When I woke up, my mouth was sweet.

It’s not the sweetness of sugar, but the strange smell of rust mixed with honey, sticking to the tongue. When I opened my eyes, it was not the sky above my head, but a layer of pink flesh, slowly undulating, as if breathing. There was glowing dust floating in the air. I reached out and grabbed it. They flowed away from my fingers, leaving a little cool touch.

I stood up and found myself standing on a huge ring. Looking forward, the road bent upwards and finally disappeared into the sky — no, it was connected to the meat wall above the head. The world is a circle, and I am locked in this living circle.

The first time I did it, it was because I was hungry. I saw a glowing beetle and smashed it with a stone. It didn’t bark, but shattered with a snap, turning into many orange dots of light. The light spots did not disperse. They floated to a dead vine next to it, and the dead vine sucked all the light points in. A few seconds later, the dead vine grew new leaves and bort a blue fruit. I ate the fruit, and my eyes suddenly could see things clearly in the dark. It turns out that here, death is not the end, but becoming something else to come back to life.

I have become very careful when I walk. The moss on the ground shrinks as soon as you step on it, like itching. Jumping too high will break through those glowing spore clouds. When the powder is sprinkled, the things in front of you will start to dance. The world is so sensitive that it reacts to my every move. I’m not exploring, I’m touching the skin of a huge heart.

Later, I stopd fighting and started to plant something. If you find that the glowing moths like dark mushrooms, lead them over. The light of moths makes mushrooms bloom, and nectar attracts insects that can make holes. The worms dug up a new road, and I followed the road to a place I had never been to, where I found stones that could purify dirty water. I brought back the stone fragments and buried them in the soil soaked in poison. After a few days, silver grass grew there, and small animals that had never been seen before were lying on the grass, breathing with their bellies.

The world was changed little by little by me. The meat wall, which could not be climbed, turned into a slippery slope after I raised a group of snails that could spit mucus. A canyon full of poisonous fog, when I planted a lantern grass that could absorb fog, became a safe passage with a soft ball of light. The map is not fixed. It changes with what I do. I’m in this circle, like a gardener and a troublemaker.

But I’ve also messed up. Once, in order to quickly get an ability to jump very high, I killed a lot of glowing jellyfish. I got the ability, but the next time I woke up, the whole place was half dark. Those plants that live on jellyfish have withered, the animals that eat those plants are gone, and the road I often walk is completely black. I stood in the dark, still with the jumping ability in my hand, but my heart was empty. I took a moment’s convenience and replaced a whole piece of light.

At the end of the game, I returned to the place where I woke up. The ring is still the same ring, but it is no longer what I saw at the beginning. I walked through the fluorescent forest I planted, which startled a group of flying insects with transparent wings; I drank the clear spring water I drew, and there were accidentally cultivated singing flowers by the water. I didn’t defeat any demon king and didn’t find the exit. I just changed this ring from a quiet pink to a noisy garden with all kinds of light.

After quitting the game, I poured a glass of water. The city outside the window is also bright at night, but those lights are cold. I suddenly remembered the light I planted in the game, which was warm and breathing.

It turns out that all places can be a ring. Every little thing you do, every beetle you kill, every seed you plant, turns in this ring, and finally turns into wind, light, and the smell of the next fruit, returning to you.

_Ultros_ didn’t teach me much. It just made me live in a pink ring a few times, die a few times, plant something, mess it up, and fix it again. Then I turned off the computer and looked at my palm, thinking that there might be a very small glowing ring hidden in it.