Bai Yixuan's expression darkened as he stared at the "soil" that had crumbled into reddish fragments all over the ground.
"This is bad."
He asked quietly, "How much steel drilling pipe did we bring?"
Hong Fan thought for a moment. "We brought about thirty meters to be on the safe side."
"What's wrong?"
Bai Yixuan relaxed slightly and pointed at the borehole in front of him, only a few centimeters across. "Look. The drill went down five meters, and all that came out was dust and fine particles."
"Professor Lü estimated this layer would only be two to three meters deep!"
Hearing that, Hong Fan realized the problem too.
Bai Yixuan continued, his expression grave. "Right now, we don't know how deep this layer goes. Luckily, we brought thirty meters of drilling pipe. Otherwise... I doubt we'd even get a glimpse of the underground ice!"
As he spoke, Bai Yixuan reattached the steel drilling pipe to the drill.
"Let's keep going. Hopefully, we can find this supposed Martian life before we run out of pipe."
Meanwhile, inside the United States' Mars Module a kilometer away.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
Just as everyone was preparing to go to bed and put this exhausting, frustrating day behind them, a shrill alarm blared from every speaker in the Mars Module.
Andrew, who had just lain down on his single bed, snapped his eyes open and sprang to his feet.
What was going on?!
A flash of anger crossed Andrew's eyes as he listened to the alarming noise.
Damn it, were the people from Xia Country back again?!
With no time to think, he hastily threw on his clothes and ran straight toward Module One.
A few dozen seconds later, Andrew shoved open Module One's closed door.
He looked at the radar first.
Nothing