On a deserted desert.
Two Mars rovers approaching from afar converged.
Pushing open the door and jumping out, Han Kangyu strode toward Sun Wenzhe, who was walking over to him. His spacesuit-clad face carried an anxious expression as he asked,
"Did you find him?"
A grave look filled Sun Wenzhe's eyes as he shook his head.
"No. I've searched this entire area. Forget seeing any sign of a person—I couldn't even find the crack he fell into... What about your side? Any leads?"
Han Kangyu's expression darkened at the bad news.
"Nothing here either."
He had searched nearly every corner he could reach and had even risked going a short distance into the Hell's Gate Mountains. Yet, just as his teammate Sun Wenzhe had said, let alone a person, he had not even found a slightly deeper crack.
A pessimistic mood gradually welled up inside him. He was increasingly doubtful that the missing Fan Tong was still alive.
"This is going to be difficult..."
Wiping the sand clinging to his spacesuit visor, Sun Wenzhe looked with a headache at the layered mountain range beside them. "It's unrealistic for us to turn this entire place upside down on our own... What's the situation at headquarters? Didn't the captain request support?"
"There's no support," Han Kangyu said heavily, shaking his head. "Ground Control has instructed us to use every resource available on-site to conduct the search and rescue. Other than saying they'll use the equipment already deployed on Mars to assist us, they have no better solution."
"So, no support after all?" Sun Wenzhe sighed. "Though, that makes sense... With a two-week journey, even if they got here, he'd probably already be dead."
Equipment already deployed on Mars...
Other than a few probes abandoned there long ago, they suspected that the only