The lonely sun rose from the desert again, Tang Yue finished moving the panels, sat in the battery farm, and looked at the barren land in the distance.

This reminded Tang Yue of the Taklamakan Desert, when he and Lao Wang went to Lop Nur when they were training, it was probably the closest place to Mars on Earth, the two of them set up tents in the desert and looked up at the starry sky, because they were far away from people, there was a magnificent and brilliant Milky Way overhead, and Lao Wang pointed to the desert under the Milky Way and said Do you know Pengamu? Pengamu died here.

Tang Yue tried to imagine a planet full of wastelands at that time, but as an earthling, it was difficult for him to imagine what kind of desert would be too big to walk out.

Now he saw with his own eyes the truly boundless desert.

"Tang Yue, I've fished out all the tomato seeds." The old cat's voice came from the headphones, "It's drying, it's in good condition." ”

"Old cat, have you ever read the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?" Tang Yue asked.

"The one written by Douglas Adams?" The old cat said, "I can recite it word for word for you, in thirty languages, without duplication." ”

"There's a book in the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' called 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.'" Tang Yue said, "Do you think we are a restaurant at the end of the universe? ”

"The problem is that we're not a restaurant either." The old cat shook his head, "As far as Kunlun Station is concerned, it can only be called the toilet at the end of the universe - before the destruction of the universe, let's pee before leaving, so as not to urinate urgently on the way." ”

Tang Yue rolled his eyes.

"I'm just saying that Kunlun Station is lonely, and I sit here looking at it, and I feel as if it can stand like this, until the end of the world."

"Isn't there an Eagle ship with it?" The old cat said, "These two goods should never get tired of each other, and always see each other's end of the world." ”

Tang Yue turned his head to look at the Eagle spaceship in the distance, the descent stage was still standing there steadily, even Tang Yue didn't know how long the Eagle spacecraft could stand, it was made of high-strength composite materials and metal, the disintegration of these materials would take an extremely long time, before the Eagle spaceship collapsed, it must have been buried by the wind and sand.

After being buried, the Eagle will remain there for a long time.

"Do you know the story of the Khodovarikh weather station and Slava?" The old cat asked.

"What's that?"

"It used to be a weather station on the banks of the Pechora River in Russia, located in the Arctic Circle, the most remote weather station in the world, and it is an hour's helicopter flight from the nearest town." "Slava was the only observer at the weather station, where he had worked for thirteen years, and the only company he had was a parrot. ”

Tang Yue was stunned for a moment.

"Then a photographer visited Slava in 2014 at the Khodovarikh weather station, when Slava was already in his sixties, and the photographer was surprised to find that time seemed to freeze in time at the weather station - the walls were plastered with Soviet-era wallpaper, there was no telephone, no internet, and Slava used Morse code to communicate with the outside world." "It was an isolated island, with only an old lighthouse, an old man, and a parrot. ”

Tang Yue imagined an old man watching the long night, sitting in the dim light listening to the radio broadcast, separated from the bustling and noisy outside world by thousands of mountains and rivers.

In some things, time always passes very slowly, time cannot leave a trace, such as the old man, for example, the tombstone, in the Arctic Circle, even the change of day and night is very slow, in the long polar day and polar night, the old man named Slava guards a wall, a bird and an old lighthouse, living a life that ordinary people cannot imagine, quietly and indifferently staying in place.

"The old man is really awesome." Tang Yue said softly.

"Actually, I think loneliness is the same as being single." The old cat stabbed Tang Yue again, "After a long time, I got used to it." ”

"Didn't he think about leaving?" Tang Yue asked, "That Swara." ”

"Is he a weather observer, weather observer is such a profession, often going into harsh environments that ordinary people can't reach, such as isolated polar observatories, or flying planes into the eye of hurricanes, flying spaceships to Mars - in a sense, you are also an observer, you are the same kind of people as Slava, you are all watchmen." The old cat said.

Tang Yue was stunned, not understanding what this meant.

"What do you mean by a watcher?"

"On Mars, we sit down and watch, what are we going to see?" The old cat exclaimed, "We can see a tiny speck of dust—but everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, everyone in history, you've lived their lives on it!" ”

"All the joys and sorrows of our history, all the self-righteous religions, the different ideologies, the ever-changing economic ideas, all the hunters and robbers! All heroes and cowards! Builders and destroyers of all civilizations! All emperors and commoners, all lovers, all parents and children, all great inventors and explorers, all politicians, stars, leaders, all saints and sinners, have lived here—a speck of dust suspended in the sun. ”

The old cat didn't know what lines he was reciting, and his voice was impassioned.

"What you see is the earth, all mankind, all morals and sins, all races and colors, and you are the only person in human history who watches over all mankind."

Tang Yue grabbed a handful of dirt at his feet, a little stunned, he didn't know what to say, he felt that the old cat was really a little uplifted...... He is just a nobody who survived, how can he become the watchman of human civilization?

The old cat has never looked at himself so highly, and the title of the watchman of human civilization that sounds so high-end and atmospheric and mysterious will actually be placed on his head, in the past, he has always been a useless manure machine in the eyes of the old cat.

"And then you're going to lose the Earth." The old cat slapped his face, "Miss Mai Dong, the seeds are dry, what should I do next?" ”

Tang Yue almost had a myocardial infarction, and the cat threw the cauldron of the earth's disappearance on his head in three words.

He sat on the sand with solar panels erected next to him.

Tang Yue wakes up early every day and often sits in front of the door of Kunlun Station to watch the sunrise, the sunrise on Mars is slightly smaller than that on Lop Nur, but it looks brighter, which may be the reason for the atmospheric scattering.

Su Shi once said in the words that I wish people a long time, thousands of miles together, which means that no matter where we are, what we see is the same moon, although we are thousands of miles away and do not meet, we will send remembrance with the moon palace. The sun Tang Yue saw at the moment was still the same sun, but those who should have seen the same sun as him were no longer there.

He was clearly a survivor, but somehow, he felt abandoned in his heart.

Tang Yue sighed, the sun had completely risen, he patted his ass and got up, and returned to Kunlun Station, ready to continue planting tomatoes.

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(Author's note: The old cat's lines in the article are from Mr. Carl Sagan's "Dim Blue Dot: Looking Forward to the Space Home of Mankind")