Mo Ling had never understood why, when two terrible chess players faced off, a whole crowd of strategists gathered around to offer advice.
Now he understood. Watching the two old men play worse and worse, he could not help wanting to "lend a hand."
Fortunately, he restrained the urge, maintaining the noble virtue of a true gentleman who watched chess without speaking, and forcibly turned his gaze away.
Mo Ling walked over to a sculpture in the center of the square. This was the highest point in the entire area.
The dinner hour had already passed, and most of the elderly people below had come out for a walk.
The sun had not yet fully set. The slightly reddened sunset reflected off the Abyss iron layers of the high-rises, sending warm red light into every corner of the square.
People strolled and paused, enjoying their leisure time in the afterglow of the setting sun. This would have been utterly impossible during the first few years after the Abyss invaded. Everyone had been wound tight, with no mind to notice the beauty around them.
People back then were often burdened by hardship and worry. They could not relax in body and mind as they did now.
The Sea Surface had its turbulent times and its calm times. So did the tides of the age.
Feeling these subtle differences, Mo Ling's state of mind gradually settled beneath the sunset.
It was as if he had returned to an evening before the Abyss descended.
People had been just as peaceful then.
The arrival of the Abyss had stirred waves within people's hearts. As those waves gradually subsided, people returned to the familiar past.
Time flowed onward, and humanity seemed to have gone in circles only to arrive once again at the same place.