The Return Capsule Catches Fire!

September 20th.

The couple lay quietly in the seats of the return capsule, dressed in thick spacesuits.

They could faintly hear the rumbling of helicopter rotors. The entire return capsule was being suspended by the helicopter and moving at high speed, swaying constantly with the wind, giving them the feeling of being on a boat in rough seas, even more nauseating than being on a boat. However, after enduring various devilish training sessions, this slight swaying was like lying in a baby's cradle to them now.

The windows were covered with cloth, and it was so dark inside the return capsule that they could barely see their hands. Only a faint emergency light provided illumination like candlelight, allowing them to vaguely make out the contours of the cabin.

They had been suspended in the air for nearly three hours. Xiang Xiaotong found it boring and reached out to pat Song He from time to time. Song He initially didn't want to bother with her, but she patted more vigorously, so Song He gently retaliated. She immediately became happy and retaliated continuously, playing and fooling around.

They were as childish as kids.

The main reason was that they weren't allowed to communicate or talk. This test was simulating a return capsule losing control. According to the script, at this moment, the two of them should be enduring the pain of overload with difficulty, on the verge of fainting, and having no strength to speak.

Finally, the swaying stopped.

Xiang Xiaotong patted her husband more vigorously, expressing her excitement at reaching their destination. Song He was patted until he was dizzy and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

With a muffled thud, the return capsule landed!

The sound of the helicopter gradually faded away. The black cloth still covered the windows, making it impossible to see what the environment outside was like.

After waiting for a long time, the control screen suddenly lit up. The couple both breathed a sigh of relief, unbuckled their seatbelts with a click, sat up from their semi-reclining position, and skillfully flipped the switches throughout the cabin to check the status of the return capsule. After confirming that the cabin pressure was stable and the air was normal, they took off their helmets and gasped for air like two divers surfacing from the water.

"It's time to open the blind box again," Xiang Xiaotong said. "Guess where we are this time? At least we're definitely not on water, it's been steady and hasn't swayed at all."

"Not necessarily," Song He said. "Didn't we land on an island last Saturday? Only a small section under the cabin was sand, and after walking a couple of steps out, it was all seawater."

Each outdoor training session was like opening a blind box. The process was almost the same every time. The two of them would be in the dark return capsule, bumping and swaying as they traveled to their destination. After opening the door, the outside could be any scene, like a game with randomly matched maps.

So far, the couple had experienced almost all kinds of terrain.

The first time, they landed on a vast grassland at six in the morning. Five curious wild wolves surrounded the return capsule, sniffing back and forth as if waiting for canned meat. As soon as the cabin door opened, a hand holding a handgun reached out and shot one dead with a crisp crack. The remaining wolves immediately fled. In recent years, the wild wolf population has been breeding faster and faster and is no longer a protected animal.

The second time, they landed on the sea surface at dusk. Before opening the cabin door, they felt the rhythm of the waves. The return capsule could float, so the two of them honestly floated on the sea for ten hours, sleeping, chatting, and lying by the window watching sharks. At dawn, they opened the cabin door and poured out a bottle of colored water, dyeing a large area of the sea a bright orange-yellow, scaring away the sharks lurking around and guiding the helicopter's vision. Finally, the helicopter lifted them and the return capsule away intact.

The third time, they landed on the peak of a snow mountain. The couple felt slightly hypoxic after staying outside for a while and only recovered after pressurizing the cabin. The return capsule's temperature control system was judged to be malfunctioning by the Directorate, and the temperature would drop to below minus ten degrees Celsius at night. So the couple went out to cut trees and burn firewood, guarding the crackling bonfire and sleeping warmly all night. They were picked up by the helicopter the next morning.

There were also swamps, forests, Gobi deserts, saline-alkali lands... they experienced all kinds of terrain!

This kind of outdoor training was mainly to prevent the return capsule from malfunctioning and drifting to some unknown place. No matter where they landed, at any corner of the world, the astronauts could act according to the situation and strive to survive. There have been such examples in history more than once. The most famous one was a certain space mission by the Russians, where the return capsule deviated by a hundred thousand miles and fell into the Siberian forest. The astronauts in the cabin listened to the wolf howling in the snow, waiting for rescue in fear.

The couple meticulously followed the procedure and opened the cabin door.

Blinding golden light shone in, and the color of their visors immediately darkened, blocking some of the strong light.

"It's a desert!" they said in unison.

They fully opened the cabin door and sat at the entrance looking out. It was an endless expanse of yellow sand desert. There was almost no wind at the moment, and tens of millions of tons of yellow sand were piled up quietly. Heat distorted above the huge sand dunes, and it felt like if they took off their spacesuits, they would quickly be roasted dry.

In such a place, the moisture in corpses would be rapidly evaporated, and they would gradually be buried in the sand. Every grain of dry sand is a top-notch desiccant, so dehydrated corpses can be preserved for hundreds or thousands of years without decaying, like the dry dehydrated vegetables in instant noodles.

"I think we shouldn't go out and bother. It's good enough to just lie in the cabin until the end," Xiang Xiaotong suggested.

"Excellent plan!" Song He got up and gently pulled the cover above the return capsule, allowing some sunlight to illuminate the windows without raising the temperature inside the cabin.

The couple retreated into the cabin, closed the door heavily, and lay down comfortably.

"There's a sand coffee window in the Medicine Institute cafeteria, opened by the child of a Turkish Professor. There's hot sand underneath, and a small pot is placed on top. The coffee in the pot boils and bubbles," Song He suddenly said.

"You mean our return capsule is like a coffee pot on hot sand, right?" Xiang Xiaotong chuckled.

"Exactly. Luckily, our coffee pot is thick enough, and the sand underneath isn't that hot." Song He yawned. "I'm tired. Want to chat for a bit before sleeping?"

A soft hissing sound interrupted them, and the cabin broadcast came on.

"Directorate command! The return capsule is on fire after landing. Please exit the cabin within three minutes!"

The couple sighed and scrambled up, fumbling with their luggage. They lifted the hatch and climbed out, reluctantly jumping into the scorching sand. Fortunately, the spacesuits had excellent insulation, so they didn't feel the heat immediately.

Before they could catch their breath, their earphones crackled again.

"Directorate command! Spacesuit malfunction and electric leakage. Please remove your spacesuits!"

"Directorate, you motherf***ers!" Xiang Xiaotong cursed irritably.

Song He laughed heartily. For some reason, he sometimes found his wife's cursing quite charming. Maybe it was a case of values following looks?

They took off the bulky spacesuits, threw them back into the return capsule, and changed into orange cold-proof suits, putting on windproof masks.

Although called cold-proof suits, they also provided relief in the scorching desert. Additionally, they were sealed from neck to ankle. Without the seal, they could easily be bitten by venomous insects or snakes without realizing it, after which their entire bodies would turn bluish-pink and swell up to twice their size.

However, a part of their faces was still exposed, leaving a slight risk of being bitten by desert insects. Song He opened the emergency kit and inventoried the antidotes and antivenom inside.

Antivenom was relatively cheap, but the broad-spectrum antidote was a new product from the Chenghuang Institute. They hadn't had time to develop cost-reducing processes yet, so a small injection cost as much as 2.7 million. Compared to the antidote, gold was as cheap as urine.

Expensive as it was, its detoxification effect was indeed incredibly strong. In some cases, it could bring the dead back to life and regrow bones. It was a backup insurance, but they definitely wouldn't need it.

"Husband, guess where this is?" Xiang Xiaotong looked up at the sun, then picked up a handful of sand to examine.