The Four-Legged Dragon's Beyond-Three-Star Talent came at a cost: she ate through every food reserve Shen Cong had stockpiled.

He was still satisfied. A battle companion with Beyond-Three-Star Talent was an enormous asset — once she finished growing into her new ceiling, her combat capability would be in a different class entirely.

At first light, he took her out along the Chang-Shen Expressway and looped around the outskirts of Huai'an City, sending the drone up for a careful look.

The reconstructed Huai'an City had been laid out in a grid pattern modeled on the character 田 — uniform, practical, no tall structures, the buildings almost identical to one another: square, solid, stone-block construction. An outer defensive wall formed the city's perimeter, and inside that ran an unbroken band of residential blocks. Further in, past the housing, lay the industrial base — workshops and production facilities, with survivors visible moving in and out, busy at their work.

The Eastern Theater Command's total population, New Hefei included, was approximately 310,000. Eighty thousand of them lived in Huai'an City. Eighty thousand people — the population of a large township — and the city's new layout still felt vast and underpopulated in places. Wooden tricycles and flatbed carts threaded through the streets. The occasional modified vehicle moved among them.

The overall aesthetic was strangely coherent. Incongruous but somehow unified.

Fruit trees lined every road and alley. Planting Activity fruit trees had become a core Command policy — and for good reason. Food was a minor concern for Shen Cong; for the Command's 310,000 people, it was the permanent first priority.

Huai'an City's defensive infrastructure was dense. Guard towers everywhere. The moment Shen Cong turned onto the elevated ring road section of the expressway, the vehicle radio produced a contact request.

"Is this Committee Member Hu Ge? We've identified a large, grey-black truck on the ring expressway, accompanied by a large lizard-type jin beast."

"That's me."

"Good day, sir!" A brief pause from the signals operator, then: "Sir, could you confirm — is the lizard jin beast your battle pet?"

"Yes. Her name is Four-Legged…