Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

"Old Song, it will be a very long time before anyone else accomplishes this feat. But we are rewriting history right now. Even if our subsequent missions fail, people on Earth can look up at Mars in the night sky and say: Yes, it's not impossible. We can get there, we can live there. Because we know that someone has already done it."

Sheng Tianhong paused, his tone softening: "Listen, I know my place. I'm no match for Neil Armstrong. You're much better at expressing yourself than I am. Besides, this is your field, this is your valley, this is your planet. To hell with the rules. No one in this world knows this land better than you. If you ask me, you're far more suited to tell the story of this historic moment to the world than I am. And besides..."

"What are you saying?"

Sheng Tianhong smiled slightly: "I have a feeling that if I become the one who voluntarily gives up the 'first place' to someone else, people might remember me for a longer time."

Mira's voice came through the communication channel: "I hope he obeys orders obediently; that's certainly Sheng Tianhong's usual style."

It turns out they had conspired all along; I was tricked by them.

"Take this," Sheng Tianhong said.

Song Xingye reached out his hand, and Sheng Tianhong gently placed a coin-sized disc in his large palm.

The disc was less than two centimeters in diameter; it was a diamond badge used to mark the first landing site.

"I think it's most suitable for you to place it."

Sheng Tianhong stretched out his hands and tightly grasped Song Xingye's fists that were clutching the badge, his gaze earnestly fixed on Song Xingye's eyes through the helmet visor.

Song Xingye took a deep breath and carefully placed the marking badge into the sample bag of the spacesuit.

Then, he mechanically and numbly put the red straps on his limbs one by one and pulled down the gold mask covering his helmet to block out the strong light.

Sheng Tianhong pushed the airlock door open.

Song Xingye awkwardly knelt down, his back to the hatch, and began to crawl backward little by little until he finally reached the platform outside the hatch.

"Okay, begin exiting the cabin. Lao Song, your position is perfect, move slightly closer to me. Yes, down, roll to the left. Left foot to the right, no, the opposite direction, yes, that's it, well done." Sheng Tianhong's command came through the headset.

Even through the thick spacesuit, Song Xingye could feel the friction between his sides and the narrow hatch.

The rigid tubes of the liquid cooling suit were digging into his knees and causing them to ache.

Blood was surging wildly in his ears.

"Okay, I'm fully on the platform now." He reached out and gripped the metal handrails on both sides of the exit platform tightly.

Song Xingye raised his head and looked up at the hull of the Challenger.

The pristine white paint on the ship's hull was covered with fine dust kicked up during landing, which, under the gradually brightening Martian dawn, took on an old, yellowish hue.

He had retreated far enough to get a full view of the hatch, which was a bright, fluorescent rectangle embedded in the massive hull of the spaceship.

Inside the hatch, Sheng Tianhong was crouching quietly, staring at him through her mask and nodding approvingly from time to time.

Song Xingye continued to back away, his right leg groping for a foothold on the platform.

Finally, the toes of his heavy space boots landed firmly on the top rung of the ladder.

He gripped the handrail tightly and slowly straightened his body.

As he descended step by step, he gradually disappeared into the enormous shadow cast by the Challenger.

The spaceship's massive body perfectly blocked out the sun in the sky, which remained deep and dark, with only a few stars slowly disappearing into the shadows.

He slowly turned around and gazed into the distance.

To the left and right are flat, narrow horizons, as if cut by a knife, outlining a desolate plain composed of red dust and countless rocks.

Everything was stained with a rusty brown color, like long-dried bloodstains on this land.

In the morning light, the shadows were long and slender, with sharp angles.

The dramatic changes in spatial scale are truly astonishing.

For the past few months, Song Xingye has been inside the mission module, where everything in the universe is either compressed into close proximity by the narrow bulkheads or seems impossibly distant.

Now, his sense of height and depth has finally returned, and the infinite expansion of the surrounding space has given him a strong feeling of dizziness.

No amount of regular training could prepare him for this moment.

In a daze, he felt himself falling backward and quickly grabbed the handrail of the cabin door tightly.

"Song Xingye?"

"I'm fine, Sheng Tianhong, it's just..."

"I understand," Sheng Tianhong said. "This is going to be a big event, isn't it?"

"yes."

Mira's voice came through the communication channel: "Song Xingye, is MESA deployment complete?"

The MESA modular equipment storage component is located on the port side of the descent stage ladder.

Song Xingye reached out and pulled open the latch, and the deck carrying the television camera slowly descended like a drawbridge.

"Mira, MESA has been successfully launched."

"Received, Song Xingye, I'm connecting to the TV signal now."

The camera lens was deep and smooth, as if carrying a certain vigilance. He watched as it turned its servo motor under Mira's remote control, aiming the lens at him.

At that moment, he felt an unprecedented sense of unease.

Mira said, "I'm waiting for the video feed, man, the signal's coming in soon. The contrast is really high, there are patches of color everywhere, damn it, the image's upside down. But I can see a lot of details, and, okay, the image's been automatically corrected, Song Xingye, I see you at the top of the gangway."

Song Xingye nodded at the camera.

But they couldn't see my face at all through the sun visor, and thinking of this, he waved again.

He slowly descended the gangway. The steps were far apart, and his spacesuit was stiff and bulky, so he felt the safest way was to "slide" from one step to the next.

With the last horizontal bar still about three centimeters off the ground, he suddenly pushed open the gangway and jumped down.

The descent was like a slow-motion replay. He secretly estimated that the last yard took a full second to cover, whereas on Earth, it would only take half that time to land.

The blue space boots landed firmly on the three-centimeter-wide metal footpads of the descent stage.

The shadow of the Challenger remained pitch black, almost impossible to see one's hand in front of one's face.

He gripped the gangway tightly with his heavily gloved hands, trying to step back onto the bottom rung.

He had to test it to make sure he could climb back up and get home safely.

However, the spacesuit was too stiff, and he couldn't lift his feet to that height at all.

This design is absolutely stupid.

"Your microphone is still on, EV1 (Extravehicular Activity 1)," Mira reminded her calmly.

He abandoned the idea of ​​simply stepping onto it.

He bent slightly and leaped. Because his knees inside the spacesuit could not bend, he could only exert force through his ankles and toes.

Mars' gravity pulled him backward, but fortunately the force was very weak, and he successfully crossed the bottommost barrier.

He slammed heavily against the gangway with a thud, but managed to hook his foot onto the rung.

After confirming that everything was in order, he landed back on the foot mat, panting.

He shifted his gaze from the checklist on his cuff to the surface of Mars.

"Alright, I'm standing at the bottom of the gangway now. The MEM landing module's footpads are sunk about two or three centimeters into the ground, creating very clear, angular dents. There's almost no moisture here; I guess the static electricity of the soil is what's keeping them in shape..."

"Stop analyzing, Song Xingye, just describe what you see."

"The topsoil looks like a beach, with a wet sand texture. But if you look closely, you'll find that the particles are much finer than ordinary sand and are packed very tightly. In some places, the particles are so fine they're practically powder."

He stretched out his leg and gently kicked the weathered layer, leaving several grooves on the ground.

"It's very easy to make grooves on it with your toes. The surface feels like some kind of hardened shell, like when soil moisture seeps upwards, salt evaporates and precipitates out, binding dust particles together into a cement-like hard shell."

He noticed a few specks of dust scattered on the footpads, and when he lifted his space boots, he found that the soles and sides were also covered in dust.

"The dust adheres to the soles and sides of the boots like a thin film, exhibiting strong adhesion and cohesion. Judging from its properties, it could probably hold its own on a steep slope of around 70 degrees..."

Mira interrupted him: "Song Xingye, could you please turn around and face the TV camera?"

"Please repeat that, Mira."

"Got it, I need you to face the camera directly."

Inside the cabin, Sheng Tianhong interjected jokingly, "Mira, he must feel extremely honored."

Song Xingye checked the cuff inspection checklist again and turned to face MESA.

He couldn't help but recall the image of the television signal being transmitted back to Earth: a stiff, angular figure standing on a mat, its blurred outline indistinct against the deep red background of Mars, blurred by distorted colors.

He took a spare Hasselblad camera from the MESA platform, fumbled around with it in bulky gloves, and finally secured it to the bracket on the front panel.

He slowly turned around and took a series of panoramic photos with his camera.

Next, he picked up a small video camera and fixed it side by side with the Hasselblad camera in front of his chest.

The radio channel's audio quality suddenly changed, and a dedicated line from the Jingzhou Command Center cut in: "This is Sun Liancheng from the Space Agency."

"Song Xingye, Sheng Tianhong, I am currently at the Jingzhou Flight Control Center and am speaking to you via a dedicated radio line."

Sun Liancheng's hoarse voice revealed an undisguised excitement and enthusiasm; without a doubt, he was portraying the historical role he was playing to the fullest.

Song Xingye found his body involuntarily straightening slightly, as if he were about to stand at attention.

"The technicians told me it would take four minutes for my message to reach you, and another four minutes for me to receive your reply. It seems we won't be able to chat as usual. However, at this moment as you send your communication back from the Mangala Valley, I want to emphasize that our progress in space exploration, the giant strides we've taken for all humanity, are the best testament to teamwork and excellence. We can proudly declare that we are number one, we are the best! And the reason we have achieved so much is because we embrace freedom."

The greatness of the East lies in our courage to pursue excellence. Today, we once again stride towards our great goals. We are able to chase our dreams, fly to planets and distant stars, live and work in space, and contribute to peace, the economy, and science…”

Song Xingye stood on the reflective floor mat, carrying a heavy life support backpack, silently enduring the distant, distorted, and bureaucratic voice.

"...Alright, I should shut up now, Song Xingye, Sheng Tianhong. But please take a few minutes to let us hear your true feelings. Tell us, what does it feel like to finally stand on the surface of Mars?"

Director Sun's voice disappeared, leaving only a faint hissing sound on the radio channel.

Sheng Tianhong began, "Thank you, Director Sun. It is an immense honor and a great privilege for us to be here representing Dongguo and even all of humanity. Song Xingye..."

"Song Xingye, tell them how you feel."

Song Xingye felt that this was the oldest and most difficult question in the world to answer, and perhaps also the most important one.

This is a question that the astronauts of the Apollo program have never been able to answer perfectly.

Now, it's his turn to try.

Under the pink sky, the sun's rays shone even more intensely.

The whole world is like a palette of red and brown colors, with dust on the ground and particles suspended in the air reflecting dappled light and shadow.

The open hatch of the landing module emitted a dazzling white light, standing out starkly against the alien landscape.

"Understood, sir. The Mars Surveyor is currently anchored on the plains north of the Mangala Valley. It's a late autumn morning, eighty days before the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. The sky is a uniform ochre, and the dust has tinged everything with a pale salmon red. This so-called 'red planet' isn't actually a true crimson; due to surface reflections, its dominant color is a yellowish-brown. There's neither the green of life nor the azure of the ocean. If humanity were to permanently colonize Mars—no, I should say, by the time we colonize Mars, we'll probably have to invent a whole host of new terms for all these shades of brown"—"

"We are standing almost on the Martian equator right now. To give you a visual sense, thousands of kilometers to my east is the Tharsis Ridge, where three giant shield volcanoes stand majestically; and about a thousand kilometers to the north lies Olympus Mons, the most spectacular volcano in the solar system. However, from where I am standing, both the volcanoes and the ridge are completely hidden below the horizon. Although Mars is much smaller than Earth, its landscape is still overwhelmingly large on a human scale, so large that it is dazzling."

"We are close enough to the Tharsis Uplift that the terrain in this area has likely been affected by crustal uplift. So, although the ground beneath my feet looks as flat as a beach after the tide has gone out, I know in my heart that when I look away from the landing module, I am probably looking down at a huge slope that is more than ten degrees steep."

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