As time passed, the stems and leaves of the potatoes in the planting chamber began to turn from green to yellow, and finally it was harvest time.

125th Martian Day.

Pang Xuelin and Watney finished harvesting the first potato crop.

Potato rhizomes were pulled out of the soil, and strings of fist-sized potato grains made the two smile.

Rinse the potatoes with water, weigh them, and store them in a vacuum bag.

Some of the potatoes were carefully selected by Watney as seed beans and placed on a shelf in the corner of the planting cabin.

With 112.3 square meters of planting area, they finally harvested 278 kilograms of potatoes.

It was a real bountiful harvest, and it was even somewhat unexpected by Watney and the expert committee on Earth.

Under normal circumstances, 112 square meters of planting area can harvest 250 kilograms of potatoes, which is considered good, but this time the income has increased by nearly 10%.

After discussions between Watney and experts on Earth, they believe that it is possible that the sandy soil of Mars has been modified by Earth's bacteria to form a sandy soil that is very suitable for potato cultivation, coupled with constant temperature and humidity conditions and fine management, so that the potato output exceeds expectations.

For Pang Xuelin and Watney, this is undoubtedly a great thing.

At present, Pang Xuelin and Watney have consumed 125 Martian days of space food reserves, and there are 75 Martian days of food reserves left, and these 278 kilograms of potatoes can extend their food reserves to the 270th Martian day according to the basic calorie guarantee of 2 kilograms per person per day.

Under special circumstances, it is even possible to reduce the potato ration to 1.5 kilograms per person per day, but this can only maintain the most basic daily life activity needs of Pang Xuelin and Watney, and basically do no heavy physical labor.

The nutritionists re-matched the recipe for them, three meals a day, 1.5 kilograms of potatoes plus 300 grams of space meal, and then toastworms, space peptide protein powder and vitamin tablets, enough to ensure the nutritional intake of Pang Xuelin and Watney.

The method of potatoes is relatively simple, after cleaning, baking in the microwave with the skin, and then with tomato sauce, the taste is much rougher than that of aerospace food, but Pang Xuelin and Watney can still accept it.

In the following week, Pang Xuelin and Watney were busy again, seizing the time to replant the second crop of potatoes.

The first season of beans was not used up, so in order to save time, before the first season of potatoes were harvested, Watney began to select, cut and germinate.

Pang Xuelin began to freeze and plough the soil.

Following Watney's advice, he first used an air-conditioning system to lower the temperature of the planting pod to below freezing, which is called frozen water.

After freezing, the moisture in the soil freezes, and the volume will increase by 9%, and the soil will become extremely loose after being squeezed by ice.

Subsequently, Pang Xuelin carried out deep ploughing of the soil, and after deep ploughing, basal fertilizer was applied.

Potatoes have a short growing period, and 80% of the fertilizer absorbed comes from the bottom fertilizer, so these bio-based fertilizers will be the main source of nutrients during the growing period of potatoes.

More than 100 square meters of land took Pang Xuelin five days.

At this time, the beans had already sprouted, and the two spent two more days digging a ditch in the soil, and then grading and arranging the seeds according to the size of the sprouts.

The whole replanting work took two people a week, and then the two of them were idle again.

In addition to doing the scientific research work arranged by the Ares Project Headquarters and monitoring the various facilities of the perching cabin every day, Pang Xuelin will study the ABC conjecture when he is free to enrich his spare time.

That night, Pang Xuelin was once again awakened by the creaking sound of the sandstorm blowing into the perching cabin.

This is a category 3 dust storm, with a maximum wind speed of only 50kph, and Mars always comes once or twice a month, and Pang Xuelin and Watney are used to it.

After each dust storm, they perform an EVA mission to clean the sand from the solar panels, inspect the solar array, inspect the rover, inspect the perch pods, and keep them busy for the day.

Early the next morning, Pang Xuelin opened his eyes, and Watney was already wearing an EVA spacesuit.

Today is the 182nd Martian Day, and it has been half a year since Pang Xuelin entered the Martian plane.

Awakened by the sound of a sandstorm last night, Pang Xuelin didn't fall asleep until four or five o'clock in the morning, and got up late today.

Watney on the side saw Pang Xuelin wake up, and said with a smile: "Pang, I saw that you slept soundly, so I didn't call you, breakfast is in the microwave, I'll go out to clean the solar cells first!" ”

Pang Xuelin smiled: "Okay, you go first!" ”

Watney opened the airlock, and the figure quickly disappeared behind the airlock.

Immediately after, Pang Xuelin heard the sound of an air compressor coming from the airlock room, and the perching cabin shook slightly.

Pang Xuelin didn't care.

Every time he entered and exited the airlock chamber, there would be such movements, and he was used to it.

After getting up and washing, Pang Xuelin shaved the stubble clean, then put on the EVA spacesuit, opened the airlock door, and closed it again.

The airlock chamber of the living compartment began to slowly decompress, from one atmosphere to 0.006 atmospheres, and Pang Xuelin stood in the airlock chamber, waiting for the routine to be completed.

He'd been in and out of the airlock chamber hundreds of times, and for him, it was just a daily routine.

Squeak –

Pang Xuelin was wearing a spacesuit and didn't hear a sound, but he felt that the airlock room was shaking.

In the past, there was a slight jitter in and out of the airlock chamber, but this time, the jitter became extremely violent.

Before Pang Xuelin could react, with a violent strange sound, the carbon fiber material connected to the airlock chamber and the living cabin was completely torn.

The atmosphere in the perched chamber was ejected from the leak with all its might, and in less than 0.1 seconds, the crack spread parallel to the sealing belt of the airlock chamber and the perching chamber.

Boom –

The airlock chamber is completely detached from the perching chamber.

Tremendous pressure erupted from the leak, throwing the airlock chamber out like a balloon.

Inside the airlock chamber, the huge inertia made Pang Xuelin hit the back door of the airlock chamber hard.

The airlock chamber flew nearly forty meters in the air before falling to the ground fiercely.

Pang Xuelin was thrown to the front door again, his face on the ground.

Fortunately, the heavy padding of the spacesuit and the helmet helped Pang Xuelin absorb a lot of impact, although the safety glass of the helmet was cracked into hundreds of pieces, it was not completely broken, only a few small openings were cracked, and there were no fractures in the body.

The airlock rolled around the surface of Mars a few more times, and finally slowly stopped, smoke and dust billowing all around.

Pang Xuelin was knocked into a daze, and it took him a long time to wake up, his head was pierced by broken glass, and the red blood flowed down from his forehead, and some of it entered his eyes, making the color of his world a blood-red.

"!"

Pang Xuelin burst into a foul mouth.

In the movie, Watney is in trouble because of the explosion of the airlock chamber, which caused the potato harvest to fail.

I took precautions before, closed the airlock chamber in the section of the planting cabin, and set the gate between the planting cabin and the living cabin to a manual state, so I thought that the crisis had been solved.

He didn't expect that the airlock room of the living cabin would also blow up.

Hiss......

Air inside Pang Xuelin's spacesuit is leaking through the cracks in the mask, and at the same time, the broken airlock chamber is leaking out.

Pang Xuelin hurriedly took out the gum patch bag from the side of the helmet and blocked the broken hole on the mask.

But the leak still exists, although the nitrogen oxygen tank inside the spacesuit has automatically opened the valve to compensate for the pressure, but on the screen on the wrist, the air pressure inside the spacesuit is still slowly decreasing at a rate of 0.001 atmospheres per second.

"No, I have to find a way to find the leak, otherwise I won't be able to make it to the rover!"

Pang Xuelin looked around, this EVA mission, he carried a toolbox, in the toolbox, there is a bottle of nitrogen dioxide spray device, reddish-brown nitrogen dioxide gas, which can be used to test the tightness of the perching cabin, after each sandstorm, Pang Xuelin will use nitrogen dioxide to spray around the perching cabin.

"That's you!"

Pang Xuelin picked up the nitrogen dioxide spray, and soon, the air in the airlock was dyed red, Pang Xuelin checked the spacesuit, and found a leak on his calf.

Pang Xuelin continued to patch it up with gum.

At this time, the atmospheric pressure in the spacesuit has dropped to 0.6 atmospheres, and then, as the pressure compensation mechanism continues, the atmospheric pressure in the spacesuit begins to slowly rise.

Pang Xuelin couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

If it continues to decline, when all the nitrogen and oxygen in the nitrogen tank are released, Pang Xuelin may faint due to lack of oxygen, and then die.

Pang Xuelin struggled to get up from the ground and opened the airlock door, outside the airlock, Watney waved his hand and stumbled towards him.

At the same time, Watney's voice sounded in the headphones: "Pong, are you okay!" Pong, can you hear me? ”

Pang Xuelin took a deep breath and said, "I'm fine, Watney!" ”

……

After finding a new EVA spacesuit from the perch, Pang Xuelin and Watney returned to the rover.

Taking off their helmets, the two looked at each other speechlessly.

"Pang, I'll help you deal with the wound first!"

Pang Xuelin nodded.

Watney first gave Pang Xuelin a local anesthetic, then used disinfectant to clean the blood that had crusted on Pang Xuelin's forehead, and then used tweezers to pinch out the glass slag on the wound and suture the wound.

Half an hour later, Watney was finally done.

Only then did he speak up: "Pang, what should we do next?" ”

Pang Xuelin smiled bitterly: "First find a way to close the living cabin, and then check the loss!" ”