Under the moonlight

Everyone had a great time tonight, except for those three.

Xu Ao stopped talking after entering the restaurant, except for dealing with Chen Che, who kept pestering him to perform.

Huang Meng, sitting next to him, could sense his unease. He kept drinking water, not gulping down water because he was desperately thirsty, but taking small sips while glancing at the time on his wrist. He seemed to be trying his best to endure the revelry of the crowd.

Huang Meng looked at Jiang Ying across from her. Her condition was not much better than Xu Ao's. Xu Ao kept drinking water to cover up his condition, but Jiang Ying made no attempt to hide it. She sat in the chair with her brows furrowed, looking like a stern judge glaring at her. However, perhaps because she usually had this cold and serious expression, no one thought anything was wrong with her.

Chen Che, Li Linlin, and Xiao Zhang, along with a few other young people, were completely immersed in the lively laughter and chatter. After all, they were in the prime of their youth, and their love for excitement was the best interpretation of youth. As a result, after the party, Chen Che and another boy were practically carried back to their room by the crowd.

Seeing that his other colleagues were also smiling and slightly drunk, Xu Ao rubbed his forehead and called on the others to help take them back to their rooms.

After it was over, it was almost 1 a.m. Huang Meng, Lin Hanshuang, and Yuri helped clean up the restaurant before going to their respective rooms.

As soon as Huang Meng entered the room, she heard an urgent knocking on the door. Xu Ao always knocked slowly and deliberately. She walked to the door and asked, "Who is it?"

"I'll open the door." It was Jiang Ying's voice.

Huang Meng opened the door and let her in. After Jiang Ying entered, she looked around the room and then looked at Huang Meng seriously and said, "You noticed it today too, didn't you? Those people are monitoring the embassy. I was standing at the door just now, and it got dark. I noticed that they were shining a small spotlight on the embassy."

As Jiang Ying was speaking, footsteps came from outside the door. The two of them stared at the door at the same time. She hadn't closed the door when she came in, and Xu Ao had just pushed it open and come in.

The room, which was not large to begin with, suddenly felt cramped when he entered. Huang Meng gave an awkward laugh and then pulled out a chair for Xu Ao to sit down. She then pulled Jiang Ying to sit on the edge of the bed with her.

Jiang Ying originally intended to stand and talk, and then leave, but before she knew it, Huang Meng had grabbed her arm. Feeling a little awkward, Jiang Ying supported Huang Meng's arm and sat down with her on the edge of the bed.

After Huang Meng released her hand, she looked at Jiang Ying and gestured for her to continue.

“We discovered that they were shining a small spotlight on the restaurant. Xu Ao went out to check, and then we went up to the top floor together to get a clearer view. Later, we found that the spotlight was manually controlled, but we don’t know why they were only shining it on the restaurant.”

“At the time, we were all in the restaurant, and all the lights in the other places were off, so it would have been difficult for us to notice them shining their lights on the restaurant,” Huang Meng said, frowning.

“Yes, that’s what we thought at first too. But just now, after I helped Xiao Zhang into the room and came out, I found that there were only you, Lin Hanshuang, and Yuri left in the restaurant. Later, I helped send the other colleagues back to their rooms on the second floor. The three of you were the last to come up. When I was at the end of the corridor on the second floor, I saw that beam of light move.”

"Move? Move to where?"

“I was standing at the end of the second-floor corridor, right by Lin Hanshuang’s door. That beam of light was flickering through the window, moving along with Yuri. If you don’t believe me, open the door and see for yourself,” Jiang Ying said with great certainty.

Huang Meng quickly got out of bed and opened the door. The second-floor hallway was equipped with motion-activated lights. Everyone was resting at the moment, and the corridor was pitch black. She quietly walked to Lin Hanshuang's door, and sure enough, a beam of light shone in from the window at the end of the corridor, shining directly on her doorway.

If you don't look closely, the brightness of the halo and the moonlight is about the same and not particularly dazzling. Huang Meng looked at it for a while before quietly returning to her room and closing the door.

She sat down by the bed and looked at Xu Ao, who looked serious and seemed lost in thought. Huang Meng turned to Jiang Ying and said, "Are they spying on Yuri?"

"Yes, judging from the current situation, that should be the case."

"But why?"

Faced with Huang Meng's question, Jiang Ying silently shook her head; this was also something she couldn't figure out.

At this moment, Xu Ao cleared his throat and said, "Right now we are just guessing that they are monitoring Yuri, which is not the most disadvantageous thing for our embassy at the moment."

Xu Ao glanced out the window and continued, "This afternoon Yuri told me about the situation of some of our factories and projects in the main urban area."

Xu Ao, looking somewhat tired, rubbed his temples and said, "Although some factories in our country employ almost entirely local workers, a small portion of their management personnel are still Chinese. Furthermore, some infrastructure projects aided by our country in the region, although completed and handed over for acceptance last year, still require maintenance and management personnel, some of whom are our compatriots."

After listening to Xu Ao's words, Huang Meng looked at him with some heartache. The heavy stone that had been weighing on his heart had finally become a cruel reality that could not be ignored.

“We have detailed records of the factories and infrastructure projects in the main urban area, but we haven’t kept specific personnel lists, which makes things more complicated,” Jiang Ying said, frowning.

“Yes, I talked to Yuri today, hoping to learn more about the personnel in the factories and infrastructure projects in the city. He wasn’t very clear about the factories, but he said that a friend of his is a manager in one of the aid projects. If we can find him, we might be able to get the list.” Xu Ao paused here.

"One more thing, Yuri said that almost all the infrastructure projects in the city were destroyed along the way. It seems that those people's goal was very clear: to cut off all contact between the city and the outside world. However..." Xu Ao didn't finish his sentence, but they all understood. They just didn't know if Yuri's friends had survived.

"Yes, that's right. I experienced an explosion attack while I was in the city. It didn't seem like they were trying to kill, but rather to drive people away. Almost all the buildings were destroyed, and many people were either killed or injured by falling debris."

A brief silence fell over the room. None of the three spoke. After a long while, Xu Ao broke the silence: "So, now we need to formulate some plans. No matter what those mercenaries and the New Dealers do next, we need to be able to deal with them. Also, we need to find a way to enter the main city to find our people."

After Xu Ao finished speaking, Jiang Ying immediately continued, "When the explosion first happened, we tried to contact the factories and projects in the city, but they destroyed the power and communications. As soon as the explosion ended, they sealed it off. The last time we tried to get in, what happened?"

Jiang Ying was clearly agitated when she said this. Huang Meng guessed that the last time she was referring to was the time Xu Ao had told her about, the time when the mercenaries shot and killed more than ten people who resisted right in front of them.

Huang Meng could understand her fear. Even with burdens and responsibilities on their shoulders, not everyone can immediately make a choice about what is more important in the face of life and death. Especially with those bloody scenes right before their eyes, the impact of bloodshed and loss of life cannot be digested in a day or two. Didn't she herself often recall those images and fall into fear, unable to let go?

Xu Ao fell into deep thought. He had considered that crossing the blockade would inevitably involve danger, but he still wanted to take the gamble.

Seeing that neither of them spoke, Huang Meng felt the atmosphere become heavy. She wanted to break the silence but didn't know what to say. Just then, the crackling sound of a loudspeaker came from outside the window. The people in the room tensed up and looked up, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.

Huang Meng yanked open the curtains, and sure enough, the sound was coming from across the street. Xu Ao quickly stood up and leaned over the window, but Huang Meng's room was on the second floor, so she could only see the towering lights and moving figures across the street, but couldn't make out what was happening on the ground. The three of them exchanged glances, and Jiang Ying quickly reacted, turned around, opened the door, and ran out, with Xu Ao and Huang Meng following closely behind.

When they reached the top floor and stood on the edge of the roof, they were stunned. The number of people who had been guarding the area had visibly increased. They were all fully armed and stood in formation. Someone was speaking in front of the formation with a megaphone, but from hundreds of meters away, it was difficult to hear what was being said.

Huang Meng was anxious and kept standing on tiptoe and craning her neck. Xu Ao kept his eyes fixed on the opposite side. He noticed Huang Meng's small movements out of the corner of his eye, and reached out to support her body, saying, "Be careful. If you can't hear clearly, just forget it. Let's see what kind of trouble they're up to this time."

At this moment, Jiang Ying pointed to the road in the distance and exclaimed, "Look, over there, isn't a car driving by?"

Huang Meng and Xu Ao looked in the direction she was pointing. There were no streetlights on that road, and they could only make out that vehicles were coming this way by the lights near the cordon, and they were moving very slowly.

They stared intently at the dark figures until they were fully exposed to the light. Xu Ao exclaimed, "They're armored vehicles!"

Huang Meng and Jiang Ying also saw the vehicles. The heavy tracks made a clattering sound on the ground, and the vehicles were not moving fast. They stopped after approaching the blockade line. Huang Meng looked back from the first vehicle and saw that there were four vehicles in total.

"Look there," Xu Ao said coldly. Huang Meng and Jiang Ying followed his gaze and saw four ranks slowly marching forward from behind the armored vehicles, stopping next to the first armored vehicle.

Jiang Ying said anxiously, "What are they trying to do? They've brought so many people and even armored vehicles. Aren't they all destroyed inside? What else do they want?" Looking at the heavily armed formation on the other side, Jiang Ying absolutely did not believe that they were just holding the blockade line.

"Hmph, what else can we do but wipe them out completely?" Xu Ao said calmly.

"Then what do we do?" Huang Meng asked nervously, looking at Xu Ao staring intently at the other side. She had experienced the bombing attack and knew what kind of hell it would become if these people were allowed into the main city.

The bombings had stopped for several days, and people were no longer worried about deadly fireworks or meteors falling from the sky at any moment. However, they had to endure the pain of losing their homes and families while struggling to find food to survive. Their spirits had long since collapsed, and they were only able to survive by relying on their biological instincts. To steel cannons, they were like a group of scarecrows, completely vulnerable.

Xu Ao leaned on the railing with both hands, head down, not saying a word. Jiang Ying and Huang Meng looked at him without speaking either. After a moment, he raised his head and said to Jiang Ying, "Now go and wake up all the embassy staff. No matter how soundly they are sleeping, wake them all up." Jiang Ying looked at the determination in his eyes, nodded, and turned to run downstairs.

"Go and find Yuri for me. I have something to ask him," Xu Ao said, turning to Huang Meng.