Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

Fortunately, the slope could not remain so steep indefinitely. Once the terrain leveled out to around 30 degrees, they would immediately untie the traction ropes to avoid completely exhausting the precious microfiber rope spools.

Squeezing four adults into the cramped cockpit of the "Rock Jumper" made the space extremely confined. In order to give Song Xingye enough room to operate the vehicle, he had no choice but to have everyone wear bulky spacesuits and hang outside the cabin with the doors open. This was the only feasible makeshift solution.

Thus, the scene appears both comical and tragic, like those country bumpkins in old movies clinging to the doors of dilapidated pickup trucks, with half their bodies sticking out of the severely overloaded "rock jumper" trailer.

Accompanied by the avalanche of gravel and mud caused by the wheels rolling over it, this steel behemoth was swept up in the dust and headed headlong into the deepest part of Mariner Canyon.

……

Ahead of them, the "Rock Jumpers" relentlessly pushed rocks down the hillside like an avalanche, raising billowing dust that rose like columns of smoke in the thin Martian atmosphere, like a signpost pointing to the depths of hell in the canyon.

Han Jing curled up inside his heavy spacesuit, his brain, in self-protection, completely blocked out all the details of the terrifying crash he had just experienced.

Commander Sheng Tianhong is dead. He could hardly comprehend the meaning of those words. The fact was too heavy, beyond his cognitive capacity. Commander Sheng Tianhong, that man, was truly dead.

He has always been the anchor of the team, guiding them on what to do next and where to go. Now that they have lost their leader, how can they possibly survive?

He had imagined that one day, when they returned safely from Mars and their near-death experience became a topic of conversation between them, Sheng Tianhong would visit his apartment.

They would sit face to face, chatting and laughing, reminiscing about the past, and perhaps even enjoying a few drinks. Maybe their relationship would take a step further and become intimate. He only dared to secretly hope for this in his hazy dreams.

Perhaps on such a quiet day, he would reveal the secrets buried deep in his heart to Sheng Tianhong, telling him about the inner demons that once made him innocent and pure, but ultimately hardened him, made him bitter and cynical.

But all of this is now impossible. Sheng Tianhong will remain on Mars forever. Han Jing has to repeat this cruel fact to himself again and again, forcing himself to accept it. He huddled in the cramped cabin of the rover as it slowly descended, accompanied by the violent jolts of the vehicle on the loose gravel slope.

In the driver's seat, Song Xingye gripped the steering wheel tightly, doing his best to keep the roaming vehicle's descent speed within a slow and safe range.

Once they get through this ordeal and return to their home on Earth, these hardships will become medals worth remembering. Perhaps then, he can formally invite Sheng Tianhong to his home, and Sheng Tianhong will gladly accept.

However, Sheng Tianhong had already turned into a cold corpse. Outside the car window, the crushed boulders made a chilling cracking sound, carrying more stones as they tumbled down, crashing into the seemingly endless abyss below in a series of collisions.

Han Jing suddenly realized that this was not some legendary adventure that he could enjoy with wine later; it was a journey to hell that could take away all of their lives at any moment, just as it had cruelly taken Sheng Tianhong's life, and before that, it had taken Sasha's life.

……

The slope gradually became gentler, eventually becoming almost flat. To increase the speed, Song Xingye untied the superconducting fiber cable that served as a climbing safety rope.

The scree slope cascades down to the bottom of the canyon. He drives his off-road vehicle through a maze of boulders, so large that even rock climbers would find it difficult to cross.

Eventually, the dense area of ​​megaliths gradually thinned out, leaving only a few scattered boulders. Although they were as large as houses or apartment buildings, their scattered distribution made them resemble alien monuments, and they no longer posed a threat to traffic.

Apart from a few scattered boulders, the bottom of the canyon is flat, the ground is as hard as fired clay, and the surface is covered with a layer of fine dust.

The canyon was so wide it was breathtaking. Standing at the bottom, you couldn't see the opposite cliff face at all; only the sheer cliff behind you was faintly visible in the twilight, appearing eerie and terrifying.

Song Xingye just wanted to get as far away from that slope as possible, and as far away from the place where Sheng Tianhong had died.

As night deepened, he knew that the remaining sunlight alone was not enough to cross the canyon. Even so, he still felt he had to drive forward as much as possible. Before the sun had completely set, he pushed the off-road vehicle to its limit, without mentioning stopping to unload the supplies.

No one else asked any further questions, and everyone fell silent, each lost in their own chaotic and private thoughts.

The shadow of the cliff loomed over him, rapidly engulfing him as dusk settled over his car as he drove through a gradually darkening, blood-red wilderness.

The original colors are fading, but as the night deepens, new colors begin to appear. It's no longer just the orange-yellow hue unique to Mars; this land seems to have its own faint glow.

Song Xingye rubbed his helmet visor and noticed that the earth was glowing with a soft halo. The light was so hazy that he couldn't even tell if it was his own illusion or some strange, ghostly glow of neon, green, purple, and blue on Mars.

No, he must be hallucinating.

Mira suddenly spoke, her voice very hoarse. Song Xingye then realized that she hadn't said a word since saying goodbye to Sheng Tianhong, and he had thought she had fallen asleep long ago.

"Miragrosso (miracle)..." she murmured.

"What?"

"Didn't you see it? Look, just one look."

The night sky was almost pitch black, but the more carefully he examined it, the clearer the mottled spots of light on the rocks became. Those faint spots of light were like particles of color, flickering so faintly that they could easily be mistaken for hallucinations caused by extreme fatigue.

After a moment of silence, he asked softly, "What is this?"

"Rock fluorescence," she replied.

Song Xingye suddenly realized.

"Oh, I see!"

As the sun just dipped below the horizon, although no direct sunlight illuminated the earth, the sky was still scattering light, and he thought of Rayleigh scattering.

On Earth, the scattered light from the sky is blue, but on Mars, where there is no ozone layer, ultraviolet radiation is much stronger, so the sky at this moment must be pouring down a soft, invisible "black light bath".

In this near-absolute darkness, the rocks emitted a faint but barely visible glow, stimulated by the invisible light of the sky.

"Wow!" he couldn't help but exclaim.

As soon as he finished speaking, the glow on the rocks quietly faded. He pondered to himself that this spectacle could perhaps only be seen for a few short minutes after sunset, when the faint halo could still be barely caught in the early darkness. And it would completely disappear before the sky was utterly shrouded in darkness.

Such a sight can perhaps only be seen at the bottom of this deep canyon.

"Unless you're planning to kill us all," Mira said abruptly, "I think it's time to stop now."

……

They had built inflatable domes in the twilight, but they had never done this in complete darkness.

Han Jing tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. His chaotic thoughts kept churning in his mind. He and his companions had been crammed into the cramped space of the rock jumping vehicle for several hours, and he desperately needed some time alone.

However, as he stood outside the airlock, gazing at the hatch of the habitation compartment, he still felt some hesitation.

Being alone outdoors without at least one companion is a serious violation of safety regulations.

"It's been a long day," came Song Xingye's hoarse and tired voice over the communication channel. "Come in, we all need to rest."

Han Jing shook his head, even though he knew that Song Xingye couldn't see the movement through the helmet.

"I want to stay outside for a while," he said, "just a little while."

"Don't do that, Han Jing. You know you can't stay outside alone."

"Then you can try to stop me."

Han Jing replied, his tone revealing weariness and despair, leaving Song Xingye speechless for a moment.

"At least don't leave the living quarters' line of sight," Song Xingye compromised.

Han Jing nodded and turned to walk into the darkness.

The darkness, the boundless darkness, gradually calmed him down. Just sitting quietly in this darkness allowed him to clear his mind and stop thinking about anything.

He sat down on a boulder with his back to the living quarters so that the cabin lights wouldn't interfere with his night vision.

It felt like a moonless night in the desert on Earth, or any ordinary dark night, with the stars clear and bright, almost completely obscured by sand and dust, their brilliance astonishing him.

The familiar constellations still hang in the sky, but their angles are quite strange. Orion lies on its "sword," while Leo's nose points straight to the ground. He can't find Polaris and suddenly realizes that he doesn't even know which one is Mars' "North Star," or whether Mars even has a North Star.

Suddenly, a shooting star streaked across the sky with a brilliant green light, and then the night closed again. Immediately afterward, a second shooting star streaked across the sky westward along the same trajectory, and a third followed closely behind. Its dazzling light even tinged the surrounding earth with a touch of ethereal blue.

He thought to himself, "This is probably a meteor shower."

Memories drifted back to a summer night when Han Jing was six years old. His grandmother gently shook him awake, and the clock on the kitchen wall was pointing to two in the morning.

When Han Jing walked outside in his pajamas, his grandmother had already laid out bedding on the grass. The distant horizon was a ghostly pale white. They stood with their backs to the west, gazing at the deepest corner of the night sky.

"Lie down and watch quietly," Grandmother whispered.

The thin pajamas were cool with the night air, but he felt no sleepiness. He had been able to wake up instantly since he was a child, and at this moment, in the dappled night sky, he clearly saw a beam of light streak across the horizon.

Then came the second, followed by three parallel streaks of light, and the last one seemed to tear the sky apart, bursting forth with incomparably dazzling colors.

"They're so beautiful!" he exclaimed. "What are they?"

"People call them shooting stars," his grandmother told him. "They visit us around this time every year."

"But what exactly are they?" he persisted.

Grandmother remained silent for a moment.

“When I was little,” she said softly, “my grandmother told me that it was the soul of the deceased ascending to heaven. When the soul ascends to heaven, it will be relieved of all the sins it carried in life, because once it reaches the other side, it will no longer need to carry these burdens.”

She paused for a moment, just as another shooting star streaked across the sky, as bright as fireworks illuminating the night.

"I think some people do carry a very heavy burden of sins."

That was a long time ago. Now that he's grown up, Han Jing knows with his rational scientific knowledge that it was just a meteor shower. Tiny ice particles and dust that hurtled through space at high speed burned up at the edge of the thin atmosphere.

But deep down, he preferred to believe that it was Sheng Tianhong making his last flight, and that he was just like taking off a soaking wet coat, throwing away everything he no longer needed.

He couldn't help but think to himself that the things Sheng Tianhong carried in his life could burn so brightly.

Goodbye, Sheng Tianhong. Goodbye.

……

At that moment, Song Xingye had just finished inspecting the dome of the living quarters and was standing outside hesitating when suddenly a dazzling light caught his eye.

Wow, this light effect is amazing! He thought to himself, "Looks like it almost hit us." Then another light came on, followed by a third.

At first he thought it was just a meteor shower, but no, it was far from an ordinary meteor shower; it was clearly a rare meteor storm.

Yellow and blue streaks of light repeatedly ripped through the night sky, one of them even passing directly overhead, seemingly within reach. He was secretly alarmed; could these things really be that close?

Are we in danger? Are we undergoing some kind of impact?

Song Xingye's heart tightened, but reason quickly prevailed over panic: "Don't be silly, you know science."

On Earth, meteoroids usually burn up at the edge of the thin atmosphere about 100 kilometers above the ground. Even the largest meteorites can only fall to an altitude of 40 kilometers above the Earth's surface before being slowed down and broken up by the atmosphere.

Although Mars' atmosphere is much thinner, it is by no means a vacuum. This meteor shower, which seems close at hand, is actually just dust particles burning tens of kilometers above the atmosphere.

For humans on the surface, this is at most a magnificent visual spectacle, posing no real threat whatsoever.

He thought that the dates of meteor showers on Mars must be different from those on Earth, and their radiant points are also different. Who could know the exact cycle of a Martian meteor shower?

This is probably a regular occurrence at this time of year, especially since Mars is closer to the asteroid belt than Earth, making the meteor shower even more spectacular and awe-inspiring.

He stood there gazing up for a few more minutes. Back on Earth, he had always been fascinated by meteor showers and would always mark the time on his calendar so as not to miss them. Then, he turned and went into his living quarters.

Everything that happened today felt like a nightmare, but there was no time for reflection; he needed to think carefully about what to do next.