In the novella I am reading this sentence appears:
他的瘦小的身体穿过时间之光,一寸一寸地长大。
I am rather sure that 「穿過時間之光」must mean "with the passage of time". But If I try to translate it literally, I come up with:
pierced by the rays of time ,
which is a very odd metaphor for me. Is this a common saying in Chinese, or some kind of literary flourish?
The author is 魏微,born in 1970. Hails from Jiangsu Province, studied in Nanjing. The relevant chapter can be found here.