“Is it raining?” I was taken aback, thinking how incredible it was that it could rain underground. I had no idea what kind of meteorological conditions could cause this.

The fat guy looked up and wiped his face, and more liquid began to drip down from above. I could see many droplets hanging and falling from the high, dark areas where light couldn’t reach. Some were large, merging into scattered streams, while others were just fine mist, hitting my face with a coolness that didn’t feel damp at all.

The liquid increased, and I slowly began to hear the sound of water coming from the cracks in the surrounding rocks. I caught some in my hand; it was clear and non-corrosive. It really was raining.

“Does it rain in the Himalayas?” the fat guy asked Mr. Feng. “Could it be that it’s raining up top, and the rainwater is flowing down?”

Mr. Feng, the short guy, furrowed his brow. “Theoretically, it could rain anywhere, but shouldn’t it snow in a place like this? What if it started snowing up there, and the snowmelt is being heated by geothermal activity?”

“That’s interesting,” I said, glancing at the ground. “We won’t get flooded, will we?” The amount of water above was definitely significant; I didn’t want to end up in a soup pot here.

“This space below is quite large; the water should be able to seep into deeper areas. But our plans are likely changing. Quickly put out the fire; it’s not easy for us to relieve ourselves, and I can’t produce much more,” the fat guy said regretfully, feeling around his backside.

The three of us found a spot above where there was no water to cover our mess, while waterfalls began to appear around us, and the flow of water increased rapidly. I dragged Zhang Haixing to one side; I was wary of this woman, so I kept her from seeing us directly. No matter how cunning a woman is, if she doesn’t know the situation around her, she has no means to act.

As the water continued to rise, we kept changing locations; the dry spots were becoming fewer, and the surroundings were truly turning into a rain zone.

There was no sound around us, and we turned down our light source to the minimum. The pile of dung was still smoldering lightly, but the smell was completely washed away by the fresh water vapor. Listening to the sound of rain and looking at the surrounding darkness, I suddenly realized that I had seen a scene like this before, at some moment.

That videotape captured such a scene.

The person who filmed that tape must have entered this absolute darkness and heavy rain under similar circumstances.

Could it be here? I found it unlikely; given the sequence of events, the darkness in the videotape should have been in the snake swamp.

Moreover, I remembered that there had been lightning in that darkness, indicating a more open climatic environment.

While my mind was wandering, the fat guy suddenly asked, “Did you hear any strange sounds?”

I held my breath to listen and immediately noticed a disturbance in the sound of the water. It was the sound of something being washed by the waterfall and then moving away, a change in the frequency of the waterfall’s sound—like when you turn off the faucet while showering, then apply soap, and return to the water.

Something was walking in the rain.

The fat guy turned on the light, shining it around, and in an instant, we were all frozen in place.

In the rain curtain, about three meters directly in front of us, an unusual visual phenomenon appeared. All the water dripping down from above was blocked by something in mid-air, flowing along the contours of that object and forming a gigantic human shape. The state of that object looked very strange; we couldn’t see the shape of the human figure where the water flowed. In the areas where the water didn’t flow, the surface gleamed with the luster of various colored metallic armor. The whole figure resembled a bizarre, shifting 3D artwork.

“Water.” The胖子 suddenly realized something and reached out to catch the rainwater nearby. “There are color-changing microorganisms in the water.”