60: Large-scale cultivation of Blood Orchid

The news of the voyager discovering that massive, regular cavity and mysterious metal object deep beneath the surface of Mars was transmitted back to the Earth-Moon Joint Command Center after 13 minutes.

Everyone in the Earth-Moon Joint Command Center was stunned by this discovery.

They stared, dumbfounded, at the 3D image scanned by the deep geological radar on the main screen.

A perfect spherical cavity with a diameter of over ten kilometers.

A mysterious man-made object buried five kilometers beneath the Martian crust.

The impact of this discovery was no less than the first arrival of "the guide" email back in the day.

"... Confirm the authenticity of the signal."

After a long silence, the voice of Academician Chen Haikang slowly rang out, his voice tinged with irrepressible excitement, "Rule out any possibility of instrument failure or data misinterpretation."

"It has already been ruled out, Academician Chen." replied Wang Jiahe, the commander-in-chief of the joint mission, "We used three sets of geological radar systems with different principles and cross-verified them from different angles. The results are completely consistent; this cavity and the object are real."

"Man-made... deep beneath Mars..." Dr. Alice Thorne, who was also in the Joint Command Center, muttered to herself, her eyes filled with fanaticism and bewilderment.

"Who? When? Why would they bury something so deep?"

Countless questions flooded the minds of everyone present like a tide.

An ancient Martian civilization?

Or relics left behind by some interstellar visitor from outside the Solar System?

Was that metal object a crashed spaceship? A buried city? Or some kind of device waiting to be awakened?

All the speculation pointed to a chilling yet incredibly exciting possibility—

Long before the birth of humanity, or even when life on Earth was still in its most primitive form.

There had already been other "guests" in this home of ours, the Solar System, which we thought we knew so well.

"We must go down and take a look!" a young astrophysicist from NASA said excitedly, "This could be the greatest archaeological discovery in human history!"

However, the harsh reality quickly poured cold water on this excitement.

"We can't do it." The engineers on the voyager shook their heads helplessly over the communication channel, "The voyager mainly carries scientific research and exploration equipment. We don't have the heavy excavation equipment capable of penetrating hard rock layers five kilometers underground. We don't even have a small earth-drilling dragon."

This reality calmed everyone down.

They were like explorers standing at the entrance of a massive treasure trove, only to find they didn't have the key to open the door.

In the end, the Earth-Moon Joint Command Center made a decision that was full of reluctance but was the most rational.

"voyager," Wang Jiahe gave the final order to the communicator, "Your mission is to mark the precise coordinates of the location and collect as much non-destructive detection data on the area as possible."

"As for the actual excavation and exploration work," he paused, "It will be completed by our next journey."

"We will definitely return to uncover this secret with our own hands."

Although this decision was full of regret, it also left the most exciting and suspenseful foreshadowing for future human exploration of Mars.

...

Lei Wen also learned of this news immediately through the ubiquitous information network of white flower.

"A man-made object beneath Mars?"

When he saw the geological radar scan, his first reaction was no different from everyone else in the Joint Command Center.

As a veteran player of stellar universe, he knew that the probability of ancient ruins being hidden in a galaxy in the game was not low, but he didn't know that the real universe also had so many traces of civilization.

It seems the real universe is much livelier than he imagined.

"white flower," he asked the air, "Based on all the information we currently have in your database, what do you think that thing beneath Mars is most likely to be?"

The core database of white flower ran at high speed, performing complex comparisons and filtering of the actual observational data.

"There are three possibilities, Father." She quickly provided the answer.

"Highest probability (67%): This is an outpost or observation station left by an ancient alien civilization. They may have visited the Solar System millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago, established this base deep beneath Mars for some reason, and then left."

"Medium probability (28%): This is the final relic of an extinct native Martian civilization. They may have foreseen the loss of the Martian atmosphere and the deterioration of the environment, so they sealed the last seeds and knowledge of their civilization in this underground shelter, hoping to return to the surface one day, or waiting to be discovered by a later civilization."

"Lowest probability (5%):" The voice of white flower paused, "This is a prison or a seal. Some kind of dangerous source that cannot be completely destroyed was sealed there by a more powerful civilization."

Lei Wen listened to these three possibilities and couldn't help but stroke his chin.

Regardless of which one it was, it felt like opening a massive blind box for the current Human Civilization.

What was inside the box could be a priceless treasure, or it could be a disaster capable of destroying everything.

"Leave it alone for now." Lei Wen finally made a decision, "Our primary goal remains dealing with the upcoming Faleim People. Before we have sufficient self-defense capabilities, it is best not to provoke these unknown existences that have been sleeping for hundreds of millions of years."

Compared to that distant and uncertain Martian mystery, he was currently more concerned about another major matter concerning the cultivation of human "internal strength."

The blood orchid project.

...

Dikui City, Paradox Technology Asia Life Science R&D Center.

Under the online guidance of white flower, who was as omniscient as a god, and supported by research funding that was luxurious to the point of extravagance.

The young researchers here had thoroughly studied the various basic pharmacological properties of the magical plant, blood orchid, over the past year.

They developed the first generation of super-strong band-aids and medical gels based on SO-G1 gene repair enzymes.

In animal experiments, a lab rat with a wound deep enough to see bone had its wound heal completely in just a few minutes after applying the gel, without even leaving a scar.

They also successfully purified SO-M2 mitochondrial strengthening protein from the leaves of the blood orchid and made it into an oral liquid.

Laboratory monkeys that took this oral liquid long-term had muscle strength, endurance, and immunity several times higher than ordinary monkeys, and even their fur became darker and shinier.

And research on the most dangerous and mysterious SO-N3 brain overclocking substance had also achieved some breakthroughs.

They discovered that if SO-N3 was used in combination with another specific nerve inhibitor, its side effects on the brain could be offset to a certain extent, making it a relatively safe "smart drug."

Of course, these were still results that remained in the laboratory stage.

To truly convert them into mature drugs that could be used by the entire population, the biggest bottleneck remained that fundamental problem—raw materials.

The only living blood orchid sent here had long been carefully divided into countless parts for various experiments.

And it, like a proud queen, refused to reproduce in any carefully simulated environment on Earth.

So everyone's eyes turned to the ideal place for planting blood orchid in theory—the Moon.

...

September 2031.

The Moon, Guanghan Palace Base.

The first batch of artificial seeds created using living blood orchid cells through complex tissue culture technology were carefully transported here on the latest flight of the jinglei-class transport ship.

To welcome these precious "guests," the engineering robot army on the Moon had already built a large-scale special farmland on a plain not far from the Guanghan Palace Base.

It was a massive glass greenhouse complex composed of countless hexagonal transparent domes spliced together.

Seen from space, it looked like a giant honeycomb covering the gray lunar surface.

Beneath each dome was a closed ecological module that completely simulated Earth's gaseous environment and air pressure.

The ground inside the module was covered with a thick layer of special soil mixed with lunar soil and organic fertilizer produced by the base's ecosystem.

When the first artificial seed of the blood orchid was carefully planted into this soil by an agricultural robot with delicate mechanical arms, all the Earth scientists watching this scene via remote video held their breath.

Everyone knew that this moment would determine the future upper limit of the human species.

The miracle did not disappoint everyone's expectations.

Just a few days later, that amber-like seed quietly cracked open.

A touch of green sprout full of vitality stubbornly drilled out of the gray lunar soil.

It grew extremely fast.

In the low-gravity environment of the Moon, which was only one-sixth of Earth's, it seemed to have shaken off some invisible shackles, growing upward at a speed visible to the naked eye, stretching out its leaves.

A week later, it had grown into a healthy seedling.

Five months later, it had grown into a graceful adult plant.

Nine months later, when that red flower, as enchanting as burning blood, bloomed for the first time against the backdrop of the Moon's eternally dark starry sky.

A long, continuous round of applause erupted in the entire Earth-Moon Joint Command Center.

It was a success!

For the first time, humanity had successfully planted and harvested a non-Earth native crop with immeasurable value on a planet other than Earth.

This was not just a victory in agriculture.

It was a great victory at the level of civilization.

It proved that as long as one possesses sufficiently advanced technology, humanity can sow the seeds of life on any seemingly desolate world and let it take root, sprout, and bear fruit there.

The first test field of blood orchid was a success.

And this was just the beginning.

In the days that followed, more glass dome-style planting areas sprang up on the Moon.

The cultivation scale of blood orchid began to expand frantically at an exponential rate.

The Moon, this once desolate and dead planet, was turning into the "Shennongjia" and "Medicinal Garden" of Human Civilization.

The future of universal access to blood orchid products was no longer far away.