Late at night, the cold moonlight fell silently over the quiet factory district like a beam of still light.
This place had once been a steel mill, but it had long since been abandoned and never rebuilt.
Weeds grew everywhere in the factory district. The old railway tracks, blast furnaces, and steelmaking furnaces had all been covered by vines and wild grass, making their original forms difficult to distinguish beneath the night sky.
The buildings in the factory district—the various production-line workshops—now had nothing left but a few broken frameworks.
They stood silently in the darkness. When the wind blew through their shattered windows, they let out hollow howls, as if the years that had slipped away had left behind echoes in the empty factory district.
Wang Meng held up his binoculars, his gaze sweeping over the machinery casually discarded outdoors in the distance. All the equipment had rusted, while the weeds around it swayed in the wind, exuding an indescribable desolation.
He suddenly heard Luo Yan beside him say, "There are quite a few hidden sentries. There are two at the main gate, seven along the main road, and three near the concealed entrance Fan Zhixing mentioned."
"There are also several hidden sentries in other places. In short, any disturbance in this factory district will be discovered."
Wang Meng shifted his binoculars toward a large smokestack deep in the factory district. The entrance to the laboratory was inside that smokestack.
Although he could not see a single person there, the instincts of someone in the Profound Comprehension Realm told him that the area was not as desolate as it appeared.
"Mister Zhou is pretty cautious. He set up so many hidden sentries here. Looks like not even a fly could get through."
Wang Meng lowered his binoculars and looked