靴子落地

xuē zi luò dì

lit. the boot hits the floor (idiom)

fig. a much-anticipated, impactful development has finally occurred (an allusion to a joke from the 1950s in which a young man would take off a boot and throw it onto the floor, waking the old man sleeping downstairs who could then not get back to sleep until he had heard the second boot hit the floor)

xuē

boots

zi

noun suffix, as in 椅子[yi3 zi5] "chair"

luò

to fall or drop

earth