Ratmen are good at burrowing, but set against the Vajra-Ants, who are experts at it, they were a move behind. Blackhead's intelligence might come to that of a three- or four-year-old child, but with the Mind-Imprint to Shen Cong to work through, its grasp of an order and how to carry it out was strong.

The next day, rested and restored, Shen Cong followed Blackhead down the tunnels the Vajra-Ants had driven and found the ratman tunnels soon enough.

A sweep of the Third Eye laid the whole spreading network bare.

There were a great many ratmen going up and down them, but Shen Cong could keep clear of them well in advance, and so he slipped quietly into the ratman warren. He kept to its outer reaches and did not go near the middle. What he wanted were the escape tunnels that ran outward, so that the ratmen's flight could be sealed off.

With the Vajra-Ants working alongside him, the job went smoothly.

Over a full day Shen Cong turned up four tunnels leading out beyond Changxing County, one after another, and noted down the coordinates. Most of a night more, and he had the ratmen's rough numbers clear.

To be certain of it, he kept searching another whole night.

And a fifth passage did turn up — this one eighty meters down, running away east, running out under Lake Tai.

"A passage into Lake Tai. Well hidden. So ratmen can swim as well. If they hadn't run into me, the Rat King might have got clean away a second time." Shen Cong noted where the exit lay, and left.

Shen Cong was not the only one taking the measure of the ratman city at Changxing County. The Eastern Theater Command was at it too.

Baixian Township, next to Meishan Town, became the new command post for the operation. Shen Cong, Han Shoucheng and the rest pooled what each of them had, and laid plans to wipe the ratman city out.

"On four days' investigation, the ratmen number above a hundred and thirty thousand. Rat slaves make up the…