Thank goodness!
After traveling for a day and a night, Annie and Uncle Li Kui's group finally reached their destination on the afternoon of the second day: the foot of a stone mountain piled high with all kinds of enormous mechanical wreckage and shrouded in layers of thick fog.
All around the foot of the mountain lay discarded machine parts and heaps of iron, tossed carelessly into a chaotic mess. It looked like the remains of a destroyed city or factory, but also like the wreckage left behind after some colossal battleship or space station had crashed and exploded.
As for what it actually was, there was no way to know. Annie hadn't asked, and Uncle Li hadn't told her.
Anyway!
As they drew closer, Annie saw that the entire mountain looked like an iron behemoth crouched on the wasteland. Its surface was covered with rusted wreckage, eaten away by time and war, and twisted metal pipes of unknown purpose jutted out from the mountainside.
Like the monstrous veins of a beast, they spilled unknown liquids and belched acrid chemical fumes.
Fortunately!
The fumes mingled with the thick fog surrounding the mountain, blanketing the sky. It made for a pretty good cover.
As long as they didn't vent fumes on a bright, sunny day, Annie thought, the place was well hidden. After all, she'd heard there were ruins like this all over the planet. A human settlement concealed in a place like this would indeed be quite safe.
"..."
Without a word, Li Kui led the way through the ruins, winding this way and that. Before long, a massive gate appeared ahead, hidden among the wreckage at the foot of the mountain.
"Are we there?"
|˙˙)?
Annie spotted the gate before they reached it. It looked as though it had