Start with a blacksmith shop.

"Just say what you have to say. Why are you hesitating? You're not a woman, so what are you stammering about?"

When the team member heard the snow owl say that to him, his face immediately turned red, clearly indicating that he understood the metaphor in his words.

"How come I never noticed before? You, with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, are actually a lecherous old man! You're actually implying something about me!"

After he said those words, the snowy owl kicked him in the buttocks, but fortunately, the team member reacted quickly and dodged it with its agile reflexes.

"Kid, I advise you to be kind and just tell me your problem. Stop keeping me in suspense!"

After hearing this, he immediately regained his serious expression and asked his question.

"What I don't understand is what you said about the volcano erupting many times. If the volcano has erupted many times, then there should have been many flash floods along with the volcano."

"Such a large amount of water, yet after discovering this volcano, we haven't found any surface water around here. My question is, where did all that water go?"

Upon hearing his question, everyone present immediately realized that the previous flash floods, with their immense water volume, had breached riverbeds, so why hadn't surface water been observed before?

At this moment, everyone's gaze towards this team member changed slightly, but they were now puzzled as to why this situation had occurred. Then, they turned their questioning gazes to the snowy owl beside them.

"Don't look at me like that. Actually, I've thought this through before. After you hear my reasoning, you should understand what's really going on!"

As he spoke, the snowy owl seemed to be deliberately keeping everyone in suspense. However, the team members did not buy it at all and rushed up to surround him, showing an attitude that they would execute him on the spot if he did not speak.

Seeing the team members' current performance, the snowy owl was afraid that they might do something to betray their wives, so she immediately answered without keeping them in suspense any longer.

"Okay, I'll tell you everything. Actually, it's easy to understand. I guess the surface water must have evaporated."

After evaporation, because Mars' atmosphere is only 1% as thick as Earth's and cannot trap the water, the water vapor slowly drifted higher and higher and eventually dissipated into space.

Of course, water will seep into the Martian subsurface, and I believe that a significant portion of the water has seeped back into the ground, becoming part of the groundwater once again.

These are the waters that spewed out of the ground before; this is why they disappeared, and it's also my guess as to where the water ultimately went!

The team members who were selected as astronauts were all extremely intelligent people. After Snow Owl's explanation, he immediately understood the secret.

They secretly berated themselves for being so stupid, failing to grasp something so simple. But it wasn't entirely their fault; none of them were aware they were on Mars, judging everything by Earth standards, which is why they hadn't realized what was happening.

To put it simply, the destination of this water is quite simple. After the water gushes out from underground, it carves a riverbed on the surface. After a large amount of water from the volcano is extinguished, the water stops flowing out.

When no new water with higher heat appears, this earlier surface water will eventually turn into ice as the temperature on Mars decreases.

Whether it's a lake at the end of a river or the water in a riverbed, all water on the surface will turn into ice.

Currently, the surface temperature on Mars is very low because it is in the cold season; water remains frozen and does not evaporate.

But Mars isn't always in a cold season, is it? It also has a warm season, although the temperature on Mars isn't that high, it's still around 20 degrees Celsius!

At a temperature of around 20 degrees Celsius, the surface water will no longer be in the form of solid ice. After it melts back into water, even if it evaporates very slowly at 20 degrees Celsius, this small amount of surface water will still be evaporated completely.

When all the water evaporates and seeps into the ground, eventually there will be no water left on the surface.

By this point, the astronauts had made reasonable speculations about all the relevant events of this Martian eruption, and they were quite confident in their conclusions.

The group felt a sense of exhilaration, as if they had discovered some unsolved mystery of the world, giving them a feeling of unbridled joy.

The Martian water samples they had previously obtained were sent to the testing instrument, but while everyone was still in a state of self-satisfaction, the testing instrument emitted a "beep beep beep" alert.

Upon hearing these prompts, everyone immediately snapped out of their daze, and all eyes turned to the testing equipment.

Everyone knew that the test results must be in, and the snowy owl quickly came over to check the test values ​​displayed on the instrument.

Holding the test data in their hands, one of the team members walked over with a personal terminal that displayed various data points about surface water on Earth.

Snowy Owl held the Martian surface water test report in his hand, found a seat, sat down, and began to read the various data. While he was reading, the other team members were all focused on the data indicators of Earth's surface water on their personal terminals.

So the snowy owl read them out one by one, and the other team members checked them one by one. After going through each data point, they found that all of them met the safety standards for Earth's surface water, except for one item: the iron content was a bit high.

"Holy crap, boss, get moving! This water is practically the best mineral water, except for the iron content being a bit too high. Let's hurry over to that lake that hasn't turned into a block of ice yet."

The water on our plane really needs to be changed. Although it has undergone strict filtration, the thought that some of it was filtered with my own urine makes me feel uneasy.

"Before, there was no alternative water source, so we had no choice. Now that we have a usable water source, let's hurry up and replace all the water!"

After hearing what the team member said, everyone else's faces also became anxious. Especially when the team member mentioned urine, a chill ran down their spines. Clearly, the topic of water circulation was a tacit taboo on their plane.

A look of disgust flashed across the snowy owl's face, and then it slapped the team member who had just spoken hard on the shoulder.

"Didn't we make a pact that we'd never bring this up again, even if you killed me? You really deserve a beating!"

"Alright, since this kid has voiced everyone's thoughts, let's hurry over to that little lake and do as he suggested: replace all the water on our plane!"

As soon as the snowy owl finished speaking, several astronauts rushed to the cockpit, and the spaceplane, piloted by them, flew towards the small lake at the end of the stream.

Meanwhile, Snowy Owl was still staring blankly at the water quality test report in his hand. Although he had long known that water was not unique to Earth in the universe, he had not expected that they would find a source of drinkable water on the second planet they arrived on after leaving Earth.

This was quite an unexpected surprise. Snowy Owl was actually thinking about the impact of discovering a potable source on Mars.

It seems that, within his understanding, as long as Mars can be artificially modified, large-scale colonization of Mars would be much better than colonizing the moon.

It's important to know that Mars has an atmosphere, even if it's thin, and its conditions are remarkably similar to Earth's.

Now, apart from the fact that Mars lacks a magnetic field, everything else meets the conditions for colonizing Mars.

Where there is water, there is hope. This is a common saying in the water-scarce areas of Northwest China, and Snowy Owl believes it applies equally to Mars.

As the snowy owl was thinking about this, it became somewhat lost in thought until the spaceplane returned to the end of the water source, and then everyone got off the plane.

Then came a flurry of activity. First, all the water that had been taken out of Earth and circulated in everyone's bodies countless times was drained from the plane. Then, the plane's water storage system was cleaned twice with Martian water. Only after all this was done was the plane refilled with Martian water.

Once everyone had returned to the plane, Snow Owl paid no attention to anyone else. Instead, he went to his room and began organizing documents, including reports on everything that had happened after the Martian eruption.

What happened afterward was, in a strict sense, even more significant than the Martian volcanic eruption.

Because they found drinkable water on Mars. Except for a slight excess of iron, all other indicators of this water met the standards for mineral water on Earth.

In other words, they found a water resource on an extraterrestrial planet that could be drunk by humans, the significance of which is self-evident.

They edited together important footage from the videos they had collected, added all the measured data, and included their speculations about the events that occurred on Mars.

After doing all this, Snowy Owl came out of the room. When he returned to the cockpit, he saw all the team members standing in front of the water generator.

Seeing everyone's reaction, the snowy owl smiled knowingly and then joined the line waiting for water.

The water circulation and purification system in the plane was running, and everyone waited at the water outlet for the water to be produced. Finally, after a short while, the water purifier beeped.

All the astronauts couldn't wait to take out their cups and eagerly started drinking.

After everyone had filled their stomachs with water, the snowy owl said to them, "Comrades, we've had enough water. Now it's time to get down to business. We're going to ascend into space and send our current situation back to Earth from there."

Under the control of the group, the spaceplane slowly passed through the thin atmosphere of Mars and went straight into space, sending out the situation report compiled by the snowy owl.

After sending out the details, they returned to Mars once again. For them, the mission on Mars had only just begun, and various mysteries of Mars awaited their exploration.

Meanwhile, on Earth, at the Mars Mission Command Center of the Kyushu Space Agency's Beiping headquarters, the staff had just received the full report of the volcanic eruption from Mars sent back by Snow Owl and his team.

Just as the experts here were thinking of going home to get some rest, another progress bar popped up on the big screen in the command center. Everyone present was startled when they saw this.

Seriously? These people on Mars are so diligent! It's only been a short time since they last sent a message, and they're already sending something back again?

Everyone present in the command center focused their attention on the large screen, watching the progress bar moving forward.

The on-site commander at the command center smiled immediately upon seeing the progress bar indicating that the document was being received. However, it was unclear whether the smile was one of joy or a bitter one.

After directing the operation effectively, he turned to the group of experts who had packed their belongings and were ready to go home and rest.

"It seems your plans to go back and rest are doomed. I think even if I told you to leave now, you wouldn't leave this command center."

"Hehe, everyone, please follow my instructions. I'll have someone arrange resting places for you. Go and rest for a bit, and I'll have someone call you back after we've finished receiving the data sent back from Mars."

The experts on site, upon hearing the instructions, all shook their heads. Not only were they shaking their heads, but their eyes were also glued to the progress bars on the screen.

Seeing the reactions of the crowd, the on-site commander knew that he couldn't persuade them anymore and could only let them go. However, he did a good job in providing logistical support.

The progress bar was still increasing extremely slowly, and everyone staring at it was complaining about the slow speed of information transmission between the two planets.

No matter how anxious everyone was, they couldn't change the data transmission speed; the progress bar continued to slowly increase at the same rate as before.

While everyone was still watching the progress bar, Li Zhenhua, at his home in Dongshan, had just received the data that had been transmitted back from Mars last time from a soldier.

After going through a series of strict signing procedures, Li Zhenhua finally got his hands on this top-secret document.

At this moment, he was extremely puzzled by the document in his hand, because no one had told him what its contents were about before.

After the soldier finished handing over the documents, he left, leaving Li Zhenhua still holding the documents and wondering what was going on.