“The coast of Troy in the time of the ancient Greeks,” said Bai Bing.

“Then … can you move the time to the Trojan Horse and the Sack of Troy?” Lu Wenming asked excitedly.

“The Trojan Horse never existed,” Bai Bing said coolly.

Chen Xufeng nodded. “That sort of thing belongs in children’s stories. It would be impossible in a real war.”

“The Trojan War never happened,” said Bai Bing.

“If that’s the case, did Troy fall due to other reasons?” The Senior Official sounded surprised.

“The city of Troy never existed.”

The other three exchanged looks of astonishment.

Bai Bing pointed at the screen. “The video window is now displaying the real coast of Troy at the time the war supposedly happened. We can look five hundred years forward and back….” Bai Bing carefully shifted the mouse. The beach onscreen flashed rapidly as night and day alternated, and the shape of the trees changed quickly, too. A few shacks appeared at the far end of the beach, human silhouettes occasionally flickering past them. The shacks grew and fell in number, but even at their greatest they formed no more than a village. “See, the magnificent city of Troy only ever existed in the imaginations of the poet-storytellers.”

“How is that possible?” Lu Wenming cried. “We have archaeological evidence from the beginning of the last century! They even dug up Agamemnon’s gold mask.”

“Agamemnon’s gold mask? Fuck that!” Bai Bing laughed harshly. “Well, as the historical records improve in quality and quantity, later searches get increasingly easy. Let’s do it again.”

Bai Bing returned their point of view to Earth’s orbit. This time, he didn’t use the mouse, but entered the time and geographical coordinates by hand. The view descended toward western Asia. Soon, the screen displayed a stretch of desert, and a few people lying under the shade of a cluster of red willows. They wore ragged robes of rough cloth, their skin baked dark, their hair long and matted into strands by sweat and dust. From a distance, they looked like heaps of discarded rubbish.

“They aren’t far from a Muslim village, but the bubonic plague has been going around and they’re afraid to go there,” Bai Bing said.

A tall, thin man sat up and looked around. After checking that the others were soundly asleep, he picked up a neighbor’s sheepskin canteen and took a swig. Then he reached into another neighbor’s battered pack and took out a piece of traveler’s bread, broke off a third, and put it in his own bag. Satisfied, he lay back down.

“I’ve run this at normal speed for two days and seen him steal other people’s water five times and other people’s food three times,” Bai Bing said, gesturing with his mouse at the man who’d just lain down.

“Who is he?”