One week ago.
Just after Li Xingkong and Tang Cheng finished discussing the plan to deal with the satellite, Divine Land quickly began preparations in all aspects.
First, they started spreading some dubious and unsubstantiated information, such as whether aliens exist in the universe, and suddenly these topics began to trend on social media.
And soon, many television entertainment programs began discussing extraterrestrial life, such as whether life could arise in the absence of water, and other old topics began to gain popularity again.
The driving force behind all of this is naturally the official Divine Land government. It aims to increase public acceptance of the Xi People, a lunar race, and also to send a signal to other countries that Divine Land has indeed discovered something extraordinary.
Although Divine Land's cultural and entertainment development started relatively late, and many popular media outlets have foreign capital behind them, the Divine Land government is not to be trifled with. If you want to survive in Divine Land, regardless of who's backing you or what, if you don't cooperate with the government's policies, you're out.
This led to a surge in interest, and once the media received their assignments, they immediately began to take action. The news spread rapidly, and within just one day, it was being discussed throughout the entire country.
After the news gained significant traction, Divine Land ) immediately began releasing new content.
"Remnants of an extraterrestrial civilization have been suspected to have been discovered on the moon. Preliminary assessments suggest that lunar inhabitants may indeed exist, and that they may have once possessed a highly advanced civilization."
The accompanying image is a square stone monument half-buried in a mountain on the surface of the moon.
Only a small corner of the stone tablet is exposed, with most of the tablet still buried in the mountain. However, from this exposed corner, one can vaguely see strange patterns on it, arranged neatly and in a staggered manner, which also look like a kind of hieroglyphics.
Although it looks very unfamiliar, you can tell from this one picture that it is definitely not something naturally formed; it definitely contains textual information.
Although this message was not officially released, the media outlet that released it is a relatively reliable and reputable media outlet in China.
This news quickly became a trending topic amidst the recent surge in interest in extraterrestrials.
This incomplete picture of a stone tablet with only a few words has been circulated in various chat groups, and many people have begun to study what it says.
Regardless of whether they are involved or not, people with free time have started researching it these past few days, creating a sense of nationwide decryption.
The hype surrounding this topic isn't over yet; it's only generating buzz domestically. For a proper official announcement, international voices are also essential.
The world is still dominated by the West, with the Eagle Country at its core. Although Divine Land has united many Third World countries, it can only rival them in politics, economics, and military affairs. In terms of public opinion, it has not yet made its mark, and international public opinion is still tightly controlled by Western media.
This also means that if news from within Divine Land wants to spread globally, it can no longer rely on traditional methods, such as actively seeking out others to spread it; that would be virtually impossible.
The right approach is to set a trap to lure the other party into actively seeking news.
This half of the stone tablet is the bait.
The stone tablet was naturally created by Tang Cheng and his group, but apart from the few on the moon, no one else knew about it. The contents of this half of the stone tablet have been released, so there must be information about the whole stone tablet inside Divine Land.
Moreover, they still vividly remember the Moon-Chasing Island that Divine Land inexplicably launched a few years ago. To this day, they still haven't figured out how it works, which means that Divine Land must have obtained something new somewhere.
Earth Star is only so big. If they had gotten it on Earth Star, they would have found out by now, but they haven't heard a thing.
That only means that this thing was obtained from somewhere else, such as the moon.
Now that Divine Land itself has revealed the relevant information, whether it's true or false, the stone tablet is already on display; it's up to you whether you take it or not.
This is a well-intentioned but ultimately deliberate scheme. Either you eliminate a few traitors and obtain the full text to send out, or you just watch and see if Divine Land can acquire any more cutting-edge technology.
Are there any options?
No, even if the mole is important, he's still just a person. Technology is no joke.
So, half a day after the news about this stone tablet made headlines in China, major and minor international news outlets immediately followed up with related content. The implication is self-evident: while mobilizing internal spies, they also need to conduct related diplomatic Tai Chi on the surface.
"The moon belongs to all Earth Star People, and related discoveries should be jointly developed and studied. Selfish and self-serving behavior should be condemned."
This kind of diplomatic maneuvering is common in all kinds of matters, big and small, and it's a well-worn tactic. Although it doesn't always have an effect, it's done for the sake of showing off to ordinary people.
Whether or not they can actually obtain it depends on how well the intelligence network works behind the scenes.
Especially when it comes to something that everyone envies, people may appear harmonious on the surface, but behind the scenes they might be ready to fight tooth and nail.
But this is exactly the effect Divine Land wanted. They're not afraid you won't be envious; they're just afraid you won't fall for their trick.
Anyway, this thing is released to fish for spies; it has no intrinsic value. It would be interesting if we could catch a few spies with it.
Spies can live a comfortable life when things are peaceful, earning two salaries for one job – that's certainly nice. But when something really happens, they become suicide agents, someone who's always ready to be forced to their death.
Don't be fooled by your current wealth and status; if you're all high and mighty today, you'll have to bite the bullet and get the job done tomorrow, or you'll be brought down if you're not careful.
This stone tablet proved its worth, dismantling an entire spy network before being delivered to the relevant foreign entity.
The perpetrators could have been arrested at the very first stage of the document theft, but these kinds of cases often lead to a chain reaction of arrests. They're not satisfied with just catching a small fish; once the small fish is hooked, the next step is to hook more fish and lure in bigger ones.
The arresting officers weren't in a hurry; they waited until the documents reached the next stage before taking action against those in the previous stage, ensuring the documents could be delivered overseas.
Nonsense, if the documents can't be sent out, how can the public opinion reach overseas?
And just one day later, a complete picture of the stone tablet appeared in the world's largest newspaper.
It's impossible to expect that Tang Cheng's fabricated texts won't be deciphered, since all of Tang Cheng's knowledge about ancient texts comes from existing civilizations.
Humans cannot imagine things they have never seen before. If he wants to create a new script, then that script must be connected to the existing knowledge system of Earth Star and cannot be separated from it. Therefore, a large part of the work of deciphering the script was completed very quickly.
Of the existing writing systems, only hieroglyphics are the easiest to decipher. If alphabetic writing systems like English were lost, there would truly be no way to decipher them. After all, without understanding the grammar, the words and actual things would not match up at all, making it very difficult to begin deciphering.