I live in the Martian wilderness!

[Sol 4, 06:00 AM]

When the pale Martian sun first cast its light upon the Utopia Plain, Gu Yu was already dressed and sitting in the driver's seat of the Tianshuo engineering vehicle.

The constant, gentle warmth emanating from the bulkhead behind me made the carriage feel as warm as spring.

"Xuan, Oasis One, switch to the Sky Patrol backup power mode."

[Command confirmed. Shelter main grid has been safely switched to Starsea battery pack. Low power mode activated, estimated range: 92 hours. All systems are functioning normally.]

"Very good. Let's go."

Gu Yu pushed the control lever. The massive Tianshuo engineering vehicle's high-torque motor emitted a powerful hum.

Heading towards that unknown wasteland, it began its first expedition on this planet.

The Tissot engineering vehicle doesn't speed like a race car; it's more like a heavy icebreaker slowly advancing on a dry seabed.

The tracks crushed the iron oxide gravel that had been dormant for millions of years, raising two plumes of red dust before quickly falling back into the thin atmosphere.

The speedometer reading remained stable at 25 km/h, a speed that would be honked at on any highway in the world.

But in this alien wasteland of only rocks and dust, it is the most stable pace of advance.

The first two hours of the journey were suffocatingly boring.

Outside the window, the color is an unchanging red. It's not a vibrant blood red, but a rusty ochre.

No matter how long the tracks rolled forward, the horizon seemed to remain forever stationary ahead, showing no sign of closing in.

"Xuan, report the current environmental parameters." Gu Yu broke the monotony of the cockpit, where only the motor hummed.

"Outside temperature -48℃, air pressure 750 Pa. Wind speed 3 m/s, northwest wind." Xuanjian's girlish voice was still clear and crisp.

"This is the Utopia Plain..." Gu Yu murmured to himself, gazing at the horizon that seemed to have been drawn with a ruler. "There is only deathly silence, no utopia."

"According to Earth's historical records, the word 'utopia' inherently means 'a place that doesn't exist,'" Xuanjian calmly added, sharing a little-known fact.

"This is the largest impact basin on Mars. Its flatness is a scar left by a giant asteroid that almost pierced through the Martian crust billions of years ago."

"Scars..."

Gu Yu looked through the 15-centimeter-thick multi-layered composite quartz porthole at the sun hanging in the sky, which was only the size of a fingernail.

In order to block deadly radiation while retaining the ability to work directly, this observation window sacrifices all portability.

It is made of seven layers of special glass of different materials, which are melted together. The nano gold film in the middle can effectively reflect high-energy particles.

But it also casts a faint, cold golden filter over the whole world.

Through this heavy filter, the already pale sunlight appears even more morbid and distorted, as if it were forever stuck in the Earth's severely overcast skies.

"Xuan, what time is it on Earth?"

"According to Beijing time, it is currently 20:30 PM."

8:30 p.m.

The image of Youzhou Fusion City instantly flashed into Gu Yu's mind.

At this time, under the enormous ecological dome, nightlife begins.

And here, within a radius of 60 million kilometers, there is only his heartbeat.

"It's ironic," Gu Yu said with a bitter smile. "On Earth, I'm a disabled person who has to hide in an oxygen-free laboratory just to survive."

"But now, here on this desolate Mars, I've become the only normal person who can breathe freely."

Xuanjian comforted him, saying, "Captain, in a sense, you were born for this planet."

"With every breath you take, you are participating in a perfect carbon cycle with the atmosphere of this planet. You are more like an indigenous person here than any other person on Earth."

"Indigenous people?" Gu Yu looked at the endless wasteland ahead. "What's the difference between an indigenous person without any kind of human being and an exiled convict?"

"The difference is that exiles await death, while indigenous people build their homes." Xuanjian's answer always hits the nail on the head when it comes to logic.

Gu Yu paused for a moment, then a smile curved his lips: "Okay, Xuan, you're good at comforting people."

In the fourth hour of the journey, the monotonous red color finally changed.

The once fine sandy ground began to become rough, and scattered black pebbles appeared in the red sand sea like islands and reefs in the ocean.

As the Sky Shuttle continued its journey, these black islands and reefs became increasingly dense, eventually forming an endless black coastline.

Ahead lies the "Achilles" rocky area, a dangerous zone marked by Xuanjian as the "Black Dead Sea"!

That was a basalt plain formed by the cooling and solidification of lava flows after an ancient volcanic eruption.

After millions of years of wind and sand erosion, it has become a steel jungle filled with sharp rocks and hidden sand pits.

[Warning: Entering rugged terrain ahead.]

The alarm sounded in Xuanjian, and the holographic screen in the cockpit instantly switched to terrain scanning mode.

On the real-time grid map generated by the laser radar, the originally smooth ground turned into violently undulating waves, and countless bright red warning dots flashed in front.

"It is recommended to reduce the vehicle speed to 3 km/h and switch the suspension system to 'off-road climbing' mode."

"receive."

Gu Yu pulled his wandering thoughts back, and his eyes sharpened again.

He pushed a red lever next to the control stick.

"Click-clack—"

A mechanical locking mechanism clicked shut from under the vehicle's chassis.

The four massive independent tracks of the Tissot began to deform, with the tensioner extending outwards, increasing the track's contact area and ground clearance.

The entire engineering vehicle resembled a beetle with its back arched, ready for battle.

"Let's go in."

The massive body of the Tissot crashed over the first black basalt rock, the violent jolt transmitted through the seat to Gu Yu's back.

The view outside the window suddenly became grotesque.

The black rocks were strangely shaped, some like inverted swords, others like twisted ghostly hands, casting messy shadows in the pale sunlight.

There is no road here; the road was forcibly created by Tissot using its tracks and weight.

"Pay attention to the right at 15 degrees, 30 meters away. The ground-penetrating radar shows a cavity below," Xuanjian warned rapidly.

Gu Yu gripped the control stick tightly with both hands and pushed the rudder sharply to the left.

The 8.5-ton steel behemoth deftly bypassed the seemingly ordinary sandpit, which would actually collapse if it were run over.

The edge of the track slid past a sharp rock, making a teeth-grinding metallic scraping sound.

Gu Yu stared at the crushed rock in the rearview mirror, still shaken: "If it had been an aluminum-based wheel like the Zhurong, that impact would have ruined the tire."

Xuanjian pulled up the trajectory map from back then. "That's why the Zhurong was forced to detour south for a full ten kilometers when it reached the edge of this area."

"But we, in order to save time, chose to cross directly. That's the privilege of heavy equipment."

Gu Yu took a deep breath, feeling the car body swaying like a ship in a storm.