Over the course of a full day, Shen Cong assembled four computers and eight monitors. That was the ceiling — the camp had accumulated mountains of salvaged components, but functional CPUs were scarce, and a computer without a CPU was just an expensive paperweight.

With computers tapped out, he turned to other electronics.

Radar monitoring, camera systems, infrared thermal imaging, drone relay, navigation mapping, high-powered radio transmitters.

Air conditioning, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, induction cooktops, water heaters, electric kettles, speakers, vacuum cleaners, humidifiers, cameras, camcorders, rice cookers, juicers, pressure cookers, ice makers.

Vehicle lighting, oxygen generators, solar panels, electric razors, hair dryers, water dispensers, in-car audio systems.

Medical equipment, laboratory instruments, field gear.

And most critically: autonomous weapons platforms.

Vajra 2.0’s design concept was a large-format mobile hybrid — combat vehicle, living quarters, off-road platform, and engineering rig combined. It would have the interior volume to actually install all of this. The apocalypse, for Shen Cong, wasn’t purely a matter of white-knuckle survival at the edge of death. It was also supposed to be lived in — comfortably, on his own terms.

He was twenty-two. He had a great deal of life ahead of him worth enjoying.

“Colonel Hu, the Provincial Garrison is convening a leadership meeting. Your attendance is requested.”

Shen Cong was in the middle of cataloguing Vajra 2.0’s equipment inventory. “Tell Commander Zhao I’m busy.”

“Commander Zhao specifically noted: today’s agenda is the camp relocation discussion. It concerns the camp’s future direction. All leadership personnel are expected to attend and provide input.”

A pause.

“I heard you.”

He went.

He didn’t want deep involvement with the camp — he wanted to finish the Vajra overhaul in peace. But events kept pulling him in. First the tournament he hadn’t wanted to enter. Then the Edge of Evolution title he hadn’t asked for. Now a leadership seat he hadn’t sought, with all the mandatory meetings that came with it. Every layer of entanglement invited more schemes.

None of this served his interests.

Once Vajra 2.0 is finished and I cross into the Lv1 era, I’ll decide whether to leave — head to Nanjing or Beijing, wherever the evolutionary opportunities are better.

The meeting’s subject was relocation.

An old tension between Zhao Weiliang and Zhu Li, previously suppressed by the constant pressure of evolved beast threats. Now it had resurfaced.

The reason was straightforward: the camp’s ammunition was gone. If another Heavyweight evolved beast appeared, the camp’s defensive capacity was effectively zero. The garrison’s bone-gold weapons manufacturing was limited; its evolved people’s collective strength was limited. Pinning all hope on Shen Cong alone wasn’t viable — he was somewhere in the near-Heavyweight bracket, which meant Heavyweight threats were still stretching his limits.

And Heavyweight beasts weren’t only solitary individuals. Colony-type Heavyweights existed. Above Heavyweight sat Super-Heavyweight. Most Super-Heavyweights remained in the Huoshan Oasis — but “most of the time” wasn’t a guarantee, and nobody could promise those creatures stayed home forever.

After half an hour of argument, two options had crystallized.

Option One: Relocate to Chuzhou.

Chuzhou sat adjacent to Nanjing — effectively a satellite city — and hosted significant military presence: the 34th Motorized Infantry Brigade, the 178th Brigade, an artillery regiment, the 37th Armored Regiment, among others. The 178th Brigade in particular was a mechanized infantry unit that had taken first place in multinational military exercises. Administratively the Chuzhou garrison fell outside the Anhui Provincial Garrison’s chain of command, but geographically it was still Anhui province.

Reaching Chuzhou and making contact with those forces would allow the camp to assess Nanjing’s situation from a safer distance. If the Eastern Theater Command remained substantially intact, integration was possible.

The risk: Nanjing had already absorbed two nuclear detonations. Whatever was happening there might be worse than anything Mingfa Camp faced. A long, dangerous march that ended in a second catastrophe would break people.

Option Two: Hold the Mingfa Camp.

Dig deeper — underground bunkers, extensive trench networks, a complete defensive architecture designed to weather evolved beast pressure. Meanwhile conduct ongoing rescue operations throughout the region, bringing other survivors to Hefei and building something more permanent.

The conservative option. Also the complicated one: supply chains, time pressure, and the fundamental question of whether any static fortification could hold against Heavyweight and Super-Heavyweight threats over the long term.

“Hu Ge. Your assessment.” Zhao Weiliang called on him directly.

Shen Cong had positioned himself in his preferred corner — good sightlines, proximity to an exit, direct access to the leadership cluster if a hostage situation became necessary — and had said nothing throughout the preceding argument.

He hadn’t internalized the camp as his home. Not even close.

“Your decision. I have no opinion.”

“Then we vote. Those in favor of relocation, raise your hands.” Zhao Weiliang raised his own first.

Roughly two-thirds of the leadership followed.

Shen Cong’s hand stayed down.

“Those in favor of holding the camp.”

Roughly one-third raised their hands. Zhu Li was among them.

Shen Cong’s hand stayed down again. He abstained.

Zhao Weiliang surveyed the room. “The majority favors relocation. We’ll consolidate around that direction today. First step: send scouts to Chuzhou. If the situation there is stable and the population viable, we move. If not, we reconvene.”

The Mingfa Camp was going to Chuzhou.

The specific timeline remained open, but the Provincial Garrison Command began preliminary preparations immediately. The route — Hefei to Chuzhou along the Hu-Rong Expressway — wasn’t far. In the old world, a fast driver could make the round trip in a day. In this one, the road surfaces were compromised, hazards were constant, and available transport was limited to iron people’s bonded vehicles plus a handful of motorcycles and improvised three-wheelers.

Motor Battalion Commander Fu Ran accepted the scouting assignment with a group of mutant fighters, given one week to return with information. Whatever they found would inform the final relocation decision.

This wasn’t the first attempt. Zhao Weiliang’s previous scouts had gone out and never reported back, which had shelved the Chuzhou idea until now. This was simply the idea being dusted off.

Meanwhile, the camp began organizational preparation — and the more difficult work of persuading the reluctant. Not everyone wanted to go. The two nuclear detonations had frightened a significant portion of the camp’s population; they preferred the known dangers of Mingfa over the unknowns outside it.

Shen Cong had abstained and offered no public opinion. Privately, he wasn’t pleased — his Vajra overhaul wasn’t finished.

But he also had no interest in imposing his personal timeline on thirty thousand other people’s survival decisions. It was their camp more than his.

Besides. Work could continue on the road. Inconvenient, not impossible.

That same afternoon, good news arrived and released some of his tension: the Automotive Lab had completed the detailed Vajra 2.0 blueprints.

“Colonel Hu — given the relocation, do you want to pause the overhaul or work on it while traveling?” Liu Yanbing asked.

Shen Cong looked over the blueprints. “Can we complete the primary structural frame and exterior armor first, and leave interior systems for later?”

“That works. Once the drivetrain and frame are solid, the rest of the components can be fitted and adjusted on the move.”

“Then start immediately. Push hard this week — let’s get as much done as possible. Name your price.”

“The road ahead is dangerous. Our lab team has already discussed it — we’d like to ride in your vehicle during the migration. We don’t need much space.”

As a rule, Shen Cong didn’t take passengers.

But the overhaul genuinely couldn’t be completed without this team. He couldn’t do it alone, and he needed it done fast. Necessary trade-offs were necessary.

“Fine. You can ride with me. Ordinary people only — no evolved people.”

“We’re all ordinary people.”

(End of Chapter 161)