Strange toad-like creatures. A black-yellow fog that rotted skin on contact. The route from Quanjiao County to Nanjing’s Pukou District was impassable — and with it, the Mingfa Camp’s relocation plans were finished.
The Research Institute’s specialists theorized that the black-yellow fog was most likely connected to the nuclear detonations — probably a manifestation of nuclear fallout dust. That would explain the skin necrosis affecting both evolved people and evolved beasts within the fog’s reach: radiation-induced damage to skin cell DNA structure.
With Nanjing locked inside that fog, it was difficult to imagine the Eastern Theater Command forces still holding position there. They’d likely already withdrawn.
After a nuclear strike, contamination spread across a wide radius. Even a small-yield warhead — perhaps a fifteen-kiloton thermonuclear device — left its surrounding area uninhabitable for humans and animals alike.
“We hold the Mingfa Camp.” Zhao Weiliang announced his conclusion after extended deliberation, throwing his support behind Zhu Li’s position at last. What followed was a session of practical planning: trenches to dig, walls to raise, defensive preparations against evolved beast incursion.
Shen Cong left the meeting and returned to Vajra with a cloud over his thoughts.
It was the same pattern repeating. When he’d been in Juchao District, Hefei had seemed full of promise — the place where Activity’s secrets might be unlocked. He’d arrived and found only partial answers. Then the Eastern Theater Command in Nanjing had become the new hope. Now Nanjing was a radioactive dead zone.
One horizon after another dissolving as he approached it.
If the Eastern Theater Command evacuated Nanjing, where would they go?
He studied the map quietly.
Nanjing sat at the center of four prefecture-level cities: Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Ma’anshan, and Chuzhou. Any of them could be a viable retreat destination. Chuzhou in particular — the Nanjing Military Region had maintained a long-term presence there.
A shame Fu Ran’s team bypassed Chuzhou and went straight for Nanjing. Chuzhou’s situation is still completely unknown.
The decision to bypass wasn’t unreasonable. Quanjiao County had been shelled extensively — evidence of a major engagement, suggesting Chuzhou was dangerous enough to skip. Going directly to Nanjing had made sense at the time. After all, the reason for the Chuzhou plan in the first place was to make contact with Nanjing.
The most likely scenario now: Eastern Theater Command has consolidated somewhere in the Zhenjiang-Yangzhou corridor. That’s been the Nanjing Military Region’s traditional deployment area. Move southeast and you hit Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou, Shanghai — major cities, rich in resources. Keep going and there’s Huzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou.
For survivors, resources came from two sources: what evolved beasts and plants provided, and what could be salvaged from urban ruins. The Mingfa Camp still depended on Hefei for the latter — years of material supply buried under the city’s rubble. But as time passed and metal corrosion worsened, urban salvage would yield less and less. The Yangtze River Delta cities would be the richest remaining resource zone for some time.
What gave him pause was the threat picture. The Research Institute had already theorized that whatever had provoked two nuclear detonations near Nanjing was likely a Super-Heavyweight evolved beast — or something beyond that classification — that had come up from the sea. If that was the case, the Yangtze Delta was exactly where such threats would concentrate. If Nanjing had required nuclear response, what did that imply for Shanghai? For Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou?
If the coast is that dangerous, the Eastern Theater Command’s main force probably moved north — toward Huai’an or Xuzhou — or west into Anhui, along the Ma’anshan to Wuhu corridor, possibly even toward Hefei. They wouldn’t abandon ordinary civilians. A large-scale migration would need a viable destination — Chuzhou, Huai’an, Ma’anshan, Wuhu all remain possibilities.
He shook his head to clear it. So many variables.
Once I cross into the Lv1 era, I should go to Nanjing myself. Find out what’s actually there. See how the radiation fog affects me at that level.
The next morning — October 7th.
Twenty days since arriving at the Mingfa Camp.
Shen Cong laid out a spread of Activity fruits and evolved meat for the Automotive Lab team when they arrived — the people who’d been helping him rebuild Vajra day after day. All of them capable, experienced automotive professionals.
Something had shifted in him over these past weeks. Not much — one or two degrees of adjustment, no more — but the excessive vigilance that normally ran at maximum had loosened slightly. There was the faint beginning of something like belonging.
He recognized it and kept it in its proper proportion. The camp was the camp. He was himself. That line remained clear.
Li Aiping found him mid-morning, moving faster than usual, the way she did when she had something she thought he’d care about.
“Hu Ge — Colonel — there’s news you’ll want to hear.”
He stepped out of Vajra. “What is it?”
“The camp’s first baby was born. Du Yafang delivered.”
Du Yafang — Li Jun’s wife, the woman who’d been visibly pregnant at the farewell dinner, the one who’d admitted to thinking about ending things. The pregnancy had been ongoing since before the apocalypse; she’d been eight or nine months along. Through Li Aiping’s rapid-fire narration, Shen Cong learned that the due date had originally been next month — but this morning, Du Yafang had received news of Li Jun’s death. The shock had triggered early labor, and labor had become complicated.
The mother hadn’t survived. The baby, delivered by emergency cesarean, had.
“It’s a mutant baby. The Research Institute has completely lost their minds — the pregnancy started before the apocalypse, and Du Yafang wasn’t an evolved person. Which means the second generation of humans might all come out as evolved people!” Li Aiping was nearly vibrating with excitement.
“Noted.” Shen Cong turned back to Vajra.
His external calm was not an accurate reading of his internal state.
A second-generation human born as a mutant. This was significant. It reminded him of an experiment he’d run early on — he’d kept a few unmodified blowflies, and when one of them laid eggs, the larvae that hatched had all come out mutated. Comparing that outcome to Du Yafang’s child suggested a pattern: Activity’s influence on living organisms wasn’t just visible in direct exposure. It was being passed down. The base code was being rewritten across generations.
No unmodified life is visible anymore — almost nothing that hasn’t changed. Maybe that’s partly because the offspring of the first generation are all mutating. The unmutated first-generation organisms mostly died in the disaster or were eaten by evolved beasts.
Ordinary life, up against the post-Activity world, didn’t stand a chance.
That evening, after the research team returned to camp, Shen Cong secured Vajra, left Blackhead on watch, and slipped into the camp himself. He went directly to the field hospital.
As Edge of Evolution and a Colonel, he moved through the camp without challenge. He found the ward quickly — the baby was still surrounded by Research Institute personnel.
“His name is Xiao Li Du.” Zhang Kan’s eyes were red-rimmed, sleep-deprived and wild with excitement. “The light of humanity’s hope. Come look — look at his teeth. Do you see what’s different?”
Shen Cong looked at the small figure lying quietly in the infant bed. In the baby’s slightly open mouth, he could see the markers of mutation: four dark silver canine teeth, the same modification seen in many mutants and even in evolved beasts. On a newborn, they were only slightly prominent — but unmistakably there.
“What’s different about it?” Shen Cong wasn’t following Zhang Kan’s specific point.
“He was born with teeth!” Zhang Kan’s voice dropped to a hush to avoid waking the baby. “Born with teeth, right from the start. Look at them — aren’t they remarkable? And Xiao Li Du’s overall development — he’s extraordinarily healthy, exceptionally robust. Here, touch him. Sense his Talent. It will surprise you.”
The method for reading Talent had been made public — most of the camp’s evolved people had learned to perceive Activity radiation frequency and continuity. A few with weaker sensory capability still couldn’t manage it.
Shen Cong’s brow lifted slightly.
He reached out and placed his hand on Xiao Li Du’s forehead.
(End of Chapter 165)