A Brilliant Spark Shines Over the East

This story will focus on the fusion of revolutionary spirit and serving the country through science, creating a forty-year epic about the nation and its people.

1. The Silver Bracelet’s Star Map

The miniature engravings inside the bracelet cast a star map in the moonlight. It is both the Red Army’s retreat route and a match for a ballistic calculation model. Whenever Cheng Xinghe works to crack the guidance algorithm, he uses the bracelet to hold ink for his diagrams.

2. Equations of Blood and Fire

The manuscript Lin Qiubai left in Songs of Chu contains partial differential equations written in smoke and blood. Twenty years later, these formulas become the key to solving oscillations in rocket propellant.

3. The Pocket Watch Cipher

Cheng Moyang’s battlefield pocket watch calibrates itself automatically according to latitude, and its chain conceals Morse code. Professor Qian Sen finds the cause of the missile’s loss of control by deciphering the scratches inside the watch cover.

4. Data in Red Silk

The red counting rods in Shen Molan’s laboratory are made from the wedding dress Lin Qiubai wore when she died. Shen uses them to design a unique telemetry coding system for Dongfanghong-1.

Key Scenes

Winter 1962, Jiuquan Base

Cheng Xinghe races through a blizzard, the pocket watch’s hands frozen at 3:17 by the cold. He suddenly remembers a line from his mother’s notebook: “The Morning Star points north; the Breaker of Armies looms overhead.” He adjusts the launch angle by 0.17 degrees. The next morning, China’s first meteorological rocket pierces the clouds.

Tomb-Sweeping Day, 1970, Wind Tunnel Laboratory

Shen Molan hands Cheng Xinghe a formula notebook stained with blood. “When your mother was using an abacus to work out the rocket equations, a Kuomintang agent’s bullet pierced her inkstone…”