I live in the Martian wilderness!

"High bitrate?!" Gu Yu's mind went blank, then he was overwhelmed with immense joy. "You mean... the internet speed is fast enough to upload pictures?!"

"Ample bandwidth! Supports high-resolution image transmission!"

"Xuan! Take control of it! Take a picture of me right now! Make sure to include me, Tian Shuo, and this rocky area!"

"Let them...see...that we're still alive!"

"Understood! Accessing navigation camera permissions. Wide-angle lens activated. Aperture F8, exposure compensation +0.5, perfect composition."

"Ready... three, two, one."

"Click."

The shutter was silent.

The backdrop is an endless red wasteland and the desolate Achilles rocky plain.

The foreground features a 2020 Mars rover covered in dust, a lone warrior dressed in 2047 armor, and behind him stands the imposing steel behemoth, the Sky Shuttle.

This family photo, spanning twenty-seven years, was captured forever in the polar night on Mars.

"Photos generated. Packaging in progress."

"Xuan, this photo is our interstellar message in a bottle." Gu Yu's voice trembled uncontrollably. "Launch it immediately with the highest priority!"

[Data encapsulated. Uplink confirmed. Transmission complete!]

The signal was lost.

"Mysterious, how long will it take for the information to reach Earth?"

"The signal will travel at the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second, through the vacuum and take 13.4 seconds to reach the receiving antenna of Tianwen-1."

"When Tianwen-1 receives the data packet, it will perform a very brief verification and power amplification, and then re-emit the signal, with the target being Earth, 60 million kilometers away."

Xuanjian paused for a moment and gave the final timeline: "It is expected to crash into the giant antenna of the Jiamusi Deep Space Station or the Kashgar Station in 3 minutes and 33 seconds."

"In a few milliseconds, it will explode on the screen in Earth command center!"

The fourteen-minute window ended quickly.

Gu Yu's chest heaved with excitement. "Xuan, send the photo signal again to test if the window period is really only 14 minutes."

"Received, Captain. Sending..."

He looked up at the sky, as if the signal was piercing the deep sea of ​​stars at an unstoppable speed.

A few seconds later, Xuan Jian pulled Gu Yu back from his reverie. "Captain, the teleportation failed. The window of opportunity has indeed closed."

"Well, okay, as long as we can get in touch, that's fine."

"It'll only take three and a half minutes to get to Earth...that's fast," he muttered to himself, before bursting into unrestrained laughter.

Laughter echoed in the cramped cockpit, carrying a sense of release and boundless hope.

Neither Gu Yu nor Xuan Jian noticed that the trajectory of the signal being sent again appeared and disappeared intermittently, which was quite peculiar.

"Captain, it's time to end this." Xuan Jian's cold voice jolted Gu Yu from his euphoria. "We still have two days left on our journey home."

"Worse still, the backup power supply at Oasis One is expected to run out in 50 hours."

"If we can't get back and restart the main power before then, the shelter will become a lifeless ice tomb."

Gu Yu's nerves, which had just relaxed, tightened again, and a sense of urgency gripped his heart once more.

He glanced at the old machine beside him that had just been given a new lease on life, and a new question popped into his mind.

"Xuan, what's the plan for the Zhurong's return journey?" His voice turned serious. "Although it's awake now, it's just a fragile vessel clinging to life with external blood transfusions."

"Your analogy is very apt, Captain." Xuanjian immediately pulled up a set of materials science analysis models. "I suggest maintaining 'active thermal control' throughout the process."

"Although its core heating system has been activated, twenty years of metal fatigue is irreversible."

"The aluminum alloy material on the exterior of the vehicle body, after being thawed from -82°C to +20°C, has an internal structure that resembles a piece of tofu that has been repeatedly frozen and thawed."

"If we cut off the power now and let it freeze to -80°C again during the bumpy return journey, the 'cold brittleness effect' at low temperatures will reduce its structural strength by 70%."

"A single violent tremor could break its robotic arm, suspension system, or even tear its core compartment apart."

Gu Yu looked at the shocking simulation and broke out in a cold sweat.

"So you mean I need to keep the heater on all the way home?"

"Yes, Captain. We must keep its active thermal control subsystem powered throughout the entire transport process to ensure that its core temperature remains above freezing."

"We need to transport it as if it were a living thing."

"Alright, let's get to work!"

Gu Yu stopped wasting words. He manipulated the Sky-Piercing Crane of the Sky Shuttle to lift the Zhu Rong from the ground and place it steadily on the wide cargo platform at the rear of the vehicle.

"Click—"

Four electromagnetic locking latches automatically engaged, firmly locking the wheels of the Zhurong to the platform.

Instead, a "high-power energy umbilical cable" as thick as a bowl was pulled out from the energy interface at the rear of the Sky Shuttle and precisely inserted into the external power supply port of the Zhurong.

This cable was the lifeline for the Zhurong on its return journey.

[Fixed and established; energy link now in place.]

[The Zhurong's active thermal control has been activated, and the core temperature is locked at 20°C.]

"Tissot, start."

The massive tracks crushed the red gravel with a dull thud as they plunged into the long, cold night of Mars.

The Zhurong Mars rover at the rear of the vehicle, for the first time in twenty-seven years, lit up its warm inner armor for the first time on a cold Martian night!

......

Earth, East 8th time zone, Beijing time 20:33:33.

Heilongjiang, the heart of the Sanjiang Plain.

In this endless darkness far from the city lights, a huge white antenna with a diameter of 66 meters stands silently in the cold air, like an ear listening to the universe.

This is the Jiamusi Deep Space Tracking and Control Station.

Duty officer Li Hao was idly drinking a cup of scalding hot instant coffee, trying to shake off the drowsiness of the late night.

His daily work involves staring at the meaningless cosmic background noise on the screen day after day to ensure the equipment is functioning properly.

Sudden--

"Beep—beep—beep—"

On the control panel, the signal strength indicator responsible for monitoring the X-band downlink suddenly emitted a piercing alarm!

On the screen, the smooth curve representing background noise suddenly spiked upwards with a straight signal spike!

"Holy crap! What the hell?"

Li Hao suddenly jumped up from his chair. It wasn't a jumble of cosmic rays; it was a coherent signal wave with a complete structure!

He practically lunged at the control panel, his hands furiously pounding the keyboard.

"Youzhou! Youzhou! This place is Jiamusi!" he roared into the microphone. "Abnormal downlink signal detected! X-band! Repeat, X-band! Extremely high signal strength!"

His eyes were fixed on the "frame synchronization code" that was being decoded at high speed on the screen.

A few seconds later, decoding was complete. A line of green characters appeared.

[Signal Source Identification Code: CNSA-TW-1]

"Identification code confirmed! It's Tianwen-1! Repeat! It's the Tianwen-1 orbiter!"

"Huh? Tianwen-1?"

Li Hao, whose mouth moves faster than his brain, was completely blank at that moment.

……

Before he could even recover from the shock, the XJ Kashgar station, thousands of kilometers away, also sent a synchronized alarm through the backbone network.

"Kashgar confirmed! Synchronized capture! Signal structure intact! Uploading raw bitstream to data center!"

Li Hao forced himself to calm down; now was not the time for analysis. His task was to ensure that this celestial message was delivered intact to Youzhou.

[Stable upload speed! Link locked!]

He completed his final step as a sentinel, then slumped into a chair, panting heavily, his heart pounding as if it would burst from his chest.