Sleepless Mountain (8)

The summit was shimmering with a golden light. I couldn't help but stop and admire it. However, at this moment, I sensed something was wrong. The sun had risen, and I could see the distant mountain peaks bathed in golden light, but my vision was pitch black. Yet, when I felt around my face, I realized I hadn't put on my sunglasses yet at this time. (Because the glaciers and snow on the mountain are highly reflective, I always wear protective goggles.) My vision shouldn't have been this dim. So I called out to our leader, Akira (meaning [bright] in Japanese), and gestured that I was feeling a bit unwell, asking him to wait a moment. Then I took out an oxygen canister from my backpack and took a breath. But Chen Ming gestured back, saying the ice layer here was unstable and we should rest after moving forward a bit. So, as I continued to move forward, I felt puzzled. Logically, I had just returned from Kangchenjunga with Shida, so my acclimatization should have been quite good. How could I be experiencing visual impairment on a glacier less than 6000 meters high? Furthermore, if it were visual impairment due to lack of oxygen, I should have felt some improvement after inhaling oxygen. Why did I still feel surrounded by darkness? At this point, I stopped again and observed the surrounding environment. Suddenly, I noticed that only within a radius of about 50 meters centered on me was it dark. Beyond 50 meters, it was still bright. It was as if something was blocking the sunlight from above. With a slight sense of fear, I looked up at the sky. But it was just a clear blue sky, with nothing there.