Old Cat glanced at the time, put away the tools, turned around, and got into the driver's seat. "That's all for today. The rest of the work can be done tomorrow. We have to go back and move the solar panels."
Tang Yue looked at the setting sun. The sun hung low above the red wasteland. He thought of Wang Wei's poem, "Lone smoke rises in the desert, and the sun sets in the long river."
"There was once a fertile land in front of me, but I didn't cherish it," Tang Yue said. "It was too late to regret after losing it. The most painful thing in the world is this."
"If God could give me a chance to start over …"
Old Cat lazily interrupted him.
"You want Earth to disappear and start over again?"
Old Cat started the Mars Wanderer. The car trembled slightly and began to turn slowly. Tang Yue sat in the car. As the car swayed, he fixed all the bottles and cans on the workbench and closed the lid of the spectrophotometer.
"Miss Mai Dong, what if we can't find the right soil quality?
We only sampled the area within a few kilometers. Will there be a huge difference in the soil in such a small area? "
Old Cat held the steering wheel and looked ahead.
The Mars Wanderer's wheels rolled over the sand, leaving two neat ruts on the ground.
"It's hard to say."
Mai Dong replied, "Because there used to be liquid water on the surface of Mars. The topography and mineral distribution of the areas where water flows through will change. It can also cause a large difference in soil quality in a small area. For example, the soil quality on the alluvial plain and the riverbed is different … We have to find soil with better basic conditions. The acidity and alkalinity are more balanced, and the water retention properties are higher. This kind of soil is more suitable for plant growth."
"Miss Mai Dong, when you were on Kunlun Station, did you find suitable soil?" Old Cat asked.
"Unfortunately, no."
Mai Dong shook her head. "Zheng and I have done research in this area. He is an expert in the environment and geology. He told me that Mars is a huge arid saline-alkali land of 142 million square kilometers."
The Old Cat was stunned for a moment and then sighed.
"We need a Yuan Longping."
·
·
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The Mars Wanderer crossed a depression. Old Cat said that this might be an ancient river channel. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago, liquid water might have flowed through here.
"Mars used to be a planet rich in water resources."
Tang Yue looked out the window. The Mars Wanderer had climbed up a low sand dune. At the end of the sand dune was a brown sand pillar that was moving slowly. Upon closer inspection, it was a small tornado. "Where did the water go?"
"Part of it has evaporated and escaped. The geological activity of Mars has stagnated for millions of years. The magnetic field has almost disappeared, and the atmosphere and water molecules have been stripped away by the solar wind."
The Old Cat replied, "Part of it is left in the polar regions and depressions where the sun can't reach, existing in the form of ice. The last part may be underground, becoming a combination of ice and some compounds."
"There's water underground?" Tang Yue asked. "If I dig down, is it possible to dig out water?"
"Are you going to dig with that shovel of yours that looks like a spoon?"
The Old Cat sneered. "I've never seen anyone use a spoon to dig a well. You'll probably dig until the end of the world."
The Mars Wanderer drove on the gravel-covered barren beach. Due to the lack of shock absorption and suspension, Tang Yue's butt hurt.
"If there's water, is it possible that there used to be life on Mars?" Tang Yue looked out the window and chatted casually.
"Of course."
The Old Cat nodded. "If you dig twenty meters under your feet now, you might be able to dig out some fossils of ancient Martian life."
"If there were life, then there might have been a civilization on Mars?" Mai Dong asked.
"Miss Mai Dong, this is hard to say."
The Old Cat shrugged. "Wisdom and civilization have never been the goal of evolution. The purpose of biological evolution is to better adapt to the environment, not to grow a more developed brain. Why do you have to regard wisdom as the standard of higher life?
From the perspective of evolution and biology, the most successful creatures have always been the most adaptable to the environment, not the ones with the largest brain capacity. In the Mesozoic era on Earth, large reptiles did not have high IQs, but this did not prevent them from dominating the world. "
"I just think that if there was a civilization on Mars, then all of this becomes very romantic," the girl said.
"What we are facing is no longer a lifeless and dead planet, but the ruins left by an ancient civilization."
Tang Yue was stunned and looked down. He imagined that under the surface of the Mars Wanderer, there were huge and magnificent buildings like the ancient Roman Pantheon. They were passing through a wide and straight avenue, and tens of thousands of years ago, the residents of the Martian civilization worshipped their gods here.
"Even if there was a civilization, it would be difficult for us to see their ruins," the Old Cat said slowly. "Tang Yue, look to the left."
Tang Yue obeyed, stood up, and looked to the left of the car.
At the end of the wasteland, there were layers of crimson hills. They were crisscrossed and covered with ravines.
"What do you see?"
"Sand, wasteland, and linear hills."
"That is the Yadan landform," the Old Cat asked. "Do you know what the Yadan landform is?"
"Wind erosion landform?" Mai Dong said.
"It is the wind erosion landform. The rocky mountains you see like the back of a dragon are the result of wind erosion. On this planet, there is no force stronger than wind and sand. No matter how tall and strong the buildings built by the civilization are, they will be eroded and broken by the knife-like air currents over a long period of time, and eventually turn into yellow sand," the Old Cat said calmly. "The slowest and most silent force has always been the strongest."
"There is nothing in this world that can defeat time. A civilization that has developed for ten thousand years can wipe out all traces of it in ten million years."
The Old Cat continued, "But on the huge scale of geological time, we generally use hundreds of millions of years to calculate time … What dynasty hegemony, what civilization achievements, in the end, they are all just sand."
Tang Yue and Mai Dong fell into silence.
They didn't know what to say. Measuring the scale of time with the insignificance of human beings always made people feel awe.
The Old Cat paused and began to recite loudly.
"The guests returned from overseas and saw the ancient desert country.
A stone statue was half destroyed, with only its giant legs left, squatting in the sand.
The statue's head fell to the side, half buried, but the human face is still fearsome. "
Tang Yue was stunned. He didn't know what the Old Cat was saying. Mai Dong whispered in his earpiece that it was a poem by Shelley, from the famous "Osymantes."
The Old Cat raised its voice.
"That sneer, that arrogance of giving orders,
Enough to show that the craftsman saw through the heart of the master,
Only then did he carve the stone statue's expression,
And the stone statue's hand and stone statue's heart have long been reduced to ashes!
The words on the pedestal are in large letters:
I am the king of kings, with unparalleled achievements, daring to subdue the Heavens! "
The Mars Wanderer moved forward in the dead silent desert. Sand was everywhere. The Old Cat's voice became vast and boundless. Tang Yue looked at the sand in the wind and felt desolation in his heart.
But the Old Cat's voice slowly fell, as if weeping and complaining, like an elegy.
"Other than that, there is nothing else, but around the ruins,
Lonely and flat, the boundless sky,
Stretching out to the desolate four directions. "