The taste of rust is like a dull knife, cutting from the base of the tongue to the throat.
When Jiang Jin opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a piece of broken glass. The thing was embedded in the black gravel below the left side of his face, and there was something dark red stained on the edge - I don't know if it was rust or dried blood. He tried moving his fingers, and the gravel made a clattering sound, like someone pouring a pile of broken bones into an iron pot.
The sky is gray. It's not the kind of gray on a cloudy day, it's a kind of solidified gray that seems to be pressed against the top of your head by something and refuses to go away. There is no sun, no clouds, just a slowly rotating lead-colored dome, like an upside-down iron pot, the bottom of which melts with the horizon far, far away. Something was burning in the distance, but it wasn't fire. Dark red lines spread across the surface, like veins, like tree roots, like the blood vessels of the earth itself being exposed.
Jiang Jin sat up with support on the ground. His left hand was pressed against a rusty iron plate. The iron plate was about as thick as a palm, and its surface was covered with layered rust scabs, like a thousand-layer cake. As soon as his palm touched it, the iron plate let out a small groan—and then shattered. Like biscuits, starting from the point of contact, the brown powder spread to all sides. The entire iron plate turned into a pool of reddish-brown powder within three seconds, leaking down the gaps between the gravels.
