Die on Mars - Chapter 233

c232 The night before day 333 (3)

That night.

Tang Yue was lying on the bed, covered tightly by the quilt, with only one head exposed. The subtle buzzing sound of the fan was like the chirping of mosquitoes. The air temperature in the crew cabin had been maintained at 20 degrees Celsius, but at this time the outdoor temperature had already reached 20 degrees Celsius. It dropped to minus sixty degrees.

A pale yellow light shone through the gap in the door curtain. The old cat hadn’t rested yet. It was still preparing for tomorrow’s trip and packing its luggage. Tang Yue heard the rustling sound. It was the old cat scrolling through the map. Mars stray dog The front of the car was severely damaged, and not even a complete display was left, so they had to use paper maps.

Tang Yue looked at the thin lights on the floor, and inexplicably remembered that when he was very young, he went back to his hometown during the summer vacation and lived in an old house made of bricks. Every night when he was young, he would wrap himself in a quilt and lie on the bed to sleep. Warm light came out, and occasionally his grandparents would come in gently to tuck him in. At this time, he would immediately close his eyes and pretend to sleep, and then open his eyes again after the old man left.

He didn’t know why he thought of this. The house in his hometown had actually been demolished long ago, and his grandparents also died when he was in college. Now even the earth has disappeared. Now no one can prove that all this ever existed. It only exists. In Tang Yue’s memory.

Tang Yue chewed on these memories over and over again, from childhood to adulthood, from the TV and popsicles in his hometown house during the summer vacation, to training at Jiuquan Center and Lao Wang making a fire in Lop Nur. He worked hard to confirm every detail of them. The tune of the opening song of “Blue Sky”, the writing on the popsicle wrapper, Lao Wang sat by the campfire, rummaged through his backpack, and took out the hidden Tsingtao beer from the bag.

Tang Yue was afraid that he would forget these people one day.

Unfortunately, memory is the most difficult thing to fix in the world. Even if you try hard to shape it into the shape of someone, and make every detail visible, they will still fade away and become blurry like sand. , in the end there is only a bare dumpling left, and you can’t see anything even if you stare at it for a long time.

Tang Yue closed his eyes and said softly: “Are you still here?”

All was quiet.

There was a water cup on the cabinet beside Tang Yue’s bed, and there was a vertical wooden photo frame next to it. There was only one photo, which was a group photo of the crew of Orion 1 at the Jiuquan Center before departure. Elder Wang and Lao Tang were ordered to stand behind. In the middle of the row, on both sides were Lao Zheng and Lao Mai, while Tang Yue and Mai Dong were squatting in the front row. The six of them were arming themselves and smiling at the camera. The wind was very strong at the time. The girl pressed her hair beside her ears with one hand, and Lao Wang was Shasha’s eyes were blurred, he bared his teeth and was about to curse, but before the dirty words came out, the time was frozen forever by the camera.

Farther away is the tall launch pad under the clear sky. The manned spacecraft is still being assembled and the sun is shining brightly.

There was a pair of slippers on the floor next to the bed, an empty plastic trash can in the corner, pants, shirts and empty clothes hangers hanging on the wall hooks. Tang Yue’s crew cabin was very simple, and he didn’t have much to take away.

“Old cat?” Tang Yue took out his arm from the quilt and put it behind his head.

“I’m here.” A cat’s head poked in from the crack of the door curtain, “Aren’t you going to sleep yet? You have to get up early tomorrow morning.”

“Can’t sleep.” Tang Yue said.

“nervous?”

Tang Yue shook his head.

“anxiety?”

Tang Yue shook his head.

“fear?”

Tang Yue still shook his head. He stared at his hands, “You know, people’s emotions are based on life. Only when there is life can there be emotions… But I can no longer find the real sense of my life. Sometimes I I will suspect that I am a senseless puppet. I can’t feel the temperature even when I touch myself. Compared with you, I am more like a robot…”

“Don’t doubt yourself.”

Tang Yue was startled.

“Don’t doubt yourself.” The old cat repeated. It came over and held Tang Yue’s hand. The cat’s paw pads pressed into his palm. “Look, how can there be no temperature? Never doubt your own existence. Value and significance, no matter what kind of desperate situation you are in, even if no one in the whole world recognizes it, even if no one can witness and record it, you must firmly believe that your life is the most important thing in this universe… You must believe that you It is unique in the universe, you can live, you must live.”

Tang Yue nodded slowly.

“Whenever you encounter a hurdle that you can’t overcome, just say this to yourself.” The old cat smiled, “Because no one else in this world can believe in you except yourself.”

“Sleep well, and count sheep if you can’t sleep.”

It let go of Tang Yue’s hand, turned around and left the crew cabin, and closed the door curtain.

·

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·

Old Cat piled manuscript papers and forms on the table. Those long and dense numbers were dazzling, like a code table. Old Cat was like a medieval astronomer, doing things that no one could understand. In an era before large-diameter optical telescopes and computers were born, astronomers’ daily job was to deal with mathematics. They used pen and paper to calculate, sort out the endless observation data, and then find the brand-new celestial body among the huge numbers.

To outsiders, astronomers at that time were mysterious. Some even believed that they could see into the future, because these people could predict the arrival of a total solar eclipse based only on numbers on papyrus.

Lao Mao is doing similar work at the moment.

You can use a sextant to read latitude, but you cannot directly measure longitude. If you want to know your longitude, you must use other methods to determine it indirectly. What Lao Mao is sorting out is an extremely precise star catalog. This thing can help them not Lost in the desert.

“11…261.233.541…155.355.712…”

“12…200.351.547, 399.241.955…”

The old cat sat motionless on the chair, holding a pen in his paws and a charging cable plugged into his back. His furry body was curled up in a ball, and his long and thin cat hair was trembling in the breeze.

“12,26.413.273…”

“12,274.360.669…”

The old cat calculated softly while writing on the form, and the clock was ticking.

There was no movement in the crew cabin, and Tang Yue had fallen asleep.

The night is getting deeper and deeper, and the pile of scratch paper on the table is higher than the old cat’s head. The numbers on these papers are the calculation results rather than the calculation process. Tang Yue is not around, and there is no need for the old cat to show the calculation to anyone. So the whole process was done mentally, but due to the huge amount of data, blank manuscript paper was no longer enough, and in the end even the scratch paper had to be wasted.

The data that Lao Mao had compiled was stacked together, stacked, and put into the drawer.

If nothing else happens, these pieces of paper will stay here until the end of the world.

“SUN, 10, 00, 102.543.027…”

“FRIDAY.”

“01, 02, 03…all the way to 23.”

“Next is SATURDAY.”

“00, 102.548.227, 104.424.152, 212.240.270, 01…”

“195.544.473.”

“01, 25, 02, 52, 03, 45.”

“Further down is SUNDAY.”

“SUNDAY.”

“Sunday… Sunday, where is it on Sunday?”

I don’t know how long it took, but when the old cat put away his pen with satisfaction and let out a long breath and announced that he was done, the sun below the horizon had already illuminated the sky.