The poplar was over twenty meters tall. The nest sat at around fifteen — nothing to Shen Cong. He went up bare-handed, Half-Activated Armor and all, the extra weight of the suit a non-issue. The metallic gradation in the trunk and branches had made the wood significantly denser and harder than normal, more than capable of bearing him as he climbed.

He pulled himself level with the nest and looked in.

Three eggs, lying quiet in the lined interior. Each one roughly the size of a honeydew melon. Speckled shells. He didn’t recognize the species — but he knew they’d taste good.

He got out the mesh bag he’d prepared, loaded all three eggs in carefully, slung it across his back, and started down.

He was most of the way to the ground when something in the distance caught his eye.

He stopped.

Through the trees he could see one of the lakes that dotted the area around Miaogang Township. The largest of them — a body of water called Wangba — had a shoreline visible from here, and on that shoreline a massive wild boar was running down a human survivor.

The boar’s tusks were enormous. Its build was dense and powerful. Evolved beast, no question.

The survivor was fast — faster than baseline human. Shen Cong raised his binoculars and confirmed it: a bony protrusion, sharp and pronounced, jutting from the person’s chin. An evolved person.

There are survivors out here?

He swept the binoculars around. He’d done a drone pass earlier and seen no signs of human activity in the area. Out in the open, a lone survivor was almost an impossibility — even evolved people needed backup. The only viable solo operators were people like Shen Cong himself, with a vehicle acting as a mobile fortress. Which meant whoever this was, they had a group somewhere nearby.

But he hadn’t spotted any group.

So where did they come from? Scavenging out from Hefei? Hunting party?

He made a note to capture them for questioning. Intel on Hefei and the provincial garrison was exactly what he needed.

For now, he watched.

The evolved person wasn’t physically impressive — enhancement on the modest side, from what he could judge. Before he could get a proper assessment, the situation resolved itself: the survivor, chased into a corner, simply launched themselves off the bank and into Wangba.

Clean solution. The mutated boar skidded to the waterline and went no further, pawing furiously at the mud, unwilling or unable to follow. The two of them settled into a standoff — person treading water, boar snarling at the shore.

The boar didn’t last much longer.

From a hundred meters out, Shen Cong put the Rhino Horn Javelin through it. The animal’s complete focus on the figure in the water meant it never noticed him lining up the throw. The javelin pinned it; two follow-up strikes from the Dog-Croc Warhammer finished the job.

Shen Cong immediately brought the QBZ-95A up and trained it on the soaking figure now staring at him from the water.

The survivor — chin-spike and all — threw both hands up instantly.

“Hey — don’t shoot, don’t shoot. You’re — you’re human, right?”

“Who are you?” Shen Cong said.

The survivor let out a long breath. “Oh thank god. Yeah, you’re human. I thought I’d run into an alien or something — didn’t think there was anyone else alive out here besides our village. If you hadn’t shown up I genuinely don’t know how I was getting out of that one… You got a cigarette, man? I haven’t had a smoke in months, come on—”

Twenty-something years old, talking at full speed now that he’d confirmed he wasn’t about to die. Shen Cong’s expression didn’t shift.

“Stop rambling. Who are you.”

The survivor waded out of Wangba and dropped onto the bank, dripping, breathing hard. “Can you at least lower the gun, big bro? That’s a real gun. If it goes off by accident I’m done… My name’s Li Junfu. I’m from Xiao Li’gang Village, just over that way.”

Under the continued persuasion of Shen Cong’s rifle barrel, Li Junfu explained himself.

Not from Hefei — not what Shen Cong had been hoping for. Li Junfu was local, born and raised in Xiao Li’gang Village in Miaogang Township. After graduating he’d drifted, couldn’t find steady work, ended up back home with nothing much to do. He’d been playing with the family’s earth dog — Heidou — when the meteor shower hit and knocked them both out. When he came around, both he and Heidou had mutated.

The village had survived the first month largely because every household in the area grew ginger and kept root cellars stocked with it and other provisions. Enough food to wait out the initial chaos.

Heidou had gone feral during that period — turned on Li Junfu repeatedly. Li Junfu had tied the dog to a support beam in the cellar and spent weeks talking him down, feeding him by hand, until the animal’s intelligence reasserted itself and they found their way back to each other.

In the whole village, only Li Junfu and Heidou had mutated. The several dozen other survivors who’d sheltered in the cellars — mostly elderly and children — had come through unchanged.

After the initial storm passed, Li Junfu and Heidou had fought through one encounter after another, nearly died several times over, and eventually grown into something capable enough to lead the remaining villagers to shelter on the nearby Jian Mountain.

“I searched the whole township,” Li Junfu said, the energy going out of his voice for a moment. “As far as I could tell, our village was the only one where people made it — everyone who got into the cellars in time. The rest didn’t survive. I thought the whole world was gone. Just me.”

“How did you end up running from that boar?” Shen Cong asked.

Before Li Junfu could answer, Shen Cong’s ears caught something. He turned, scanning the distance.

“Dog barking.”

“That’s Heidou!” Li Junfu was on his feet immediately, fingers going to his mouth to whistle.

Shen Cong’s foot connected with him before the sound came out. “Don’t whistle.”

He hated that kind of thing. Out in the open, noise discipline wasn’t optional — it was survival. You didn’t announce yourself to everything within earshot.

“That’s my dog, man — Heidou’s out there—”

“I saw it. Talk.”

Li Junfu explained: yesterday he’d gone out foraging and spotted a persimmon tree loaded with fruit. A problem — the mutated boar was camped under it. He’d sent Heidou to draw the boar away while he harvested the persimmons. It had worked, mostly, except the boar had doubled back and found Li Junfu instead, and by then Heidou had vanished.

While he was talking, Shen Cong picked up the dog visually. Bigger than a牙狼 — significantly bigger, black-coated, two sharp tusks showing at the jaw. Moving toward them now, but moving wrong. One leg dragging.

Broken. The boar had gotten to it.

“Heidou!”

Li Junfu ran toward the dog before Shen Cong could say anything. He let it go. A broken-legged evolved animal and a three-bull-strength evolved person — the threat level was manageable. He watched them reunite and found himself feeling something he hadn’t expected.

A little envious.

A dog that had mutated alongside its owner. That had fought through the early days with him. In the apocalypse, Shen Cong had always wanted a dog — ever since he’d seen the German Shepherd in that old Will Smith film. A companion like that would have meant something.

But every dog he’d encountered since the apocalypse had gone feral. Even Heidou, now that he got a good look at it, had mutated into something harder and stranger than the dogs he remembered. The warmth you’d expect from a normal dog wasn’t quite there.

He let the thought go.

“The persimmon tree,” he said. “Where is it.”

Persimmons meant Activity fruit. He wasn’t walking past that.

(End of Chapter 129)