hind leg curled up, its head resting on its front paws, dozing with its eyes half-closed, making soft, contented purrs. The sunlight shone warmly on its pale golden fur.
Wen Yu was in the backyard. He had just finished inspecting several automatic ventilation valves on the top of the greenhouse and was now squatting in front of the tool rack, sorting through a batch of newly received, irregularly shaped scrap metal parts—he planned to use them to make some more unique flower vases for Su Ran.
He wore dark gray work pants and a faded cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His forearms, no longer as taut and smooth as in his youth, were loose, covered with age spots and fine wrinkles, yet still firm and strong. The white hair at his temples was quite noticeable in the sunlight.
Time has left its deep marks on them, but it has also bestowed upon them something else—a composure and tacit understanding that have been refined over the years, and a profound peace that needs no words. The flower house is so quiet that you can hear the faint sound of dust motes dancing in the beams of light and Xiaoman's even breathing.
Suddenly, a piercing "crackling" sound, mixed with strong electrical interference, burst out without warning from the old transistor radio in the corner of the workbench!
The sound was so sudden and shrill that it instantly shattered the silence of the room. Xiaoman jumped in fright, jerked her head up, and pricked up her ears warily, looking towards the source of the sound. Su Ran was also startled; her hand trembled, and the spring of the flower shears snapped open, almost hitting her face.
"What's wrong?" Wen Yu immediately put down the parts in his hand, walked quickly from the backyard, his brows furrowed, and his sharp gaze swept over the radio.
It was a very old machine, its casing made of faded wood-grain plastic, the knobs worn, and the antenna crooked. They'd salvaged it from an abandoned flea market years ago; it had no practical use, but Su Ran liked its rustic appearance. Occasionally, she'd turn it on to listen to the long-lost, static-filled echoes of a radio broadcast, a kind of nostalgic white noise. It hadn't made such a loud noise in a long time.
At this moment, the radio's power indicator light flickered on and off, and the speaker continuously emitted a noisy and chaotic electrical sound, a sharp sound like metal scraping, and intermittent, distorted human voice fragments, the content of which was completely indistinguishable, as if countless chaotic signals had been forcibly squeezed into the same channel.
"Is it broken? Or is there some strong interference outside?" Su Ran put down the flower shears, stood up, and wanted to turn it off. The noise was very annoying.
Wen Yu raised his hand to stop him. He walked to the radio, not touching the knobs, but listening intently, his eyes focused and alert. Years of post-apocalyptic survival and his subsequent technological life had given him an instinctive sensitivity to unusual signals. This was no ordinary malfunction or interference…
Just then, amidst the chaotic radio noise, a young, clear male voice, tinged with obvious anxiety and uncertainty, suddenly broke through:
"...Testing...Can anyone hear me? This is Cuiping Mountain...Hiss...Backup frequency...Attempting to call...External contact...Zzz...Mr. Wen, something seems off, this waveform..."
Although the voice was distorted by the electric current, one could still hear the clarity of a young person and a hint of nervousness in it.
Immediately afterward, another deep, calmer, but also noticeably younger male voice rang out, its tone brief and decisive: "Turn down the gain, filter out low-frequency noise. Su Ran, stay calm. Keep calling, but maintain intervals."
"Su Ran"?
"Mr. Wen"?
Su Ran, standing beside the workbench, suddenly widened her eyes, staring at Wen Yu in disbelief. Wen Yu's expression also instantly hardened, his pupils slightly contracting. These two names, this way of addressing him, and "Cuiping Mountain"... Impossible!
Xiaoman seemed to sense the unusual atmosphere as well. She stood up uneasily, dragged her legs to Su Ran's side, and whispered warily.
The conversation on the radio continued. It seemed that the younger "Su Ran" had adjusted the equipment, reducing the static somewhat, but the signal remained unstable.
Young Su Ran's voice carried a hint of trial and error: "...Repeat, this is the Cuiping Mountain outpost. Has anyone received this? We...we've encountered some issues and need...we need to know the external weather and... *sizzle*..."
Young Wen Yu interrupted, his voice even lower, as if speaking to the person beside him: "Something's not right. This frequency is theoretically obsolete, and the echo indicates that the signal source is extremely unstable, like... some kind of refraction or superposition. Su Ran, record all the parameters, including the timestamp and signal strength fluctuations."
Su Ran's hands trembled slightly, and he instinctively grabbed Wen Yu's arm. Wen Yu grasped his cold hand in return, squeezing it tightly, his gaze fixed on the old machine that kept spewing out familiar yet strange dialogue. An absurd, yet undeniable, thought began to grow wildly in his mind.
"Brother Yu..." Su Ran's voice trembled, barely audible, "They...they are..."
Wen Yu didn't speak, but simply tightened his grip on his hand. He took a deep breath, stepped forward, bent down, and spoke clearly into the radio's simple microphone in his usual calm and steady tone:
"This is 'Yuran Flower House'. Cuiping Mountain, please report your... specific situation. Repeat, this is 'Yuran Flower House', we have received your call."
II. A Dialogue Across Time and Space
A brief, hissing silence fell over the other end of the radio. Clearly, the person on the other end was also taken aback by the sudden, clear response.
A few seconds later, the young Su Ran's voice, almost cracking with shock, came through: "Yu... Yu Ran Flower House? Where is this place? You... you can hear us? Signal... how could the signal..."
The young Wen Yu's voice followed immediately, still calm, but noticeably faster, carrying a strong sense of scrutiny: "'Yu Ran Flower House'? Unrecorded call sign. Please state your identity, location, and intentions. How did you gain access to this encrypted frequency band?"
At the workbench, the elderly Su Ran tightly covered his mouth, barely managing to suppress the gasp that almost escaped his lips. It really was them! Them in their youth! Inside the fortress! This was insane! He looked at Wen Yu for help.
Wen Yu's eyes were filled with an extremely complex mix of emotions: shock, realization, wariness, and a hint of indescribable感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a complex feeling of mixed emotions, including regret and a touch of melancholy). He spoke slowly into the radio, each word clear and heavy: "I am Wen Yu. Beside me is my partner, Su Ran. We... are in a settlement about fifty kilometers from Cuiping Mountain. If I'm not mistaken, what we're receiving is a signal from... the past."
"The past?!" Two exclamations came from the radio at the same time, and the tone of young Su Ran's voice changed.
"Evidence." Young Wen Yu's voice suddenly turned cold and sharp, filled with wariness. "Prove what you said. And explain yourself clearly."
Wen Yu (the older man) was silent for a very brief moment. He knew that the younger, more wary, and more controlling version of himself opposite him would never easily believe such a fantastical story. He needed to present crucial information that was absolutely impossible to fake and vital to them in the "present," but irrelevant to the "future."
"Right now," Wen Yu (the elderly man) began slowly, his tone calm and resolute, tinged with the wisdom of someone who has weathered many storms, "you are currently adjusting the spare high-frequency radio station salvaged from the old weather station, trying to find external signals and assess the recovery situation after the extreme cold weather ends. However, the equipment is aging, and the third filter capacitor has a hidden leakage, causing unstable signal output and failure of clutter filtering. More importantly, you have overlooked the graupel-like clouds that are accumulating in the high southeast, which have extremely high water absorption capacity. Driven by the westerly jet stream, its movement speed exceeds the predictions of conventional models. In about thirty-six hours, the Cuiping Mountain area will be hit by a short but extremely intense freezing rain, not snowfall."
"The ground temperature has plummeted, and rainwater will freeze instantly upon contact with surfaces, causing devastating icing damage to exposed lines, equipment, and especially the disguised solar panel array on your west side. Your reserve fuel pumps have insufficient antifreeze concentration, which will cause wax buildup and blockage at low temperatures. Also, the batch of vacuum-packed grain in storage area B-3 on the east side has minor defects in its seals. It would be best to move it to a drier inner area within three days, or prioritize its consumption."
He finished speaking in one breath without pausing, his tone as calm as if he were reading a list of technical reports. But every detail pointed precisely to a specific point in time during the early days of the Fortress Era, to the specific hidden dangers and the impending "Freezing Rain Incident" that only Wen Yu and Su Ran, who were at the core of the Fortress at the time, knew about, which they had indeed experienced in their previous lives and which had caused considerable trouble.
A deathly silence fell over the other end of the radio. Only the crackling of the static could be heard, as if one could hear the sudden increase in the breathing and heartbeats of the two people on the other end.
A full half minute passed before the young Wen Yu's voice came again, still steady, but if you listened carefully, you could detect a very subtle tremor: "...Herring clouds, freezing rain warning, fuel pump antifreeze concentration, grain sealing in Zone B-3...How did you know this information?"
"Because I've been through it." Wen Yu (the elderly man) answered simply and directly, "I am you, Wen Yu. It's just that the time I live in is about fifty years away from you. Or even longer."
"Fifty years…" This time it was the young Su Ran who murmured, her voice filled with disbelief.
"Prove it to me," the young Wen Yu's voice suddenly took on a hint of aggressive pressure, an instinctive reaction to major uncertainty. "Tell me something that only 'I' know, but that I would never tell any outsider, including this 'Su Ran' beside me. Right now."
This was an extremely rigorous test. Wen Yu (the older man) remained silent for a moment. He understood his younger self's doubts, stemming from a deep-seated vigilance forged in the apocalypse. He quickly searched his memory, looking for a secret that, at that point in time, was truly known only to him.
Finally, he spoke slowly, his voice deepening: "In your study, on the second bookshelf, hidden in the fold of the hardcover of 'The Survival Handbook for the Apocalypse,' there was a custom-made platinum ring that didn't belong on the fortress's inventory list. The inside was engraved with a date; it was for your plan to propose to someone before the apocalypse. But in the end, you didn't take it out. I didn't mention this to anyone until we left the fortress, not even Su Ran."
"!!!"
A clear sound, like something being knocked over, came from the radio, along with the tense gasp of young Su Ran.
A long, suffocating silence.
"...I believe you." After a long silence, the young Wen Yu's voice came, unusually dry and tense, as if he had used all his strength to utter those four words. That secret was a thorn deep in his heart, one he had almost forgotten, a mark of betrayal and folly. There was absolutely no way it could be known by an outsider.
"Oh my god…" Young Su Ran's voice was filled with shock. He had obviously realized something and asked cautiously, "Then… then what happened next? You mentioned 'Yu Ran Flower House'… and you just said that your partner is… Su Ran?" His voice was filled with disbelief and confusion, as well as a faint expectation that he himself was unaware of.
Mentioning this, the elderly Wen Yu's expression softened. He turned to look at Su Ran, who was equally excited beside him, grasped his hand, and said into the radio, "Yes. 'Yu Ran Flower Shop' is our flower shop. It's located in a settlement that is slowly recovering. We left the fortress with Ping An, and later, Xiao Man."
"Peace and safety? Xiaoman?" the young Su Ran asked curiously.
"Ping An was an Alaskan Malamute. We… rescued her outside the fort's ventilation shaft. She was with us for many years; she was family." Su Ran (the elderly man) couldn't help but take over, his voice gentle and filled with deep nostalgia. "Xiao Man was an injured little mongrel I found later. She had a slight limp, but she was very well-behaved. The flower shop was filled with all kinds of flowers: roses, lilies, hydrangeas, lavender… many of them were seeds brought from the fort, grown little by little. We took care of them every day, watching them bloom, and sold them to people who needed a little color and fragrance…" He described, his tone filled with a serene satisfaction, a happiness that had finally settled after weathering the storm.
As young Su Ran listened, his breathing seemed to slow down. From those descriptions, he could imagine a scene completely different from the cold, solid fortress and the perilous apocalypse he now faced—sunshine, flowers, peace, companionship… It was a future he almost dared not hope for. His heart began to pound uncontrollably.
"It sounds...beautiful," the young Su Ran said softly, with longing in her voice.
"It is beautiful," Wen Yu (the elderly man) affirmed, his gaze never leaving Su Ran beside him, his voice steady and powerful. "But most importantly, we are together. We have experienced everything you are about to experience and everything you have not yet experienced: cold, heat, insect plagues, battles, separations… We have always been together, entrusting each other with our backs, building our home in each other's hearts. This is the true meaning of 'Yu Ran Flower House'."
Young Wen Yu remained silent, listening intently. The voice of "himself" opposite him had shed its familiar coldness, tension, and calculation, becoming calm and composed, carrying a tranquility and contentment he had never experienced before. That contentment didn't stem from controlling vast resources or power, but from… being together, from "home," from those seemingly "useless" yet vibrant flowers and plants, and from their loyal companionship.
This had a subtle impact on his established worldview. He had always believed that survival was paramount, and that strength and control were the guarantees of survival. Emotions were a weakness, and beautiful things were luxuries. But on the other end of the phone, the self from the "future" seemed to have spent fifty years proving another possibility—that after survival was secured, those "weaknesses" and "luxuries" actually constituted life itself, forming true inner peace and strength.
"You..." Young Wen Yu hesitated for once, then asked, "You... did things go well afterwards? How... is the world doing?"
"The natural disasters are subsiding, and order is slowly being rebuilt. It's fragile, but there is hope." Wen Yu (the elderly man) said succinctly, "We are doing well. We will die peacefully, and Xiaoman is still here. The flower shop is doing well, enough for us to live a peaceful life. The important thing is," he paused, his tone becoming more serious, "that we have never regretted our decision, whether it was to stay with each other or to leave the fortress and choose to live this way."
"Let's stay together." Young Wen Yu pondered these four words. He and Su Ran were currently just partners, trusted companions. But in the future... would they be "partners"? Like the person on the other end of the phone, walking hand in hand through decades of trials and tribulations, still holding hands tightly, eyes filled with tenderness?
This realization made his heart race. He subconsciously looked at the young Su Ran beside him. Su Ran was also looking at him, her clear eyes reflecting the dim light of the device screen, filled with curiosity, shock, and perhaps a faint, budding expectation born from the descriptions of the "future."
Just then, the static in the radio suddenly increased! "Crackling—pop!" The signal began to fluctuate violently, and the sound became intermittent and indistinct.
"The signal... is unstable... it's going to drop!" came the anxious voice of young Su Ran.
"Remember the freezing rain warning! Fuel and food!" Wen Yu (the elderly man) immediately raised his voice to give his final instructions.
"…Received! Thanks…" Young Wen Yu's reply was broken into fragmented syllables.
Amidst the cacophony of the impending signal cutoff, Wen Yu (in his old age) gazed at his beloved's aged yet still gentle profile, a flood of emotions welling up within him. Speaking to the radio with utmost solemnity and depth, he uttered his final words. These words were both a testament to his younger self and a profound summary of his extraordinary life, a life that had transcended time:
"Treat him well."
"You will gain a world."
III. Aftermath and Repercussions
"Sizzle—"
After a piercing long ring, the indicator light on the old radio went completely out, and all the static and voices vanished instantly. The flower house returned to an absolute, tinnitus-inducing silence, as if the astonishing conversation that had just transcended time and space was merely an absurd and bizarre collective hallucination.
Xiaoman rubbed nervously against Su Ran's leg. Su Ran was still holding Wen Yu's hand tightly, his knuckles white. He looked up at Wen Yu, his eyes red-rimmed, his lips trembling slightly. It took him a while to find his voice: "Brother Yu... just now... was it true? We... we really..."
"It's true." Wen Yu's voice was a little hoarse. He released Su Ran's hand and gently pulled him into his arms, holding him tightly. Feeling the real heartbeat and body temperature of his lover in his arms, he slowly calmed down from the dizzying feeling of time and space disorientation. "Although it's hard to believe, it's true. We've made contact with... ourselves who are still in the fortress."
"Peace… Flower House… Xiaoman…" Su Ran murmured repeatedly in his arms, tears finally falling, but with a smile, "They heard it, didn't they? That 'me' heard about the flowers, about peace, about the future… He sounded like… very happy."
"Hmm." Wen Yu rested his chin on the top of his head, his gaze falling on the bright autumn sun and blooming flowers outside the window. He recalled the last wary question he had asked when he was young, and his last heartfelt answer.
Treat him well. You will gain a world.
At the time, he might not have fully understood. But Wen Yu (in his later years) knew that the young, hardened "self," burdened by past wounds and wary of the world, must have had a tiny crack carved into the icy wall in his heart when he heard those descriptions of peace, companionship, and "home," and felt the satisfaction accumulated over fifty years in his tone. Through that crack, the light of "another possibility" would shine through.
And this light might, at some point in the future, guide him to make a different choice, to lower his guard sooner, and to embrace the warmth that has always been around him. Thus, it could help them reach peace sooner, avoiding unnecessary detours and pain.
Could this be considered a gentle interference and blessing from their present selves to their past selves?
"They'll be alright, right?" Su Ran looked up at him, her eyes blurry with tears. "That freezing rain... they can handle it, right?"
"Yes, he will." Wen Yu nodded firmly, wiping away the tears on his face. "That 'me' isn't stupid. With the warning, he will definitely be able to handle it better." He might even value Su Ran's "intuition" about weather observation more, and establish a deeper level of trust and reliance between the two of them earlier.
Su Ran smiled through her tears and nestled back into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist. "It's so nice... It feels like we helped them from so far away. It also feels like... we heard our past conversations. It's really interesting."
Wen Yu smiled too, a faint but genuine smile. He looked around the little flower house filled with flowers, sunshine, and traces of their shared life, looking at Xiao Man, innocent yet loyal, at his feet, and feeling the real warmth of his beloved in his arms.
That world from the past, filled with uncertainty and crisis, seems so distant now. Yet, by a twist of fate, they completed an incredible dialogue across time, as if adding a warm footnote to the beginning of those difficult years.
The signal was cut off, the conversation ended. But some things were conveyed, resonated, and confirmed in silence.
In the past, the promise of the "future" might have allowed them to avert a crisis and glimpse happiness sooner. Now, because of this serendipitous encounter, they feel even more certain that the path they've walked hand in hand, with all their choices, perseverance, love, and protection, was the right one, and all worthwhile.
"Are you hungry?" Wen Yu asked in a low voice. "What do you want to eat tonight?"
"Hmm... I'm kind of craving that stew you made last time," Su Ran said after thinking for a moment.
"Okay. I'll go prepare." Wen Yu released him, patted his back, bent down and patted Xiao Man's head, then turned around and walked steadily towards the small kitchen in the backyard. His back was straight, still as imposing as ever.
Su Ran stood there, watching his retreating figure, then glancing at the old radio that had fallen silent again, a gentle smile spreading across her face. He walked to the workbench, picked up the old flower shears that were still not fully repaired, and continued his unfinished work in the warm autumn sun. Xiao Man lay back down on the mat and yawned.
Inside the flower-filled cottage, time flows quietly, and the fragrance of flowers lingers. The windows are bright and the tables are clean; the fireplace is almost extinguished, waiting to be lit again to warm the ordinary yet precious night that is about to begin.
That brief, intersecting radio conversation, spanning a long period of time, was like a pebble thrown into a lake of the heart, its ripples spreading slowly and eventually settling into a strange and warm hue deep in memory, illuminating the past and strengthening the present and future.