Shen Cong stayed at the Fenghuang Mountain Vineyard Camp for five days.

By the end of those five days, the Gentle Sand Pears had nothing left to give him. His body had hit its absorption ceiling — the enhancement was simply gone. He still had over four hundred pears in stock, and with spoilage not far off, he traded the lot to the camp for supplies: a sizable haul of metal components, electronic parts, diesel fuel, fresh water, and miscellaneous equipment.

He finished converting the fire truck into a proper cargo hauler during the same window, reconfiguring its body structure for maximum storage.

He also reactivated the Bull Demon King Totem, resuming the accelerated ambient Activity absorption for Vajra, and began the amalgamation process on the fire truck’s metal. Everything that could be amalgamated would be — with the exception of the original activation metal, which still resisted all attempts. The goal was to push Vajra into the Lv1 era as soon as possible, and cross that threshold together with Shen Cong simultaneously.

From the information filtering through the camp over those five days, Shen Cong had built a reasonably clear picture: the territory between Juchao district and Hefei city was dense with evolved beasts. Serious obstacles throughout.

The calculus wasn’t complicated. The survivor population and evolved people counts in Juchao pointed to a barren zone with relatively sparse evolved wildlife. Once the road pushed into the abundant zone, evolved beasts would be a routine encounter rather than an exception. Only at Lv1 would Shen Cong have the confidence to push through that gauntlet and reach Hefei in one piece.

Under the combined effect of the Gentle Sand Pears and Evolution Grapes, his progress had been substantial. The Lv1 threshold didn’t feel distant anymore.

Current readings: Vajra at Lv0.831, Activity Value 1.316H, Talent 1.584H. Shen Cong at Lv0.747, Activity Value 1.184H, Talent 1.584H. At 1.184H, his physical benchmarks had quietly crossed into seven-bull territory — reaction speed under 0.03 seconds, striking force scaled accordingly.

Iron people with liquid-phase Activity carriers progressed faster than mutants. The gap was becoming more apparent.

Blackhead had made significant gains too.

Current readings: Lv0.569, Activity Value 0.199H, Talent 0.350H. Its Talent ceiling was well below the old-mature larva’s, but for a mutant giant ant it was remarkable — Blackhead was approaching its own mother’s level. The Short-sting queen’s Talent sat at around 0.5H.

Its sibling — the old-mature larva, the one Shen Cong still hadn’t given a proper name — had already surpassed the queen’s Talent ceiling during its third moult, reaching 0.625H. Now it was deep in pupation, sealed inside a large silver-white oval cocoon. The Activity radiation it was emitting fluctuated constantly, restless and unstable.

The last time its Activity radiation had shown that kind of instability was during the third moult.

Is it evolving again? Another Talent increase?

Shen Cong turned the question over carefully. After the third moult, the old-mature larva had run out of Short-sting ant cores to consume — the primary mechanism that had driven its Talent expansion. Since then it had been eating Gentle Sand Pears. That shouldn’t be enough to push the Talent ceiling further. If food-source Activity could expand Talent on its own, Shen Cong’s own ceiling would have shifted long ago given everything he’d consumed.

Unless insect life forms are simpler — and simpler life forms break through their own genetic constraints more easily?

He thought of the Burrowers. Their mutation had been dramatic even in the first month after the apocalypse, their physical form almost unrecognisable from what it had been. Months on, who knew what they’d become.

Then again — the Golden Python was far from a simple life form, and it had grown to thirty or forty metres and apparently kept going. Complexity didn’t seem to be a limiting factor for that one.

The question didn’t resolve itself. He filed it away.

“Boss Huang.”

Liu Changming’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

“You have results?”

Liu Changming was visibly trying not to grin too obviously. “I designed a noise-reduction array and made some fine adjustments to the drone’s communication module. The signal quality across the forward arc has improved dramatically. Based on the last few test runs, I’m confident we can push wireless communication range to at least two hundred metres.”

Shen Cong’s eyebrow went up. “Good. Let’s test it now.”

Fresh battery installed, the DJI — converted back from wired to wireless for this run — lifted off with its characteristic hum. The survivors nearby barely looked up. They’d watched this process enough times over the past few days that it had stopped being interesting.

Shen Cong and Liu Changming both had their eyes on the transmitted feed, monitoring signal quality in real time.

The previous directional antenna had cut out at thirty-one metres. This time the drone blew past thirty-one metres without a hiccup, maintaining clean transmission as it climbed. One hundred metres — already exceeding the previous wired cable ceiling.

It kept climbing. One hundred and fifty metres. The image from the drone’s camera was clear enough to show the lakeshore of Chaohu in the distance.

The drone pushed higher. Image quality visibly degraded — latency, dropped frames, stuttering — but the connection held. Two hundred metres, and still transmitting.

“That’s the ceiling,” Liu Changming said, keeping his voice carefully controlled. “Any higher and we lose the signal.”

“Good. Hold there — give me a full rotation.” Shen Cong was equally controlled, and equally excited. Two hundred metres of aerial eyes. Twenty kilometres of radius in every direction, all within view.

This changed things considerably.

The image quality at two hundred metres was mediocre at best, but dropping to one hundred and fifty gave clean, stable transmission. More than enough for safety purposes. A fifteen-kilometre detection radius meant that something the size of the Golden Python — which had to be visible from that altitude even through significant terrain — could be tracked and avoided with reasonable lead time.

He was already thinking through the implications when something in the image caught his eye.

“Stop the rotation. Hold on that bearing — yes, there. Zoom in and focus.”

Liu Changming pulled up the magnification. The blurred image resolved slightly, and what it showed was unmistakable: a mass of moving shapes in the air. “What is that? A flock of birds?”

“Bring it down.” Shen Cong’s eyes had gone sharp and still. He snapped to Liu Changming: “Land the drone.” Then he was already moving — tools from the work area, cleared and stowed in seconds. He raised his voice toward where Liu Yangyang had been playing nearby. “Little Radish Head. Go tell the guards that a large flock of evolved birds is inbound toward the camp. Tell them to prepare their defences. Go.”

Liu Yangyang, who had apparently accepted his role as Shen Cong’s small-legs courier without complaint, was already running toward the perimeter wall before the sentence was finished.

Thirty seconds later a guard jogged over. “Boss Huang — you spotted a flock of evolved birds on the drone?”

“Correct. Is District Chief Zhu being informed?”

“Someone’s already gone to report to him.”

“Get ready. Evolved birds are not to be underestimated.” Shen Cong said it without looking at the guard, already finishing his tool stowage, mentally preparing Vajra for rapid departure if it came to that.

The Vineyard Camp was a contingency card, not something he was prepared to bleed for. If the situation turned bad, he would leave.

From the centre of the camp, the alarm went off — a scavenged civil defence siren, presumably salvaged from somewhere during the fire brigade’s early operations. The moment it sounded, every survivor working in the surrounding area turned back toward the perimeter, falling in behind their assigned team leaders in orderly retreat.

“Boss Huang, I’d better get back.” Liu Changming had his son already in his arms, ready to move.

Shen Cong glanced at them. Something crossed his mind. He reached back into Vajra, produced a handgun, and tossed it across. “Six rounds. Make them count.”

“Thank you, Boss Huang.” Liu Changming took it, nodded once, and disappeared into the camp with his son at a jog.

Zhu Haifeng arrived almost immediately after. “Boss Huang. Evolved birds?”

“A flock. Over a hundred.” Shen Cong was already back inside Vajra. “They’re coming from the abundant zone — strong ones, I’d expect. Maybe three minutes until they reach the camp. Whether the camp is their actual target, I can’t confirm.”

“Understood.” Zhu Haifeng absorbed it, nodded, and was already turning back to organise the defenders before Shen Cong had finished speaking.

Fourteen hundred people in the Fenghuang Mountain Vineyard Camp. By post-apocalyptic standards, that was a substantial community — busy, loud, layered with its own politics and routines.

Shen Cong remained outside it. The gap between their world and his was wide and showed no signs of narrowing. He’d traded with the camp, restructured its entire leadership apparatus with a display of force, engaged with their people daily for five days — and maintained no genuine connection to any of it. His engagement with the Provisional Government was strategic. His wariness of every person in it was constant.

The window of Vajra’s cab slid shut.

The noise cut off.

Quiet. His alone.

He settled back into the driver’s seat, took a washed Evolution Grape from the container beside him, and watched the screens.

The Evolution Grapes were losing their enhancement effect too, he noticed. With his physical baseline climbing steadily, Activity fruit in general was producing diminishing returns — the grapes were barely registering now, more a habit than a benefit.

Fortunately, the decision to amalgamate the fire truck had given Vajra a fresh source of Activity to process and exchange back to him — steady, gentle, continuous enhancement through their bond. His body’s development hadn’t paused for a moment.

The sensation was, as always, deeply satisfying.

(End of Chapter 106)