Heaven-Sent Luck (1)

Pei Shao walked out of the movie theater, pulling his collar tight against the darkening night. His mind was still replaying the scenes he had just watched on the big screen.

On the wall outside the theater hung a massive poster. The protagonist on the poster was not a human star, but a giant robot known as Optimus Prime.

Yes, what Pei Shao had just watched was the global sci-fi blockbuster that had raked in hundreds of millions of dollars: Transformers.

Perhaps many people did not care for the live-action Transformers, or had never even watched the animated series. However, one had to admit that the extremely cool Chevrolet sports car owned by the movie's protagonist, Sam—a car that could transform, possessed intelligence, and even helped its owner pick up girls—made almost every fan who watched the film feel both jealous and envious.

Pei Shao was one of the many fans who coveted Sam's good fortune. But of course, as an unemployed college graduate from a third-rate university who didn't even have a job yet, let alone a Chevrolet sports car, Pei Shao couldn't even afford a Samsung phone.

If only I had a Transformers friend too...

Like most young people who had just finished a midnight screening of the Transformers movie, Pei Shao let his imagination run wild while walking home with his head down, hurrying along.

Soon, Pei Shao turned into a small alley—a necessary shortcut to his home. Pei Shao's parents were not wealthy. Although they supported him in looking for work in S City after graduation and provided a small monthly allowance, the money was never much. To save enough to cover his internet and movie habits, Pei Shao rented a dilapidated house in such a remote location that it was nearly impossible to find.

Walking through the pitch-black alley, Pei Shao suddenly felt his foot trip over something. The jolt snapped him out of his daydream, where he had been busy imagining himself surrounded by beautiful women.

Who the hell has no civic sense, throwing trash around like this? His dream interrupted, Pei Shao burned with anger. Cursing under his breath, he prepared to kick the object that had tripped him. But as he looked down, he suddenly discovered that the object under his foot was a square stone. Moreover, the characters and patterns on the stone looked remarkably like the "AllSpark" he had just seen in the movie; one could even say they were identical.

"Could it be a bootleg prop?" Curious, Pei Shao couldn't help but pick it up. Once the stone was in his hand, he noticed its surface felt incredibly smooth, with no trace of the patterns he had seen. He tossed it in his palm to test the weight and found it quite heavy, almost like marble.

"Well, I don't know which rich person threw this prop away. Whatever, it'll make a nice souvenir!" Pei Shao concluded, satisfied, and shoved the stone into his pants pocket.

Back home, the exhausted Pei Shao fell fast asleep. When he woke up the next day, his head still felt heavy.

However, as he cracked his eyes open just a sliver, intending to sit up and get a drink of water, Pei Shao was suddenly jolted! He caught a glimpse of a robot-like figure sitting in his computer chair, staring intently at his monitor! Furthermore, countless complex data cables extended from the robot's body, filling almost every port on his computer.

Pei Shao quickly closed his eyes and rubbed them frantically. When he opened them again, the robot was gone, and everything had returned to normal. The computer wasn't even turned on.

Was it a hallucination? Did I watch too much Transformers? Pei Shao thought to himself after rubbing his eyes a second time and confirming there was indeed no robot in sight.

"Sigh!" Pei Shao let out a breath. In truth, he had actually been looking forward to something like that just a moment ago.

But how could it be possible? Transformers?! Heh... Pei Shao started to laugh at himself, but the laugh died halfway through, stuck in his throat.

Because, staring in stunned silence, Pei Shao saw a silver-white mobile phone sitting on his computer desk, just to the lower right of his 17-inch LCD monitor!

The phone had a streamlined design like a top-tier sports car, and its surface was so smooth it was almost dazzling. It wasn't as thin as the ultra-slim phones popular on the market, but its heavy-metal aesthetic looked incredibly cool.

The complex array of function buttons covering the phone and the palm-sized LCD screen indicated that this was no ordinary device. Most importantly, it was a model that no mobile phone company in the world had ever produced. If someone could pull out a phone like this, it would be even cooler than owning a Chevrolet sports car.

Impossible! Absolutely impossible! It must be another hallucination! Pei Shao dared not trust his eyes again. He closed them for ten seconds, silently praying to the Jade Emperor, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha all at once, then carefully opened his eyelids bit by bit.

It was true! The phone was still there!

An uncontrollable surge of ecstasy erupted in Pei Shao's heart; he almost wanted to do a backflip on his bed. Transformers! It was definitely real! Pei Shao was certain that unless his memory had failed him, he had never owned a phone like this!

Recalling the scene where Bumblebee transformed into a Chevrolet sports car, Pei Shao was now almost one hundred percent certain that the incredibly cool silver-white phone before him was the piece-of-junk Samsung phone he had in his pocket. Only, for some unknown reason, that Samsung phone had turned into a Transformer!

Right! It was the "AllSpark" I shoved in my pocket yesterday! He remembered that after picking up the AllSpark, he had tossed it into the same pocket where he kept his phone!

God! A real Transformer! In my house! Pei Shao thought, feeling as if his heart were about to jump out of his chest. He suppressed his excitement and carefully climbed out of bed.

Looking at the "Transformer phone," Pei Shao cycled through hundreds of opening lines in his head within a second. He simply didn't know what to say to express his excitement and joy.

However, after the initial wave of ecstasy passed, the smile on Pei Shao's face suddenly froze. He remembered that in the movie, the mobile phone Transformer created by the radiation of the "AllSpark" seemed to be a member of the "Decepticons"! In the film, that little thing had been terrifyingly violent the moment it appeared! As soon as it saw people, it brandished a machine-gun-like weapon, blasting the bulletproof glass that imprisoned it to pieces, startling even the main characters.

Is this guy going to be the same way? Pei Shao thought, suddenly breaking into a cold sweat. It wasn't attacking him now, perhaps because it thought he hadn't discovered its true identity. If he rushed forward and let it know he had seen through it, would this thing blast a hole in his head?

Gulp! Pei Shao swallowed hard.