Looking back on the past, Yang Yi couldn't help but feel some emotion in his heart.

I remember that the day I decided to sign up for the "Spreading Cloud" program happened to be my 16th birthday.

Yang Yi's parents are both staff members of the "Guiding Light" Space City, but unfortunately, the "Guiding Light" Space City, which is located near the Earth's orbit, was attacked by unknown weapons thirteen years ago. The million-ton space city was destroyed for unknown reasons at an altitude of 200,000 kilometers above the earth while flying around the earth at the first cosmic speed, and instantly vaporized in space. And Yang Yi's parents happen to be stationed on this space station.

Since her parents were Yang Yi's last relatives, after her parents were killed, Yang Yi became an orphan and relied on the funds provided by the state welfare department to live.

This makes Yang Yi have a strong ability to live independently, and at the same time, he is much more mature mentally than other people of the same age. Due to the influence of his parents who began to work in space when he was a child, Yang Yi has always been curious about space and the universe, and has a strong interest in various astronomy books and space science fiction movies.

And for Yang Yi, who lost his parents suddenly, other relatives have long passed away, there are no relatives to remember on the planet Earth, which is the main reason why he signed up for this mission.

Yang Yi always has an unsolvable mystery in his heart, and he can't let go of the cause of his parents' death. From the moment he lost his parents, Yang Yi made up his mind that he must conquer the vast space in the future, no matter how difficult it is, and find out the reason for his parents' death.

After being selected for the "somersault cloud" expedition program, Yang Yi was arranged to participate in training with dozens of competitors in the harsh simulated outer space environment on the ground to prepare for the expedition to the universe.

The competition is extremely cruel, and after intense exam study, full military physical fitness, centrifuge, gravity acceleration overload and other harsh training, many people finally choose to give up. And Yang Yi, with his determination to conquer the universe and his belief in finding out the cause of his parents' death, gritted his teeth and persevered all the way, and finally became the only person holding this two trillion yuan travel ticket.

Given the rapid progress of space technology in the second half of the 21st century, the use of chemical fuel propulsion technology by scientists has almost reached its peak. The new solid rocket makes it no longer expensive to transport objects in outer space, with little preparation time and a rocket launch in minutes.

Therefore, for the first four major space launch sites built in China, the Wenchang launch site in Hainan has undertaken countless launch missions of various sizes, and the "somersault cloud" is only one of many launch missions, and the reason why this launch mission has attracted so much global attention is directly related to the disaster of the "Guiding Light" space city 13 years ago.

Since 2060, the completion of China's lunar scientific research base has been a landmark event. Countries around the world are vigorously building off-Earth space bases, and each permanent member of the Security Council has built its own space stations on the surface of the moon and near Earth's orbit.

Among them, the "Guiding Light" space city, which is 200,000 kilometers away from the earth and relies on the combined supply of solar energy and nuclear fission energy, is the largest in scale.

This $4 trillion space fortress was once a symbol of Earth's strength, and 30,000 scientific elites from all over the world are stationed here to carry out cutting-edge research in the universe.

People on Earth can even see the space city with a huge solar sail in the clear night sky with a low-powered telescope, like a huge bright star flying overhead.

And all this came to naught in the spring of 2077, and the unexplained blow was carried out without any warning in advance, and in just a few seconds, the entire space city was wiped out in the flames of the explosion, and the global scientific research elites stationed in the space city were also killed in an instant.

This is a strange space disaster, causing immeasurable damage to the earth, and even the most advanced early warning and monitoring systems of the military of various countries that have been closely monitoring the operation of the "Guiding Light" space city have not been able to receive any data and information in advance.

To the shock of the global military and scientific community, within seconds after the strike, the surveillance systems of the observatories and the military of various countries simultaneously received an unknown radiation signal from space that lasted for up to three minutes. At first, scientists thought that this was caused by the diffusion of energy from the explosion of the "Guiding Light" Space City, but after careful study of the radiation signals by national observatories, this possibility was completely ruled out. Not only does this radiation signal have a certain pattern, but it also comes from the same direction in the universe: the region of the Alpha Centauri galaxy.

What is even more puzzling is that the other party seems to have intended to send this specific signal in the direction of the earth, reminiscent of the "guiding light" space city has just been destroyed, and the sudden appearance of this interference signal cannot be just a coincidence, and the scientific community and the military believe that some kind of warning message should be implied in the signal after interpretation.

Although governments and the military tried their best to conceal and deliberately downplay the damage caused by the Space City disaster, the "Guiding Light" Space City was destroyed after the blow, and the observatories of various countries were successively interfered with by radiation signals from the Alpha Centauri galaxy in an unknown direction, or a world-renowned media poked out a week after the disaster.

For a while, public opinion exploded, and people all over the world were in an inexplicable panic. And those scientists living on the moon base and other space workstations near the Earth's orbit are panicking, and they are beginning to fear that the next doom will come at any time, and people around the world are afraid of similar events happening again.

Seeing that it was impossible to cover up the incident, officials of various countries had to hold press conferences to admit that a large-scale space disaster had indeed occurred, and at the same time announced the number and names of those killed, lowered flags at the United Nations headquarters at half-mast for three days of mourning, and promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the disaster.

And Yang Yi also learned of his parents' death at this time.

Strangely, despite years of investigation by a joint investigation team led by the United Nations and composed of scientists from various countries, it has not been able to come up with a convincing answer to the cause of the accident and the content of the interference signal.

In the absence of official investigations, conspiracy theories have emerged, with some suggesting that the military was deliberately attacking each other, and most broadly that the city was attacked by some unidentified alien weapon.

For a time, the news that aliens were about to attack the earth spread all over the world, and people fell into an unprecedented panic, and the people of various countries were greatly dissatisfied with the government's actions and asked the government to take practical actions to protect the safety of the earth.

In extreme fear, many even committed suicide in despair, in stark contrast to the hopeful vision that had just been solved on the energy issue. In just over three years, millions of people have committed suicide worldwide.

This has been followed by a sharp increase in the rate of violent crime of all kinds, and extremist terrorism has begun to show signs of a resurgence again. There are even many extremist organizations in the name of defending the earth, recruiting a large number of armed personnel to deceive people.

It was at this time that scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory's 500-meter aperture radio astronomical telescope, FAST, one of the world's largest radio telescopes in China's Guizhou Province, announced that scientists at the Detection Data Processing Center, which was running at high speed, had extracted some suspicious signals that could be identified and deciphered by human quantum computers from unidentified interference signals and translated them in written form.

"Stop making progress or you will be destroyed!"

Obviously, no matter what civilization in the universe is attacking it, judging from the tough tone of the other side, the threat is obvious.

The decipherment of the content of the jamming signal undoubtedly indirectly proved the fact that the "Guiding Light" space city was destroyed by an unknown alien civilization, which immediately caused a huge shock in the scientific community and the military.

Governments could no longer sit still, apparently relying on clueless surveys in space near Earth's orbit to no avail, and after a heated discussion, voted to set up the multi-national "Joint Interstellar Exploration Program Implementation Center", composed of top scientists and technical elites from most of the United Nations member states, the predecessor of the "somersault cloud project office". While vigorously reassuring the public, the member states of the Joint Interstellar Exploration Program (JEP) pledged to launch a long-range manned deep space spacecraft as soon as possible.

Due to the clear direction of the threat, after listening to the advice of scientists from various countries and after some bargaining, the countries unanimously agreed to target the investigation of the Alpha Centauri galaxy 4.3 light-years away. Through years of astronomical observations, cosmologists believe that if the attack comes from an extraterrestrial civilization, the Alpha galaxy is very likely, at least in terms of distance, this galaxy is the closest neighbor to Earth. Of course, the main reason is that the current technology of human beings is simply not enough to carry out interstellar navigation, even if the distance of 4.3 light years is still the limit of the current human technological reserves.

The research and development of the spacecraft is undertaken by the top scientific research teams in various countries, and finally made by China, which is a leader in nuclear fusion propulsion technology and new materials research. The name "Spreading Cloud" was also voted for by the project office from the hundreds of thousands of spacecraft names around the world that were voted for from the long-standing myths and stories of various countries. From the ancient Chinese myth "Journey to the West" in the Monkey King's somersault cloud across 108,000 miles, implying that this spaceship has the same speed as the Monkey King somersault, and it is also hoped that this spaceship can reach the Alpha Centauri galaxy after suffering like learning scriptures from the west, and complete the mission given to it by human beings.

The "somersault cloud", which will be launched tonight, is a product of fulfilling this promise, and only God knows whether it will complete its mission as everyone expects.

The long-distance interstellar voyage of up to 4.3 light years is unknown to human beings today, and no matter how good the theory is, it needs to be verified by practice, and many of those practitioners who verify the theory have paid for their precious lives.

In the face of the vast universe, no preparation is foolproof, and danger often occurs between inadvertent and small things. This point is not only very clear to Yang Yi at this moment, but also all the scientific researchers participating in the somersault cloud project.

"The ecological circulation system is ready!"

At the moment when Yang Yi withdrew his gaze from the dazzling window of the spacecraft, the sound of the Finger Hall of the launch site was heard in his ears again.

"The central control system is ready and in normal condition!"

"Yang Yi, how are you feeling now?"

Suddenly, the central hologram in the cockpit at the head of the spacecraft flashed, revealing a clear holographic projection of the launch site command center.

"Report to the chief, feel good, please rest assured, please rest assured, please rest assured that the people of the world!"

Yang Yi stood up and glanced at the familiar faces of Commander Zero in the command hall and the scientists from various countries, and raised the somewhat bulky right hand in the spacesuit as a salute.

"Hello, Comrade Yang Yi, now Comrade Wu Gang, commander of the Aerospace Forces, is about to have a video call with you."

As soon as Commander Wu appeared, there was a warm applause in the hall.

Yang Yi stood up from his seat, his mood couldn't help but get excited, he knew very well in his heart that this was the Earth Homeland was doing a great job for himself.

"Comrade Yang Yi, in a little while, you will drive the 'somersault cloud' spacecraft to the universe, with the hope of the 11 billion people on the earth, looking for new dreams.

As Earth's first emissary to date to the Centauri Galaxy, you have a great responsibility and a glorious mission. No matter where you are in the universe, the earth will always be your homeland, and the motherland and people will always remember you.

I hope that you will keep your mission in mind, spread the earth's long-standing civilization to the universe, and write a new chapter for human civilization to explore the universe. We are waiting for you on Earth. The commander of the Aerospace Forces returned a military salute to Yang Yi and said in a serious tone.

"Please rest assured, fellow relatives of the Earth Homeland, the somersault cloud will resolutely complete the mission!" Yang Yi reciprocated with a standard military salute.

"Three minutes to prepare!"

As the three-minute countdown began, the staff near the launch site began to evacuate, and the atmosphere became extremely tense.

Yang Yi was already completely in a state of imminent battle, and was fully equipped to sit in the main control seat of the cockpit of the "Spreading Cloud".

Although after countless trainings, he is very familiar with every system of this spaceship, and this highly intelligent spaceship can also be fully autonomous, but Yang Yi still chooses to drive it manually, this moment is of great significance to the earth and himself who are about to leave.

"Ready in a minute!"

The sound of the countdown at the last minute sounded, and Yang Yi, who had gone through a turbulent inner life, was completely calm and his expression was indifferent.

"Twenty seconds!"

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ignition!"

When he heard Commander Zero's order to ignite, Yang Yi pressed the start button of the "Spreading Cloud" fusion propulsion engine with the thumb of his right hand.

In an instant, a huge roar rang out. Two bright blue flames erupted from the tail of the "somersault cloud", and the earth seemed to tremble.

With a loud rumbling sound, under the strong thrust of the nuclear fusion propulsion engine, the huge "somersault cloud" soared into the sky. Like a silver-white skyscraper, it dragged the blue light into the night sky in the midst of all the attention, lighting up the sky overhead.

Everyone witnessed this spectacular scene, and tens of billions of eyes around the world watched the "somersault cloud" gradually rise until the blue light disappeared into the dark night sky.