At the summit of the snow mountain, the illusions of magma and flowing fire had long since vanished. The shattered sky had returned to seamless unity. As far as the eye could see, heaven and earth were an unbroken expanse of white, while the other side of the mountain opened onto an endless glacier.
The gale stirred up by the temperature difference between day and night whipped snow powder and ice chips into the air. Grayish fragments danced wildly in midair. The highest point of the world, close enough to touch the horizon, was not lonely: mountaineers aspiring to conquer nature were led along by guides, trudging laboriously in the footprints left by those before them.
Qi Si and Fu Jue sat on two raised snowdrifts at opposite sides of the path, silently playing the role of gatekeepers as they boredly watched batch after batch of climbers.
For reasons unknown, Xiao Fengchao and Chu Yining had regained contact with reality. They had been taken down the mountain by the investigators who arrived later, leaving only the two of them on the snow mountain now.
Isolated in a parallel space that could not intersect with reality, they could only observe and could not touch. It was as though the vast world had been wiped clean until only two humans remained. If they wanted to communicate, they could only make do with each other.
One extra word was too many when they could not see eye to eye. Qi Si had already felt cursed enough after being lumped together with the three people from Ark Guild. Now, he had fallen into the miserable situation of being alone with the stubborn, impossible-to-reason-with Fu Jue. It was truly tragic.
He had to admit that fate might really possess a twisted sense of humor. It