I live in the Martian wilderness!

Commander Zhang, with his white hair and beard, stood in front of the control console, clutching a newly printed briefing in his hand.

"Comrades," his voice was hoarse, "throw all that nuclear bombs, civil war, and all that damn geopolitics out of your heads."

"I've called you all back today because something great has happened in this universe!"

Opposite Zhang Jianguo were Academician Wang Tianyuan, Chief Engineer Zhang Zixuan, and a large group of elderly experts with gray hair who had been urgently summoned from their sleep.

And those who participated in the "Zhurong" and "Tianwen-1" projects and are still alive.

Zhang Jianguo stepped aside and pointed to the large screen behind him.

"look."

The screen suddenly lit up.

There was no mushroom cloud as expected, and no ruins.

What comes into view is a photo that is somewhat noisy and has a yellowish tone, but is incredibly clear.

The background is the desolate and magnificent red rocky landscape of Mars.

In the foreground, an old-fashioned Mars rover, covered in dust yet still stubbornly displaying a deep blue solar wing, stands quietly.

And standing beside it was a human.

Wearing his iconic black armor combat uniform, he stood tall and straight like a pine tree, facing the camera and his motherland 60 million kilometers away, giving a standard military salute.

In the lower right corner of the photo, a line of white filenames, restored by decoding software, stands out: 【20470520_1000】

A deathly silence fell over the hall.

You could hear a pin drop.

An elderly man with gray hair, who had been sitting in the front row, slowly stood up, his eyes instantly filling with tears: "That's...that's the Zhurong..."

The entire row of elderly people behind him—the chief designers, principal architects, and structural engineers of the "Zhurong" project—all stood up at that moment.

These national treasure-level experts, who had long since retired and should have been enjoying their golden years in various corners of the country, were invited here one by one through the highest efficiency of the state apparatus.

They looked at the child on the big screen, the one they had created with their own hands, the one they thought was long gone...

Many others simply stood there, tears streaming down their faces, murmuring the same word: "Zhurong... Zhurong..."

It was as if calling out to a traveler who had been away for many years and had finally sent back news.

"Comrades!"

A deep and powerful shout, like a thunderclap, instantly shattered the emotional atmosphere in the conference room.

The chief commander, Zhang Jianguo, had somehow walked up to the big screen, and his voice echoed throughout the entire venue.

"Stop your tears! Now is not the time for sentimentality! Our soldiers are still waiting for us 60 million kilometers away!"

He turned around abruptly, his gaze sharp as a knife, sweeping over everyone present.

"From this moment forward, I hereby declare the 'Mars Alliance Special Mission' officially established!"

"All original members of the 'Zhurong' and 'Tianwen-1' project teams, as long as they are still alive and mentally sound, are to rejoin the team!"

"Your mission is singular—to bring our voices to Mars! Can you do it?!"

"able!!!"

The pent-up excitement was forcibly transformed into fighting power at this moment.

Zhang Jianguo nodded in satisfaction, his cold, commander-like expression returning: "Old Song, how should we speak to him?"

Academician Song took a deep breath. "Commander-in-Chief, the biggest challenge now is the physical rules."

"Based on our urgent analysis of the signal characteristics, the Tianwen-1 orbiter is currently in an irregular, slow tumbling state."

"Its high-gain antenna has a chance to scan the area where the Zhurong is located only once every 33 hours, for about 14 minutes."

"In other words," Zhang Jianguo frowned, instantly grasping the crux of the problem, "we can't make phone calls? We can't video chat? We can't communicate in real time with Gu Yu?"

Academician Song nodded heavily. "Yes, Commander-in-Chief. We can only wait for that window, wait for Captain Gu Yu to contact us."

"What if...we don't need to talk to him?"

A slightly abrupt voice rang out from the back row.

Everyone turned around and saw Li Wei, who had just returned from the movie theater and still had some popcorn crumbs on his face, standing up.

He was the top coding expert at the National Supercomputing Center, and at that moment he was pushing up his thick-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Mr. Song was referring to the latency of 'two-way real-time connection establishment.' But we have the advantage of 'asymmetric transmission'!"

"The deep space transmission power on Earth is in the megawatt range! We can force-feed massive amounts of information into Tianwen-1's memory!"

"Think of it as a cloud storage device! Or... to put it more romantically, a super message in a bottle filled with hope, dropped into Mars orbit!"

"As soon as Captain Gu Yu turns on his device again, no matter when, as long as he connects to Tianwen, the satellite will automatically send him the information we've stored!"

Zhang Jianguo's eyes lit up instantly. "You mean...we can leave him a huge information packet? How big is this information packet?"

"Yes, Commander-in-Chief. As long as Tianwen-1's hard drive can hold it, we can send the entire library!"

"good!"

Zhang Jianguo slammed his hand heavily on the table. Without consulting anyone else, he issued the order directly.

"What a person stranded on a desert island needs most is not fishing skills, nor the tears of their family."

What he needs most is to know that a ship is sailing towards him at all costs!

Zhang Jianguo whirled around, staring at the staff officer who was taking notes, his tone chilling: "First message: Pack the complete plan for the Kuafu Chasing the Sun Project into this package!"

"No matter how big the document is, it must be sent! I want Gu Yu to know that the country is on its way! This is a life-saving injection for him!"

"yes!"

"Old Song," Zhang Jianguo turned to the old academician beside him, "I'm entrusting you with the arrangement of the communications. In addition to these hardcore rescue plans, you also need to give him some softer approaches."

"Soft?" Academician Song was taken aback.

"Humans are emotional beings, not machines." Zhang Jianguo sighed, his gaze returning to the lonely figure on the screen.

"Being alone in that godforsaken place, facing endless stones and darkness, one's heart dies more easily than one's body. We need to find something to hold onto, something to give him a reason to live."

He turned to the political officer and asked, "Have you contacted his family?"

A major immediately stepped forward and whispered a report: "Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, Captain Gu Yu... is the orphan of two martyrs..."

Zhang Jianguo paused for a moment, a hint of regret flashing in his eyes, which then turned into a deeper determination.

"I remember he wasn't married? Does he have a girlfriend?"

"His file shows... he's single, a workaholic at the Academy of Sciences, and has a very narrow social circle."

The major hesitated for a moment. "However... based on social media data and call record analysis, his close female friend might be Dr. Qin Nuannuan from the Fifth Academy, and..."

"Qin Nuannuan?"

The image of the young female PhD who proposed the "probe airdrop" plan instantly flashed through Zhang Jianguo's mind; the little girl with a stubborn glint in her eyes.

"Okay, very good."

Zhang Jianguo's lips curled into a meaningful smile, and he waved his hand, "I'll go and communicate with the Fifth Academy. We need to let Gu Yu know he's not fighting alone!"

"yes!!!"

"Meeting adjourned!"