The next day, May 21.

Shen Cong left Mount Mao, joined the Nanjing–Hangzhou Expressway, and ran south through Liyang City and Yixing City, bound for Changxing County. Passing through Dingshu Town in Yixing City, he came upon an Eastern Theater Command station.

The theater was laying its plans to close the ring on Changxing County. For several days now it had been sending out picked men to survey the ground around the county, and once the picture was clear it would put the trenching plan into effect, open the attack, and scour the ratmen out of existence.

The officer commanding was an acquaintance of Shen Cong's: Major General Han Shoucheng.

Han Shoucheng showed no surprise at the sight of him. He was thoroughly used to Shen Cong ghosting in and out. Nobody knew what Shen Cong was doing on any given day, and nobody knew what he was thinking. When he wanted to be somewhere he simply went there, and when he wanted to do a thing he simply did it.

Free as air, and answerable to nobody.

There were times Han Shoucheng envied him the attitude — even if, at the back of his mind, he could not shake the sense that dealing with a man whose head wasn't right was dangerous work. But this presumed madman, this monster of a man, went where he pleased alone, and not only had he never come to grief, he grew stronger by the month.

To manage that as a lone wanderer commanded respect whether you liked it or not.

Enough small talk. Straight to it.

Han Shoucheng ran through everything the last two days had turned up. The soldiers he had brought were all first-rate, and he had some sophisticated equipment to work with besides; they had already begun feeling out the shape of the ratman city at Changxing County.

"Going by the overhead footage so far, the ratman city is a great deal more than the four-li-square walled town you see on the surface. There has to be an enormous cave system beneath it. We can't put a firm number…