Chapter 8 A Big Discovery

On the afternoon of the eighth day of camping, Zoey and Fatty finished their reconnaissance early. As soon as Fatty crawled into the tent, he excitedly pulled me and Han Yu and said, "Your Fatty has made a big discovery today!"

Fatty didn't beat around the bush, directly revealing the results of his and Zoey's reconnaissance today: "They got those dogs onto the mountain yesterday, and today we finally know what they're for."

Fatty spoke with a flourish, Zoey supplementing from the side.

The members of the expedition team marked easily distinguishable boundaries at the edge of the Mountains of Madness, setting up a cordon. They wanted to use the dogs for experiments.

This morning, they gathered the dogs together. There were six dogs in total, each held by a different person.

However, the experiment did not go smoothly. It seemed that the dogs could sense the danger. Every time they led the dogs to the cordon, the dogs would cower, not only refusing to move forward but also biting the leashes and retreating. The first dog was like this, the second dog... all the way to the sixth dog.

While the expedition members were struggling with this, a guard took the leash from one of the expedition members, seemingly wanting to give it a try.

Because there had already been an attempt, the dog appeared very frightened and refused to move no matter how it was pulled, very resistant. The guard took out a leather belt, whipping and kicking, but to no avail. The dog simply wouldn't move, even when beaten to near death, lying on the snow, it still refused to obey the guard's commands.

Annoyed, the guard directly picked up the half-dead dog and walked straight towards the cordon. The dog resisted with its last strength, seeming to howl, but it was no use. In the end, the guard threw the dog over the cordon.

"And then..." Fatty excitedly slapped his thigh, "The dog disappeared the moment it was thrown over the cordon! The other end of the leash in the guard's hand was still suspended, connected to the place where the dog disappeared. In just a second, both the leash and the man suddenly disappeared!"

"After the man disappeared, the cordon disappeared immediately after... It seems that the area of the Mountains of Madness has expanded a bit." Zoey continued Fatty's words, "Now the expedition team's camp is in chaos. The expedition members were stunned and didn't know what to do. No one was taking care of the dogs, and they started running around everywhere."

Fatty and Zoey told the story of what happened in the expedition team's camp today, one after the other. I felt like I was listening to a storyteller, feeling very curious, but I couldn't extract any useful information. Han Yu, however, was looking down, holding a pen in her hand, writing and drawing on a piece of paper. I didn't know if she had heard what Fatty and Zoey said. I glanced at the draft paper in Han Yu's hand, the paper was densely covered with drawings, but they were very abstract and completely incomprehensible. Next to the drawings was a long string of formulas, none of which I could understand.

After Fatty and Zoey finished telling their collected intelligence, they turned to ask me what I had done today. I stammered a little guiltily: "I went with Han Yu to throw stones..."

Fatty and Zoey probably didn't expect me and Han Yu to be so leisurely as to go throw stones, so they confirmed again: "What? Throw stones?"

I nodded awkwardly: "Today I accompanied Han Yu to the mountain next to the Mountains of Madness and used the method of throwing stones from the top of the mountain to measure the upper boundary of the Mountains of Madness."

Then I presented the whole process to Fatty and Zoey, complete with explanations and gestures. During this time, Han Yu didn't say a word, nor did she react in any way, still looking down and writing and drawing. After a while, the pen in Han Yu's hand suddenly stopped. She looked up at us, a look of victory appearing on her face, and said, "I know the secret of the Mountains of Madness."

After hearing this sentence, the eyes of me, Fatty, and Zoey all gathered on Han Yu.

Han Yu placed the camera in front of us and opened the video playback.

In the video, you could see the flight path of the stones I threw several times relatively clearly. At first, Fatty and Zoey didn't notice anything unusual. After playing it back twice, they were surprised to find that in the video of my second throw, when the stone fell to a certain height, it bounced briefly and then flew further away until it disappeared.

Fatty became restless and exclaimed, "What is the principle behind this!"

Zoey also looked blank.

Han Yu did not answer Fatty's question. She adjusted the video playback speed to 0.5x and played it again.

This time, there was a new discovery—at the moment the stone bounced, there was a flash of light for about two frames below the stone, and this flash showed some kind of outline, like a protective shield-like substance blocking the stone.

Then, Han Yu took out the storage card from my drone and put it into the camera to play the video of the drone measuring the boundary. Although there were only a few clips, it could be seen very clearly that the screen flashed white every time before the drone lost power.

After watching all the videos, I couldn't help but gasp. I had never noticed these details before. It turned out that Han Yu seemed nonchalant, but in fact, she had a plan in mind.

Han Yu said, "The Mountains of Madness is actually a substance. I don't know exactly what kind of substance it is, but I can roughly describe 'it's' physical properties. I will use 'it' to refer to this substance below.

"In terms of physical form, I think 'it' is a gaseous substance. Any substance suddenly disappears without any sense of impact or delay when passing through 'it's' boundary. When we throw stones, throw dogs, or throw other things into it, these things will suddenly disappear as long as they pass through the boundary between the air and 'it'.

"When a moving object transfers from one substance to another with a different density, the speed will definitely change. For example, if you throw a stone into the water, the stone will slow down the moment it touches the water until it is completely submerged in the water, but this sense of impact can be felt, and the larger the volume of the stone, the more obvious this feeling is.

"So in terms of density, I think 'it' is a gaseous substance with a density similar to that of air.

"When you graze across the surface of 'it' at extremely high speed, 'it' will suddenly change into a liquid. The flash captured by the camera is actually light that is invisible to the human eye. The reason for the light emission is due to the conversion of energy. The stone rotates at high speed, and instantly changes the properties of the surface of 'it'. 'It' changes from a gas to a liquid, which is why the stone can skip across the surface of 'it'."

This was the first time Han Yu had said so much. Her definition of the substance in the Mountains of Madness did violate the laws of physics in the real world. However, as a science student, I found it relatively easy to understand what Han Yu said, but for Zoey, a foreign liberal arts student, and Fatty, who hadn't studied much, it was difficult to understand.

Han Yu explained and gave examples in various ways, and it took them a long time to understand.

After understanding, Fatty asked, "Since it's a gas, then why doesn't this gas fly into the sky?"

Han Yu was not surprised by Fatty's question. She replied, "First of all, 'it's' density is greater than the density of air, so it will not float above the air. Secondly, 'it' is a sticky gas, the molecules are tightly coupled, and the properties are a bit like water, so it is not easy to disperse and mix into the air."

Fatty nodded and shook his head again, not knowing whether he understood or not.

At this time, Zoey suddenly asked, "I haven't been able to figure out what happened today. Why did that guard disappear when he clearly didn't enter the dangerous area of the Mountains of Madness?"

Han Yu thought for a moment and replied, "You can think of 'it' as a drop of water. When a small bug falls on the surface of the water drop, the bug will be adsorbed on the surface of the water drop due to surface tension, struggling in vain and finally being sucked into the inside of the water drop. And the absorption efficiency of 'it' is much faster than that of a 'water drop'. Because the guard was holding the rope, when the dog was swallowed by 'it', 'it' would spread to all the objects connected to the dog and wrap them. After the objects are absorbed, 'it' will return to its original state, even if there is a deformation, it will not be too obvious."

This terrifying substance sent shivers down our spines. After Han Yu finished speaking, we fell into a long silence.

Later, Fatty was the first to break the silence: "That is to say, there is currently a huge water drop above the Mountains of Madness?"

Han Yu shook her head: "No, the entire Mountains of Madness is the 'water drop'."