Chapter 3: Close Encounter of the First Kind

　　At 8:30 pm, the first evening self-study session ended. The bell finally rang for class dismissal.

　　Gang Chen packed up his books, took out a flashlight, and shook it in front of his deskmate Manto. Qingchun Huang understood and began to tidy up the desk, preparing to skip class.

　　Gang Chen had already received the news. Today, a family in Huanglou Village held a grand banquet, and an outdoor movie would be shown in the evening at the threshing ground.

　　As classmates, Gang Chen and Qingchun Huang rarely spoke to each other. But in that era lacking entertainment and movies, Qingchun Huang was very eager and unable to resist the temptation of skipping class to watch an outdoor movie in the countryside.

　　She took off her pen cap and threw it onto Jia Xu's back in the front row. Jia Xu turned around, smiled knowingly, and also started to clean up his books, preparing to skip class. Although Jia Xu was usually careless, she always followed her best friend Qingchun Huang and never left her side.

　　Jia Xu whistled a few times at Liang Ma , and he immediately stopped painting and took a flashlight out of his backpack. The whole class knew that Liang Ma had a complicated relationship with Jia Xu. He failed in every subject except for painting. He usually kept a middle-part hairstyle, was carefree, and had an artistic temperament. Although he was young, he was already skilled in smoking and drinking, and even wanted to paint "nude art."

　　To copy nude art, one must find a willing nude model. This was almost impossible in junior high schools in the early 1990s.

　　Liang Ma was extremely distressed and increasingly haggard because of this. He even declared to all the fifth-grade female students: "Whoever is willing to be my nude model, I will offer myself to her!"

　　At that time, only Jia Xu responded with, "Okay, from now on, you are my boyfriend!"

　　Since then, Liang Ma has been extremely grateful to Jia Xu and obedient to her every wish.

　　Gang Chen and Liang Ma took the lead, and the four young boys and girls quietly sneaked out of the school gate with flashlights and ran towards the threshing ground in Huanglou Village…

　　In the field, the fragrance of rice flowers wafts in the air, and the sound of frogs echoes in waves. Both sides of the rural dirt road are full of dense sorghum fields, tall and straight, with lush green leaves. The sorghum stalks sway back and forth in the night, which is a bit scary.

　　Jia Xu was a little hungry, so she stopped and ordered Liang Ma to go into the sorghum field and find some "Sorghum silk smut" to eat. Liang Ma didn't dare to be negligent and wandered around with a flashlight. Soon, he brought a big bundle of fresh Sorghum silk smut to Jia Xu, which was covered with dew and had a delicious fragrance.

　　Qingchun Huang was a bit envious and turned around to look at Lambert, but didn't know how to express it.

　　In the darkness, Gang Chen couldn't see Manto's eyes and just kept walking ahead. He occasionally shined his flashlight toward the night sky and searched in the direction of Sirius. Ever since he saw that mysterious star in the school corridor in the evening, Gang Chen had been curious and uneasy.

　　When the four of them reached an open area, Gang Chen looked up at the night sky again and looked in the direction of the Big Dipper. That strange star flashed again. This time, it didn't move, but flickered a unique light purple light…

　　Gang Chen remained calm and continued on with his companions. With his limited knowledge of astronomy and physics, he still couldn't understand how there could be such a strange star 89,000 light-years away from Earth.

　　When they arrived at the threshing ground in Huanglou Village, the first part of the movie had already finished playing. The second part had just started - it was a Hong Kong classic martial arts film called "New Dragon Gate Inn".

　　The spacious threshing ground was crowded with hundreds of villagers. Two bamboo poles held up a large silver screen. The movie was very exciting, with a vast desert and endless yellow sands. The male lead played a hero who was teased by the female lead. She disguised herself as a man and was so suave and handsome…

　　Gang Chen held Manto's hand, and Liang Ma held Jia Xu's as they bent over and walked through the screen. They finally found a pile of dry straw in the sugarcane field and helped each other climb up to watch the movie with great enthusiasm.

　　On the edge of the threshing ground, someone held a lamp and sold sugarcane. From time to time, vendors carrying wooden ice cream boxes wandered around, loudly shouting, "Ice cream! Sticky rice ice cream, white sugar ice cream!"

　　Qingchun Huang was very thirsty, but unfortunately, both of them don't have the money. They only had a few canteen meal tickets in their pockets and couldn't buy anything.

　　Gang Chen and Liang Ma jumped off the pile of straw and sneaked behind the bamboo forest. They soon came back with several large handfuls of plums. The plums weren't fully ripe yet, and Qingchun Huang could only eat two before they became so sour that her eyes squinted and her teeth chattered…

　　The projectionist changed the last reel of the film, and the movie was about to climax. The projectionist's voice came through the horn, "Attention, dear audience, after the movie, please do not run away with the homeowner's bench! Villagers who helped, please come early tomorrow morning for breakfast."

　　The projector restarted -

　　The "Dragon Gate Inn" in the desert was surrounded by enemies. Cavalry and archers closed in step by step, and thousands of arrows were launched at once! The Dragon Gate Inn was engulfed in flames. The hero met his end, and a tragic love story unfolded…

　　At this critical moment, the power suddenly went out.

　　The threshing ground was plunged into darkness. Qingchun Huang instinctively grabbed Lambert's hand but then quickly let go, feeling embarrassed.

　　The crowd stirred for a moment but soon settled down, waiting for the power to come back on. Some ran to the nearby sorghum field to pee, while others held flashlights to buy ice cream on the edge of the ground.

　　Liang Ma waved a bundle of straw to keep the mosquitoes away from Jia Xu. Qingchun Huang pretended to be sleepy and leaned her head on Lambert's shoulder. In reality, her face was already red and her heart was pounding in the darkness.

　　The power did not come back on for quite some time. Gang Chen inadvertently looked up at the night sky and saw an incredibly shocking sight -

　　A huge orange-red disc-shaped flying object suddenly appeared on the hill behind the threshing ground! It was moving towards the crowd without a sound, with a distinct outline, and getting closer and closer.

　　Everyone gradually saw the specific shape of the object. It was a disc-shaped spacecraft that looked like a giant red hat. It was raised and smooth in the middle, with an edge larger than anyone had ever imagined. When it moved directly above the threshing ground, it completely covered the entire area like a moving aerial island!

　　A cry of surprise erupted from the crowd. From curiosity to fear, then to collective silence. The shock beyond common sense left everyone staring dumbfounded.

　　When the flying object was about three stories high, it suddenly stopped and hung motionless in the night sky. At the same time, a dozen or so faint purple beams of light scattered from the edge of the spacecraft. Like smoke and mist, ethereal and bewildering.

　　Gang Chen stood up from the pile of straw and gazed up in astonishment at the giant interstellar spacecraft. From the faint purple beams it emitted, Gang Chen could tell that it was the same eerie "star" he saw in the school corridor at dusk!

　　A few minutes later, the flashing lights disappeared from the edge of the spacecraft. It just floated quietly above the threshing ground. Under the huge shadow, it created a palpable sense of oppression and intimidation.

　　The villagers scattered and ran away. Some hid in the sorghum fields, and some were squeezed off the field bank and fell into the rice paddies. Only the four teenagers standing on the pile of straw didn't move. As high school students who had a bit of knowledge about astronomy and physics, Lambert, Manto, Liang Ma , and Jia Xu all understood that in the vast and boundless universe, human beings on Earth were not the only ones. It was only a matter of time before extraterrestrial civilizations visited Earth. There was no need to panic or make a fuss.

　　Jia Xu was excited and loudly reminded Liang Ma to draw the hat-shaped spaceship down. Unfortunately, Liang Ma didn't have a pen and was anxious.

　　The spaceship seemed to have independent consciousness. After hovering for more than ten minutes, a blue beam suddenly shot out from the bottom of the spaceship. It sJie Dong directly on Manto, moving back and forth as if observing and testing her. Qingchun Huang was scared and quickly hid behind Lambert. The beam of blue light followed her and always enveloped her.

　　Qingchun Huang looked up curiously at the huge object, immersed in blue light and shadow, feeling calm, relaxed, and even a sense of indescribable pleasure…

　　Gang Chen protected Qingchun Huang behind him and looked around, but couldn't find any weapons to defend themselves.

　　The spaceship continued to lower its altitude.

　　Gang Chen could now see the portholes on the spaceship. Inside the silver-gray portholes, there were a pair of eerie eyes, watching them with great interest. It was a strange gaze that was hard to describe. It seemed to be able to see through Lambert's thoughts and had a power that penetrated directly into his heart.

　　About ten minutes later, the spaceship retracted the blue beam and rose vertically. It disappeared in the vast night sky in an instant…

　　The lights in nearby farmhouses came on, and the power was restored. As it turned out, the sudden power outage just now was caused by the extraterrestrial visitor.

　　The movie could no longer continue, and the projectionist had already been frightened and ran away.

　　The four people picked up flashlights and walked toward the direction of the school. The midnight fields were silent, and the night sky was clear and sprinkled with stars. However, they were different from before.