Chapter 1131: Catch the Wind and Wash Away the Dust

[...August 13th, sunny]

After writing the date on the header and looking at the endless sand dunes outside the window, Wang Qiang sighed and closed the diary.

There is no beautiful scenery here at all. As far as the eye can see, it is a desert, except for sand, it is still sand. The boring scenery and boring life meant that every day he had to grapple with this diary of only a few hundred words for a long time.

But that’s okay, how about spending that empty and boring time?

He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was almost time. He stuffed the diary into the drawer, stood up and walked towards the door.

As I walked through the corridor, I couldn't see a single soul.

No matter how vast the area of ​​Mars is, it is a relatively closed environment for the twenty colonists living here. After finishing work, everyone used to go back to their rooms and shut themselves in a small closed circle. Some put on phantom helmets, and some stared at books in a daze.

Sometimes Wang Qiang even wonders, if the kitchen is equipped with a food delivery drone, will it be possible that he will never see his neighbors for the rest of his life?

A closed environment often breeds psychological diseases.

More and more people are seeing psychiatrists, so the work of psychiatrists is getting busier and busier, and the schedule is always full. Even the only psychiatrist in the colony almost fell into depression due to overwork. disease.

But Wang Qiang is okay, he still has his diary, a friend who occasionally plays billiards with him, and a job that is not boring.

After a brief rinse in the bathroom, he took out his equipment from the closet. After putting on his clothes carefully, Wang Qiang walked through the buffer room and air shower and walked out of the base.

The boots sunk into the gravel, and dim light filtered through the cracks in the dust.

Wang Qiang raised his head, narrowed his eyes slightly, and looked at the turbid sun.

Just as he was walking towards the rover, a communication window suddenly popped up in the lower right corner of the holographic screen in the helmet.

After pressing the connect button, the captain's voice rang in my ears.

"...Today's mission is cancelled. Drive the rover back to the garage and gather at the colony center square immediately."

Wang Qiang was stunned for a moment.

He asked in confusion, "What happened?"

"Reinforcements are coming."

Reinforcements are coming.

When he heard these four short words, Wang Qiang's heart suddenly felt an uncontrollable joy, just like the sweet rain finally falling from the sky after three years of drought.

He eagerly jumped on the rover and drove it into the garage in the colony. Wang Qiang got out of the car without stopping and trotted to the colony square.

When he stepped through the trap door, he found that all nineteen other colonists had arrived. Captain Hong Zewei stood in the center of the square, holding a stack of paper in his hand and reading, while the rest of the people gathered around him and listened carefully.

Everyone's faces were filled with genuine excitement.

Looking forward to the stars and the moon, I finally looked forward to Master Wang.

Wang Qiang pulled his friend and asked in a low voice.

"What are you reading, Captain?"

"Letter from Earth!" my friend said excitedly. "It is said that Star Ring Trading created a column for us and collected about 10,000 greetings from Earth for us!"

"Are you sure you received all greetings?" Wang Qiang said with a strange expression.

With the quality of the Internet, I wouldn’t believe it even if I beat him to death!

"Ahem, of course the things read here are all carefully selected. There are tens of thousands of letters in total. How can it be possible to read them all?" The friend glared at Wang Qiang with a look that said, "You just know, that's all." Then he continued to look at Hong Zewei's hand. That stack of letters.

Looking at the envelopes one by one, Wang Qiang suddenly felt an indescribable feeling in his heart.

At least, these "Martians" are still remembered by their fellow citizens on Earth. The concern contained in every word reminded him of the blue planet, the magnificent sea, and the swaying palm leaves at the door of his home...

After sniffing, Wang Qiang suddenly remembered the reason why he canceled today's mission and rushed back as soon as he went out. So he immediately looked around, but he was surrounded by familiar faces.

"Didn't you say that reinforcements have arrived? Why didn't I see anyone?"

"The letter was brought by the reinforcements and dropped from the synchronous orbit." The friend grinned and pointed to the sky, "It's almost time."

Wang Qiang looked up and looked beyond the transparent graphene dome above Colonial Square.

"...let us welcome our new friends, the second group of colonists!"

Cheers erupted in the square, and people opened the champagne and let the foam spray.

Such warm cheers had not been heard for a long time since the day the colony module landed.

Hong Zewei said something before and after that. Wang Qiang no longer paid attention to listen. His eyes were glued to the turbid sky until the faint blue light particle emerged. It gets bigger and bigger, becoming more and more moonlike, finally highlighting the figure of the thing it carries behind it.

The rectangular colony cabin is like an upside-down stone tablet, and its shape design inherits the consistent style of Future Heavy Industries Shipyard - wide opening and wide closing. It was thrown from the synchronous orbit by the Seagull-class transport ship. Under the influence of the reverse jet of the plasma engine, it landed heavily next to the colony.

The muffled sound of hitting the ground came from the soles of the feet. The base of the colony cabin was deeply embedded in the sand. The billowing dust was kicked up and drifted over a distance of thousands of meters in an instant.

After the first colony, a few months later, the Star Ring Trade left its second footprint on Mars.

Although it contains a full 110 people, this newly landed colony module is much smaller than the original colony module. This newly landed colony cabin only contained the tools and supplies urgently needed by the new colonists and the colony. There was no reserved living space, nor was there any attached functional cabin such as a production workshop.

Ten large Mars rovers that looked like buses filed out of the opening on the side of the colony module, carrying more than a hundred colonists from Earth, and drove towards the colony.

Among this group of colonists are engineers who have worked on the lunar colony, technicians who specialize in industrial automation design, chefs who came specifically to improve the food in the colony, or composers who decided to dedicate their lives to art...

In addition to these ordinary colonists, there are ten people with special status.

They were soldiers, affiliated with the orbital airborne brigade of the Star Ring Trading. They were nominally to maintain the security of the colony, but in fact they were here for the secrets five kilometers underground.

The colony garage opened and large rovers entered.

The old colonists prepared a grand welcome ceremony for the newcomers to welcome their new neighbors from afar.

The colony has not been so lively for a long time, so the welcome ceremony was held with great grandeur. Soon everyone was welcomed into the cafeteria, and a variety of fine wines and delicacies were served on the table. Captain Hong Zewei started with a toast and announced The banquet began.

The welcome ceremony was a joy for both host and guest, sweeping away the low morale in the colony some time ago.

After five bottles of champagne, Wang Qiang burped drunkenly, his eyes wandering wildly with his swaying consciousness.

At this moment, he suddenly noticed that in an inconspicuous corner of the banquet, a man standing straight walked up to the captain, gave a neat military salute, and seemed to say something.

As for what exactly was said, he no longer had the time to find out.

Being pulled by his friend to drink another high-alcohol whiskey, Wang Qiang felt his eyes spinning. Finally, his forehead came into close contact with the table, and his groggy consciousness finally fell into the abyss...

This was probably the happiest time he had had since he came to Mars. (To be continued.)