Time flowed like water over stone.
Without realizing it, Wang Chen had walked for hours.
The cold landscape stretched endlessly before him, and beneath his steady pace he had already covered tens of kilometers. Yet nothing changed. The sky remained a cloudless, indifferent blue. The frozen plains remained crystalline and undisturbed, reflecting pale light like an endless mirror.
The wind did not intensify.
The terrain did not shift.
No mountains appeared on the horizon.
No ruins emerged from beneath the frost.
For a brief, unsettling moment, Wang Chen wondered if he had truly moved at all.
The crunch of his footsteps sounded real. The sting of cold against his skin felt real. The faint ache in his lungs from the dry air felt real.
Yet the scenery did not evolve.
It was as if the world had been painted once and never revised.
Pointless thoughts began creeping into his mind.
Am I walking in circles?
Is distance even meaningful here?
