Global Freeze: I built a doomsday safe house

Zhang Yi burst out laughing.

"That's true."

"When you ascended to heaven, did you not even have this much fun?"

"In the world of the Heavenly Palace, all spirits can obtain everything they desire. Everything."

"But back then—"

Ling looked at him, her tone suddenly softening slightly.

"All that's left is responsibility."

After those words were spoken, the hot spring room fell silent for a moment.

Zhang Yi did not ask any further questions.

He realized that Ling was a special life form, existing to protect the Heavenly Palace. She was a creation of the Ihen Clan, yet a sword knight far more powerful than the ordinary members of the Ihen Clan.

He simply leaned his head back, sank into the warm water, and squinted at the light above him.

"Ok."

"Then I'll just enjoy it first."

"I'll take on the responsibility when I get back."

The first half of the trip was surprisingly peaceful.

There was no alien invasion, no equipment malfunction, and no space pirates.

People's daily routines have become like those of people on a cruise ship.

We do some training in the morning, play cards for a while in the afternoon, and watch an old movie from over twenty years ago together in the evening.

Fatty Xu was the most enthusiastic; he dedicated half his life to playing Dou Dizhu (a popular Chinese card game).

Whenever he has a spare moment, he shouts, "Come on, come on, let's play Guandan! We're just missing you, Lao Da!"

Zhang Yi didn't stop him.

He thought this mentality was good, showing that everyone still had confidence in the operation and wasn't going to their deaths.

What I'm really afraid of is people writing their wills right before boarding the ship.

That means the commander didn't give them enough sense of security.

The living area inside the spaceship was also made very humane by Yang Siya and Zhou Haimei.

Simulated gravity, virtual windows, hot showers, and fitness pods—it has it all.

Zhou Ke'er would occasionally make herself a coffee and sit in the central lounge listening to Yang Xinxin talk about cosmology; the atmosphere was even somewhat relaxed, like a vacation.

On the fifteenth day, a creature of a different color finally appeared in the darkness outside the porthole.

It was a crimson planet sunk in the void.

It's not the kind of blazing "fireball" you might imagine; instead, it looks a bit like ochre that's been blown by the wind for ten thousand years.

The surface is covered with large patches of rust red, orange red and dark brown, with uneven color blocks, like rock skin that has been scraped by a knife.

Near the equator, one can see undulating ravines, like wounds left on the planet's surface by dried-up riverbeds.

Some gullies extend all the way to the horizon, indicating that their flow was once considerable.

One side of the planet is constantly battered by storms, with wisps of yellow sand swirling in the thin atmosphere, turning that area into a pale golden haze.

The sunlight shines down from the side, and the thin atmosphere cannot refract it properly, casting heavy shadows. As a result, the entire star has a high-contrast, cold, and hard aesthetic.

In the distance, a bit of white can still be seen on the polar ice cap; that is frozen water ice or carbon dioxide ice.

This makes it look less like a planet of fire and more like an old star that has been gnawed by wind and cold.

"arrive."

Zhang Yi, holding onto the porthole, whispered something.

He couldn't help but sigh, "Twenty years ago, someone had to be incredibly brave to fly here."

"He's no ordinary person."

Yang Xinxin stood beside him and pointed to the terrain map on the light screen.

"Freeman chose Mariner Canyon as the landing site, which is theoretically one of the most suitable places on Mars to establish a base."

"There are traces of water flow, the surface structure is relatively stable, and it is easy to excavate underground space."

Water is the source of life. Only by finding places with water can we set up camp and survive for a long time.

Ling didn't speak, but glanced at the Mars outside, her gaze as calm as if she were looking at an ordinary stone.

Her meaning was clear—this thing wasn't even "interesting" in her life.

The Dreamer began to slow down.

The outer shield lit up with more noticeable light patterns to prevent excessive friction from the thin but high-speed Martian atmosphere upon entry.

The engine noise grew low in the cabin, rumbling like distant thunder.

Fatty Xu clenched his fists and gripped the armrests of his seat tightly, feeling a growing sense of tension.

"Target coordinates locked, Mars origin."

Lu Keran's voice came through the communicator, "Everyone be careful after you go down. This planet isn't very friendly; the temperature difference is quite large."

"understood."

Zhang Yi responded, "We will follow your instructions during the landing process."

The spacecraft passed through the thin atmosphere, casting a huge shadow against the reddish-brown Martian sky.

Below is Mariner's Canyon.

Looking down from high above, this place looks like a gash that has been cleaved open on the surface of a planet with a knife.

The canyon is extremely deep, with weathered rock walls standing along its edges, and traces of meteorite craters appearing intermittently. The bottom is all red sand flattened by the wind.

Instead of plunging directly into the deepest part of the canyon, the Dreamer chose a relatively flat canyon plateau.

The geological structure of that plateau is relatively stable and it will not collapse due to slight vibrations.

The landing gear is deployed.

The massive Dreamer spaceship landed slowly, kicking up a cloud of red sand.

When the outer hatch opened, the dry, cold Martian wind immediately rushed in.

It was a very strange wind.

It lacks the dampness of Earth and the salty tang of the ocean.

It carries an extremely low oxygen content, and when blown onto the outer layer of the armor, it produces a slight "rustling" friction sound.

Zhang Yi was the first to step off the gangway.

He was wearing Lu Keran's upgraded Terminator Armor, which had an outer protective layer adapted to the Martian atmosphere.

Although he could directly use his superpowers to defend himself, he still chose to put on his equipment, since it's better to be prepared.

He didn't want to be attacked as soon as he landed, just like when he went to the moon.

However, upon landing this time, they saw no one, only a vast and boundless desert.

Zhang Yi looked around and couldn't help but exclaim, "It's even more desolate than the Gobi Desert on Earth!"

He sighed, “There are no living things, no water, not even a trace of the scent of life.”

"That's why we came here to mine."

The geologists and mineralogists behind him also came down.

They wore simplified exoskeleton armor, with detectors taller than a person hanging on their backs and portable ground-penetrating radars in their hands.

A middle-aged mineralogist was as excited as if he were back in the laboratory: "The Martian crust has a higher metal content than Earth's, and this is a canyon erosion zone, so there must be sediment!"

"I'll scan around first."

After he finished speaking, he set up the detector on the ground and began to spread the beam outwards.

Soon, a dense array of metallic reaction lines appeared on the device's light screen.

"Wow, the iron content in this area is really high!"