The scene before me was so surreal that I was momentarily stunned. I watched as the water in the fat man’s hand shimmered in the firelight, revealing several complex colors before finally turning transparent.

“The things in the water flow over the stones, and the color-changing microorganisms inside mimic the patterns of the stones here. It looks like a form of camouflage as they flow through,” the fat man said, staring intently at the object.

“Stop the science talk. What do we do now? Should we give it this crap?” I asked.

Zhang Haixing was directly facing the object, much closer than us. Her body was tense, yet she didn’t scream, clearly having seen some real horrors before.

“Don’t rush, don’t rush,” the fat man said. “We’re downwind now; it caught us off guard. We’re too close, so let’s back up a bit.”

I was reluctant to part with my precious crap, but the creature across from us was simply too large. Under the flickering light source, the various colored metallic armor looked like the scales of some monstrous animal, quite terrifying. There were golden, dark golden, azure, and silver hues, all showing a certain toxic sheen amid their aged appearance.

We couldn’t see the creature’s head; it was always obscured by the flowing water. It was enormous—if this was Yama, the body it rode would likely be the size of a hippopotamus. Zhang Haixing’s petite frame seemed utterly insignificant.

The fat man tried to pull Zhang Haixing back, but as he took a few steps forward, the creature approached, its head leaning down from above, and I finally caught a glimpse of its face.

It was a bronze mask, surprisingly unoxidized, with the original golden luster of the bronze marred by some black rust spots. The face loomed closer, pushing the fat man back, and then it scrutinized Zhang Haixing carefully.

We couldn’t see Zhang Haixing’s expression, but it couldn’t be good. Then we saw the creature’s hands begin to move. Its spider-like arms slowly formed into a pose reminiscent of certain Buddhist figures.

“The thousand-handed Guanyin corpse,” I suddenly realized. This was an armored corpse of the thousand-handed Guanyin. This was—another Wan Nu Wang.

The bronze door, the canyon, the thousand-handed Guanyin—everything was such a familiar combination. The last thousand-handed Guanyin corpse was blown to bits by explosives; this one didn’t seem so formidable, I thought, gaining some confidence. I slowly crouched down, just then hearing Zhang Haixing make a strange sound.

It was a series of noises, akin to “gegegegege,” and the fat man and I exchanged glances, suddenly feeling uneasy. The thousand-handed Guanyin corpse raised its head and instantly responded with a bizarre sound that echoed a similar noise.

Zhang Haixing continued to respond, and the thousand-handed Guanyin corpse immediately stopped focusing on her, turning its face toward us.

“In this day and age, knowing a foreign language is better than anything else,” said the short man, Feng. The three of us turned pale and began to retreat.

The enormous armor shook as it moved, yet made no sound at all. The entire scene felt like a silent film filled with the sound of rain, and I oddly sensed a touch of artistry in it.

As I backed away, I began to make “gegegege” sounds myself. The fat man and Feng looked at me in surprise: “You can do it too?”

“I can’t worry about that now; let’s give it a try!” I said, continuing to cluck like a chicken. But the armored corpse showed no signs of stopping, continuing to close in on us. Countless hands twisted in an eerily extreme manner.

“Shut up, if you don’t understand, don’t just babble. Do you even know what you’re saying? Maybe he thinks you’re trying to hook up.” The fat man was furious. “I may die, but I don’t want to lose my dignity in the process.” While saying this, he began to survey the surroundings, but there were no natural defenses to use. If we were to confront this thing head-on, we would have no chance of winning.