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Dense fog—boundless dense fog. This grayish-white, lifeless stuff blanketed the entire world within sight, even the whole planet. It hung stagnant in the air, shifting only occasionally with the breeze, yet it had never truly dispersed for thousands of years. The sun, already about to sink behind the mountains, lingered on the distant horizon. Its last pale, feeble rays diffused through the dusty mist, sustaining the final traces of daylight at the tail end of the day. There was no warmth at all in that sunlight; instead, it carried something eerie and desolate. A small group of travelers hurried silently through the dense fog and the last remaining light, hoping to reach the transit station before sunset. That was the only way to avoid spending the night with the beasts of the Great Wilderness. There was no worse kind of night.
I found that traveling through this environment was indeed exceptionally dull. It was not just the omnipresent fog that made things miserable, but also this monotonous, vast Gobi Desert. There was no vegetation worth calling scenery, nor were there any man-made markers that might offer comfort, let alone roads. All I could see were gravel and sand, spread across the earth like a repeating texture and extending into layers upon layers of mist. Forward, backward, left, right—no matter which way you went, you never felt as though you were heading toward a different view. You only saw endless gravel and