Chapter 115, I seem to have arrived at the fake Mars (Part 1)
Loneliness, desolation, and emptiness.
This is a vast and desolate world. Standing at any point here and looking around, wherever you look, you can only see the dark red sky, the red desert with no grass growing, the same bare mountain peaks, and the diffuse To the desolation and loneliness of the whole world.
If you are in an ordinary desert, you may also try to find the wonderful scenery of camel caravans and oasis. But in this desert, there is no trace of life. Not even a gerbil, a scorpion or even a thorn can exist at all.
——This is a true sea of death, a forbidden area for all known carbon-based life!
The reason is simple. This is not located anywhere on the earth, but in the Ashidaria Plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
A dead planet that may have once had life but has long since disappeared. Perhaps it has not been able to breed life since ancient times!
This is an ancient hard planet with a mottled surface. The brightly colored landforms were formed relatively recently, while the dimly colored landforms were formed in ancient times. In ancient times that humans cannot imagine, the landform trauma left by meteorite impacts is still there today. Found everywhere.
Among them, most of the northern hemisphere of Mars, which was once a vast ocean, is darker in color and has a more recent surface morphology. This is because lava erupted from volcanoes has filled in the original craters, making most places relatively flat. The southern hemisphere of Mars, which has never been covered by oceans, is brighter in color and has a higher terrain, just like the back of the moon. The surface is full of craters due to the impact of meteorites from ancient times.
Because the surface soil and rocks of Mars contain a large amount of iron oxide, the entire Mars is a rusty world, as if soaked in blood, cold and dry. Gorgeous red is the only dominant color in this world: red clay hills, red amber wilderness, reddish-brown Grand Canyon and reddish-gray lava slopes, red-black Olympus Mons, the highest peak in the solar system (more than Everest (twice the size of Mount Everest), Canyon Mariner, which was once mistaken for the Martian Canal by modern astronomers. Of course, it is more of an endless red desert.
The Ashidaria Plain in front of us is a dry delta near the ancient coastline of Mars. Except for a few standing rock mountains, its terrain is very flat. This is not only due to the deposition of ancient rivers, but also to the dust storms of hundreds of millions of years. The result of flushing.
Although the sun imparts light and heat to the Ashidaria plain just like on the earth, the long distance and the thin air that cannot retain heat still make the average temperature of this alien desert even lower. Even under the scorching sun, it makes people shiver more than the Alaska Peninsula on Earth.
——Under normal circumstances, as long as anyone stands on this endless red-brown land, the only thing he can feel is the endless desolation, cold and dryness, and the deep despair caused by the superposition of these three. .
However, on the edge of this silent and boring arid and barren world, on this Ashidaria plain, one can still see the few traces of civilization on Mars: the ground habitat cabin left by the American Mars landing expedition.
And the only human resident on Mars currently: American astronaut Mark Watney.
A botanist and engineer working for NASA, and the first unlucky Martian victim in history.
Not long ago, he became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he will also become the first person to be buried on Mars.
He originally came here in a spacecraft with five teammates to study the growth of plants under the gravity conditions of Mars. However, due to a sudden Martian storm, the return spacecraft was in danger of being overturned by the wind. They were forced to abandon the mission midway and evacuate in an emergency spacecraft.
What's even more terrible is that Mark Watney encountered another accident in the storm and was mistakenly thought to be dead by his teammates. Then he was left alone in this red desert with no vegetation, 240 million kilometers away from the earth, 1.6 A place with an astronomical unit has become the cosmic version of Robinson Crusoe.
The most terrifying thing is that the environment of Mars is far harsher than any desert island on Earth. Not to mention food and housing, even water and breathable air need to be made by the victims themselves. Fortunately, the habitat cabin left on Mars can produce oxygen and has a water circulation system installed. Unfortunately, the remaining food supplies around Mark Watney will not last until the day when the Earth rescue team may arrive.
——In other words, if the oxygenator breaks down, he will suffocate to death. If the water circulation device breaks down, he will die of thirst. If the habitat leaks, he'll blow up. Even if none of this happens, he will starve to death after running out of food. In addition, he also cut off communication with the earth.
However, even in the face of such a desperate situation, the tenacious Mark Watney is not ready to sit still and wait for death on Mars.
After getting through the initial period of depression, Mark Watney, who had recovered from his injury, cheered up again and decided to rely on his knowledge of botanists and mechanical engineers, as well as his own wisdom and hands, to rely on his own strength on Mars. Survive by farming, and play a house game with your life on this barren red planet. ——This means that he must use all his imagination, make full use of all the materials at hand, and transform every inch of spare ground in the habitat into a greenhouse; manufacture it by separating excess fuel and burning hydrogen Water; mix your own and your teammates' feces with Martian soil to grow potatoes...
However, when Mr. Mark Watney, who was wearing a spacesuit, holding a small shovel, and struggling to dig into the Martian soil under the dim Martian sun with a bone-chilling chill, he never thought that this would happen. He was actually not the only one on Mars at that time!
Just behind a rock a few hundred meters away, there were three other Earthlings, quietly watching his every move.
Moreover, they are still three "ordinary" earthlings who are not wearing spacesuits and only wear ordinary spring and autumn casual clothes...
——Although this is on Mars where the temperature is minus 30 degrees Celsius, the ultraviolet radiation is strong, and the atmospheric pressure is only one percent equivalent to that of Earth.
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"...It feels so boring! Dear big brother, how long are we going to spy on that guy shoveling dirt?"
Behind a reddish-brown Martian rock, Gretel, a silver-haired girl wearing a blue printed dress and a straw hat, stood on a rugged gravel-filled hillside, complaining to Wang Qiu listlessly, "...I I almost fell asleep while watching..."
"...Huh? After watching such an inspiring space Robinson Crusoe, don't you have any insights or something?"
After hearing Grete's complaint, Wang Qiu, who came here with the silver-haired twins, couldn't help but frowned for a moment, "...even though a person is left alone in a foreign country, he still does not give up or despair, but Work hard and be optimistic..."
"...Please, haven't we seen the original Robinson Crusoe on the Desert Island before? Although he was already dead before we met."
The other silver-haired twin sister, Hansel, who was dressed the same as Gretel, interjected, "...Remember, we dug a hole and buried his body with our own hands! I have to say, this guy is really good. It's so dirty and stinks..." She frowned and muttered.
——Wang Qiu suddenly became angry when he heard this: It’s so embarrassing to talk about the story world that you have traveled through with someone who is also a time traveler...
"...Furthermore, I feel that I am more inspiring than him - he was just accidentally dumped on Mars, and he still has assets worth billions or even tens of billions of dollars at his disposal. There are more on earth. There are so many kind-hearted people who are worried about him and racking their brains..."
Hansel sighed and continued, "...and what about us? We were abandoned by our parents as soon as we were born, and then sold to the red light district by the orphanage. It was already miserable enough to be reduced to prostitutes, but who knew that we were actually sold underground again? The sadistic club fell into the hands of a group of cannibalistic sadistic maniacs and almost killed them. Punctured and grilled, or cut alive... Before we were rescued by you, big brother, no kind-hearted person had ever given us a trace of warmth. There was only the strong malice of the whole world. This should prove that we are not crazy yet. That astronaut is stronger!”
Listening to Han Sel's self-pity, Wang Qiu was speechless, while Gretel reached out and patted Han Sel's head angrily, "...Sister! How many years have passed since then?" It’s a big deal, why bring it up now?”
But, next, Gretel also turned around and continued to complain to Wang Qiu, "...But, dear brother, this place is indeed too boring. That astronaut usually hides in the habitat cabin We couldn't see it at all. Even when we came out to work a few times, there were no special performances. Even Mars felt so fake, it didn't feel like we were in space at all. In the studio!”
She curled her lips and kicked her feet a few times on the Martian land, stirring up a patch of fine brick-red dust.
In response, Wang Qiu could only smile bitterly again.
"...This...it seems that we are not originally on Mars in the modern real world..."
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PS: The plot line of the new book is a bit undecided for a while. I plan to write a few popular science articles before starting the new book, just like I wrote "Where Should We Time Travel to" before. Currently, it is planned to write "Socioeconomic Issues in the Martial Arts World" first. The preliminary outline is as follows, and I would like to refer to the readers’ opinions:
Chapter 1: The well-informed waiter and storyteller - has this world entered the Internet information age?
Chapter 2: Flying around - super-fast heroes riding Pegasus and flying in spaceships!
Chapter 3: Magic weapon and panacea with unlimited shelf life? Aren't you afraid of rust and mold?
Chapter 4, a brief analysis of prices, finance and currency in the martial arts world
Chapter 5: How to run national gangs in the pre-industrial era?
Chapter 6: The court in the martial arts world is so miserable (Dragon and the Eight Parts, the Xixia Army easily reached Suzhou)
Chapter 7: On the similarity between sects and consortiums.
Chapter 8: Public security issues in the martial arts world. Chapter 9: How to construct a rationalized martial arts world - this is simply a magical world!