The bustle and clamor of the opening ceremony, voices surging like a tide.
Then came the helicopter footage, with countless fans in cars along the way cheering, shouting, and giving chase from both sides.
Later, the pursuing fans gradually scattered. The helicopters roaring overhead dodged snowfall and dark clouds, their speed steadily slowing.
In the end, the competing teams that had still been racing one another before the cameras gradually drifted apart along different stretches of road and under different conditions. Even the filming vehicles arranged by the organizing committee along the route had not appeared for quite some time.
At this moment, upon the vast and desolate snowfield, there remained only an overly dim expanse of pure white beneath the murky night sky, stretching endlessly to the edge of the earth, where faint black mountains drew a distant boundary between heaven and land.
Beneath low, heavy clouds, the excessively empty and boundless snowfield extended without end. The sky and earth seemed so close together that they felt cramped and oppressive. Compared to such a world, even the enormous, conspicuous modified armored off-road vehicle that would have stood out in a city seemed tiny, like an ant crawling in the narrow gap between heaven and earth, lost as it pressed onward.
Only after truly venturing deep into the snowfield could one discover that the greatest enemy in this rally might not be the malice of competitors or attacks lurking in the shadows, but the world before their eyes.
"What a wasteland."
Ji Jue rested a hand against the car window, occasionally raising his head to gaze at the surrounding scenery.
He had never seen sights like these before. Everything seemed strange and fresh.
He could foresee that in the coming days—no, perhaps only a few hours from now—all of this