52: Where is the King, Yueyue?

Suddenly, the silence was broken by Gu Xiheng. He asked seemingly nonchalantly, but in reality, he was still testing Ai Yue.

"I see there's nothing in your car. What have you been eating these past few days?"

Ai Yue’s mouth, which was chewing food, couldn't help but stop. Here he goes again. Can't he just shut up? Why the questions?

Swallowing the food in her mouth, she replied calmly, "Naturally, I ate it all. I was just thinking of heading to the town ahead to find some food."

Gu Xiheng nodded and continued, "Where's Dawang? Didn't it come out with you? After all, it counts as a powerful combat force; you should have brought it to protect you."

"What powerful combat force? It's extremely timid. My mom didn't feel safe letting it come out with me, so I didn't bring it." Ai Yue took a hard bite of the pancake and mumbled.

"I think you're quite impressive, daring to wander out alone. Do you have some kind of backing?"

Ai Yue's heart skipped a beat. Damn it, could he have actually discovered something?

"Naturally, I have backing—it's my own strength and the marauder's invincibility."

"Heh... You're quite confident in your own strength."

"Of course!" Ai Yue suppressed her surging urge to stab him.

"The inside of this car is too clean; there isn't a single scrap of food waste. It's miraculous." Gu Xiheng glanced at Ai Yue and remarked.

Ai Yue returned a smile and stopped speaking, mentally staying alert. Loose lips sink ships; it was better to be cautious in his presence!

Ai Yue leaned against the backrest and closed her eyes to rest.

Silence followed for a long while. The convoy entered the small town without any obstacles and smoothly found the remaining missing weapons.

After dealing with two guards and taking a short break, they prepared to set off back to the Safety Tower.

"Gu Xiheng, I want to look around the town." Ai Yue made her request while they were resting.

Gu Xiheng didn't make things difficult for her. Seeing that her hand was inconvenienced, he even assigned someone to drive for her and told her to be back in an hour to set off.

Ai Yue readily agreed. Since she couldn't drive herself, having someone drive for her to save time was exactly what she wanted.

The car was soon driven over. The driver was a taciturn soldier in camouflage. Ai Yue told him to drive slowly along every street.

She, meanwhile, carefully looked for shops with gold and jade.

Perhaps because the town was too small, Ai Yue only found one gold shop. There was some jade in the gold shop, but not much; one could say the harvest from this trip was small.

It seemed she still had to search in cities to find large amounts of gold and jade. If she had the chance, it would be best to visit Cai City to find some raw stones; then Ai Yue wouldn't have to work so hard scavenging through entire cities.

Unfortunately, Cai City was too far from her current location. With her current strength, she wasn't capable of traveling that far yet.

When Ai Yue returned, Gu Xiheng and the others had already packed up and were ready to depart.

Following Gu Xiheng, the journey was very smooth, and no one was foolish enough to rob them.

Upon reaching the Safety Tower, Gu Xiheng ordered someone to take Ai Yue back and then left in a hurry.

Returning home, Ai Yue found no one there; it seemed Ai Guosheng and his wife were still at work.

Feeling the warmth of the house, she suddenly relaxed her mind and collapsed onto the sofa. Feeling the softness the sofa provided, she comfortably fell asleep.

In the evening, Li Shilan and her husband returned. They were pleasantly surprised to find their precious daughter, whom they hadn't seen for days, was back and asleep on the sofa. The two immediately became light-footed.

In fact, the moment they opened the door and entered, Ai Yue had woken up alertly. However, realizing she was at home, she was too lazy to move.

It wasn't until her parents sat beside her that she opened her bleary eyes and greeted them.

To express her joy at Ai Yue's safe return, Li Shilan insisted on making a table full of delicious food.

But Ai Yue stopped her. After all, they weren't the only family here. If they started cooking a big feast, the smell would likely be caught by the entire East District.

Li Shilan, who was stopped by Ai Yue, felt a bit regretful. Her hands had been itching to cook something delicious for a long time, but she hadn't acted for fear of inviting trouble.

It seemed that as long as they stayed here, she wouldn't be able to show off her culinary skills. Although it was a pity, as long as the family was safe together, her little hobby was negligible.

However, wanting to eat a feast was no problem for Ai Yue. After all, she was someone with a space.

Ai Yue happily took out various hearty dishes from her space and laid them on the dining table, such as red braised pork, pineapple sweet and sour pork, braised pig's trotters, beer duck, as well as two vegetable dishes, a cold dish, and the indispensable drinks.

She hadn't had a proper meal during the two days she spent with Gu Xiheng; it was either compressed biscuits or vegetable pancakes as hard as stones.

Seven dishes filled the large table. Just as they were about to sit down, Li Shilan, with a face full of smiles, asked casually, "Yueyue, where did Dawang go to play? It didn't even come home after returning? It seems it doesn't miss me at all."

Hearing her mother mention Dawang, Ai Yue guiltily remembered that she had forgotten it in the space.

Ai Yue chuckled, "Mom, Dawang didn't go out; it's right here." After saying that, she waved her hand and released Dawang from the space.

Dawang was a bit dazed by the sudden change of scenery, but it quickly snapped out of it upon seeing Li Shilan.

With an "Awoo," it ran over and hugged Li Shilan's leg, beginning to howl "Awoo, awoo, awoo" aggrievedly, frequently looking back at Ai Yue.

It was as if it were complaining to Li Shilan, telling her it was being mistreated by Ai Yue, who had thrown it into the space for so long without letting it out.

What was even worse was making it stare longingly at a pile of meat to tease it without giving it a single piece, so it was still starving even now.

Looking at its aggrieved expression with those large, watery eyes, Li Shilan hurriedly hugged it, both amused and pained, as she comforted it.

Ai Yue scratched the back of her head. She really hadn't done it on purpose. Very apologetically, she gave Dawang a beef leg plus a piece of pork and promised that this would absolutely never happen again. The hungry Dawang vented its feelings and immediately buried its head into the beef leg, devouring it ravenously.

After soothing Dawang, the three of them finally sat at the table and had a wonderful meal.

By the next day, a day and a night had passed since she last couldn't enter the space. Ai Yue tried again to see if she could enter, and this time it was very smooth.

Ai Yue stood in the space and carefully checked for any changes. Fortunately, there were no bad changes, and Ai Yue finally felt completely at ease.

She understood that there was a time limit for her to stay in the space. She had thought this was her strongest life-saving trump card, but who knew such a situation would arise midway.

She wondered if there would be a possibility to stay in the space forever in the future.

Keep it up! Continue getting gold and jade to upgrade the space.

After coming back from a wild trip outside, Dawang had quieted down a lot and no longer clamored to wander around the base.

It now looked down upon the base filled with steel and concrete; what it yearned for was the vast world outside.

Ai Yue peacefully nursed her injury at the base, nesting at home every day to eat and drink. By the time the injury on her arm healed, Ai Yue had actually gained five pounds, and her face became increasingly ruddy and lustrous.

Compared to the sallow and emaciated people in the base, she appeared far too conspicuous.

When Ai Yue went out, she could only wear a hat and a mask to hide her ruddy face.

Because Li Shilan and Ai Guosheng had to go out to work every day, they didn't dare let themselves look glowing with health, only eating two meals a day, breakfast and lunch.

Not only that, they only ate coarse grains for every meal. The amount of meat, eggs, milk, and vegetables they ate daily was only enough to meet their bodies' needs, and they didn't eat any extra.