Shen Cong pocketed his phone, gave Little Four a wave, picked up his rubber bags, and walked out of the banyan grove in long strides.

Predictably, exactly as before, the four-legged snake followed him all the way back to Great Vajra. Shen Cong tossed his haul into the cabin, turned, and called out: "Stop following me."

Then he climbed in, started the engine, and pulled away along the tracks the military jeep had left.

Little Four followed anyway.

He didn't push it. There was no practical way to bring a creature that size with him, and communication only went so far. For all he knew, the moment it got hungry enough, it might decide he looked like a reasonable meal. The possibility wasn't zero.

So that was what this had been — a strange, one-off transaction. If he came back through this area someday to dig up more yogurt, maybe he'd see it again.

For now, the deal was done.

The four-legged snake kept pace, trailing him for about two kilometers, calling out periodically and getting no response from Great Vajra. At the next bend in the road, it finally stopped. It stood in the muddy water, head raised, and watched the truck move forward — growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the warm afternoon light.

Then it let out a low, rolling sound, swung its body around, and loped back toward the hills at Ershi-li Chang Shan, vanishing around the slope's curve.

The standing water stilled. Quiet returned, the same as always.

Shen Cong watched the blip disappear from the radar display, settled something quietly inside himself, and pressed down on the accelerator.

He caught up with the military jeep at a ruined township called Zhuzhen. The moment he switched on the radio, Zhao Zilong's voice came through: "Colonel Chen — we stopped here for a rest. Join us for lunch?"

"Fine."

Zhuzhen sat just three kilometers from the Changshen Expressway. Looking at the map, it was almost absurd — they'd looped nearly in a full circle, ending up back in Nanjing's Liuhe District, just on the…