Dead on Mars

Chapter 195: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Four, Desert, Loneliness, Shit-Stirring Stick

Translator: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon

The girl took off her helmet and her short, black hair floated up.

She extended her index finger and gently tapped a compressed biscuit crumb. The latter slowly moved back under the nudge, colliding with a second piece of biscuit.

The second spun and hit a third piece.

Six pieces of biscuit lined up like dominoes. Each biscuit would hit the biscuit after it after every connection as kinetic energy kept passing through them. However, the biscuits were ultimately items that were nonuniform and easy to crumble. Unable to move regularly like Newton’s cradle, they soon scattered and flew in different directions.

Mai Dong breathed out a white fog as she reached out to stop them.

The Crystal’s temperature was very cold at around –4°C. This was when it faced the Sun and had the sunlight hit upon the walls. When the space station went behind Mars, its temperature would drop further, reaching its lowest just before sunrise at a low –10°C.

Currently, the only thing that could maintain Mai Dong’s temperature was the IVA suit she was wearing. It used the Crystal’s backup batteries as a power source. The data wire that connected the IVA suit to the core module also doubled as a power line.

The suit’s heating mechanism would raise the temperature to 25°C. Last night, Mai Dong had curled inside it to sleep, wearing her helmet with the visor down. The suit practically isolated her from the outside and had rather effective thermal insulation. However, she had no choice but to remove the visor during meal times. The pressure in the Crystal was normal, and the emergency oxygen system was providing oxygen to the IVA suit as well as the Crystal.

Mai Dong shot a glance at the emergency oxygen system’s remaining levels and pressure gauge. Inside the heavy metal cylinder, the alkali metal perchlorate salt was stably being decomposed and releasing oxygen. The latter could at most work for 380 hours, a full sixteen sols.

Having enough oxygen was truly a blessing. It could have been worse.

It had been three sols since the space station had faced destruction.

There were another eight sols before Tianzhou 37 arrived.

On Mars, Tang Yue and Tomcat were continuing their feces-stirring work.

If there was any more pressing work that required their attention, they wouldn’t be sitting inside the garage stirring feces. But at this moment, there was really nothing more important on Kunlun Station. This didn’t mean that stirring feces was important, but once the man and cat lost every means to interfere in the space station, all they could do was wait for news from the space station while stirring feces. Even if they were like a cat on hot bricks, all they could do was sit in the garage, mixing and flattening the feces.

If there was even a slim possibility, no matter how tiny, to raise the altitude of the United Space Station by a millimeter, Tomcat and Tang Yue would have put in all their efforts and more.

But now, the fact that they could only stir feces implied how helpless they were.

With nowhere to vent his anger, Tang Yue began venting it on the feces in the container. The feces were decimated as they suffered heavy pounding to the point of being squashed.

“Brother Tang.” Tomcat pressed his shoulders, speaking sternly in principle. “Why do you need to take it out on the feces. They are innocent.”

Tomcat’s voice was slowly and deep.

“What has this got to do with you? Who are you to them?” Tang Yue questioned coldly.

Tomcat said firmly, “Their guardian.”

“What nonsense. These feces were produced by me. When and how did you become their guardian?” Tang Yue got into a blade-drawing stance as he slowly pulled out a rolling pin from the bucket. He slowly got up and held his hands to his back, standing there sternly like a proud piece of bamboo that faced the tempest.

Opposite him, Tomcat took out a sh*t-stirring stick from the bucket beside it. There was a sharp glint in its eyes.

A breeze passed through the area between the two of them, stirring up fine yellow dust.

Stick.

Wooden stick.

Cylindrical wooden stick.

Desert Smoke Stick.

“The sword crossed 30,000 li,” Tang Yue said.

“The blade freezes nineteen lands,” Tomcat replied.

The man and cat frowned together. There was a murderous aura.

In a split instant!

Tang Yue yelled, “The windows frame the snow-crowned Western Mountain!”

“Beyond the door moor east-bound ships!” Tomcat yelled in retaliation.

“When asked where a tavern bower could be found.”

“A cowboy points to yonder village of the apricot flower.”

“When asked by folks back home.”

“Tell them my heart remains crystal clear.”

“The four-hundred-eighty temples of the Southern Dynasty!”

“In the mist and rain, their many towers can be seen!”

The man and cat were gasping for breath.

“As expected of the model worker of Mars, the sh*t-stirring sage of Kunlun. You are my equal.” Tomcat took a step back as its expression was tense, but it continued wearing a composed expression. “A victor might not emerge through our battle today.”

“Eunuch Cat…” Tang Yue lowered the rolling pin in his hand with the coolness of sheaving a blade. “You have impressive and profound skills. You live up to your reputation.”

“What are you role-playing today?” Mai Dong asked with a laugh over the comms. “Some Chinese poetry meet?”

Tang Yue and Tomcat sighed in unison as they returned to stirring the feces.

“It’s the New Kunlun Inn,” Tang Yue replied.

“It’s Dragon Gate Flying Cat,” Tomcat replied.

“I thought it was Dumb and Dumber.”

With Kunlun Station lacking in manpower, Tang Yue and Tomcat could only spar with words, no matter how creative they were. They couldn’t put on any large-scale performance. In the words of Tomcat, it had an epic script much grander than the Oscar-winning Ben-Hur. Unfortunately with a lacking cast of only a man and cat to play it out, it could only replay the scene of Titanic—standing at the end of Mars Wanderer shouting, “You Jump, I jump.”

If it were given an entire group of actors, it could do the movie, Alexander.

Tang Yue quipped that if they had the manpower, was there a need to do Alexander? We could play out what happened at Nanniwan, just like how they improved productivity and became self-sufficient in the 40s. As the proletariat, we will transform the Isidis Planitia into a safe and peaceful paradise.

“Lass, quickly come down… Once you are down, we can act out the Chinese opera, The White Haired Girl.” Tang Yue pounded the feces bucket. “Tomcat will act as the despotic landlord, Huang Shiren.”

“Why am I acting as Huang Shiren?” Tomcat threw a feces ball over. “If I’m acting as Huang Shiren, who will you be acting as? The penniless father, Yang Bailao?”

“I will not shirk responsibility by being the male lead. Look at Kunlun Station. Is there anyone else that can take on this important role?” Tang Yue picked up the feces ball and threw it back.

“Tang Yue is the male lead, and I’ll act as the neighbor, Auntie Wang,” Mai Dong said with a chuckle.

“Auntie Wang?” Tang Yue glared. Aren’t you the female lead? How did you become the middle-aged woman from next door? Also, when did this character exist? The mother of Old Wang from next door?

“Then who’s the female lead?”

“Female lead…” Mai Dong scratched her head. “Find a rotting tomato?”

…

Tomcat wore a look of pity. Heard that, Tang Yue? That lady is telling you to be together with a rotten tomato!