I live in the Martian wilderness!

"We have ignored history."

"What do you mean?"

"In all our plans," Xuanjian explained, "we tried to shout, but our voices were too soft."

"Then why don't we try to find a more sensitive ear that has been abandoned in the universe?"

A long-forgotten historical file was suddenly unfolded in front of Gu Yu.

On the screen, a familiar yet unfamiliar image of the detector appeared!

Gu Yu murmured to himself, "That one launched more than 20 years ago...our country's first Mars probe."

"Yes, Captain." Xuanjian's voice carried a hint of excitement, as if he had discovered a new continent.

「它于2020年7月23日发射，经历了长达七个月的深空飞行后，于2021年2月10日成功进入环火轨道，并释放了祝融号火星车。」

"Its fate was completely altered in the celestial upheaval a year ago. When Mars itself jumped from its original orbit, Tianwen-1, as a relay satellite, was abandoned..."

A simulated animation unfolds.

"It wasn't destroyed, nor was it thrown into deep space. It simply inherited Mars's old, long-abandoned orbit and continued its journey around the sun due to inertia."

"And now," Xuanjian pulled up a brand new orbital map, "when Mars made its second jump to an orbit 60 million kilometers from Earth, a cosmic-level coincidence occurred."

"Our current new orbit is likely almost parallel to the old orbit that Tianwen-1 was on!"

"Tianwen-1, which was forgotten for 20 years, is currently flying at almost the same speed as us, less than four million kilometers away!"

Four million kilometers!

This number made Gu Yu's breathing quicken instantly. On an interstellar scale that often spans tens of millions of kilometers, this was a distance almost like that of a neighbor!

He instantly understood that all he needed to do was find a way to make the signal from the Tianxun satellite travel across those short four million kilometers so that it could be heard by Tianwen-1!

Tianwen-1 was designed to relay weak signals from the Martian surface! Its high-gain receiving antenna may still be able to receive those weak signals!

"Xuan!" Gu Yu's voice trembled with excitement. "Immediately attempt to establish an uplink with Tianwen-1!"

"Use the Sky Surveyor's main communicator to broadcast our identification code and distress signal at maximum power!"

"Understood." Xuanjian responded immediately, "Adjusting the X/Ka band high-gain antenna... Activating maximum power broadcast mode."

On the roof of the Sky Surveyer, a directional antenna, resembling a small pot lid, rotated silently, pointing to an unseen coordinate in the sky with an accuracy of one ten-thousandth of a degree.

[Command executed. Currently transmitting our ID and distress signal at maximum power of 200 watts...]

Gu Yu stared intently at the screen, waiting for a miracle to happen.

In the vacuum of space, radio waves can travel to the ends of the universe. This signal emitted by the Sky Surveyor is only a negligible 200 watts.

But after being focused by the directional antenna, it will be like an invisible laser beam, which will accurately "illuminate" the Tianwen-1 spacecraft four million kilometers away after flying for about 13 seconds.

He imagined that the Tianwen-1 relay satellite, which had been dormant for twenty years, would slowly awaken after receiving this faint but clearly discernible call...

Uplink establishment failed; no handshake confirmation signal was received.

"Why?" Gu Yu asked, puzzled, his voice filled with disappointment. "Four million kilometers, 200 watts of directional power—the signal strength is definitely far greater than the background noise!"

"Tianwen-1's two-meter high-gain antenna couldn't possibly fail to receive signals!"

"Yes, Captain. The signal arrived and was successfully received. But it was intercepted by the 'firewall' before it reached Tianwen-1's main processor."

A complex data protocol document appeared on the screen, filled with outdated encoding formats from the 2020s.

"According to the publicly available technical manual of Tianwen-1," Xuanjian explained, "it and its lander, Zhurong, use a technology based on 'frequency hopping' and 'spread spectrum'."

"A military-grade encrypted 'pairing handshake protocol.' It's like an extremely complex and unique lock made up of tens of thousands of gears."

"Its signal filter is designed to receive and process only a specific, constantly changing frequency sequence."

"The system will only be activated and allocated computing resources for decoding when the received signal perfectly matches the sequence, which is the signal emitted by the 'Zhurong' Mars rover."

"For any other signal," Xuanjian wrote a line of code on the screen.

"Including the signals we use now, although they are more advanced in 2047 but have completely different protocols, their underlying hardware will directly judge them as meaningless cosmic background noise and filter them out completely, without even notifying the main computer."

This explanation sent a chill down Gu Yu's spine, making him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Hope lies four million kilometers away, within reach. But between them stands an insurmountable wall, built by a technological gap of over twenty years and encryption algorithms.

"The Zhurong..." Gu Yu murmured unconsciously. The name was like a faint spark, piercing the darkness in his mind. "If that key is the Zhurong..."

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bursting with a new kind of joy!

"Mysterious! Immediately retrieve the last known coordinates of the Zhurong Mars rover on Utopia Plain!"

[Coordinates have been retrieved. Located in the southern part of Utopia Plain, approximately 278 kilometers from our current location.]

"Too far..." Gu Yu frowned. This distance was almost the limit for the Sky Patrol to make a safe round trip in one go.

"What about its final mission report? I need every single detail before it shut down, down to the last telemetry data!"

[Retrieving... Zhurong mission log, Martian day 358: Encountering a super sandstorm, visibility less than one meter, light intensity below the survival threshold.]

According to the preset procedure, the system entered a low-power sleep mode, waiting for the storm to pass... The signal was interrupted and has not been restored.

Gu Yu quickly grasped the key point, like an experienced detective searching for a breakthrough in the case.

"That means its loss of contact was most likely not due to an impact or equipment damage, but rather because it ran out of energy."

“Absolutely correct, Captain.” Xuanjian immediately followed his train of thought. “According to the meteorological data model of Utopia Plain over the past twenty years, the region has experienced at least three more global dust storms since the Zhurong went missing.”

"The most reasonable inference is that its solar panel surface should be completely covered with several centimeters of dust, or even dust that has hardened due to the static effect."

"This makes it unable to perform any effective photoelectric conversion."

Gu Yu's eyes grew brighter and brighter as he pressed for the most crucial question.

"What about its core systems? The communication module, the central processing unit... Without power, wouldn't they freeze into a pile of scrap metal in the long Martian night at minus 100 degrees Celsius?"

"No, Captain. It is indeed dead, but it died perfectly."

Xuanjian brought up a perspective view of the internal structure of the Zhurong, highlighting the chip packaging layer deep in the chassis.

"This is thanks to the almost obsessive 'extreme material toughness' design of Chinese aerospace engineers back then."

"Although the core heat source has long been cut off, the aerogel and multi-layer thermal insulation components wrapped around the cabin have effectively filtered out the intense hot and cold fluctuations from the outside into a slow and steady low temperature."