Cellular Universe

What exactly is fate?
Three minutes ago, Zhou Yi was still pondering this question.

Am I about to die?

That was the question occupying his mind in the second minute.

Where am I?

That was what he wondered in the first minute.

Is there any wild grass here—can I eat it?

That was the only thought in his mind now, completely consuming all his attention, leaving no room for anything else.

…

He was in an alley, the ground paved with enormous slabs of bluestone—flooring, he supposed. It was hard to imagine such immense slabs, cut so neatly and laid out perfectly, but yes, it was certainly a floor.

Zhou Yi lay sprawled across seven of these tiles, dressed in clothes torn and filthy, the dirt encrusted on him forming a thick armor that shielded him from the cold. In truth, if not for this layer of grime, he might have frozen to death several minutes ago—even though it wasn’t winter.

Zhou Yi couldn’t make sense of it all—
Well, actually, there was nothing he couldn’t make sense of. Whether on Earth or here, apart from the gnawing hunger—no, the unbearable, overwhelming, excruciating hunger—there was nothing he couldn’t accept.

At this point, he had only one wish: grass. If he could just reach that blade of grass, if he could take a single bite, perhaps dying afterward wouldn’t be so bad.

Yet even though the grass was only an arm’s length away, something he could grasp in a heartbeat if he could just move, the truth was that he couldn’t. All that moved was his mind; his body was utterly still, paralyze