Liu Zheng had been feeding this metal lump. Where he’d originally found it — whether here in this cave or somewhere else — was now unknowable. Wei Falü, Zhu Ran, and Ran Tai had all known, and all three were dead. Why he’d chosen this particular cave for the feeding operation was equally opaque, though the most plausible guess was keeping it away from the other evolved people in camp.

With the “meteorite fragment” now exposed, there was no reason to leave it here. Shen Cong shouldered the lump — roughly the size and bulk of a millstone roller — tucked the viper carcass under his other arm, and headed back the way he’d come.

He’d already concluded the metal was almost certainly not a meteorite fragment. But a living piece of metal was worth something regardless of its origin. Worth one outing away from Vajra, at least.

The walk up had taken ten minutes. The return took three.

Shen Cong covered most of it at a run, and the moment Vajra came back into view the knot in his chest began to loosen. By the time he was back inside the cab, something he could only describe as spiritual relief had settled through him.

Safe.

There was still plenty of work to do.

He started with the viper.

“Venom Duke — a mutated Yangtze Short-Tailed Viper variant, classified as evolved beast. Body resembling a python in dimensions. Length: 6.3 metres. Scales: exceptionally dense and hard. Activity core: paired tubular fangs, nineteen centimetres long, curved at the distal end, straight toward the tip.”

Measured data: Lv0.502, Activity Value 0.287H, Talent 0.572H. Reasonable evolutionary development.

Snake, the old wisdom said, was useful from tip to tail. Venom, gallbladder, flesh, skin, liver, fat — all of it had traditional medicinal applications.

Whether those applications still held much value for him was debatable. His body’s resilience had long since passed the threshold where pre-apocalypse medicine was relevant to his healthcare. Still, the paired tubular fangs as Activity cores interested him considerably.

“Forward ten centimetres are essentially straight and hollow. Potential arrowheads — venom-delivery capable.” He set the fangs aside carefully. “First, assess the venom’s potency.”

Venom extraction from a dead snake was dead-collection only — cut out the venom glands intact, then express the contents into a container. The glands themselves were already mostly depleted from what the snake had sprayed on the cave floor, so he couldn’t afford waste. He worked carefully — years of repair work had given him steady hands — and extracted both glands cleanly, then squeezed the remaining venom into a small glass vial, millilitre by careful millilitre.

He weighed it. 12.35 grams. Roughly the volume of two sticks of chewing gum.

“Tomorrow, have the camp bring over some live catches. Test potency.”

He processed the carcass and checked his watch: past midnight. He stretched, decided he’d earned a late meal, and started cooking.

The viper was the ingredient.

He considered eating the gallbladder raw — a traditional approach — and decided against it. Snake wine instead; the gallbladder would keep better steeped in alcohol. Shen Cong didn’t much like drinking, generally. Alcohol degraded judgment and blunted his perceptual sensitivity to the environment. But small amounts occasionally served a purpose — circulation, mental acuity. Everything had tradeoffs. The key was not to overdo it.

He acknowledged, privately, that the Vajra dependency might be something he was very slightly overdoing.

Just slightly.

The stir-fried viper came out well. He ate it.

A fierce, spreading heat radiated from his stomach outward — not uncomfortable exactly, but intense enough that he was sweating through his clothes with the air conditioning running. When the meat had digested, he could feel something specific: a distinct stimulating effect on his Activity, a kind of excitation that pushed at the enhancement process in a way that felt different from the fruit he’d been consuming.

He’d eaten Sharp Eagle meat before. Melancholy Bird. Neither had produced anything like this.

If this effect is consistent across viper species and not just this individual, hunting evolved snakes belongs on the regular menu. Food and research material in one.

He made a note and went to sleep.

The next morning, Liu Changming arrived with his son in tow, returned the handgun, and asked if Shen Cong needed him to continue.

“Two jobs,” Shen Cong said. “First, install a monitoring system on the cargo truck — interior and exterior coverage. Second, there’s a pile of scrap in the back that includes various damaged and rusted camera components. Sort through them, assess what’s repairable, pull the usable components from anything that can’t be fixed.”

“Understood. I can do that.”

“Before you leave tonight, come find me. I’ll calculate compensation for this week’s communication research and pay you out.”

“Thank you, Boss Huang, really—”

“You earned it. Go work.”

Liu Changming had barely left before Zhang Youhai appeared, several people behind him carrying a bundled package. The Provisional Government’s Activity core delivery.

“Boss Huang, this is from the District — two hundred and two bone-gold samples, all sorted. Some of the crow carcasses were too damaged and the cores had shattered — those were counted against the camp’s twenty percent share. Every intact piece came to you.” Zhang Youhai presented the bundle with appropriate gravity.

Shen Cong took it, tipped the contents into the cargo hold, and gave it a rough visual assessment without counting. Adequate.

Zhang Youhai waved the carriers back to camp and then lingered, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial register. “Boss Huang, I’ve been eating a fair amount of Gentle Sand Pears and Evolution Grapes these past few days, and I’ve been feeling — my teeth are itching. Specifically the canines. And my strength is noticeably up. Could you check me over? Am I evolving?”

Shen Cong had given Zhang Youhai a deliberate supply of Activity fruit over the past week. Not as relationship management — as an experiment. He wanted to observe whether prolonged Activity fruit consumption could trigger mutation in an ordinary person. On theoretical grounds, absorbing large amounts of Activity through food was potentially equivalent to direct Activity exposure. Mutation was plausible.

Whether the result would be half-beast, mutant, or iron person — that was harder to predict.

“Is that right.” Shen Cong pulled out a medical kit. “Open your mouth.”

Zhang Youhai obliged immediately, producing some moderately bad breath in the process.

Shen Cong fitted his mask, lifted his visor, and went to work with mirror and forceps. He examined all four canines in turn — front and back, checking for loosening, size change, hardness increase.

“You’re sure the canines specifically are itching?”

“Yes, constantly. Like they’re trying to grow.”

Second examination. Then he extended his Activity perception carefully through Zhang Youhai’s body, feeling for any Activity radiation signature.

Nothing.

“You’ve been imagining it. Your canines are intact — no loosening, no enlargement, no increase in density. You haven’t evolved.”

Zhang Youhai’s face fell dramatically. “What? Really? I felt it itching, I’m certain—”

“Possibly psychosomatic. Possibly a very early change that’s below my ability to detect by current methods. If you consent to dissection, I can do a thorough examination.”

“Ha — ha ha, very funny, Boss Huang, dissection won’t be necessary, definitely not necessary.” Zhang Youhai waved both hands and took a step back. “Not evolving is also fine. Perfectly fine.”

Shen Cong allowed himself a small private regret that Zhang Youhai couldn’t be put through more rigorous testing, then turned back into the cargo hold and produced a cluster of Evolution Grapes. “Keep these. Eat them, then come back for another check. The canine itching might actually be an early sign — I won’t rule it out.”

Zhang Youhai accepted the grapes with profound gratitude, full of warm feelings about his excellent choice of patron.

He had no idea he was being treated as an experimental subject.

In truth, the Evolution Grapes had already stopped producing significant enhancement for Shen Cong. He’d initially estimated forty to fifty jin for saturation; the reality had been closer to twenty, after which additional intake only covered baseline Activity expenditure. He’d been feeding the surplus to Blackhead. Using a cluster as an experimental stimulus was a perfectly acceptable trade for data.

Zhang Youhai left, dreaming of his evolutionary future.

Shen Cong finally turned his full attention to the metal lump he’d carried back from the cave.

He could already say with reasonable confidence that it wasn’t related to meteorite fragments — it was something more analogous to a vehicle primary-activation metal. But he wanted to understand the specifics. He suppressed the consumption urge that the object triggered, steadied his focus, and pushed his Activity perception carefully into the metal’s structure.

The difference he’d sensed last night became clear.

The quality of alive.

Vajra was alive in the way an energetic child was alive — dynamic, responsive, crackling with movement. This metal lump was alive the way a bedridden patient was alive: present, but barely. Inert. Unresponsive.

It was activation metal. But it had failed at something. The activation had happened — the life was there — but it had never progressed. Never bonded, never developed. Whatever process produced a vehicle bond or a creature bond had stalled partway through, and the result was something caught between ordinary metal and true primary-activation metal.

Failed activation, Shen Cong thought. A failed metal.

(End of Chapter 111)