Before the end of the world, Shen Cong's impression of Cangzhou had been of a bleak, poor, disorderly place. That came from reading Water Margin (TL Note: a Chinese novel from the 1300s, one of the country's four great classics, following a band of 108 outlaws), where any convict not sentenced to death was generally branded and exiled to Cangzhou.

Lin Chong, the Panther Head (TL Note: one of those 108 outlaws, framed by a powerful enemy and banished to Cangzhou — the novel's best-known exile), was branded and sent down the Cangzhou road, and any number of schemers framed him along the way.

Cangzhou in those days must have been a remote corner of the Song empire. None of that meant anything now. Cangzhou was ruins, overrun by jin trees, a small patch inside an endless forest.

He had only just arrived when he heard birdcalls coming in waves out of the forest in the distance.

Eagles, and fine-looking ones.

The four-legged dragon, thoroughly dispirited by the weasel's presence, perked up a little at the sound. "Bobo… birds… tasty… kill… Bobo eat…"

The weasel gave off feeling of the same kind — birds, tasty.

Plainly both of the big creatures were fond of eating birds. Only Shen Cong was unmoved.

In the early days he had been fairly afraid of birds. They could attack from the air, and the Great Vajra had no good answer to that. But the Vajra Fortress had grown a Qilin Arm now, and his swordplay with the Mushroom-Bug Sword was fully mastered. Let an evolved bird come at him now and it would simply be killed.

The Third Eye Radar swept the Cangzhou ruins. It was hard to tell any more where the building sites ended and the wild began.

The jin trees here were mostly tall poplars, standing dead straight with fair gaps between them. Low shrubs grew across the ground. He could not have named the species; his knowledge of trees was limited.

"Plant life keeps getting more varied. It isn't like the early days of the new world, when there were…