The white disk was actually a white fog that covered the ocean. Soon, between its quick expansion and the airplane’s continued descent, the only ocean she could see oozed a white fog from its surface. A noise from the sea covered the roaring of the plane’s engine. It sounded both like rolling thunder and the cracking of the plains and mountains.

The airplane hovered close to sea level. Yan Dong peered at the surface of the ocean below the fog. The light the ocean reflected was mild, not like moments ago when glints of gold had slashed Yan Dong’s eyes. The ocean grew deeper in color. Its rough waves grew level and smooth. What shocked her, though, was the next discovery: The waves became solid and motionless.

“Good heavens. The ocean froze!”

“Are you crazy?” The pilot turned his head to look at Yan Dong.

“See for yourself…. Hey! Why are you still descending? Do you want to land on the ice?!”

The pilot yanked the control stick. Once again, the world in front of Yan Dong grew black. She heard the pilot say, “Ah, no, fuck, how strange …” The pilot looked as though he were sleepwalking. “I wasn’t descending. The ocean, no, the ice is rising by itself!”

At that moment, Yan Dong heard the low-temperature artist’s voice: “Get your flying machine out of the way. Don’t block the path of the rising ice. If there weren’t a colleague in the flying machine, I would simply crash into you. I can’t stand disruptions to my inspiration while I’m creating. Fly west, fly west, fly west. That direction is closer to the edge.”

“Edge? The edge of what?” Yan Dong asked.

“The cube of ice I’m taking!”

Planes took off like a flock of startled birds, climbing into the sky and heading in the direction the low-temperature artist indicated. Below, because the white fog created by the temperature drop had dissipated, the dark blue ice field stretched to the horizon. Even though the plane was climbing, the ice field climbed even faster. As a result, the distance between the planes and the ice field continued to shrink.

“The Earth is chasing us!” the pilot screamed.

The plane now flew pressed against the ice field. Frozen dark blue waves roiled past the plane’s wings.

The pilot yelled, “We have no choice but to land on the ice field. My god, climbing and landing at the same time. That’s just too strange.”

Just at that moment, the Harbin Y-12 reached the end of the ice. A straight edge swept past the fuselage. Below them, liquid sea reemerged, rippling and shimmering. It was like what a fighter jet saw the instant it leapt off the deck of an aircraft carrier, except the “aircraft carrier” was several kilometers tall.

Yan Dong snapped her head around. Behind them, an immense, dark blue cliff could be seen. The bottom of the massive block of ice had cleared the ocean.