Zhang Fan felt the ground beneath him tremble.

Earthquakes are generally caused by plate tectonics, but Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, so this must be the effect of Olympus Mons, which is the closest mountain to Mars.

Mount Olympus is on the verge of eruption.

As early as the 19th century, the Express 1 Mars orbiter radar detected liquid water under the Martian south polar ice cap. Based on the information reflected by the radar, there is a high probability that there is a liquid water lake with a width of 20 kilometers beneath the Martian south polar sedimentary layer.

However, further calculations show that the pressure and salinity of the polar ice cap are insufficient to prevent this underground lake from freezing.

Geologists have proposed a possible hypothesis of seven possibilities: 300,000 years ago, magma surged up from inside Mars but did not break through the surface, and some of it was trapped under the Antarctic, forming a magma chamber.

The heat released from the magma chamber melted the bottom of the ice cap, forming a liquid underground lake.

This earthquake can be seen as a continuation of what happened 300,000 years ago.

300,000 years ago... This "prelude" seems far too long for humans. However, by geological standards, 300,000 years is not a long time. If we compare the lifespan of Mars to that of humans, it's almost as if it happened just a second ago.

Therefore, magma could break through the Martian surface "in this second" or "in the next second".

On Mars, anything is possible.

If Mount Olympus, which is over 20,000 meters high, were to erupt, Zhang Fan couldn't even imagine the sheer scale of the spectacle. He never imagined he would suffer such a natural disaster.

There is no concept of natural disasters on Mars, or rather, they didn't exist before, but have only recently become a reality.

The formation of natural disasters requires two elements: first, a natural anomaly as a trigger; and second, an object that bears the disaster, i.e., the disaster victim.

Since Mars is uninhabited and has no affected objects, it can only be considered a natural anomaly, not a natural disaster.

But now there is a victim, namely the unlucky Zhang Fan, so this is a true earthquake disaster.

The best way to save yourself in the event of a natural disaster is to get away from the danger as quickly as possible.

Although the place where Zhang Fan is now is relatively flat, it is close to "Sailor Valley", and he is worried that there are unseen fissures extending into this area from underground.

Zhang Fan walked towards the cockpit of the "Firefly," intending to leave as quickly as possible. His first priority was to watch his step; the broken surface sand after the earthquake might be concealing unseen cracks…

Holy crap!

The slap in the face came so quickly!

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Fan felt his footing give way and he started to fall. He quickly reached out and grabbed the rocks behind him to stop himself from falling.

This is indeed a fissure covered by loose rock and soil, and the fissure is getting bigger and bigger, with vibrations coming from underground.

Rumble—

Aftershocks?

Zhang Fan clung tightly to the protruding rock behind him; beneath his feet, a bottomless crack continued to widen with the aftershocks.

What started as a crack just over a meter wide quickly expanded into a rift valley more than ten meters wide, and the valley continued to extend to both sides. Zhang Fan watched helplessly as the "firefly" on the other side of the rift valley receded further and further away from him.

In just a few seconds, the Firefly's front wheel sank into the chasm, the entire vehicle lost its balance, and rolled forward and fell down.

Zhang Fan watched helplessly as the cockpit and living quarters of the "Firefly" disintegrated during the tumbling and falling.

It's over, it's all over!

The aftershock lasted only a dozen seconds.

Zhang Fan climbed out of the cracked ground by clinging to the rocks, and peered down, but the "fireflies" were nowhere to be seen.

The rift valley formed by the aftershocks is unfathomably deep, with no bottom in sight. It is conservatively estimated to be over a hundred meters deep and stretches from east to west without end.

After escaping death, Zhang Fan moved away from the rift valley, found a rock to lean against, and sat down to calm his nerves.

After calming down, Zhang Fan began to realize the seriousness of the situation.

With the "Firefly" gone, all Zhang Fan has left is the spacesuit he's wearing.

Zhang Fan turned on his arm monitor, which could no longer detect the "Firefly" communication signal. He opened the offline map to check his current location.

It is now the sixth day since leaving the "Bird's Nest". Zhang Fan has driven 1,500 kilometers in the "Firefly" and can now see the foot of Mount Olympus. There are still 100 kilometers to go before reaching the "Peace Station".

what to do?

Returning to the "Bird's Nest" is definitely impossible; we can only keep moving forward.

Because he was wearing a spacesuit, Zhang Fan couldn't run; his walking speed was only 5 kilometers per hour. The distance of over 100 kilometers would require him to walk continuously for 24 hours.

This is an impossible task.

It's afternoon now, and the sun will set in 4 hours. The temperature on Mars can drop to -90°C at night. If we continue on our journey, even without considering the lighting issue, the low temperature will quickly deplete the spacesuit's power.

Zhang Fan may very well freeze to death on the way.

The only good news is that the spacesuit was fully charged during my nap.

Under normal circumstances, the battery pack on the spacesuit can keep an astronaut active outdoors for 12 hours. Without considering heating, it can last up to 18 hours under the lowest power consumption conditions.

It's 2 p.m. now, which means that even without considering heating, the spacesuit's power will run out by 8 a.m. tomorrow.

To escape danger, Zhang Fan must find a shelter to spend the night in before sunset at 6 a.m. in order to turn off the heating system of his spacesuit and save electricity.

Once the sun comes out the next day and it gets warm outside, find a place to charge your spacesuit before 8 a.m.

But this is Mars, not Earth.

Setting up a shelter in the wild? Charging?

It does not exist.

Zhang Fan felt helpless and desperate. He looked up at the sky. Although he couldn't see the Soyuz space station with the naked eye, he knew that there must be a girl watching him silently from the sky at that moment...

Soyuz space station.

Yui Ishihara was sobbing on the stage. On the screen in front of her, Zhang Fan, dressed in a spacesuit, was a small silver dot that stood out against the red desert.

In the boundless desert, beside a massive crack, stands a solitary little dot, weak and helpless...

On Earth, countless people watched this heart-wrenching scene on their television screens.

Many women were already weeping, some wanted to shout "Keep going!" but couldn't get the words out, and some men turned away, secretly wiping away their tears...

Is that all?

Is it over?

Zhang Fan was very worried. He didn't know what Yui would do after seeing this scene, and he couldn't imagine what foolish thing she might do.

He had to do something to send a clear message to Yui.

He hasn't given up yet, and she can't give up either!

"Look, Zhang Dada is moving." On the television screen, even Zhang Fan's smallest movements attract the attention of the entire world.

What was he doing going back and forth like that?

"It looks like they're moving stones."

"You still have the mood to move stones at a time like this?"

"No! There are words! He's moving stones to spell words!"

"It looks like it's spelling English, I...I...Wa..."

"Wow, this is so romantic!"

"I never thought I'd get a mouthful of dog food (a Chinese slang term for witnessing public displays of affection)." Some girls seemed to empathize, bursting into laughter through their tears.

With all of humanity as witnesses, this was the most romantic declaration of love on Mars:

ILoveU.

Wait for me!