The next day.
As usual, the morning sun rose over the horizon.
Yet on the final day of the National Day holiday, it was imbued with extraordinary significance for the people living on this land.
The first to announce the news was Renren Daily.
The front page of the latest issue was dominated by two striking headlines.
[Six-Ton Payload, One Shot into Orbit!]
[—A Tribute to the Spacefarers Striving at the Frontier of Civilization!]
The report was like a massive bomb tossed into a still lake, instantly blasting up towering waves.
Naturally, the first to be affected were university circles, where information traveled fastest.
Especially among aerospace engineering majors. Before any official news had even come out, quite a few of them had already learned through various insider channels that the launch had succeeded.
Inside a laboratory at an aerospace design institute in Shangjing.
A group of research dogs crowded around a computer, excitedly discussing the news and photographs on the screen.
"Look, look! There's a photo of our Academician Yuan!"
"Holy shit, he's standing with the Grand Elder."
"That's Academician Lu beside him, right?"
"Man, we're both born in the nineties... how can the gap be this huge?"
"I think you'd better stop treating him like someone born in the nineties. A monster like that can't be measured by human standards or age."
"Damn it, I'm so fucking jealous!"
As soon as the news was published in Renren Daily, major media outlets sprang into action like athletes hearing the starting gun, reposting the report at once.
For a time, related news came flooding in, swiftly dominating the trending headlines on major internet platforms.
Faced with such an unbelievable piece of news, many people still immersed in the previous day's military parade and celebrations had not even processed it yet.