The situation resolved itself with considerably less effort than anticipated.

The convoy’s iron people and mutants reached the Sweet Orange Camp’s gate to find a crowd pouring out to meet them. They didn’t wait for pleasantries. Fast, decisive — they disarmed the crowd, put them on the ground, and pushed through the gate into the settlement. They stopped in front of the courtyard.

From the building’s shadow behind them, footsteps. Someone coming around the wall.

Before anyone reached Shen Cong’s position, a figure emerged from inside — the settlement’s apparent leader, pushing Liu Qihang out with hands bound, a handgun pressed to Liu Qihang’s temple. “Everyone stop. Move and they all die.”

Behind him, others came forward. No firearms — just knives pressed to the necks of the other captured Mingfa Camp personnel.

“Weapons down,” the leader called.

“Let’s talk this through. Nobody needs to get hurt.” The Mingfa Camp’s iron person eased his tone.

While the standoff held, Shen Cong extended the small camera mounted in his helmet, swept it around the corner to assess the scene, and counted quietly.

One, two, three — everyone’s accounted for. Liu Qihang and all his people. And not one evolved person among the captors — where do they find the confidence?

Camera retracted. He pulled throwing knives from the armor — a handful, slotted between his fingers. His eyes went flat and focused.

He moved.

At something approaching 0.01-second reaction speed, he launched from behind the building, arm already in motion.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

At close range, every throw landed. Everyone holding a captive took a knife. Before the settlement’s people could process what had happened, Shen Cong was already moving through them with the Ape King Long Blade.

It was brief and conclusive. Every person who had been restraining Liu Qihang’s team was dead.

The rest of the settlement’s survivors reacted several seconds too late. By the time they did, the Mingfa Camp’s iron people and mutants were already on them — a controlled brawl that ended quickly with the settlement’s population on the ground, subdued but mostly alive. The Mingfa Camp personnel, unlike Shen Cong, defaulted to incapacitation over elimination.

Liu Qihang’s bonds were cut. He was marked with cuts from the pit trap’s edges — whatever mechanism the floor had used, it hadn’t been gentle. He spat on the ground and looked up.

“I walked right into it. Idiots — myself included.” He turned to Shen Cong. “Colonel Hu. Thank you. We’d have been finished.”

Shen Cong didn’t respond to the thanks. He pointed at the Sweet Orange Fruit trees. “Strip the grove. These people don’t get a ride.” He went directly to the wall, vaulted it, and walked back to Great Vajra without using the gate.

“Commander, how did you end up charging in like that?” one of the iron people asked after he’d gone.

Liu Qihang had the expression of a man who’d been shown up by his own poor judgment. “They told us they had a supply of — women. Captive half-beast women and some regular female survivors. As slaves.” His voice tightened. “We heard that and we lost our heads. Thought it was provocation. It was, but the rest of it wasn’t a lie.”

A mutant had walked to the gate and was looking through it. His tone shifted.

“Commander. It’s not a lie.”

He stepped back to let the others see.

They opened the building doors one by one. The expressions that followed ranged from white-faced silence to barely contained fury.

Every room held women — ordinary survivors and half-beast women both. The ordinary survivors were alive but had clearly not been in control of their circumstances for some time; they showed the hollowed-out affect of people whose capacity to react had been exhausted. The half-beast women had been conditioned into something worse. When the door opened, they responded to human presence with a trained, automatic compliance that was more disturbing than any expression of fear.

“Filth.” Liu Qihang’s voice was quiet and controlled in the way that indicated he was not feeling quiet or controlled.

“Commander. Do we deal with the ones outside?”

He looked at the unconscious pile of settlement personnel for a moment. “Two conscious. Interrogation. Tao — get the women out. Once we’ve stripped the grove, burn this place. Women come with us.”

The interrogation was efficient in the way that wartime necessity produced. What came back: this settlement wasn’t independent. It was a satellite operation belonging to one of the three iron people running a survivor community called the Coal City of Bagong Mountain in Huainan — specifically the territory of an iron person known as Big-Fly Brother. He’d identified the Sweet Orange Fruit grove and developed this location as a private base for himself and his subordinates.

The pit trap in the courtyard hadn’t been designed for passing travelers. It had been designed for political rivals — specifically to deal with the Coal City’s other two iron people: the city’s nominal leader, Ding Yucai, and a second iron person named Zhou Ningning, called Coal Lady.

Three iron people, eleven mutants distributed between their factions, three-way balance of power.

“Three iron people?” Liu Qihang frowned. “When we were in Huainan before, we brought all the iron people back to camp. Didn’t Commander Fu come from Huainan?”

No answer came. The information had been extracted. Liu Qihang gave a slight nod.

Two sharp sounds.

The interrogation subjects were dealt with.

“Commander — Big-Fly Brother needs to go. He’s past the point where he qualifies as human. But we probably can’t take him ourselves. We’d need Colonel Hu.”

“Ask him. He might not be willing.” Liu Qihang looked around. “The women — status?”

“Half the half-beast women are too far gone — conditioned response, we don’t have female personnel to handle that. The two ordinary survivors who are still coherent are manageable. The others…” He paused. “The others are screaming that we killed their people and demanding we pay for it.”

“Stockholm—” Liu Qihang worked to remember the word. “Bind them. Put them on transport. Get them to the hospital when we’re back. Take everything usable. Let’s move.”

Shen Cong’s cameras caught the convoy personnel loading the women — cloth-wrapped, grim-faced — as they returned to the vehicles.

He keyed the radio the moment Liu Qihang was in his vehicle.

“Liu Qihang. I told you not to put people in my convoy.”

“Colonel Hu, they’re victims.”

A few seconds of silence. “Have them load the Sweet Orange Fruit onto my vehicle. Then your convoy maintains a hundred meters from me at all times. Come closer and we’ll have a problem.”

“Understood.” Liu Qihang didn’t argue. He directed the fruit transfer first, and once it was complete: “Colonel Hu — about Big-Fly Brother. He’s a tumor on the survivor community. If you can remove him, it opens the door to bringing the Coal City’s people back. Without dealing with him, this whole mission gets complicated.”

“My task is to escort you. Killing isn’t within my task parameters.”

“Colonel Hu — Big-Fly Brother’s bonded vehicle, his materials, everything attached to him — all of that goes to you. As compensation.”

“You don’t have the standing to offer that trade. If I kill him, his things are mine regardless.”

A pause. Then Liu Qihang’s voice, steady: “Then this — if we engage the Coal City and I die in the conflict, my bonded vehicle is yours. That’s the trade. Kill Big-Fly Brother.”

The radio erupted from the convoy behind him. “Commander—”

Shen Cong didn’t respond. He started Great Vajra and moved out.

No answer given. Liu Qihang absorbed the disappointment and followed.

They’d been rolling for just over a minute when the radio produced Shen Cong’s voice — flat and impersonal.

“My task is to keep you safe. If he constitutes a threat to that safety, I’ll remove him.” A pause. “His vehicle. The Activity fruit. His materials.”

(End of Chapter 181)