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

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In reality, the time spent climbing the cliff was far longer than expected. After reaching the top, they also needed to hoist the "Rock Jumper" up, but the winch operation was slow and laborious.

Before the rover had even risen halfway up the horizon, the sun had already touched the horizon. To prevent the rover from being damaged by hitting unseen rock protrusions in the darkness, Song Xingye decisively stopped the operation.

"Are we just going to leave it hanging in mid-air like this?" Sergei asked.

"Of course, no problem," Song Xingye replied.

Sergei still had doubts: "What if the wind suddenly picks up overnight?"

"Under the atmospheric pressure of Mars? Don't worry, just trying to blow it away would probably create a hurricane."

"What about earthquakes?"

Song Xingye smiled. "It's alright, Sergei, don't worry."

"Sergei," he added.

Oh, right, I forgot. Don't worry, Sergei, everything will be alright.

As usual, Sergei was the first to get up in the morning. While the others were still tidying up their belongings, he was already dressed and patrolling the camp. This time, without even Song Xingye reminding him to check the equipment list, Sergei took the initiative to look down at it.

However, when he saw the roaming vehicle suspended on the cliff, he was so surprised that he was speechless. The surface of the roaming vehicle was covered with a layer of fine white fuzz.

He pressed the intercom in alarm: "Song Xingye, come quick! The 'Rock Jumper' is covered in mold!"

Song Xingye was inspecting the winch at that moment.

The "Rock Jumper" was particularly conspicuous at this moment. Under the morning light, it gleamed with a dazzling white light, almost blood-red, with fine, downy tentacles extending from the surface of the vehicle and spreading upwards along the invisible boundaries of the microfiber cables.

Song Xingye carefully followed the tentacles to the edge of the cliff, leaned out and looked down. He was first taken aback, then burst into laughter, turned around and walked back to the winch.

"What's wrong?" Sergei asked, puzzled. "What's that?"

"It's frost," Song Xingye said. "It's just frost, nothing serious."

"Frost?" Sergei asked skeptically. "Frost on Mars?"

While explaining, Song Xingye continued to inspect the winch without stopping his work.

"The rover cools down much faster than the rock, and it has a lower heat capacity. Last night it was suspended in mid-air, and the temperature was estimated to have dropped to below minus 100 degrees Celsius. This is normal; the moisture in the air condensed on its surface, that's all."

"But I thought Mars was very dry."

"It is indeed very dry," Song Xingye nodded in agreement, "but there is still a very small amount of moisture in the atmosphere, relatively more in low-altitude areas. It is not surprising that this water vapor condenses on the cold surface of the vehicle."

When they finally hoisted the "Rock Jumper" to the top of the cliff with a winch, the frost on the vehicle had melted away. However, the "frost bath" did not clean it completely; its surface was still covered with a thick layer of yellow dust.

The team continued northwest, the road surface covered with jagged rocks, fine Martian soil filling all the gaps and even seeping into the texture of the rocks. Sergei watched as Han Jing drove the off-road vehicle ahead, struggling to maintain its balance on the smooth rock surface.

Although the crew members sitting inside the "Rock Jumper" were still wearing spacesuits, they had all taken off their helmets and gloves. Because they had been wearing spacesuits for too long, the small cabin began to smell bad, making it look like a poorly cleaned gym locker room.

Sergei gripped the fossil tightly, his fingertips tracing the smooth stone surface. When they returned to the bottom of the cliff earlier, Mira lent him her geological hammer. Although Commander Song Xingye complained that there was no time to collect samples, Sergei felt that since he had found it himself, it wouldn't be unreasonable to take some time to break off a piece.

So, while everyone was busy setting up the winch, he carefully chiseled a fossil off the rock and took it with him.

Touching it without gloves felt completely different. He could clearly feel the fine texture on the surface, like the scales of a lizard, appearing and disappearing. Gently touching this texture that spanned millions of years gave him a strange sense of exhilaration.

Mira remained silent. Sergei noticed that she had hardly spoken since the accident. She awkwardly supported herself with her left arm, relying entirely on her right hand for support. He couldn't help but wonder if her arm was still aching.

"Hey, Mira," Sergei asked softly, "how are you feeling?"

She turned her head, and he suddenly noticed that her eyes were bloodshot. Just looking at her made his eyes sting.

"This is terrible," Mira's voice was so low it was almost a whisper. "Get away from me and don't bother me again."

The space inside the rover was cramped, with nowhere to hide. Sergei wanted to ask Commander Song Xingye if he had considered who would ultimately be sent back to Earth on a rocket, but he decided to wait until they were alone to ask, so as not to bring up this sensitive topic in front of Mira.

He tried to hum a song in his head to ease the tension, but the cold, glaring, lifeless Martian wasteland outside the car window had no melody that could harmonize with it.

So he could only watch silently as the ground beneath his feet receded further and further away, kilometer after kilometer, the endless yellow desert seemingly without end.

……

The Yellowstone Desert stretches endlessly in all directions.

But Han Jing thought that once your eyes gradually adapt to the ubiquitous color gradient from rust red to golden yellow, the subtle differences in hue and the complex structure of the landforms will truly be revealed.

The ground they were traveling on was originally a thin layer of sandstone covering a huge solidified lava flow. He could clearly distinguish the deep purplish-red magma hidden in the sandstone fractures, the pale yellow-orange color of the sandstone itself, and the even lighter layer of weathered dust on the surface.

Huge boulders, like scattered toys, were ejected from the eruption of a supervolcano far beyond the horizon. They twisted into sloping cliffs, resembling scales on the back of a dragon half-buried in the ground.

Driving an off-road vehicle through this wilderness is extremely exhausting, but it also has its own unique charm. The terrain here is unpredictable, and every turn feels like exploring a magical otherworld.

Han Jing suddenly regretted not being a geologist. Faced with such a strange sight, his mind was filled with countless geological questions.

Along the way, he caught a glimpse of a black obelisk standing in the middle of the desert, a straight stone pillar pointing straight into the sky. What kind of magical structure was that?

He guessed that it might be the solidified rock core inside an extinct volcano, perhaps buried deep underground and eroded by wind and sand for millions of years before finally peeling away the soft outer rock layer to reveal its true form.

He had intended to contact Mira on the Rock Jumper by radio to discuss the matter, but she remained silent. Her previous questions to him were met with perfunctory monosyllabic words. Clearly, she had been tormented by her injuries and had lost the childlike, fervent spirit of exploration that geologists possess for unusual landforms.

Han Jing also fell silent. In a sense, this was better. He could be deeply moved by the magnificent scene before him without any restraint, without any language barrier between him and nature, and without having to rack his brains to describe his inner feelings to others.

Han Jing deeply loved Mars, loving the planet's inhuman majesty, its cold aloofness, and its flat, unremarkable sky.

……

It was another long day, driving monotonously across the flat, dull wasteland.

Sergei had to frequently check the sun's position to confirm whether the rover was still heading north. The direction sensor on the dial would sometimes point east, then south, and then west.

They were now close to the Martian equator, and the sun was almost directly overhead at noon. He could only grit his teeth and rely on his intuition to trust the rock jumper's somewhat unstable inertial navigation system, even though he was very apprehensive about it.

Mira became increasingly withdrawn. She could go for hours without saying a word, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to her. Han Jing also became somewhat neurotic, talking incessantly about the Martian landscape as if this desolate place was incredibly fascinating. But even Sergei could see that today's scenery was exactly the same as yesterday's, or even the day they landed.

In Sergei's eyes, only Commander Song Xingye in the entire team remained clear-headed. He seemed to have devoted all his energy to a steadfast goal, trying to cover as much distance as possible while he was still able to move.

Everyone's voices became hoarse, their eyes were bloodshot, and they were unbearably itchy.

The Rock Jumper also suffered severe mechanical damage. On the second day after leaving the canyon, a glaring red warning light came on in the cockpit, indicating that the left front wheel was stuck.

After careful inspection, Song Xingye found that the wheel was completely locked and could not turn. He then removed it and analyzed that the cause of the failure was the aging and damage of the seals, which allowed sparks and dust to seep in and severely wear down the bearing.

This situation was completely beyond repair. The enormous friction generated by the wheel seizing melted part of the bearing, and when it completely locked up, it twisted into a lump of scrap metal.

Furthermore, the drive motor feedback circuit, which should have automatically cut off the power supply when the current increased abnormally, also failed, causing the motor itself to burn out completely.

Song Xingye was also at a loss, and they didn't have any spare parts. He picked up the broken wheel and threw it as far away as possible.

The wheels made a few crisp clattering sounds as they hit the rocks, rolled once, and came to a lonely stop in a sand dune.

"Shouldn't we keep it?" Sergei asked. "What if we need it later?"

"What's the point of keeping it?" Song Xingye said irritably. "This piece of junk is useless here; it's just a burden."

He removed a working motor and wheel from the middle left side of the chassis, moved it to the front, and replaced the stuck part.

"Although the replacement part isn't brand new, it should still be usable," he said.

Fortunately, the six-wheeled "Rock Jumper" was designed with a high degree of redundancy in mind. Its six wheels are completely independent and interchangeable, so even if one wheel is completely worn out, the entire rover will not be paralyzed.

"Can you fix these seals?"

Song Xingye shook his head: "This thing wasn't designed for high-intensity wear and tear. Alright, let's get ready and go."

They switched shifts. Han Jing, the scout who was in charge of driving the off-road vehicle in the previous shift, got out of the car and took over the important task of driving the "Rock Jumper".

As Han Jing approached, Sergei noticed something amiss. Through the dusty visor on his helmet, his vision was somewhat blurry, but after a closer look, he realized it wasn't an illusion.

"What are you looking at?" Han Jing asked with a smile. "It's far away, kid."

Sergei peered at Han Jing through his mask. Han Jing looked quite comical, with a striking contrast between his light-colored hair and his tanned skin.

"That's the thing that's wrong, you've turned blonde."

"Stop kidding, buddy."

"Really! I'm not kidding you!" Sergei looked around; where could he find a mirror in this godforsaken place?

He finally walked to the "Rock Jumper," wiped a speck of dust off the window until a person's reflection was visible, and then called Han Jing over.

"See for yourself."

Han Jing stared at his reflection for a long time. Although his hair wasn't pure gold, it had faded to a light brown like wheat.

"You're right, there are no mirrors around, otherwise I would have noticed sooner." He turned to look at Sergei. "You're blond now too, take a good look at yourself. It's a coincidence, Mira's hair has turned blond too. I was wondering if he dyed it, the change was so subtle, I never thought about it, his hair used to be jet black and shiny."

"What's going on?" Sergei asked in a low voice.

"It's peroxide from Martian soil," Han Jing said. "It's a natural bleach. No matter how strictly we guard against it, we inevitably get some on ourselves every time we put on or take off our extravehicular spacesuits. We are all 'bleached' by it without even realizing it."

Sergei suddenly realized: "No wonder our eyes are always itchy."

"You too? I thought I was the only one like this. Yes, that's probably the reason."

"So what should we do?"

"People say 'blondes are more interesting,' so let's have some fun," Han Jing laughed. "This damn sandstorm isn't going to clear up anytime soon, I bet we'll just have to learn to adapt."

Han Jing looked at Sergei, "Hey, are you alright? You look a bit pale."

"I'm fine," Sergei replied.

He was thinking to himself that he was trapped on Mars, surrounded by a bunch of lunatics, and at least half of them wouldn't survive. There was nothing to do, not even a way to distract himself. He was going crazy.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's really okay..."

The next day, the situation remained grim. The horizon to their right suddenly disappeared, replaced by the edge of a huge rift valley parallel to their route.

"This is the Ganges Canyon," Song Xingye announced. "Orbital imagery shows that a large-scale landslide occurred on the northern edge of the canyon. I'm not sure if the edge here is stable."

His voice trailed off, almost a whisper, as he added, "We'd better stay away."