Everything proceeded in utter silence,
like the quiet of death.
Ink poured down like a torrential rain.
The ground beneath his feet also melted away.
The previously illuminating light, coming from nowhere, suddenly disappeared, like a room whose lights had been turned off.
Zhao Rong fell, face down, into an endless abyss below.
Darkness, darkness.
Seeing nothing.
There was water.
Zhao Rong fell silently into the water.
No, not water, but ink.
It was the ink from the entire world melting down.
Warm and thick, it filled his mouth and nose.
Suffocation, suffocation.
—Gasp—!
On the bed in the north room, with his face down on the bedding, Zhao Rong suddenly bounced up.
Zhao Rong widened his eyes, turned, and sat up on the bed, breath heavily with the stale air in his lungs.
He looked around him.
The room was silent and dim, lit only by a small orange-yellow glow from a lamp on the desk not far away, illuminating a small area around the desk.
