White Rabbit Nine Is Missing!
“They still haven’t revealed any information?!”
The staff of the television station were having headaches. The manned landing on the moon was supposed to be a historic event, but now… it was becoming the biggest joke in the world at the moment.
Forget about those netizens, even the people working at the space agency felt very uncomfortable when television kept on showing old footage of the previous moon landing attempt. Right now, the entire station was in chaos. Everyone was debating about what their next move should be.
“No, it’s still the same announcement. They are saying that the electromagnetic signal is abnormal…”
The assistant sighed and shook his head. In just one day, because of this matter, three strands of his hair had turned white.
“The internet is going crazy over this. How can they be so calm?”
“Can anyone give us the reason why this is happening at all?!”
“Well, they did say that the latest that they can tell us would be a day later…”
“One day later?! One day later? It’s already two days away from the moon landing! Sure, we can pause the live broadcast, but what about the astronauts? Are they just going to not do anything for an entire day?!”
The assistant scratched his head, “According to the original schedule, the three astronauts should be returning in five hours, right?!”
“Ahhh ~~!”
The leader let out a long sigh. He didn’t know what to say. These days, many friends had asked about White Rabbit Nine, but he did not know any more than those who came to ask him.
At this moment, a director rushed over. “Director, there’s a situation!”
“What’s wrong?!”
“The satellite images of the moon have been exposed online. They have taken a lot of photos of the landing points with satellites…”
..
“The final verdict? The landing point announced by Great Xia is wrong!”
“Just this evening, an overseas satellite on the moon passed by the White Rabbit Nine landing site and took a lot of photos. The results were shocking…”
“Satellite photos show that White Rabbit Nine is not at the landing point!!!”
“I actually think the foreign media is very implicit about this. They could’ve just said that the entire operation is a hoax!”
“It’s all a film! Done in a studio!”
As the photos taken by the Miyue-14386 satellite were leaked, the Internet was in an uproar again.
This would go down in history as one of the biggest dramas ever. Almost everyone was convinced that the moon landing was a hoax.
“(The content is inappropriate, canceled)”
Just when all the various media outlets were about to make their conclusions about this whole shenanigan, the Great Xia government finally made its move.
“White Rabbit Nine was manufactured by the Third Aerospace Industry Group of Great Xia after three years of preparation…”
“.. .On the day of the launch, reporters and representatives from 144 regions went to the launch site to observe and conduct interviews. They all witnessed the White Rabbit take off…”
“During its flight to the dark side of the moon, White Rabbit Nine received a lot of attention from overseas. It moved past many satellites from other countries and became an internet sensation on multiple social media platforms…”
“Due to the interference of cosmic electromagnetic waves, the live broadcast signal of this manned moon landing has been interrupted. This factor that can not be controlled. We have urgently mobilized a team of experts to participate in the repair work. If there is any progress, we will announce it as soon as possible…”
Great Xia didn’t directly confront the public opinion and tell them who was right and who was wrong. They only laid out the facts.
From the preparation, construction, testing, to the final launch of White Rabbit Nine, everything was recorded. Yes, everything that had a record was shown to the public. They couldn’t fake it. Like, there was no way that they could fake the interactions between White Rabbit Nine had and the other satellites.
Anyhow, all the evidence Great Xia presented proved a point, and that was that White Rabbit Nine had really flown to the moon. There was no filming in the studio.
This news immediately made all the Great Xia netizens feel confident once again. People were spreading the news in all sorts of games and applications.
“Quickly! Look at the trending searches! The government just made a statement about the moon landing!”
“I told you, right? Look at the trending searches! The authorities have spoken!”
“Ok, but even if White Rabbit Nine is real, what about the three astronauts?”
“Yeah, did White Rabbit Nine crash or something? We have to have an explanation, right?”
..
“Phew ~~!”
Chief Engineer Yang let out a deep breath. He was watching the whole time. He was watching as the internet began to show support to the space agency once again.
Needless to say, he was deeply touched by what the Great Xia government did for him and his colleagues. Now that the state had confirmed that the moon landing was real, he was finally starting to feel a bit less stressed. Now, to make it even clearer that the moon landing did happen, he needed to find out what happened to White Rabbit Nine!
After some thought, he took out his phone and dialed a number.
“Hello, Honey, I’m not going back today. I’m staying at the office. If everything goes well, I’ll be able to go home tomorrow night…”
Another day passed.
At 20:49 on September 23rd, 2028, the near-orbit satellite of the Moe 3 arrived above the landing site of the White Rabbit Nine.
At the Xia Space Center, all the staff members had big dark circles under their eyes. They stared at the images transmitted by the Heng’e-3 satellite without even blinking their eyes.
The screen was showing a flat piece of land. There were two or three small rocks and a bunch of dark gray sand. The whole scenery was shown in high resolution. Everything was clear to see.
“No…”
Chief Engineer Yang’s heart sank.
Yesterday, a foreign entity called in and questioned them about whether the landing point was right or not. The thing was, this foreign entity knew that the landing point was real. They just had to make sure, since they really didn’t see White Rabbit at the scene.
“Yes … Are there any signs of landing?”
Again, the landing point was captured in high resolution. Even a grain of sand was clearly visible to them, but Chief Engineer Yang just was not sure.
It was the same for the staff members present. Although they could clearly see everything, they each had to check a couple times.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes.
Ten minutes passed.
Finally, one of them couldn’t take it anymore. He felt that he had to break the silence by telling the brutal truth.
“Chief Engineer Yang, there are no signs of landing!”
“White Rabbit Nine has disappeared without a trace…”
“It doesn’t have the ability to walk on land. To explore the surface of the moon, you’ll need to use the lunar roving vehicle…”
Assistant Little Wang thought for a long time before speaking, “Chief Engineer Yang, is it possible that White Rabbit Nine encountered an emergency and left the moon without receiving our signal?”
“That is possible…”
Chief Engineer Yang pursed his lips. He wasn’t really sure about this. In the past two days, he had borrowed all kinds of high-level astronomical telescopes that could be borrowed in the country. He was watching the moon from all the angles he could. He was worried that White Rabbit Nine would somehow disappear forever from the landing site.
The result, still, was self-evident. He did not see anything!
Seeing that Chief Engineer Yang was becoming absent-minded, Assistant Little Wang had to remind him something, “The press is still waiting. What do I tell them?!”
“Just tell the truth…”
“The truth?”
Chief Engineer Yang let out a long sigh, “Just say that White Rabbit Nine had gone missing! “