174: gray smoke

"Since Gu Xiheng said the base won't give up on this mountain, then it must be true. We need to think of a foolproof plan," Li Shilan said with a worried expression, holding Da Wang in her arms.

"Hmph, that old brat Gu Yan is really a piece of work. This is definitely his idea," Ai Guosheng said indignantly.

Ai Yue sighed. "What foolproof plan could there be? For a peaceful life in the future, we'll fight them every time they come. If we can't win, we'll just surrender quickly. Protecting ourselves is what's important."

"We're so powerful, even if they send more people, they won't be a match for us. We can definitely protect this mountain," Ye Rui said with full confidence.

Ai Yue saw her acting like she was invincible and burst out laughing, poking her forehead. "Have you forgotten what the predecessor of the Safety Tower was? What they lack least right now are weapons of war. If they can't beat us, they'll definitely use modern weaponry."

"No matter how resilient our small bodies are, we can't withstand an attack from thousands of artillery shells!"

"Oh, right. Although our Superpowers are powerful and keeping ourselves safe is no problem, protecting this mountain will be difficult." Ye Rui felt a bit discouraged and went to the side to sulk with a pout.

"Don't they want this mountain? They shouldn't use artillery or other massive weapons to attack, right? Wouldn't that destroy the mountain?" Li Shilan asked.

"I'm afraid they'd rather destroy it than let anyone else have it," Ai Yue said, indicating the situation wasn't very optimistic.

Li Shilan also furrowed her brows and sighed inwardly. It seemed their current peaceful days were coming to an end.

"Sigh, it's fine. The worst-case scenario is just accepting the second solution Gu Xiheng proposed. That's also acceptable," Ai Guosheng said with a smile to comfort them, seeing their low spirits.

Ai Yue nodded and said:

"That's right. Having survived in the Apocalypse for so long, what storms haven't we seen? It's just a place to live; at worst, we'll just move again. Besides, this place is too strange. I don't know if living here is good or bad. Sometimes thinking about it makes me feel uneasy."

"Oh! Stop thinking about it. We should eat and drink as usual. We'll deal with these things after we're full." Ai Yue stood up and waved her hand, taking a dining table out of her space.

Ai Yue planned to have a hot pot meal to ease her bad mood. The table was set with all their favorite foods.

Since they didn't know when Gu Xiheng would lead an attack on the mountain, Ai Yue and the others didn't drink alcohol. Drinking sparkling water and eating steaming hot pot was still refreshing.

After the meal, Ai Yue sat cross-legged on the ground, her hands touching the earth as she closed her eyes to sense carefully.

She needed to know the movements of Gu Xiheng and the others at all times.

Sure enough, a few hours later, Gu Xiheng led a group of people dressed in green, carrying bulging backpacks, and quietly began climbing the mountain.

Ai Yue felt curious. With only a few people coming up, they posed no threat to Ai Yue's family at all. However, their strange behavior and the large backpacks made her feel suspicious.

Ai Yue tracked the movements of Gu Xiheng and the others and found that Gu Xiheng stopped at the place where she had ambushed them last time.

Gu Xiheng signaled for the people behind him to stop and carefully put down the backpacks.

The group moved efficiently and quickly, opening the backpacks and carefully taking out bundles of tube-like objects.

Ai Yue gasped. Explosives?

Were they really going to blow up the mountain? And blow her family up with it? How ruthless!

Hmm? That doesn't seem right either!

She saw them carefully unfolding the tube-like objects and taking out some sticks from the bags. These sticks were like magic in their hands; in the blink of an eye, they were assembled into what looked like Mini Cannons.

"Huh? This is..." Sensing this, Ai Yue felt an ill omen in her heart.

She saw Gu Xiheng and the others even more carefully place the tube-like objects into the cannon barrels, and then each of them put on a mask.

They then took out handheld tablets from their waists, and after some operations, the Mini Cannons began to rotate automatically.

The cannon muzzles were all aimed directly at where Ai Yue and the others were currently located.

Sensing this, Ai Yue finally knew what they were planning to do, and she started cursing angrily under her breath.

Using her Extreme Speed Superpower, she flashed into the house, scooped up Da Wang, who was dozing on the sofa, grabbed Ai Guosheng and Li Shilan, and shouted loudly, "Rui Rui, hold onto me!"

Although Ye Rui didn't know what was happening, seeing Ai Yue's panicked state, she instinctively jumped onto Ai Yue and hugged her tightly.

Ai Yue had no time to explain. She exerted her Extreme Speed, pulling the others along as they ran quickly toward the mountain peak.

Just as Ai Yue pulled the group out of the house and ran less than three hundred meters, she saw a dozen shells flying through the air from a distance toward where they had just been.

Upon hitting the ground, a large amount of gray smoke billowed up and continued to spread outward. Ai Yue took a moment to look back and cried out inwardly. Fortunately, her reaction was just a split second faster; otherwise, her family of three would have been submerged in that gray mist.

This gray smoke clearly wasn't anything good. Gu Xiheng was truly insidious, using this unknown stuff against them.

Ai Yue thought resentfully that the next time she made a move, she would show him no mercy and beat him so hard even his mother wouldn't recognize him!

Ai Yue quickly led the group to the mountain peak before finally stopping.

The group stood firm on the peak and turned back together to look. Good heavens, in just that short moment, centered around Ai Yue's home, the entire mountain was rapidly covered by the spreading gray smoke, except for small patches at the peak and the foot of the mountain.

The speed at which the gray smoke spread was almost on par with Ai Yue's Extreme Speed Superpower.

If Ai Yue hadn't set off a step ahead, the entire Ai Yue family wouldn't have escaped.

"Whoa, what is this smoke? It looks pretty powerful," Ye Rui asked curiously.

The group looked at each other; none of them knew what it was.

"Sister Ai Yue, what's going on?" Ye Rui asked again.

Ai Yue said through gritted teeth, "It's that villain Gu Xiheng! He's the one who did all this!"

"How did he do it? How could such a massive amount of smoke be generated, and why did it start spreading from our front door?"

Ye Rui was puzzled. In her understanding, how could something so small produce such a large volume of smoke that was so thick? Not only that, it spread so fast, comparable to Ai Yue's Extreme Speed.

"He—hmph—acting like a thief, tiptoeing around, he ran to the place where we ambushed them last time and used Mini Cannons to automatically lock onto the target and bombard us directly."

"If I hadn't been a split second faster, our family would have really fallen into his hands, at his mercy!" Ai Yue became angrier as she spoke.

"This? What should we do next?" Ye Rui asked, looking at the surging gray smoke below with a worried expression.