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

This plane looks quite old.

The cabin interior retains its old Cold War-era style, and even the overhead bins are open mesh bags.

When Song Xingye and Li Fengxian were looking for seats, they found that quite a few Russians were already sitting there.

There were men, women, young and old, but in Song Xingye's eyes, these foreigners all looked pretty much the same, except for being white.

The only one who stood out was a Russian woman.

The other party was wearing a military uniform and didn't look like someone from the space agency. They were probably from a military space force, also known as the aerospace force, which is similar to the space force of the East Country.

She had long, light blonde hair that was loose and curled into honey-colored waves. Her skin was also bright and white. However, she looked cold and aloof. Sitting alone in the front row, she exuded an aura that kept strangers at bay.

Li Fengxian stroked his chin, lowering his voice with relish as he commented, "So young and already a captain? Looks like he's either exceptionally capable or has a powerful background!"

The Russian woman was wearing a very stylish olive green down jacket with four small gold stars on a dark background on the epaulets, with a thin sky-blue bar running through the middle.

Song Xingye chimed in, "How do you know they're young? You can't say someone is young just because they have fair skin. I think these foreigners all have pretty good skin."

Li Fengxian, however, acted as if he were an experienced person, saying, "You don't understand, do you? These Slavic women are usually at their peak of beauty before the age of 25, when their faces are full of collagen and they are all as beautiful as flowers."

But once she gets past that hurdle, it's a precipitous drop, instantly turning her into an Eastern European middle-aged woman. So, for this girl to be so youthful, she definitely can't be older than 25…”

He spoke with such confidence and clarity that Song Xingye listened with a sense of awe and wonder, as if he had grasped some extraordinary knowledge.

Unexpectedly, just as the two were whispering to each other, the beautiful female officer in the front row suddenly turned around and glared at them.

The other person was tall and upright, and his glare was quite imposing, making him look like Empress Catherine.

Song Xingye and Li Fengxian felt a chill on the back of their necks, like two quails having their necks grabbed, and immediately shut their mouths.

After a long while, the female officer turned her head away coldly.

Li Fengxian muttered to himself again, "Damn, does this Russian understand Chinese?"

Song Xingye noticed that the other party's light pink ears seemed to twitch, so he didn't dare to say anything and quickly signaled Li Fengxian to shut up with his eyes.

Soon, after everyone was aboard, the Tu-134 aircraft took off from Chkalovsky.

The engine of this old-fashioned plane was very noisy, like the roar of a ferocious beast. Song Xingye put on noise-canceling earplugs, changed to a side-lying position, and looked out the window.

The massive wings swept across the Moskov skyline, the radar lights flashing rhythmically like a hypnotic lamp, and his consciousness gradually blurred.

After taking off, the Tu-134 headed southeast, flying over the Volga River and the Kazakh steppe.

About three hours later, Song Xingye was shaken awake by Li Fengxian beside him.

Looking down through the porthole, the bustling city scene has long since vanished, replaced by an endless, desolate Gobi Desert.

The meandering Syr Darya flows quietly across the brown earth.

However, the sky over Baikonur was exceptionally clear that day.

The special plane landed at Kraini Airport.

When Song Xingye pushed his luggage out of the covered bridge, even though he was mentally prepared, he still shivered from the cold wind blowing in his face.

It's only November, but the outdoor temperature in Baikonur has already dropped below minus ten degrees Celsius!

That kind of wind doesn't blow on your body, but feels like a knife drilling into your bones.

The airport was small and dilapidated, with nothing but some military radar and worn-out Soviet-style slogans.

The group was taken to a checkpoint, where a team of Russian soldiers in camouflage uniforms were checking passports and visas against a list.

Because it is a "state within a state," everything in Baikonur is under Russian control; it is essentially their "legal enclave," much like a municipality.

Even Kazakh convoys have to stop and undergo inspection when they arrive here.

After the security check, Song Xingye and Li Fengxian parted ways with the group of Russians.

A car with the flag of East Korea was waiting for the two outside the checkpoint and drove them to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Along the way, you can see "artificial walls" made of barbed wire everywhere, and every few kilometers there is a team of fully armed soldiers patrolling with guns on their backs.

Upon entering Baikonur, the streets were filled with GG signs in Russian, and there was even an LN statue not far away.

The atmosphere here is mysterious and permeated with Soviet dogmatism; it is a unique geographical form where military restricted areas and urban communities are intertwined.

The somber atmosphere only dissipated slightly upon arrival at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and the view suddenly opened up.

Having lived two lives, this is Song Xingye's first time here.

Besides excitement, he felt even more admiration.

Just like devout religious believers who travel thousands of miles to Mount Kailash for pilgrimage, Song Xingye's feelings for this land are the same.

If spaceflight has a faith, then Baikonur is the Jerusalem of all spacefarers, the irreplaceable Mount Kailash!

This place encompasses almost all the firsts of the Cold War space race, except for the moon landing:

In 1957, the first artificial satellite was launched from here;

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin famously shouted "Poyekhali (Let's go!)" here.

Tereshkova became the first woman to perform a spacewalk here;

The world's first space station, Salyut 1, was also built here...

Outside the car window, the semi-desert grassland stretched as far as the eye could see, vast and expansive.

In the distance, massive launch towers, like the skeleton of a monster, rise and fall on the horizon.

Some of those steel buildings, filled with Soviet-style violent aesthetics, are still in service, belching white smoke;

Some have long been abandoned, rusted and crooked from decades of wind and sand erosion.

They stand like tombstones, commemorating the bygone Cold War era.

The cold wind was like a knife, cutting painfully into his cheeks, but Song Xingye felt a strange excitement amidst the shivering.

"This is nothing," Li Fengxian, standing next to him, muttered, pulling his down jacket tighter and hunching his shoulders.

"The real worst will come in December and January. It'll be below -30 degrees Celsius; you could piss outside and it'd freeze solid. Wearing two down jackets would be like wearing nothing at all!"

The two got off the car braving the biting cold wind and arrived at the living support area in Baikonur.

Li Fengxian took Song Xingye to the Dongguo base, where the Space Agency, the Space Force, and the Dongyu Group's test team all resided during the Firefly 1 mission.

Because the launch site is so large, with each work station often more than ten kilometers apart, internal commuting mainly relies on an old-fashioned diesel locomotive called "Motovoz".

The two squeezed onto a train. Li Fengxian spoke a few words to the driver in fluent Russian, who waved his hand curtly and bluntly, telling them to find seats themselves.

The train rumbled and belched black smoke as it moved forward.

In the carriage, Song Xingye saw not only Russians, but also many Western faces.

Judging from the armbands on their uniforms, they should be personnel from the European Space Agency and NASA.

"These Americans are probably here for manned spaceflight training, right?" Song Xingye asked in a low voice.

"That's for sure." Li Fengxian crossed his arms and curled his lip in schadenfreude.

"I heard NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy these few tickets, just to get a seat on the Soyuz. Add to that the food, lodging, and shipping costs for experimental supplies... heh heh, that's what you call reaping what you sow!"

Song Xingye nodded in deep agreement.

Yes, if it weren't for the Wolf Clause, NASA might have preferred to lease the more cost-effective Shenzhou spacecraft.

But there's no going back.

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle, from this year until SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft emerges nine years from now, Baikonur will be the only gateway on Earth capable of sending humans to the International Space Station!

Whether you're a top astronaut from New York, London, or Paris, you have to grit your teeth and come to this desolate Gobi Desert to squeeze into that cramped Soyuz spacecraft to get to work.

This is the power of monopoly.

Soon the train slowed down as it passed the Eastern Kingdom's garrison. Song Xingye jumped off and stumbled a few steps, while Li Fengxian, carrying both of their luggage, landed steadily and patted him on the shoulder as if nothing had happened.

"Let's go, I'll take you to meet the two bosses of our test team!"