"Umbrella?" Alarm shot through Lin Yi, and he hurriedly looked up at the canopy. Its once-taut surface was now covered in downward bulges, and the distorted faces seemed on the verge of splitting apart, as though they would shatter the next moment.
"Whoosh, whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-"
The wind and rain kept intensifying. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether the howling came from the storm or the waves of rustling leaves in the Wooded Belt on either side of the Pebble Road.
In the distance, the dim streetlamps swayed precariously in the storm, giving off a faint, eerie glow, like kerosene lamps barely illuminating the uneven Pebble Road below.
The Night-Walking Species and Impersonator Sculptures in the Wooded Belt began approaching them again with rustling footsteps. Strangely, though, Lin Yi now found the Night-Walking Species and Impersonators so reassuring.
The reason was simple. These lowest-level Contamination Persons possessed the characteristic of "Fog-Shrouded Light Chasers." Their appearance meant there were no particularly high-level Angel Sculptures nearby, making them a different sort of safety indicator.
Thinking of it that way, even the trees in the roadside Wooded Belt, constantly twisting under the ravages of the wind, felt much more tolerable.
Lin Yi did not know whether this counted as an alternative form of "adaptation," but he had never imagined that one day he would adapt to this sort of thing.
Sure enough, once your mind became sufficiently twisted, the world became much easier on the eyes.
Suddenly, a scream rang out beside Lin Yi's ears. Before he could react, the umbrella canopy overhead abruptly shattered, and the rainwater that had accumulated for so long came pouring down over them, drenching them from head to toe.
Wei Shan flung the umbrella away, pulled his clothes tighter around himself, and grabbed Lin Yi's