Walking Toward the Past

The scale of time seemed to blur as she continued forward.

The stone bricks on the ground beside the pyramids grew newer and newer, with fewer and fewer scratches. The traces left by time gradually disappeared.

As she passed through one shadow after another, Li Luo felt as if she were gliding across countless tick marks. Her feet began to go numb. Once every spatial displacement had been transformed into movement through time, she was, in effect, merely marching in place.

Li Luo suddenly had an illusion: perhaps she had never moved at all. Perhaps the world was moving instead...

The endless eternal night and the surrounding shadows flew backward with every step she took, as though she were standing on an enormous treadmill, with the whole world continuously retreating around her.

The massive pyramids became weightless backdrops, surging toward her like a tide before flying behind her in the blink of an eye.

"I... seem to be walking faster and faster..."

Li Luo had no idea how far back she needed to go before the murals returned to their unrepaired state. She climbed many pyramids, and the repeated scenes had already numbed her.

The same pyramids, the same stone bricks, the same steps, the same temples, the same walls, the same murals, the same hasty graffiti...

The image of the Unknown Envoy kept appearing in her mind. At times it became a distorted triangle, at times a messy tangle of lines, and at times an ugly circle.

Now, even without the electronic screen, she could recall the mural's contents at will. Every detail and every corner had been etched into her mind.

The Cube followed behind her without changing, as though it had become part of her. The passage through time seemed to be constantly narrowing, growing longer and