The new government didn't know much about the details of the Great China Rift. It had only mapped out the rough layout of the fissures in the areas it had explored.

The fissure wasn't the single unbroken rift valley Shen Cong had imagined.

It came in pieces. Some places had only one fissure, some had several running side by side, and some had only collapsed mountains with no fissure at all. It was like a snapped piece of cardboard that still hung together by threads in many places, its edges ragged and uneven. That was why the seawater had only flowed in as far as the Tangshan area.

Another fissure, starting at Yutian County in Tangshan, was made up of deep valleys with little water at the bottom.

Now and then there was even a ring-shaped volcanic crater on the valley floor.

When he reached Beijing's Shunyi District, Shen Cong didn't go to the new government's headquarters. He kept following the Great China Rift. Somewhere around Huailai County in Zhangjiakou, the great rift made a big turn. It no longer ran east–west but northeast–southwest. From there it stretched down along the western foot of the Taihang range, back the way he had come.

It passed through Guangling County and Wutai County, then into Taiyuan City, and then to Jinzhong City, where Shen Cong had been trapped. It ran south to Taigu County, then down to Jiexiu City and into Linfen City. From Linfen City it kept stretching southwest into Yuncheng City. There the great rift turned again, bending farther west and heading straight for Xi'an.

"Xi'an is on my planned route anyway. I might as well take this chance to go have a look at Xi'an first." Shen Cong didn't stop in Yuncheng and kept following the edge of the fissure.

Pretty much the whole stretch from Jinzhong to Yuncheng was deserted. There wasn't a single trace of humans.

But Shen Cong soon found that getting to Xi'an wasn't so simple. Before he had even left Shanxi Province, the whole Guanzhong Basin had been broken to pieces. Fissures were everywhere,…