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

Early in the morning, the first task was to unload the off-road vehicle from the rock-climbing vehicle's support frame.

Sergei woke up first as usual. He stepped out of the living quarters dome, but suddenly froze in place.

The iconic yellow and red hues of Mars have vanished without a trace, and the original yellow sky has been replaced by a dome as white as pearls.

At this moment, what rises in the sky is not just one sun, but three! The central sun is surrounded by a huge semi-circular halo, a reddish ring that is tangent to the twin suns on either side.

In the few seconds that he gazed at this spectacle, the second and third suns stretched into arcs, and then a third arc of light slowly took shape above the main sun.

It took Sergei a long time to find his voice.

"What is that?" he blurted out in astonishment. "What on earth is that?"

Song Xingye was already standing beside him at some point. Sergei hadn't noticed when he had stepped out of the dome. Song Xingye remained silent for a moment, gazing at the shocking scene before him for a long time, before slowly uttering three words: "It's the 'Phantom Sun'."

"What?"

"A halo formed by the refraction of light by ice crystals." Song Xingye turned to look at Sergei. "This is the result of tiny ice crystals suspended in the high atmosphere refracting and reflecting light. I had only heard of this phenomenon in theory before."

As they spoke, three complete luminous rings appeared in the sky, along with three semi-circular arcs. The whole scene presented an ultimate geometric symmetry, like a luminous totem meticulously painted on the giant canvas of the sky by a top digital artist.

"It must be because the entire canyon is shrouded in ice mist, after all, the terrain here is really too low," Song Xingye analyzed, "at least several kilometers below sea level, if Mars also has sea level."

"My God!" Han Jing exclaimed as he stepped out of the living quarters. "This is simply unbelievable."

Yesterday they thought the bottom of the canyon was flat, but today they realized that they had been advancing parallel to a series of mountain ridges. The sunlight was scattered through the ice crystals, softening the originally cold and hard shadows and giving this rocky plain a softer and more Earth-like illusion.

The nearest ridge was only a hundred meters away. While his companions were busy adjusting the rock jump vehicle, deflating the living quarters, and packing up the dome, Sergei had already climbed to the top of the ridge alone and was gazing into the distance.

Looking up from below, this terrain resembles sand dunes, but once you step on it, you'll find that the ground beneath your feet is as hard as iron, with a rough texture like concrete rather than soft sand.

Standing on high ground and looking out, all that can be seen on both sides are rolling "sand dunes", like a boundless, frozen, raging sea. As for the steep rock walls on both sides of the canyon, they have long since exceeded the limits of vision and have completely disappeared beyond the horizon.

Sergei's sense of direction remained completely confused. He couldn't tell north from south at all, and no matter which direction he looked, he couldn't find any trace of the canyon walls. Even standing on such a high ridge, those towering cliffs had long since disappeared beyond the distant horizon.

He was still processing the shock of Commander Sheng Tianhong's sudden death. That man had never shown him any mercy while he was alive, so Sergei did not want to pretend to be overly grieving.

Instead, he was preoccupied with how much this accident would cast a shadow over their return journey.

He guessed that Song Xingye must have naturally taken over the command, after all, while the other two astronauts were still immersed in great shock and at a loss, it was Song Xingye who decisively issued the order to evacuate from the canyon cliff.

After all, with Sheng Tianhong's death, his own chances of surviving and boarding the return spaceship have greatly increased.

The hazy arc of sunlight on the horizon was gradually dissipating, its color fading under the scorching heat of the rising sun. The morning light of Mars returned to its former clarity, and the sky once again took on that slightly murky, earthy yellow hue. Only a wisp of thin, gauze-like cloud hung in the east, revealing a hint of hazy blue.

Sergei hummed a little tune softly: "When the setting sun rises over the lonely peak, he vanishes without a trace on the wind..."

His throat ached slightly from the dryness, and although he hummed with some difficulty, he continued to hum along with the low, mournful sound of the wind over the Martian desert.

……

Han Jing was analyzing the situation for Mira, pointing out that the safety rope should never have broken when they stopped to rest and take turns driving.

"Its breaking strength exceeds one hundred tons," Han Jing said in a low voice, "enough to lift a whole truckload of elephants. I suspect... this is not an accident at all."

"What did you say?" Mira looked up abruptly. "What else could it be but an accident?"

"Stop playing dumb. You're not some brainless blonde idiot." He continued, "You've already done the math. The return rocket can only carry two people at most, three at most. Everyone on the team knows that the fewer people who survive, the greater the chance of a successful return."

"Murder." Mira uttered those two words coldly, without turning to look at Han Jing.

"Is there any other explanation besides this?"

Mira nodded slowly: "In that case, we'd better be on our guard at all times."

"You know that much," Han Jing shook his head, his tone heavy. "From now on, don't trust anyone."

Mira raised an eyebrow: "You can't even trust me?"

Han Jing stared at her intently for a long time, but finally shook his head.

"I can't even trust you," he said, emphasizing each word.

……

They passed by the dried-up riverbed twice; the riverbed was covered with smooth, gray pebbles, their dusty surfaces resembling stone slabs.

"This is a good place to look for fossils," Mira whispered, but only Sergei wanted to stop and take a look.

As they continued forward, the cliff opposite them gradually came into view from afar. At first, it was just a faint reddish-brown line on the horizon, then it transformed into a majestic mountain that approached step by step, until finally, the jagged rock walls seemed to be about to crush down from above, inspiring fear.

Song Xingye stopped the "Rock Jumper" and carefully examined the bottom of the cliff with his binoculars. Just like the cliff on the south side of the canyon, after hundreds of millions of years of weathering and erosion, a huge amount of gravel had accumulated at the bottom of the cliff, forming a vast scree slope.

He stared intently, trying to find the gentlest route that would get him closest to the top of the vertical rock face. The sight before him was truly awe-inspiring. The treacherous slope, haphazardly piled with loose rocks, was fraught with danger, and before he could actually reach the front of the cliff, the slope stretched for several kilometers.

"Oh, please," Sergei finally couldn't help but speak up, "can I take a look too?"

"This is no child's play," Song Xingye rebuked sternly, but regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Never mind, sorry." He thought to himself, since he had no clue anyway, he might as well let the child give it a try.

He handed over the binoculars: "Here you go. See if you can find an easy path up the mountain."

Sergei pressed the telescope against his spacesuit visor, adjusted the electronic focus, and looked up to scan the area. After a few seconds, he stopped.

"This is it," he said.

"What?"

"It's right there." Sergei lowered his binoculars, pointed, and said, "Do you see it?"

Song Xingye took back the binoculars and looked in the direction he was pointing.

"Where?" He saw nothing.

"Wait, let me point it out to you. Do you see that huge rock that looks like a thumb?"

At first, Song Xingye didn't find anything that looked like a thumb. He looked around and suddenly noticed a huge, pink boulder standing alone on the ground. After Sergei pointed it out, he realized that its shape did indeed resemble a thumb.

"I saw it."

"Okay, going up from there, a little higher on the left, there are two rather rounded boulders, shaped like a pair of fists. Just behind those boulders, slightly to the left, there is a ravine that looks like a dried-up streambed; that's the ready-made path up the mountain."

"Yes, I see it," Song Xingye said, "but I still can't see where the road leads."

"Give me the binoculars," Sergei said.

Before Song Xingye could react, he had already handed over the binoculars.

Why should I give it to him? Song Xingye wondered to himself.

Sergei pressed the binoculars against his mask again.

"Okay, look to the upper left following those two 'fist' shapes. There's a stone that looks like a skull, and another one that looks, uh, a bit like an elephant's butt. The road goes through the middle of them."

He shoved the binoculars back into Song Xingye's hands, saying, "Take a close look."

He found a skull, and then he saw "elephant's butt." Although the road was rugged, upon closer inspection, it really did look like a path.

"Do you see how it winds its way to that gap?" Sergei continued to instruct. "Okay, keep looking down along it. Where it meets the cliff, do you see it? Although it's long dried up, it looks like an ancient waterfall. Right to the right, there's a huge rock slab leaning against the cliff like a knife blade."

"Just follow it and you can climb straight up. Once you're at the top, see that groove in the cliff face? That's a natural chimney-like crevice. I bet climbing up from there is as easy as taking a stroll down the street, maybe even easier."

Song Xingye finally saw the whole picture. Although he had reservations about the "ancient waterfall" theory, the other routes did seem feasible.

He suddenly felt like a fool. He stared at the cliff for a full ten minutes without finding a way, but Sergei pointed out a shortcut that he hadn't noticed at all in just twenty seconds.

"Good job, lad!" Song Xingye couldn't help but exclaim in admiration. "How did you figure it out at a glance?"

Sergei shrugged and looked away, but Song Xingye could tell that the compliment pleased him greatly.

Sergei shrugged and looked away, but Song Xingye could tell that the compliment pleased him greatly.

"What's the big deal? I live in St. Petersburg. It's strange, but when I was little, my brother often took me to play in the neighborhood, and that's when I started studying rocks. I've kept this hobby ever since."

Song Xingye looked around, cleared his throat. His throat had been terribly dry and itchy lately.

"Alright, let's keep going and set up camp at the bottom of the scree slope. Sergei just did us a favor by finding a path up the mountain."

……

At sunrise, the sky was still radiant with dazzling white light, and a halo of light surrounded the sun.

Song Xingye noticed that Sergei was up earlier than everyone else again, and couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Does this kid not need to sleep?"

By the time the others woke up, he was already dressed in his spacesuit and doing his morning pre-extraveling checks. If it were Commander Sheng Tianhong, he would never have allowed him to act on his own; he always strictly forbade anyone to leave the spacecraft alone.

Song Xingye wanted to stop him and ask him to stay in the cabin to help deflate and pack up the living quarters, but it would be a real downer to play the bad cop first thing in the morning. Besides, Sergei really couldn't be of much help before everyone had breakfast.

In the end, he let Sergei out, but sternly instructed him never to leave the living quarters' sight.

After everyone finished breakfast, deflated the living quarters, and packed them up, Sergei strolled back leisurely. Song Xingye finally breathed a sigh of relief; he had been on tenterhooks, afraid that the kid would run out of sight.

"Did you find anything good?" Han Jing asked casually as he walked back to the "Rock Jumper".

Sergei shook his head.

"What exactly are you looking for outside?"

"Anything will do, like fossils or something, I'm not sure." He shrugged. "Or a NASA Mars rover that was left behind."

"So you didn't find anything unusual?"

"It's nothing but stones." Sergei shrugged again. "They're everywhere."

"Alright, keep your curiosity alive," Han Jing joked. "Who knows, you might just hit the jackpot someday."

As the morning light shone, Song Xingye drove the "Rock Jumper" up the scree slope, driving the vehicle to a height of about 1.5 kilometers from the bottom of the canyon.

When the wheels started to slip wildly on the loose gravel, he decisively stepped on the brakes, reversed the car to a relatively stable area, and used stones to firmly cushion the wheels.

He then arranged for Han Jing and Sergei to complete the remaining climbing distance on foot.

He originally intended to have the winch of the "Rock Jumper" pull them to the bottom of the cliff, but the slope here was extremely dangerous. If a landslide were triggered, the entire expedition would be doomed. To be on the safe side, he prepared two microfiber cables as safety ropes.

Song Xingye pondered to himself whether he should check each rope centimeter by centimeter. He had carefully examined the broken end of the cable that had caused Commander Sheng Tianhong's death. The main rope and the safety rope were broken with unusually clean edges, without any worn edges or signs of friction.

The cut was clean and crisp, almost as if it had been sliced ​​off by a razor blade. Ordinary microfiber could never break like this simply from overload. This clean break must have been due to a fatal congenital defect in the rope when it left the factory.

Or perhaps... it was deliberate sabotage, but he forced himself not to think about it too deeply. In this godforsaken place, they had to trust each other unconditionally, or everyone would die.

No, there must have been a tiny defect inside the fiber. Just to be on the safe side, he even threw away the fiber cable spool that caused the accident, fearing that the entire batch might have quality issues.