Farming, getting married and having kids, staying behind to become the village accountant in the future? Or leaving, like what I heard at school, going to the city to work, earning money to honor my parents? Can I really do it?

He started to feel a bit lost.

For once, Henry Clark, who didn’t smoke, wanted a cigarette. Coincidentally, the groom had handed out a pair of Double Happiness reds today, and he still had them in his shirt pocket, not yet given to his dad.

He lowered his head, took one out and put it in his mouth, then felt around his pocket again... only to realize he didn’t have a lighter at all.

Maybe it was because he was finally away from the crowd, away from everyone’s gaze, that all the pent-up emotions suddenly erupted all at once over this small frustration, and he suddenly felt so wronged and upset, on the verge of breaking down...

In this emotional state, Henry Clark didn’t dare go straight home.

Maybe five minutes, ten minutes, or even longer passed, and Henry Clark was still sitting in the moonlit woods not far from the mountain path, on the edge of a clearing where trees had been cut, perched on a large blue stone slab.

At least, the chaotic emotions in his mind had finally calmed down, and now he felt very quiet.

Other than the chirping of insects in the grass, it was quiet all around.

As it turns out, even if you don’t see the shape or hear the sound, when something big enough passes overhead, you can still feel it.

Henry Clark suddenly sensed something unusual above his head and looked up...

A dark, cone-shaped object suddenly and yet naturally grew larger in his field of vision, slowly descending, and finally stopped on the clearing about thirty or forty meters in front of him.

The whole process involved neither jets of fire nor loud noises. There were only a few occasional crisp snaps as shrubs were crushed and broken.

It was maybe the size of a jeep, or a bit bigger, but not by much.

It was metallic—though it didn’t reflect any light, it had the texture of metal.

So, what is this?

An alien spaceship, a UFO? Or some new military technology? Henry Clark liked reading sci-fi and military magazines, and had read some from classmates at school, so he couldn’t help but think along those lines...

The next second, “Could it be dangerous?” Henry Clark was suddenly on high alert, and immediately lunged forward, diving straight into a dirt pit under the bushes.

The lush summer shrubs and weeds covered him completely. Henry Clark held his breath and watched carefully.

About a minute passed, and the cone didn’t open, nor was there any mechanical noise.

Instead, a dense whooshing sound of wind breaking came from the woods on both sides.

People.

All wearing gray uniform shirts, with a dark-toned metal box on their backs, a few strange metal bands wrapped around their bodies, and knives in their hands.

About thirty or forty of them, dashing through the darkness like a gust of wind, charging from both sides of the forest.

Or maybe they weren’t people.

Even though they were out in the open and looked completely human, no human could run that fast—not even Olympic champions.

What the heck are these things?!

While Henry Clark’s eyes and mind were still reeling in confusion for another ten seconds or so, those “people” had already rushed to the side of the cone.

At the same time.

A hatch seemed to finally open at the top of the cone, and then, two “things” were ejected out.

Henry Clark instinctively chose to call them “things,” otherwise the only word would be “Transformers.”

But they weren’t. Henry Clark had seen Transformers at Kevin West’s house, and the two things that shot out of the cone didn’t transform. They looked like people wearing “full-body black steel armor.”

Maybe because of the armor, their figures looked much bigger than normal people. If they really were human, they’d be at least two meters tall, weighing over 250 pounds.

So, robots? So advanced.

Because their “armor” fit so closely to their bodies, bones, and muscles, and they moved so nimbly, they didn’t look at all like the robots in magazines or movies, which always seemed heavy, sluggish, and clumsy just from their appearance.

It was just that Henry Clark had never encountered the concept of “exoskeleton battle suits,” so he simply called them robots.

In any case, everything happening had completely exceeded Henry Clark’s previous understanding and judgment.

And the two sides that appeared before him were clearly hostile to each other.

No conversation, no pause—the fight broke out the moment they made contact. Like a pack of wolves running headlong into two tigers, a rapid and violent collision...

Behind the charging crowd, the dark metal boxes on their backs began to emit streaks of crystalline blue light, flashing in unison... With this light, the crowd’s speed suddenly increased again.

Dirt and gravel kicked up by their shoes whistled through the air.

The black-armored robots stood their ground, both gripping massive umbrella-shaped pillar swords. In unison, from high to low, they slammed the swords down hard, driving nearly half the blade into the ground.

A shockwave-like impact spread along the ground, dust billowed, and stones flew.

With this strike, almost all of the vanguard were stopped, and some were even blasted back, falling to the ground.