Dead on Mars

The next day.

Tomcat and Tang Yue took the entire morning to obtain another twenty specimens in an area spanning one square kilometer.

Kunlun Station was located on the northern hemisphere of Mars, the Isidis Planitia. This was a circular basin spanning 1,500 kilometers in diameter, the result of a meteorite strike 3.9 billion years ago. The reason Kunlun Station was located here was because experts in the Mars lander program suspected that the Isidis Planitia had large quantities of ice. Later missions for Kunlun Station were to seek out and develop these hidden water resources, to prepare for the advancement of the landing missions.

In the next Mars landing mission, it was planned for Earth to send a modified Mars rover which had the capability of making long-distance travel. Future scientific teams would then be able to drive the rover and cross the vast plains.

Unfortunately, Earth had disappeared. The entire project had come to a halt as a result.

Tang Yue spent the entire afternoon inside the experiment module before finally finding a suitable specimen out of the twenty soil samples.

“This is the best soil at present. Tang Yue, look. This specimen is mainly comprised of plagioclase and clinopyroxene. The amount of borosilicate glass is relatively low, and the soil is rich in iron and magnesium silicates. Such soil is very close to the soil found on Earth, and the pH values are rather neutral.” Mai Dong was delighted.

“Can it be used to plant tomatoes?” Tang Yue asked.

“Let’s see the results from a Vis-NIR optical-spectrum analysis first,” Mai Dong instructed.

Tang Yue nodded, placed the soil sample into a solution, obtained the filtered liquid, and placed it in the spectrophotometer.

The result quickly came up.

“Hmm… based on the infrared data, it’s ideal!” Mai Dong stared at the picture for a long while as she slowly nodded. “Tang Yue, where did you get this specimen from?”

Tang Yue lifted the test tube and looked at the label. “E2. From an old riverbed. It’s not very far from us. Tomcat dug quite deep to retrieve this sample.”

“Right, the Isidis Planitia is a crater from the Late Noachian Epoch. In that period, there was a large number of hydrated sulfate compounds that had accumulated on the surface due to volcanic eruptions. You guys are awesome! This is it!” Mai Dong made the decision. “Tang Yue, this can be the substrate for you to start planting tomatoes!”

Tang Yue was delighted as he turned around and shouted towards the driver compartment.

“Tomcat! Turn back! We found suitable soil!”

Upon saying that, the rover shook as Tang Yue fell forward.

Tomcat turned its head and said unhappily, “What’s all the fuss? The wheels got stuck in a hole.”

…

Tomcat and Tang Yue used sealed plastic bags and obtained more than ten kilograms of soil from a spot about a kilometer away from Kunlun Station. It was from a long-dried out ancient river. Tomcat had removed the surface sand and gravel and had dug a meter deep with a shovel before finding suitable soil.

They then used Mars Wanderer to move the soil back to Kunlun Station.

Tang Yue panted as he piled the bag in front of the garage and smacked his hands.

“This soil is at least fifteen kilograms. Is that enough? We’ll go dig more up if it’s not.”

“It should be enough for starters,” Mai Dong said. “However, this soil cannot be directly used to plant tomatoes. They are only for the substrate. It lacks the nutrients needed for vegetation growth, so following that, we need to add…”

” Jinkela !” Tang Yue’s eyes lit up.

…

Fertilizer was a miracle item. It was the most important invention of humanity after coming up with slash-and-burn cultivation. By manually improving the composition of the soil, the fertility of the soil could be enhanced. This greatly enhanced the production of the farming industry. In the long history of farming, the usage of fertilizer was a revolutionary improvement. It was the foundation to which agricultural societies were able to develop and prosper.

Fertilizer was an ever-important topic in agricultural science. Societal and technological improvement, especially the development of the chemical industry, allowed people to quantify and study the nutrients needed by crops, and manually providing these basic elements for them. This technology eventually expedited the most important ingredient in modern agriculture—chemical fertilizer.

The reason modern society could have such a population boom was ultimately due to the use of chemical fertilizer. Using science, essential minerals and elements were provided to the crops, allowing agriculture to rapidly become industrialized. It facilitated the production increase in food, and raising food production was the foundation of increasing the human population.

Of course, Jinkela was a magical item.

Rumor had it that using one bag of Jinkela could match two…

It was obvious that there was nothing on Kunlun Station that could be used as fertilizer. But thankfully, Tang Yue was a fertilizer creation machine. This was probably the meaning of his existence. Thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the Chinese learned how to use organic fertilizer to raise the fertility of the soil to promote the growth of their crops. This was probably a technical skill that came naturally to the Chinese.

Thousands of years’ worth of agriculture civilization had engraved the love for the land into everyone’s genes.

Otherwise, why would so many people like buying real estate?

Tomcat and Tang Yue removed all the dried feces from the waste-collecting tank. The feces had all been dried via the sanitation system and were as dry and hard as a rock. They were wrapped in vacuum packs. According to the rules, all waste created by Kunlun Station was not to be thrown on the surface of Mars. All of it had to be brought back to Earth.

However, that rule was now no longer in effect.

Tang Yue could defecate wherever he wished.

The two brought all the feces into the garage. Such shit-stirring activity definitely couldn’t be done in the Hab, or there was no way they could live there again.

Tang Yue poured the dry feces onto the garage’s ground. He did a casual sweep and discovered that his bowels had been unhindered over the past three months. All the feces there were his. The feces of the others and their trash had all been taken away by Orion I.

Tomcat crouched down as it held a stick it had found from somewhere. It prodded the packaged feces with interest. “Tang Yue, I think you are severely constipated, making your shit dry. Look at your shit; it’s as hard as marble.”

Tang Yue wore a mask, completely ignoring Tomcat’s random drivel.

Tomcat was still prodding the feces on the ground as it prodded them again and again.

“Tang Yue, look. Doesn’t this piece of shit look like a vacuum-packed tea egg? How did you produce such a round shit egg? Can you demonstrate it to me?

“Also, look at this. It’s huge. I estimate it to be about a quarter kilogram…

“This piece of shit has artistic vibes. It looks like Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

“Hey, Tang Yue! Look at this. This piece of shit looks just like you! Both of you must have come from the same mold. You truly are father and son…”

Tang Yue angrily picked up a piece of dehydrated shit and threw it at Tomcat.