Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
When the first ray of morning light passed through the window, the dust in the air came out of hiding.
George was lying on a table covered with manuscripts. Saliva had flowed out of his mouth and dampened several blank sheets of paper.
After a night of brainstorming, he had thrown the thesis that he had written into the trash as he fell asleep.
George had a dream about discovering aliens.
In the dream, Earth had been discovered by an alien civilization, and humanity was about to face a huge crisis.
The so-called high-tech weapons in the human world were like toys in the eyes of the alien invaders and were destroyed in an instant.
When the whole world fell into a huge panic, not only did George complete his graduation thesis, but he also developed a weapon that could destroy the alien warships.
He transformed into a hero who saved the world. He led the surviving human soldiers and successfully repelled the invading alien civilization, protecting the home that mankind lived on.
Just as George was receiving the public’s respect in his dream, the phone suddenly started ringing in his ear.
“Ring, ring, ring!”
George jumped and his head left the table at an extremely fast speed.
Being suddenly woken caused a short headache.
“Damn it, who is calling at this time!”
He picked up the phone on the table. The caller ID showed that it was his good friend Carl.
George pressed the answer button while frustrated.
“Hey, you better have something important to say, or I won’t let you off!”
However, Carl who was on the other side of the phone didn’t mind George’s impatient mood at all. He was like someone on a talk show, constantly spouting out unending words.
“TV! George, turn on the TV immediately, or go online! Soon, you’ll see everything you had always wanted to see! This is too shocking! A spaceship has appeared in the sky above our planet! Hey, hey! George, are you listening!”
“…”
“Du du du du!”
George hung up Carl’s call and threw the phone onto the table. The sound it made caused his Maine Coon cat’s fur to stand up in fright.
He suddenly remembered that today was the 31st, April Fool’s Day was tomorrow.
Was Carl so eager to start his prank?
“Wait a minute. Anna invited me to the bar for a drink on Friday night, which is also the night of April Fool’s Day. Is she pulling a prank on me too?”
This discovery made George’s already bad mood even worse.
He sat on the chair, his mind replaying Anna’s previous words.
“Should I make a call to ask Anna? It’s better to clarify such matters. Yes, I’ll call her now!”
George took the phone that had just been violently treated.
He found Anna’s number and dialed it. He didn’t have to wait for long before Anna’s pleasant voice appeared in the receiver.
“Hello, George. You must have turned on the television and seen the news of the alien spaceship landing on Earth. Are you calling me to ask me what I think? I feel that it’s too shocking. To think that just after one night, we found a spaceship parked in the sky above our planet! I’m very excited at this moment. If… you won’t see me in the future, will you miss me?”
At this moment, George’s mind was completely blank. He didn’t even hear Anna’s last sentence.
After a short silence, George’s body reacted like it had been struck by an electric current.
He rushed to the front of the television as fast as he could. His hands trembled as he picked up the remote control on the sofa.
When he turned on the television, the screen showed a news channel.
A very eye-catching headline was scrolling above the host’s head.
[An Interstellar Warship Piloted by an Alien Civilization has Suddenly Appeared at a Lagrange Point!]
The news host was saying something.
George controlled the remote control to amplify the volume, and with this, he heard more detailed information.
“At 5:17 a.m. today, an alien starship suddenly appeared at a Lagrange point. The question is, is this alien starship hostile or friendly? Next, let us contact Professor Lodge from the National Space Administration!”
After a short wait, a thin and tall old man appeared on the screen. George knew who Professor Lodge was since he was a good friend of Professor Eugene.
“Professor Lodge, please tell us whatever you have found out about the alien starship!”
Professor Lodge pushed the frame of his glasses, no emotion could be seen on his slightly pale face.
“It suddenly appeared at a Lagrange point. We weren’t able to discover its trajectory before it appeared. We have sent signals of different frequencies to it, but unfortunately, we haven’t received any feedback from the alien starship up until now. Although I am reluctant to admit it, the efforts in which we took to communicate with it have all failed…”
At this moment, the screen switched to the host who asked a question, “Professor Lodge, is it possible that it’s a satellite created by another country?”
The host used the word “satellite”.
What he meant was quite obvious. He wanted to know if a hostile country had created a satellite that looked like a starship.
Professor Lodge’s reaction almost made George laugh.
Professor Lodge looked at the host on the screen as if he was looking at an idiot.
George majored in space physics at university, thus he knew very well that a starship of this size was far beyond the current technology of mankind.
This was simply not something that could be created by human technology!
The news on the television was still ongoing. Probably to divert the host’s embarrassment, the screen was switched to show the outer space, and the entirety of the starship was thus displayed.
George’s eyes widened. He stared at the beautiful alien starship, its pitch-black surface swallowed all the light around it.
The moon served as its background, showing the huge size of the starship.
The image was transmitted from the International Space Station, who at the same time, was responsible for monitoring and trying to establish communication with the alien starship.
George stared at the alien starship until the screen was switched back to the host.
At this moment, only then did he recall the conversation in the chat group.
“Oh my God! The starship I drew from the red packet yesterday is real! Could it be that the creatures in the chat group are really aliens?”
George raised his right hand that was holding the phone. He realized that he had still been on the phone with Anna just now, but the other party had hung up when he stopped responding.
Right now, he was not in the mood to call Anna to explain. Instead, he quickly opened the chat group.
The message that was first seen by George made him feel like he was suffocating.
Sarlatian (level 2.5 civilization): “Haha, in the red packet that I sent out yesterday, the biggest prize was a light-speed starship. The lucky one who got this prize, please privately chat with me to receive it!”
Selkian (level 3 civilization): “Hmph! You Sarlatians are really generous. A light-speed starship is worth at least 100 billion universe dollars, yet you gave it away just like that!”
George could not believe the conversation he was reading.
Wait!
“The Sarlatian hasn’t delivered the starship, then who sent the starship that is parked at the Lagrange point? And how much is 100 billion universe dollars?”