Early 2022 census figures for Hefei: permanent population of 8.42 million, of which 4.02 million lived in the urban core.

After the apocalypse: the urban permanent population had fallen to under 30,000. One survivor for every hundred and thirty or so people. Those who’d made it had done so by being underground — air raid shelters, basement car parks, subterranean storage facilities — when the meteor storm hit.

Among those, the garrison’s own installations had the best pre-existing defensive infrastructure, which meant a meaningful portion of the military forces had come through intact. Under the command of Provincial Garrison Commander Zhao Weiliang, the Hefei Garrison had formed the organizational backbone around which survivor society was rebuilt — coordinating rescue operations, establishing order, beginning reconstruction.

As they expanded their reach, they’d found the Huoshan Oasis — the meteorite fragments from the extinction-level shower had landed near Huoshan County in Lu’an City, and whatever had landed there had created the Oasis conditions. The garrison had organized an expedition to investigate the origin of the catastrophe. That expedition had walked into the locust swarms and lost half the garrison’s combat-effective strength in one engagement.

The Oasis threat hadn’t stopped there. Evolved beasts continued pushing out from Huoshan in continuous waves, producing daily casualties on the defensive perimeter. The pressure was relentless.

Zhao Weiliang’s response: expand the recruitment net. Reach out to other cities, bring in evolved people from wherever contact could be established, use those numbers to hold the line. To make the outreach work — to get people to come willingly — the garrison had downplayed the severity of the situation, framing the call as “rebuilding together” rather than “we’re being overrun and need bodies.”

Evolved people and their families had been brought in from four cities where contact had been established: Chaohu, Lu’an, Huainan, and Bengbu.

The increasingly complex population mix had prompted the garrison to formalize its management structure. The Anhui Provincial Garrison Wartime Martial Law Management Regulations established a fully militarized administrative framework, sorting every survivor into one of four combat sequences to meet the escalating operational demands.

“The situation at the garrison isn’t good,” Li Aiping said, the energy going out of her voice. “The evolved beasts coming out of the Huoshan Oasis are getting stronger every month. We’re close to the point where we can’t hold the perimeter. There’s already a significant faction pushing for relocation — moving northeast toward Chuzhou, and from there to Nanjing.” She paused and looked up. “Speaking of which — did you see it? The mushroom cloud to the east? Did the Eastern Theater Command actually drop a nuclear weapon?”

Shen Cong glanced at the horizon. The cloud was still there, still dispersing slowly. He said nothing.

Nanjing wasn’t having an easy time either, apparently.

“How does the garrison grade evolved people’s capability?” he asked.

“Point system.”

“Explain.”

“Every evolved person gets assigned combat tasks. Performance and results get scored — mission completion rates, engagement outcomes, that kind of thing. One hundred points puts you at Bronze tier. Five hundred is Silver. Five thousand is Gold. Three tiers total.” She shifted against the chain. “Special-category evolved people — iron people like you, the mechanical-bond types — I don’t know how your grading works. The Research Institute handles that separately.”

“Research Institute.”

“A group of pre-apocalypse specialists. They study the evolution phenomenon and handle bone-gold weapon production.”

“Tell me what you know about iron people specifically.”

“Not much, honestly — I’m a Bronze-tier militia member, my job is external resource collection. What I know is that iron people are mostly in the Independent Motor Battalion. Everyone calls them the Autobots — like from Transformers. Most of them are bonded to cars or motorcycles, but there are some bonded to drilling equipment and high-voltage transformer systems too.”

She said it with obvious envy — not just the practical advantages of a vehicle bond, but the prestige. The Motor Battalion occupied a particular position in garrison society.

“All the garrison’s mechanized equipment is under the Motor Battalion’s operational control,” she continued. “They’re the only ones who can maintain mechanical systems — everything else has corroded. Our firearms have to be turned in to the Motor Battalion for maintenance every evening after use. They’re the garrison’s most valuable asset.” She looked at him directly. “If you went to the garrison, you’d have that status. That treatment.”

Shen Cong shifted topics without warning. “I’ve heard there’s serious tension between ordinary survivors and evolved people. And between Zhao Weiliang and Zhu Li.”

Li Aiping’s expression shifted slightly. “You’re not as uninformed about the garrison as you’ve been letting on.”

“Answer the question.”

“The ordinary survivor and evolved person tension — it’s actually not as bad as you’d think right now. When the evolved beasts are pressing that hard on the perimeter, nobody has the energy to fight each other…” She trailed off. “The leadership friction is above my level. But you can feel it. Two camps, definitely. They argue openly at command meetings.”

Two hours later Shen Cong had a working picture of the Hefei Garrison’s basic structure.

He released her wrists and handed her gauze, a clean towel, and antiseptic. “Treat your wounds yourself. I can’t let you go back yet — once I’ve confirmed your information holds, I’ll release you.”

“You’re being overly cautious,” Li Aiping said, working the antiseptic into the cut above her eye with a wince. “It’s genuinely unnecessary. You’re an iron person — if you went to the garrison and joined the Motor Battalion, you’d have the best treatment available…” She stopped. “Do you have a mirror?”

The only mirrors were in the bathroom and sleeping compartment, neither of which he was opening to a stranger. He tossed her one of the spare phones — cracked screen, still functional — and let her use it as a mirror while he sat back and thought.

How much of it was true?

He didn’t know. He wasn’t going to assume. Li Aiping didn’t read as someone with the composure to run a sophisticated deception — but “doesn’t seem like a good liar” and “is definitely telling the truth” were not the same thing. Someone could have sent her precisely because she seemed credible.

He worked through what she’d told him against what he already knew.

The White Cat Squad: a militia unit under the People’s Defense Department’s organization. Ten-person teams, mixed evolved and ordinary members, semi-military structure, assigned external tasks. Today’s team had been sent to Feidong County to search for supplies. Their squad leader — an ordinary person, a police officer — had stayed to cover the retreat when the Deathclaws surrounded them. He hadn’t made it. Li Aiping had made it because evolved physiology was evolved physiology, and she’d run far enough to find Vajra.

She’d described the loss without much visible grief. Not cold — just the flat affect of someone who’d processed too many deaths to react to each one at full intensity anymore.

“That ant is your pet?” she asked, breaking the quiet. She’d finished cleaning the blood off her face and was pressing gauze to the cut.

Mid-twenties, Shen Cong estimated. Ordinary features. The injury would leave a mark. Before the apocalypse, apparently: supermarket cashier. Parents and family had died in the initial meteor storm — not even bodies remaining, just the month of continuous debris-storm that had acted like a planet-scaled cremation, followed by two floods that had erased whatever the storm left behind. Only survivors buried in rubble had any physical remains to speak of.

He did the arithmetic while she talked.

If roughly one in a hundred and thirty had survived in Hefei, and if that ratio held nationally — optimistically, one survivor per hundred people — China’s pre-apocalypse population of 1.5 billion would have produced roughly fifteen million survivors. China’s land area was 9.6 million square kilometers. That worked out to fewer than two people per square kilometer. Per square kilometer — roughly 140 football fields of territory.

The number settled in his chest with a particular kind of cold weight.

He pushed it aside. He’d missed a question.

“How does the garrison classify evolved beasts?”

(End of Chapter 135)