Chapter 1: Brother Crossed Over

  June 11, 2020 at 9:00 am at an altitude of 3,000 meters above the South China Sea

  "Psst..."

  Junior classmate opened another package of instant noodles with a dejected look. "Not again! Two seasoning packets!", Is it because he didn't reply to posts or collect books recently, the first packet of instant noodles Junior classmate just opened had the legendary curse - eating instant noodles without a seasoning packet! The previous one he just opened had another legendary curse - "Eating instant noodles with only a seasoning packet".

  Here is the translation:

  Now that we've gotten this far, let's introduce the protagonist of our story - He Junci. For the first half of his life, Junci was a mediocre and unremarkable person who had once had big dreams of becoming a pilot to protect his country. However, due to his poor eyesight and acrophobia, his dreams were shattered and became nothing more than fantasies. 10 years ago, after enrolling in the mechanical engineering department at Chongqing University, he spent most of his free time, including times when he was skipping class, participating in flying activities with a certain aviation enthusiast club. Since he also knew some basic mechanical repair skills, he was gradually absorbed by an unscrupulous boss as a exploited worker. Through this way, he could balance his studies while earning some pocket money and even get to participate in flying activities for free - what a wonderful life! However, after graduating 4 years later, he found that he couldn't find any job that matched his major, so he continued working at the aviation enthusiast club's floating base, continuing to be exploited by the unscrupulous boss.

  After China opened up its low-altitude airspace in 2015, some flying clubs targeting flight enthusiasts emerged, similar to the development of internet cafes around 2000. These clubs are not only responsible for flight training and experience but also organize some flight confrontation activities, of course, using light and low-speed sports aircraft within the scope restricted by the state.

  Due to the high land prices in China in 2020, large "land-consuming" units such as flight bases are under dual pressure of cost and competition, and have moved into the air to demand resources from the sky, similar to aircraft carriers during World War II.

  The floating base where He Junci is located is one of them. This floating base uses helium as the buoyancy power, and the photovoltaic solar panels on the upper layer and the civilian nuclear reactor in the power compartment provide sufficient power to the state regulator engine and main engine. In an open state, the floating base can provide two runways for takeoff and landing of combat aircraft and trainer aircraft. At the same time, it can also launch unmanned judging machines to evaluate the results and scores of the competition, as well as provide filming services (of course, for a fee). Under normal circumstances, the floating base is connected to the ground through shuttle helicopters, or it can be moored to a ground maintenance station.

  Pilots and flight enthusiasts treat the floating base as a weekend resort, so it has all the amenities for dining, accommodation and entertainment. Many wealthy or successful individuals come to the floating base just to experience the feeling of staying in a transparent hotel 3000 meters high, making a fortune for unscrupulous bosses.

  To cut costs, the staff of the floating base has been greatly reduced by the ruthless boss, leaving only the necessary front desk, chefs, waiters and a few high-quality flight instructors, with only one mechanic, He Juncai, left. During peak hours, He Juncai also needs to moonlight as a flight instructor, honing his skills.

  He has been working at the floating base for 6 years, while others have come and gone, only He Juncai's old face is still enduring the exploitation of the black-hearted boss. A year ago, the black-hearted boss announced in public that he would promote He Juncai to "Deputy Station Master" in order to stabilize the old employees, with a slight increase in salary, but the work remained the same, or rather more, and also required coordination with other personnel. He Juncai was so moved that he shed tears of gratitude.

  No, yesterday the boss (stationmaster) got married, all employees of the base were on holiday HAPPY, only He Juncai, deputy stationmaster, stayed in Floating Base. Since the chef was also on holiday, I had to go to the small sales department to get some inventory, don't know how long it will last, and don't know if there is instant noodles with preservatives to fill my hunger.

  It's also He Juncai's bad luck that he encountered these two curses about instant noodles one after another. Of course, He Juncai would not admit that this matter had anything to do with the fact that he "accidentally" saw the sexy underwear of the flight attendant Xiaohong in her short skirt when she boarded the helicopter the day before, nor would he admit that it had anything to do with the curse of the black-hearted boss whose condom broke that night.

  "Bingo, got it! Instant noodles plus seasoning packet, isn't that all we need? Although it's a combination of two packets." He Juncai had an epiphany and came up with a solution after thinking for 30 seconds.

  "Haha, nothing can bring me down, I'm the little Superman of the universe!" Although he has been exploited for 6 years, He Juncai still maintains his positive and optimistic attitude since he first started working. While waiting after carefully brewing instant noodles, He Juncai found that there seemed to be a small coin-like thing in the package of instant noodles.

  "It's not like... I've never encountered it before... I won!! Wow!" He Juncai couldn't care less about the saliva dripping all over the floor, and hastily began to carefully examine the packaging bag. After 5 minutes of examination, no information about a lottery was found, and his hopes were shattered.

  He Junci, who was temporarily in a slump, stuffed noodles into his mouth while playing with the small metal object.

  "Hmm, what are these symbols? Are they some kind of text?" This small thing was only the size of a 100-yuan coin (due to inflation, equivalent to 1 yuan today), with a symmetrical five-star pattern on it. Each corner had some ancient characters or patterns. "Looks like some kind of scam to collect from kids." He Juncai casually popped one into his mouth.

  At the same time, in the invisible starry sky above, the five major planets of gold, wood, water, fire and earth are lined up in a straight line, and a strong, mysterious blue light shoots towards the "coin" from the sky.

  "Nila!" He Juncai's eyes widened, time seemed to have stopped, and a noodle shot out of his nostrils.

  "Immortal? Monster!" Before He Juncai could react, the "coin" suddenly burst out with an eerie glow, enveloping the entire floating base. He Juncai also felt a severe overload similar to what he experienced during flight, and his dizziness instantly reached its peak. He Juncai's head spun violently as he fainted, and just before falling to the ground, he vaguely saw the coin suddenly lose its dazzling luster and drop to the ground with a "clang".

  Suddenly, He Juncai felt as if he was flying in the starry sky, with stars of various colors and sizes whizzing past him. He suddenly felt a strong urge to urinate. "What to do? Where is the toilet on this spaceship?" After searching around, he finally found it and was thrilled to relieve himself. Seeing this, everyone must be smiling knowingly - yes, He Juncai had wet his bed! Poor He Juncai discovered that it was already midnight and he had no choice but to wash his pants himself. Looking at the toilet bowl, he thought he should finish urinating, so he sat down on the toilet seat. "Wait a minute? Why am I sitting on the toilet seat? I'm a guy!" He Juncai looked down between his legs and was devastated to find that he had truly wet his bed this time. Dreams can be deadly!

  He sat up, cleaned up the noodles that had fallen on his clothes, rubbed his head, and stared blankly at the "coin" on the floor, muttering to himself, "What did I do to offend the road god today?"

  He Juncai returned to his living quarters to change his underwear and pants, preparing for the next entertainment program. However, he glanced out the window and felt something was off. "Huh, where's the blue ocean? Why is it all clouds below? The altitude doesn't seem to be 3000 meters either." He rushed back to the control room at the speed of light.

  "Naila! Current altitude 20,000 meters!" This exceeded the highest limit of low-altitude airspace set by the Civil Aviation Administration. He Juncai's back was covered in cold sweat. "Could it be that the instrument is malfunctioning? It's impossible, this digital instrument has never had a problem before, let me make a call first."

  "Mobile phones are out of reach, and emergency satellite phones are also out of reach, what's going on?"

  The Beidou positioning system was also unable to connect to the satellite, and it was completely out of touch with the outside world. It wasn't until then that He Junci realized that the coin must have triggered something.

  "The most important thing now is to figure out where it is and first bring down the altitude"

  He Juncai skillfully entered control commands on the console, and more than 20,000 helium packs in the floating base began to compress under the control of the central computer, and slowly lowered their altitude with the help of the attitude adjustment engine.

  "Launch the drone!", in a situation where things are unclear, it's still better to let the drone take off. Otherwise, after the only available helicopter is taken away, there would be no choice but to make an emergency landing on land or highway using a fixed-wing aircraft or trainer, which is risky and may attract attention from civil aviation authorities.

  The real-time images transmitted back by the judging machine made He Junci immediately stop the descent of the floating base, and after passing through the clouds, he found that below was a mountainous area, where the first thing to appear under the fog was the green terraced fields.

  "This time it's big, when I woke up in the morning, I was still above the South China Sea", He Juncai is a timid person, and in a situation where he didn't understand what was going on, his first thought was safety, so he operated the floating base to float above the clouds. The cloud layer in this area seemed particularly thick, covering the entire sky.

  The central radar of the floating base showed that there were no other aircraft within a range of 300 kilometers. The trainer continued to fly and found two large rivers below, with a city at their confluence.

  "How come it's so familiar? Could it be Chongqing, but what about other areas of Chongqing? Did something like a nuclear war happen?"

  At this time, the central radar prompt, 54 medium-sized aircraft approached from 300 kilometers east.

  "Hu" He Juncai let out a sigh of relief, "There are still colleagues around." Due to the loss of communication contact, He Juncai decided to pilot his usual fighter jet to seek help nearby.

  After setting the flight parameters of the floating base, He Juncai took a control terminal to the apron via elevator and boarded his part-time favorite aircraft, a DK-2 type fighter with a skull flag painted on its tail wing, numbered B8.

  "Open cargo bay 2"

  "Drip......" With the flashing of the red light, the top cover on the right side of the floating base opened to both sides, forming a 400m x 50m platform. The automatic tractor pulled aircraft B8 to the starting point of the runway and filled it with aviation fuel. As the propeller accelerated its rotation, a metal disc gradually formed at the front of the plane.

  "Advance throttle, release brake." The plane surged forward and began to accelerate. When he felt the speed was sufficient, He Juncai pulled back on the control stick, and the plane took off into the air. This feeling is great! After nearly 10 years of training, flying has become a part of He Juncai's life, just like eating or walking. He no longer relies on instruments but flies by feel, having entered the state of "man-bird unity" as old pilots would say - although anyone who said that to He Juncai got punched.

  The fighter planes do not have onboard radar equipment. Because real air battles in the future are all beyond visual range, they are a competition of technological levels, while flight confrontations are mainly for play, so they still focus on low-speed propeller aircraft, mainly relying on visual attacks, so the black-hearted boss saves money and oil, and does not configure radar.

  In this case, He Juncai controlled the B8 fighter to gradually descend in altitude, and after passing through the clouds, he identified the terrain. After checking the control terminal carried by the plane, he accelerated towards the city, hoping to wait for the 54 large-scale fighter jets in the air.

  At an altitude of 3,000 meters, flying over one mountain peak after another, He Juncai felt more and more that it was like Chongqing, except for one difference - the mountains were exceptionally green, but he couldn't see any highways or high-rise buildings.

  "Huh, what's that? The Wenfeng Tower?" He Junci suddenly recognized a building he could never forget in his life. Then where was Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications? Where was Huangjue Tree Town? Where was South Mountain Town? It couldn't be so similar, right? His university girlfriend was from Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and they often had secret dates under the Wenfeng Tower. Unfortunately, it was also there that his girlfriend broke up with him on their senior year.

  As the plane continued to fly forward, He Juncai finally confirmed that this was above Chongqing, but why is it so clean and environmentally friendly now? The high-rise buildings are all gone. Did the environment improve so much in just a few years without him returning? But what about the bridges spanning the Yangtze River and Jialing River, the highways in the city, and the high-rise buildings in Yuzhong District?

  "If it's Chongqing, then continuing north should be Jiangbei Airport, let's land there first and talk about it later!" He Juncai was full of question marks.

  "Ah! Isn't Jiangbei Airport supposed to be in this location? How come it's all vegetable fields? I'm dizzy, what's going on today!" He Juncai helplessly turned the aircraft around. Several flashes of light appeared in the sky, "What is that, could it be an enemy plane?" He Juncai gripped the control stick and flew his plane towards the light, while opening the wireless radio to try and contact the other party. After trying several channels without getting a response, he became annoyed and twisted the controller around. Suddenly, a seductive female voice emerged from the earphones, startling He Juncai.

  "Enemy planes are bombing, citizens please take cover immediately! Repeat, enemy planes are bombing, citizens please take cover immediately!"

  Japanese bandit?

  Air raid?

  He Juncai's back was instantly soaked, how could this be? ?????????

  "Brother has crossed over!!!"