Bagong Mountain was one of Huainan’s landmark peaks, and Huainan itself carried deep history. During the Han dynasty, Liu An — the Prince of Huainan — had gathered scholars on Bagong Mountain to compile the Huainanzi, a work of such encyclopedic scope that later generations called it the ancient world’s greatest compendium of knowledge. Tofu, according to tradition, had been accidentally discovered on the same mountain by Taoist alchemists whose experiments had produced something more useful than immortality elixir.
But what most people remembered about Huainan wasn’t philosophy or food. It was coal. Huainan’s coal had powered the Yangtze River Delta’s development for decades, supplying electricity to the most economically active region in China right up until the world ended.
Now, Huainan’s survivors had built their camp on Bagong Mountain itself — the Coal City.
Huainan coal was accessible: much of it lay exposed at the surface, and pre-apocalypse stockpiles from coal merchants who’d been sitting on inventory for resale had left large quantities simply piled in the open. The survivors had put it to use. A ring of fires burned continuously around Bagong Mountain’s perimeter — sustained torches that kept evolved beasts from approaching.
The fire perimeter worked. The mountain was effectively safe.
Before entering Coal City’s scouting radius, Shen Cong had already flown the drone high and mapped the settlement thoroughly. He’d also intercepted a resource-gathering team outside the perimeter and questioned them directly, cross-referencing their answers against what the Sweet Orange Camp interrogation had produced.
Result: no evolved person of significant capability anywhere in the settlement. The three iron people — Ding Yucai, Zhou Ningning, and Big-Fly Brother — plus eleven mutants split between their factions, plus just over 3,300 ordinary survivors.
The Coal City was comparatively safe from external threats. Nearby evolved beasts were weak — which also meant Activity resources were thin. Without a plantable Activity crop called “Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans” that someone had discovered and cultivated, the settlement would have been starving. As it was, they were getting by, barely.
Barren zone geography. Depleted soil. No evolved people left — the previous Provincial Garrison sweep had taken them all. The settlement had no external combat capability. Several attempts to push into the ruins of Shoucheng County at the mountain’s base had failed. The ruins were controlled by a colony of evolved geese — the Humpback Geese — ugly, powerful, occupying the rich wetlands along Wabu Lake.
“The wetlands have evolved fish everywhere, but we can’t get past the Humpback Geese,” the intercepted team member had said. “We forage in other directions.”
With the intelligence picture clear, Liu Qihang identified himself and had the team escort the convoy to Coal City’s main settlement to meet its three iron person leaders.
At the base of Bagong Mountain, the sight of Great Vajra leading the convoy put the settlement on full alert. The three iron people came down with their mutant contingent and a body of ordinary fighters.
Introductions were made. The atmosphere was functional.
Shen Cong observed Big-Fly Brother from his position. A heavyset man with a jade Guanyin pendant at his throat, performing warmth with practiced ease — nothing in his surface manner suggested what the Sweet Orange Camp had contained.
Range approximately 150 meters. I’ve adjusted the hand crossbow’s draw weight upward, but the accuracy calibration hasn’t been completed. He tested the pull, confirmed his assessment, set it down.
Try the JS?
He picked up the domestically produced JS 12.7mm heavy sniper rifle from the weapons rack — China’s premier long-range precision platform, marketed as the best in Asia. In the old world, against human targets, it was devastating. In this one, kinetic energy alone couldn’t reliably penetrate Activity. Bone-gold ammunition would change that, but the Research Institute’s current manufacturing capability wasn’t up to the precision requirements of sniper-grade rounds. The tolerances for a 12.7mm projectile fired at sniper range were unforgiving; hand-ground bone-gold bullets couldn’t reliably meet them. Using imprecise ammunition in a precision weapon produced a weapon that was no longer precise.
He had commissioned an experienced munitions craftsman to hand-grind ten 12.7mm bone-gold rounds using Giant Condor Activity core material at 1.334H. They looked right. He couldn’t be certain they were right.
He put the rifle back.
If I miss, I might hit someone I’m not trying to hit. Better to go in person.
Shen Cong’s position relative to ordinary humans and evolved people had shifted substantially over the past months. Against non-evolved threats, there was no meaningful combat concern — only the political and scheming variety. Even among evolved people, the gap had grown large enough that direct confrontation wasn’t something he worried about.
He was, in the evolved person hierarchy, what the Iron-Eater was among evolved beasts — inexplicably, disproportionately beyond what the baseline should produce. An ordinary mutated snake became a Featherweight venomous specimen, or at best a slightly stronger constrictor. But a golden python underwent its transformation and emerged as the Golden Jiao — Heavyweight-tier, capable of threatening an entire garrison. Same species, same apocalypse, radically different outcome.
The mechanism was unknown. For now, it simply was. What Shen Cong needed to do was adapt to his own position at the top of the hierarchy and act accordingly.
When Shen Cong started walking toward the gathered group, Liu Qihang read the signal and turned to the Coal City leadership.
“Before we discuss relocation — there’s something that needs to be addressed first. On our way here, we found a settlement in Changfeng County. A settlement that had lost the right to call itself human.”
The convoy’s iron people brought the two coherent female survivors forward.
The moment the women saw Big-Fly Brother, something broke open in them. One of them — Xu Wanqing — began screaming, her voice directed past him at the Coal City’s legitimate leadership.
“City Lord Ding! Coal Lady! It’s me, Xu Wanqing! He took us — Big-Fly took us from the city and held us there — tortured us — forced us to—” The rest of it came out in fragmentary, escalating disclosure.
“Shut your mouth!” Big-Fly Brother’s practiced warmth evaporated. “Ding Yucai, Zhou Ningning — you know me. Do you think I’m capable of this? These women are lying — they’re working with these outsiders, trying to undermine Coal City. I’ll put you down right now—” He reached for his handgun.
He didn’t get it clear of the holster.
Shen Cong had already released the throwing knife. It found Big-Fly Brother’s abdomen.
In the same motion he had the Ape King War Hammer in hand and was crossing the ten meters.
Big-Fly Brother, hurt and fast, got two shots off despite the knife wound. Shen Cong’s body twisted, letting both rounds pass.
He didn’t need to dodge — the armor would have handled it. He dodged out of habit. Economy of exposure.
The war hammer came down.
Big-Fly Brother’s skull compressed the way overripe fruit does under sudden force.
The motion continued without pause. Three of Big-Fly Brother’s mutant subordinates were standing within reach. The war hammer found all three in sequence before any of them finished processing what had happened.
Three strikes. Three results.
Blood across the Half-Activated Armor. Four bodies in the time it took to exhale.
Ding Yucai and Zhou Ningning had their weapons out, hands tightening — then consciously stopped. The calculation had happened behind their eyes in the span of a second.
Shen Cong swept the assembled crowd with a single look. Then he stepped back, cleared the space in one easy jump, and walked away.
“Done. You all carry on.”
The silence that followed was the kind that takes time to fill.
Ding Yucai found his voice first, and used it to project more authority than he actually felt. “Liu Qihang. This is how the Provincial Garrison operates? Summary execution without due process? Killing citizens without investigation?”
Liu Qihang’s apology was immediate and smoothly delivered. “My sincere apologies. Colonel Hu has no tolerance for this kind of behavior — it’s a quality I genuinely respect about him, though the methods can be direct. His intentions are sound. He wants to do right by people.”
(End of Chapter 182)