Borrowing from Southward-Gazing Lake

Zhang Xuezhou reacted extremely quickly; he was among the first to leave the monitoring room.

Of course, the others weren't slow either.

As a high-sequence group, even when faced with unavoidable disasters like landslides and tsunamis, they are still among the fastest to run.

Under the dim emergency green light, Zhang Xuezhou ran back Zuo Jin.

Cough cough cough!

In the dimly lit monitoring room, Zhang Xuezhou realized he was a little late when he heard a slight wheezing and coughing sound.

"Professor, are you in here?"

Zhang Xuezhou rummaged through the pile of messy, broken chairs, monitors, wires, and metal sheets, then pulled out Ren Yisheng was trapped underneath.

Cough cough cough!

Ren Yisheng suffered some minor injuries, with more than ten shards embedded in his body. The cough was caused by too much dust from the explosion, which made it difficult for him to breathe.

The explosion came extremely suddenly. Even Zhang Xuezhou managed to escape in a disheveled state by using the force of the blast, let alone the others.

Ren Yisheng's immediate reaction was to grab a chair and use it as a shield.

After a series of collisions, he was bumped into a corner by debris and the chaotic crowd, and then chose to simply cower and take refuge.

"I wonder if the others have suffered any injuries!"

After Ren Yisheng spat out two mouthfuls of ash, his voice returned to normal.

Feeling the stinging pain as the fragments were pulled from his body, and then receiving emergency treatment with Zhang Xuezhou's Supreme Purity True Technique, Ren Yisheng couldn't help but feel a bit of lingering fear.

They haven't even entered the formal competition yet, but their performance is already extremely poor.

Everything that was in perfect order was disrupted, and the behind-the-scenes investigation turned into a complete takeover.

If Zhang Xuezhou's suggestion had come any later, or if Ren Yisheng had rejected it, the area where the rocket artillery was detonated might have been the guard center building.

This is not a direct contest of strength against strength, but rather a contest of methods and countermeasures.

An Ran said those thorns seemed to be able to recognize people!

Zhang Xuezhou didn't care whether the others were injured. He couldn't even spare Zuo Quan, and he couldn't care about the others either. At most, he would throw a Supreme Purity True Technique at anyone who was accidentally injured.

His role tonight isn't logistical support, but rather he might have to face an unknown opponent like Wong Tao-sin.

Zhang Xuezhou quickly relayed the observation results brought by Ren Anran's Yangpo tour, and also mentioned that it involved hundreds of people who had mingled into the vicinity during the rainy night.

"These fast-growing thorns grow explosively, almost exhausting their life force during their rapid growth. The remaining thickets are mostly withered branches, making it impossible for them to distinguish friend from foe," Ren Yisheng denied. "Either someone is manipulating the thorns, or it's like the Zuo Household situation you mentioned. By the way, where's Zuo Jin?"

"Zuo Jin has truly reverted to Zuo Jin!"

Ren Yisheng's judgment was close to Zhang Xuezhou's, and Ren Yisheng's thoughts were also close to Zhang Xuezhou's.

Zuo Jin was a potential breakthrough, but Zuo Jin's no longer of much use.

He pulled Ren Yisheng out of the pile of debris, quickly explained the situation, and Ren Yisheng's hands trembled slightly.

In this game of chess, where one side is breaking the game and the other is breaking it, he was momentarily at a loss as to how to make the right move or find the right direction.

"Find the backup power source and restore power to the security center area. Eliminate any infiltrators, whether they are controlled or act on their own initiative. Anyone who launches an attack rashly must be shot dead!"

After being lost in thought for a few seconds, Ren Yisheng shook his head vigorously and then took out his communicator to contact Li Yingbo.

Li Yingbo's almost simultaneous message quickly spread to everyone's communicators, either as text messages, voicemails, or direct calls.

After briefly conveying the message, Ren Yisheng's face showed a hint of bitterness, knowing that everyone had changed from being proactive to being passive.

"Make sure someone reports on the location of the artillery fire!"

The darkness concealed too much, making it difficult to respond accurately.

With so many convenient conditions destroyed, no one can do anything about it.

Ren Yisheng looked at the tilted building and then looked out the window. He saw several emergency lights beginning to illuminate the building, which eased his mind slightly.

"Come on, let's go out and take a look!"

Regardless of the location of the rocket artillery strikes, even if the information is known, one should go to respond instead of continuing to stay in the guard center building.

After a brief arrangement, Ren Yisheng quickly stepped out the door, while Zhang Xuezhou, for the first time, did not wander off alone.

He followed closely behind Ren Yisheng, quickly stepping out of the dark building of the security center.

Outside the building, the rain was still pouring down, with large drops falling as if they were free.

"To command the wind and rain?"

Zhang Xuezhou snorted softly, and Ren Yisheng was equally puzzled.

If you can easily control rain clouds thousands of meters in the sky, you shouldn't be using that ability to make it windy and rainy.

Zuo Jin previously avoided answering, and now he seemed to have lost his breath, leaving them without a real answer due to the difficulty in responding.

Even though they knew this wind and rain were abnormal, Zhang Xuezhou and Ren Yisheng were unable to figure it out.

The torrential rain was clearly excessive. Not only was the drainage system of the guard center struggling to cope with the chaotic explosions from the rocket artillery, but some drainage facilities also stopped working or suffered destructive malfunctions. The rainwater on the ground was rising at a visible rate, and was now almost as deep as the calves.

"I've inquired in other areas of Western Capital City, and the rainfall isn't this outrageous; there hasn't even been a drop of rain," Ren Yisheng said cautiously. "This shouldn't be normal rainfall. This rain couldn't have appeared out of thin air. No power could directly convert into such a large-scale rainfall. If someone had the ability to summon wind and rain, that ability would likely be borrowed!"

He intended to go directly to the direction of the shelling impact, but Ren Yisheng did not expect that even going out would be difficult.

He was also extremely perceptive in noticing the abnormalities in the rain and even sought to determine the cause.

"The large water source near the guard center is Wangnan Lake!"

Zhang Xuezhou and Ren Anran patrolled different areas of Yangpo. One chose to patrol nearby, while the other chose to patrol far away, each with their own patrol range.

Wangnan Lake is located within the area that Zhang Xuezhou inspected.

Zhang Xuezhou had previously thought there was nothing worth patrolling about a lake, until Ren Yisheng reminded him, which made him think about it more.

It was clearly impossible for him to travel more than ten miles to Wangnan Lake at that moment, nor was it possible for him to investigate this artificial lake reservoir covering several miles in one by one.

The worse problem is that the time he wasted going to investigate alone was a minor issue; the real issue was his encounter with Huang Daoxian alone. This shift from being proactive to being passive was enough to reverse the course of the struggle.

"Let's go to the barracks first!"

"Do what?"

"Let's bombard Wangnan Lake with rocket launchers!"

Zhang Xuezhou reached out and touched the ground, and a gentle force appeared around him.

He stepped into the rain, his toes touching the surface and floating on the water.

Ren Yisheng glanced at the knee-deep water and muttered a spell. After nearly thirty seconds, he swayed as he stood up.

Only after Zhang Xuezhou pulled him did he regain his balance and walk on the water with Zhang Xuezhou.

The rainwater, which was knee-deep, only soaked the soles of my shoes, while the rain from the sky stayed away from my body.

It's not that they're germaphobes who have to expend Law Power to avoid rain, but rather that leg-deep water not only makes walking difficult, but the debris from the explosion mixed in with the water can also easily injure people. And if you encounter some thorns covered by water, wading through the water becomes a trampling trap.

Following Zhang Xuezhou, Ren Yisheng couldn't help but glance at the northern area of the guard center as he waded through the water.

That was Wangnan Lake, the area they were about to bomb.