Susan opened the locker door in the dressing room and stuffed the communicator into the inside pocket of her coat. Without looking at herself in the mirror, she simply zipped up the coat, turned around, and pushed open the side door of the base.

The wind wasn't strong outside, but it was cold. She walked down the gravel slope, her foot slipped, and she had to grab the wall for support. This place was deserted during the day, and even quieter at night. She looked up at the sky; the stars were densely packed, like someone had casually sprinkled a handful of glitter.

She walked for twenty minutes and reached the gentle western slope. The terrain was flatter here, with layers of rocks piled up as if they had been crushed and then lifted up by some giant object. She put down her backpack, sat down, propped herself up with her hands behind her back, and stared into the distance without moving.

She had drawn three sketches before, and tore them all up. One was an attempt to imitate the lines of Earth's mountains, which looked too fake; another was an attempt to express the coldness and hardness of a planet with a mechanical feel, which ended up looking like a pile of scrap parts; the last one was simply left blank, with only a title written on it, "The Star We Live On," and no other words added.

She didn't want to paint anything that "looked like" anything anymore. She wanted to paint the feeling of this planet breathing.

How can I draw it? It doesn't speak, it doesn't move, and there's hardly any wind.

She sat there until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Suddenly, she noticed a faint glow on the surface of a nearby rock. It wasn't a reflection; it was emitting its own light. She leaned closer to look and saw a thin layer of mineral crystals, slowly changing color in the night, from grayish-blue to pale purple, as slow as a heartbeat.

She suddenly stood up.

This isn't wasteland. This is alive.

She pulled out her sketchbook and pen from her backpack and turned on her headlamp. Too much light would impair her night vision, so she set it to the lowest setting and began sketching along the edges of the rock formations. She didn't bother with details, just capturing the outlines. The curves of the dunes, the directions of the cracks, the angles of the stacked stones—she quickly jotted them down with short lines.

As she painted, she muttered, "It's not scenery... it's a body. The surface is the skin, the cracks are wrinkles, and those shiny things are blood vessels."

After sketching a few pages, she closed the notebook and walked back. She continued gesturing, drawing lines in the air with her fingers, mimicking the movement of a scraper. Her mind was filled with colors—a base of dark gray, a touch of rust red, and then brightened with silver-white. It couldn't be too orderly; it had to be chaotic, as irrational as nature itself.

Back at the base, she went straight to the studio. She closed the door, turned on the light, and laid her sketchbook out on the table. Instead of immediately starting to draw, she placed her hand on the paint box and closed her eyes for three seconds.

Then I opened the lid, squeezed out a large dollop of dark gray paint, and smeared it directly onto the upper left corner of the canvas. Next, I used a scraper to forcefully pull down, creating a diagonal groove. The second cut was horizontal, the third was diagonal, and the movements became faster and faster.

The first painting is called "Starry Night Wasteland". The sky is pressing down, the earth is cracked, and a winding riverbed runs through the middle, like an old scar. She used dry brushstrokes to create a grainy texture, making the whole painting look rough, but powerful.

The second painting used a gold and black tone. She mixed some sand into the paint, applied it, and then scraped away the surface to reveal the rough texture underneath. This one is called "Traces of the Wind." She couldn't explain why, but as soon as the name came to mind, she felt it had to be this one.

The third painting had just begun. She dipped her brush in deep red, preparing to draw a line running through the canvas. It was said that lava flows once flowed here, now only a dark mark remained. She wanted to paint it as the pulse of the planet.

A figure flickered past the studio door. Chen Hao stood at the end of the corridor, saw the light was on, didn't knock, just glanced at it and left. As he passed the living quarters, he said, "Susan's back, painting."

Nana was organizing data when she heard this. She nodded and casually updated her log with the following line: "Art creation started. Two small samples completed on the first day. I'm in a positive state."

Carl was inspecting the support materials in the workshop. He heard footsteps and glanced towards the studio. Red light shone through the crack in the door, along with a slight scraping sound. He frowned, thinking something was wrong, and went to check. He found Susan squatting on the floor mixing paints, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her hands covered in smudges of paint.

He didn't say anything, went back to the workshop, and continued to check the list.

Susan knew nothing of this. All she knew was that her hands wouldn't stop. She had only completed half of the fourth sketch, titled "Morning Light." She didn't want to paint the cliché of the sun rising; instead, she wanted to depict the ground trembling the moment the first ray of light pierced the horizon.

She tried three different base colors but wasn't satisfied with any of them. Finally, she simply used a roller dipped in diluted black ash to brush the entire surface. When it was half-dry, she used a pointed brush to draw a few fine lines, representing the light cutting through the darkness.

Only then did she realize she was hungry. Her stomach was churning with emptiness, but she didn't want to go to the cafeteria. She rummaged through her drawer for compressed biscuits, broke off a small piece, stuffed it into her mouth, and swallowed it without even chewing.

She recalled her childhood art lessons. Her teacher always said, "You need to observe," but she had always thought observation meant looking at shapes and remembering colors. Now she understood that observation is about feeling. It's standing here, knowing that what you're stepping on isn't just earth, but the outer shell of a planet, beneath which there are flowing things, memories, and pain.

She picked up a new pen, preparing to add a final glaze to "Sleeping Veins." The core of the painting is a series of intersecting cracks, which she planned to outline with extremely fine silver lines to make it look like a circuit board buried underground.

Suddenly, the pen tip got stuck.

She pushed hard, and the paint tube burst, splattering red paint onto the canvas. She paused for a moment, didn't wipe it away, but instead stared at the red stain.

It looks a bit like blood, but not quite. It's more like some kind of internal fluid seeping out.

She reached out and ran her hand along the crack. The color was uneven, but it had a primal, life-like quality.

She nodded, deciding to keep the surprise.

The studio lights were on all night. It was still dark outside, and most people at the base were still asleep. Two interns from the maintenance team got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and were startled to see several empty paint buckets piled up at the studio entrance, thinking there had been a chemical leak.

They walked along the wall, not daring to make a sound.

Susan switched to a smaller brush and began working on the details. Her fingernails were full of paint, and her wrists ached so much she could barely lift them, but her eyes still shone.

As she finished the fourth painting, the sky was just beginning to lighten. She stood up and stretched her shoulders, her neck making a cracking sound. Ignoring it, she unscrewed a bottle of water and took a swig, nearly choking.

As she put the bottle down, she saw herself in the mirror: her hair was messy, there were paint marks on her face, and there was a dark spot under her eyes.

She smiled and sat back down.

The fifth piece is still untitled. She plans to use a three-dimensional technique to create a relief effect. First, she'll use clay to create the terrain's undulations, then she'll paint it. This will require more materials, so she needs to borrow some filler from Carl.

But she didn't want to stop now. She opened her toolbox, found a scrap metal piece, and pressed it next to the paint as a palette. The metal piece was a bulkhead part that had been replaced during the last maintenance, and it still had rivet holes on its edges.

She scooped up a spoonful of deep blue and poured it onto the metal sheet.

The light shone on it, reflecting a cool glow.

She reached out and dipped her finger in the paint, her fingertips touching the cold metal surface.

New marks are forming on the canvas.