Die on Mars

"Get up -! Get up -! If you don't get up, the sun will shine down on your butt! If you don't get up, Zhang Yide will set the house on fire!" A sharp voice broke the silence, echoing around the hall, stinging people's eardrums.

"Damn it, didn't I tell you to turn off that idiot alarm clock? Why did you turn it on again? Old cat! Did you hear that? Turn off that idiot alarm clock!" Tang Yue covered his head under the quilt and stretched out his hand. Waving with one hand, "Old cat! Old..."

Tang Yue paused.

He got out of the quilt, straightened up and sat on the bed. The air was freezing and biting, seeping through the thin fabric of his clothes, like a winter morning in a southern city. The noisy alarm clock was still whistling in his ears, urging him to get up quickly, as if Brother Yide was really standing outside the door holding a torch, and if Tang Yue didn't get up, he would light the shack on fire.

I don't know who set the idiot alarm clock, but none of the sounds are normal. It's either "If you don't get up, Brother Zhang will set the house on fire," or "If you don't get up, Brother Guan will warm the wine and kill you." It was "If you don't get up, Uncle Liu Huang will come to join you." The most normal one was "If you don't get up, you won't be able to catch the green onions at half price in the vegetable market." It made Tang Yue like a housewife, scrambling for a few cents of green onions every day.

Tang Yue put on his clothes shivering, wrapped himself in a thick blanket, tiptoed into the hall, and turned off the alarm clock.

Kunlun Station suddenly became quiet.

He turned around and glanced at the communication system. In the video, there was only the inner wall of the space station. Ophiopogon japonicus was not there. He didn't know whether he had not gotten up or had gone to work. Tang Yue took out a compressed biscuit from the cabinet and glanced at it. It smelled like braised beef.

Tang Yue shook his head, threw the biscuits back, and took out another pack. He was tired of eating braised beef flavored compressed biscuits. They said they tasted like beef, but in fact they tasted like brick slag.

The new pack is Laotan pickled cabbage flavor.

Tang Yue used a measuring cylinder to take 500 ml of fresh water. This water was for drinking. Tang Yue stopped brushing his teeth every day a long time ago. The main reason was that he had finished eating the toothpaste and the toothbrush was scrapped. Now Tang Yue uses his fingers to To clean your teeth, extend your index finger and file it from side to side in your mouth, scraping up and down. Although the effect is not as good as a toothbrush, it is worse than nothing.

It is said that the ancients used salt to clean their teeth when they did not have toothpaste. Tang Yue thought about it and felt that this was too luxurious. He did not have that much salt on his hands.

Tang Yue took a bite of the biscuit and drank a sip of water. The pickle-flavored one was indeed more delicious than the beef-flavored one, and he tasted a faint taste of the earth.

What is the taste of earth?

Have you ever fallen and chewed mud in your mouth?

"Bah!" Tang Yue frowned and looked at the blood spitting out of his hands. No wonder he tasted a fishy smell. It turned out to be bleeding gums.

Tang Yue opened his mouth and looked in the mirror. The bleeding this time was worse than before. The bright red blood was mixed with saliva, and his mouth was full of blood foam. Tang Yue did not dare to spit it out for fear of wasting water and food, so he had to swallow it all. Go down.

The consequences of a severe lack of vitamins have been shown. The symptoms of scurvy are becoming more and more obvious. This disease that once tortured sailors for a long time shrouds Tang Yue's body like a shadow. There are more and more bleeding and ecchymosis on his skin. , the symptoms of gum bleeding are becoming more and more common, and his teeth will loosen and fall out one after another, followed by general weakness, muscle pain, and even pseudoparalysis.

In this hellish place, once you lose the ability to move, life is worse than death.

Tang Yue looked at the half cookie in his hand silently.

The bitten wound was still stained with saliva and blood, which was shocking.

Tang Yue sat on the chair. He first glanced at the OGS cabinet, then at the fertilizer on the ground, and then at the empty sink on the shelf. The combination of these things could save his life, but Maidong said For tomatoes to germinate and survive, they need an ambient temperature of at least 20 degrees Celsius, otherwise they won’t be able to survive even if they are planted.

RTG cannot provide such a high temperature, so all hope lies in the temperature control chip.

If the old cat doesn't come back, he won't have a temperature control chip.

Tang Yue doesn't know how many days he has left, but he may have to try to survive alone on this desolate planet. He has to get used to Kunlun Station without the old cat.

Fortunately, there are not many days like this left.

Tang Yue threw the remaining biscuits into his mouth, chewed hard, and drank all the fresh water in the cup. He stood up and took off the Mingguang Armor on the wall. The life support system of the extravehicular suit was fully charged, and the oxygen tank Internal air pressure is normal.

A new day has begun again, and he has to continue his daily routine.

On Mars, Tang Yue's daily routine is very monotonous. He checks the Kunlun Station and Martian stray dogs, and carries solar panels. Now there is another item, which is to search for the whereabouts of the old cat. One hundred thousand photos are enough for him to search. For three months, Tang Yue did not dare to work without eating, drinking or sleeping like before. Tang Yue's physical condition was not good to begin with. If he collapsed here from overwork, everything would be over.

He will continue to search. Tang Yue believes that this is his responsibility. As Lao Mao's friend and colleague, he must find the whereabouts of the cat.

Before that, he had to move the battery panels.

Regardless of whether Old Mao is here or not, this is his job. Tang Yue will eat, sleep and repair Kunlun Station day after day until the end of his life.

If he doesn't do this, his life will come to an end immediately.

The sky was still velvety dark, the stars in the sky had not dispersed, and the sun had not yet risen. If Tang Yue moved faster, he could still see the sunrise.

That star with its dazzling light has risen hundreds of millions of times on this planet, but it has been seen by others several times. Tang Yue felt that the sunrise on Mars was really monotonous. It had the same color every morning when he woke up. It would be nice if the colors are not the same seven days a week... Monday red, Tuesday orange, Wednesday yellow, Thursday green, Friday cyan, Saturday blue, Sunday purple, think of the green sun rising from the horizon, it is simply forgiving the whole universe.

The man bent down and got into the bright light armor, stretched his hands and feet into the limbs of the extravehicular suit, moved his fingers, pushed up the light filter mask on the outer layer of the helmet, and then stepped back to connect the life support system.

"I think I will always be lonely. I will always be so lonely in this life." Tang Yue hummed softly to Rene Liu's old song "A Lifetime of Loneliness" and bent down to pick up the toolbox on the floor. In terms of music taste, Tang Yue is similar to others in the team. They are all old-timers and love the works of mainland singers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Taiwan decades ago. After all, the current Chinese music scene has absorbed too many foreign elements and is full of The restless rhythm and electronic music are not as beautiful as the melodious melodies of the beginning of the century.

Of course, there are also factional disputes within the old song faction. Those who like pure music and those who like pop songs regard each other as heretics. The pure music party says that pop songs are fat pigs, and the pop song party says that pure music is nonsense - even though they have both He has been out of style for decades, but of course Lao Zheng has always been at the bottom of the contempt chain. He listens to Zhao Benshan's "Our People in the Village" all day long.

Tang Yue unscrewed the door of the airlock, turned around and said goodbye to the empty Kunlun Station, "I'm out, bye!"

Tang Yue stepped into the airlock, closed the hatch behind him with a click, and then hummed his song.

"I think I will always be lonely. I will be lonely all my life. The bluer the sky, the more afraid I am of looking up..."