The interior of the Hall of Assembly, where east, west, north, and south were indistinguishable and neither ceiling nor floor had any visible end, was a bizarrely twisted space. Dark, murky clouds filled the place. There were no intact buildings or facilities within it, only countless shattered, warped corridors and suspended platforms floating in the air. These ancient creations, of unknown age, tangled together like a mass of twisting ancient vines, running through the entire space from top to bottom. There was not the slightest trace of life or sound in this warped Different Dimension. The footsteps and rustling clothes of Older Sister and me as we traveled were the only sounds here. After moving through such a deathly silent environment for a while, I suddenly realized something extremely serious: Ding Dang was gone!
"Could she have fallen somewhere?" Older Sister's face turned serious as well, her gaze falling toward the direction we had come from. There, we could only see a winding, broken staircase snaking along an irregular curve into profound darkness. There were two or three connected shattered platforms along the way. We had stopped briefly on them earlier to inspect the ruined walls and debris. "Ding Dang is so tiny that if she fell out, we might not notice at all. You used to lose your keys all the time when you were little."
I was just about to nod in agreement when I realized something was off about that statement. I stared at Older Sister with black lines all over my face. "Sis, Ding Dang might be a little dumb, but she's not so dumb that... if she fell out halfway through, she'd at least yell, okay?"
"Oh, so that's how it is." Older Sister nodded as if suddenly enlightened, delivering a second-layer jab at Ding