Ye Wenjie, watch my moves closely.

Chapter 17 The button lights up again

After the Lantern Festival, the base began to receive transfer orders from various departments.

Many core personnel from the launch and monitoring departments have left, and the armed force stationed at Radar Peak has been downgraded from company level to platoon level.

After learning about the contact theory from Li Youyu before the Lunar New Year, Lei Zhicheng began trying to contact that man, but never received a response.

During this time, Lei Zhicheng was not idle either. He adjusted the position of the Red Coast antenna and put the task of observing pulsars first, but due to the small number of people, the results were minimal.

As March progressed, Ye Wenjie's health deteriorated. Radar Peak was located at the top of the mountain, where the temperature was several degrees lower than at the foot of the mountain. Yang Weining insisted on sending Ye Wenjie to the city, but Ye Wenjie did not want to go too far. After some back and forth, they decided to go to Qijiatun, which was closer to the town hospital and would be more convenient for her to teach the children.

Before heading down the mountain, Ye Wenjie applied for an opportunity to return to work at the Hongan Launch Area.

It's another cycle of intense solar activity.

Yang Weining accompanied her and sat down at the control panel covered with buttons.

Listening to the lifeless noise from the universe through his headphones, Yang Weining suddenly experienced an indescribable loneliness.

Turning to look at Ye Wenjie, she was still recording with a calm expression, as if she had become one with the cosmic background radiation.

Yang Weining suddenly understood why Ye Wenjie always had a detached demeanor.

To combat this loneliness, one must become loneliness itself.

"Old Yang, I have a question for you."

Ye Wenjie entered the transmission parameters and pointed the antenna at the sun. Yang Weining glanced at the antenna's orientation but did not stop her.

Times have changed. We can send electromagnetic waves toward the sun without worrying about being criticized.

"Wenjie, you speak."

Do you believe there is love in this universe?

Yang Weining smiled and said, "I don't know, but I hope it exists, otherwise, it would be too terrible, wouldn't it?"

Ye Wenjie did not reply.

She pressed the button again, and an electromagnetic wave carrying the coordinates of 51 Eridani b burst out of the atmosphere.

Eight minutes later, the radio waves penetrated the solar convection zone and reached the energy mirror of the radiative zone.

At this moment, on the megahertz band, the sun shines once again on the Milky Way.

The powerful radio waves, with their star-level power, surged in all directions, carrying Ye Wenjie's doubts like a surging tide.

Does love exist in this universe?

---

After Ye Wenjie descended Radar Peak, Li Youyu did not deliberately guide her, but fate miraculously brought Ye Wenjie to live with the family from the original story.

Those were an elderly couple from Qijiatun. The man was originally a hunter who also collected medicinal herbs. Later, as the surrounding forests dwindled, he went to farm, but people still called him Head Hunter Qi.

They have two sons and two daughters. The daughters are all married and living away from home. One son is serving in the military, and the other son lives with them after getting married.

The daughter-in-law's name is Dafeng, and she is also pregnant. Her due date is approaching. Her mother-in-law would occasionally stew some meat soup for her to nourish her body. Dafeng would often pretend that she had no appetite and eat sorghum and coarse grains herself, leaving the nourishing meat soup for Ye Wenjie.

"Eat more, so you'll have more breast milk!"

Every few days, her husband, Yang Weining, would come down from Radar Peak, carrying canned food and wild vegetables from the base. Now, the base's food rations were getting smaller and smaller, and from his sallow and thin appearance, it was clear that he was saving the food from his own rations.

Every time that beat-up little jeep drove into the village, Da Feng would yell at the top of her lungs, "Hey, Wenjie, your man's here again, all lovey-dovey! Ugh!"

Yang Weining was not good with words and often blushed with embarrassment at Da Feng's words, while Ye Wenjie would just smile faintly.

Because of health reasons, Ye Wenjie could no longer go up Radar Peak, so she found an open space in the village and continued to teach the children.

With few places to go in the village, gradually, the women and children from the village also gathered there. The old and the young, the married women and the eldest daughters, would come here whenever they had free time.

They couldn't understand the complex physics formulas, but they were filled with envy and curiosity towards Ye Wenjie, who spoke eloquently.

After class, Ye Wenjie took some sunflower seeds and sat under a big tree chatting with the women in the village.

At first she listened, but later she also found that she had a lot to talk about with them, just like any other woman.

I can't remember how many sunny days Ye Wenjie sat under the birch tree with the women in the village, with children playing and a lazy black dog nearby, all embraced by the warm sunshine.

Time flies, and Ye Wenjie's belly gradually grew bigger. The more frequent fetal movements of the baby in her belly made her slowly feel the reality of nurturing life.

Ye Wenjie would occasionally glance at the huge antenna on the radar peak.

Since I came down the mountain, the antenna's orientation hasn't changed for a long time.

Every time he inquired about the current situation at the Red Coast Base, Yang Weining would stammer and not answer.

If her husband wouldn't tell her, she would find someone herself.

When the women in the village chat, they talk about which military vehicles they've seen going up the mountain recently, and what new faces they've seen when they went up Radar Peak to collect herbs.

From the fragmented information, Ye Wenjie pieced together the fact that the Red Coast Base was about to be withdrawn from the military ranks.

Yang Weining did not deny it, but comforted Ye Wenjie not to worry, saying that even if the military were to be converted to civilian use, Hong'an still had a lot of potential.

But the reality was far worse than he described.

An organizational change team led by Cheng Lihua moved into Hong'an and stopped all observation activities there, supposedly to prepare for the handover. All personnel changes were sealed off, but everyone who could leave the core of Hong'an left, except for Ye Wenjie.

"Xiao Yang, you need to understand, this is a historical issue."

Cheng Lihua put the materials submitted by Yang Weining aside and said patiently, "Ye Wenjie's background is unclear, and Hong'an is an important unit involving military secrets. How can I easily transfer her out? That would be irresponsible to the people."

"Director Cheng, you know that Wenjie was implicated in someone else's past, so I brought the materials to exonerate her."

"Ah, well..."

Cheng Lihua pushed up her glasses with her palm, leaned back in her chair, and said, "She wrote a letter to the Central Committee, and there are witnesses. Of course, this is not a big deal nowadays... The problem is that she doesn't distance herself from Ye Zhetai."

"Xiao Yang, you know Wenjie's father... How can I help you deliver this document?"

Yang Weining looked down at Cheng Lihua's reflection in the teacup and, for the first time, had the urge to curse.

All of Wenjie's sadness and anger stemmed from her father Ye Zhetai's ordeal.

Forcing Wenjie to sever ties with her father would be tantamount to negating her life, which is absolutely impossible.

However, the exoneration materials for personnel in military or classified units must be stamped by the superior unit and reported level by level.

He was about to be transferred away from Hongan, reinstated as chief engineer, and assigned to a research institute. Cheng Lihua refused to accept the materials.

"Then please accept my resignation."

After a moment's thought, Yang Weining suppressed his anger and submitted his resignation documents.

He wasn't acting impulsively, but he had responsibilities to his wife and children.

"Xiao Yang, I really admire you."

Cheng Lihua smiled and said, "Just leave it there, I'll pass it on to you."

As Yang Weining left the office, he ran into Li Youyu.

The two men hadn't spoken to each other much, but Li Youyu had saved the couple once each, and Yang Weining had a good impression of him.

"Shall we take a walk?"

Li Youyu pointed to the cliff of Radar Peak.

Frustrated, Yang Weining nodded.

As the two walked to the edge of the cliff, Qijiatun at the foot of the mountain appeared and disappeared in the clouds and mist.

"Where did the assignment go?"

Li Youyu asked.

"Institute 24, researching materials."

"It's a good place."

Li Youyu said, "Materials science is the ladder of technological progress, and the results will speak for themselves."

"Yes, people are a million times more complex to me than mathematical problems."

Li Youyu was silent for a moment, then said, "If you want to help Ye Wenjie, you must help her father."

Yang Weining smiled wryly, "It's difficult."

"Actually, it's an inevitable trend. In another year or two, without you having to work hard, her and her father's situation will be settled."

"I know, but... I have to do something."

"Have you thought it through? Once you leave the workplace, you'll have to face the mundane realities of life."

"Some things you have to do even if you haven't thought them through."

"You already know, don't you?"

Li Youyu seemed to have said something irrelevant, but Yang Weining understood it perfectly.

"I already knew, the safety rope... was cut by Wenjie."

"I haven't told anyone else, including Lao Lei. I think Wenjie must have had a compelling reason for doing this... It might be related to Lao Lei talking to her."

"Later I wondered, what could Lao Lei possibly want to talk to her about? I thought about it for a long time but couldn't figure it out, so I stopped thinking about it."

"All I know is that Wenjie wanted to kill Lao Lei, and I just happened to be on that rope."