Shen Cong didn’t enjoy killing people. Every time he killed someone, there was a clear reason for it.
He’d never met Big-Fly Brother before today. The reasons for killing him were sufficient: he was a genuinely dangerous person, and he was about to relocate to the Mingfa Camp, which placed him in Shen Cong’s immediate environment. That was enough.
He could tolerate Li Aiping, who annoyed him daily, and Zhao Yalan, who he’d occasionally considered dealing with but never acted on — because somewhere beneath the irritation, he recognized that neither of them would actually harm him. Difficult people, both of them. Not dangerous ones.
Big-Fly Brother was different. He’d crossed a line that, once crossed, didn’t uncross. Like the purge at the Fenghuang Mountain Vineyard Camp — where he’d had Zhu Haifeng clear out the worst offenders and have them executed. A line only has meaning if crossing it has consequences. People who break fundamental human decency and face no consequences learn that the line doesn’t exist, and they keep pushing. That kind of person left unchecked was a threat to everything around them.
So from the moment Shen Cong had the full picture, Big-Fly Brother was already dead. The timing of the execution was just logistics — choosing the moment that made the message clearest and simplified the political situation.
Liu Qihang’s assessment — he hates evil and wants to do right — had gotten the first part correct. The second part was charity that Shen Cong would not have claimed for himself. He acted according to his own interests. When those interests and basic human decency aligned, the outcome looked virtuous from the outside.
Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans. High-vitality Activity like the sweet potatoes, most likely. Whatever Coal City decides about relocating, those are mine.
He ran water over the Half-Activated Armor, washing away the blood.
At some point — he couldn’t identify exactly when — killing a person had stopped producing any different emotional response than killing an evolved beast. The internal accounting registered the event, evaluated the justification, and moved on. He noticed the absence of disturbance without finding it troubling.
Blackhead was in the corridor, holding a Sweet Orange Fruit in her forelegs, gnawing contentedly. She’d eaten several already.
Shen Cong settled into his seat, watched the negotiations between the convoy and Coal City’s leadership on the camera feeds, and cut open a Sweet Orange Fruit for himself.
The flesh was pale yellow, orange-like in texture, releasing a fragrance intense enough to function as an air freshener. The taste was good — sweet-acid balance, pleasant.
Swallowed: a gentle wave of Activity diffused through him, stimulating his physical systems.
Great Vajra was currently at 1.912H Activity Value. Shen Cong was at 1.794H. Despite his daily efforts to drain Great Vajra’s excess Activity through combat and Exchange, the vehicle kept pulling ahead — its absorption rate was simply faster than his physical development could match. He needed Activity fruit to keep pace.
Sweet Orange Fruit feels similar to Gentle Sand Pear — mild enhancement, limited ceiling. Maybe twenty to thirty jin before saturation sets in.
Still valuable. No detectable side effects after the first few pieces, so he kept eating. His body required vast quantities of nutrition — caloric intake dozens of times that of an ordinary person, all of it converted into the reserves that sustained his physical output. The Activity fruit was on top of that baseline need.
Three thousand-plus people required two convoy runs to relocate fully.
Liu Qihang had brought footage of the Mingfa Camp to show the Coal City leadership: Hefei’s surrounding vegetation, the camp’s wide moat system, the construction sites running at full pace, the protected sweet potato fields and peach orchard, the skeletal remains of the Golden Jiao, Violent Ape King, Spike King, and Giant Condor on display. Commander Zhao Weiliang appeared on screen to speak directly.
Ding Yucai and Zhou Ningning weighed it.
The Mingfa Camp sat in the abundant zone — higher risk from evolved beasts, yes. But with food security solved, the evolutionary opportunities in an Activity-rich environment dwarfed anything the barren zone could offer. For iron people, that calculus was decisive.
For ordinary survivors, the calculus was simpler: without iron people to protect them, survival in the barren zone would only become harder over time. They went where the iron people went.
“It’s ten o’clock,” Liu Qihang said. “Pack essential Coal City materials. One hour from now, we take the first group — sixteen hundred and fifty people — to Hefei. Coal Lady, City Lord Ding — one of you comes with the first convoy, one stays to manage the second?”
Zhou Ningning was around thirty, composed and direct. “I’ll go with the first convoy. City Lord Ding takes the second.”
Ding Yucai nodded.
Half an hour later, the priority materials were packed and loaded — the Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans and the Activity fruit stockpile, both destined for Great Vajra’s cargo hold. Big-Fly Brother’s personal assets had been collected as well. His bonded vehicle — a large coal-hauling truck — was temporarily repurposed for passenger transport.
“Convoy Commander Liu.” Zhou Ningning approached with a direct expression, gesturing at Shen Cong supervising the loading. “Our most valuable materials are going into that vehicle. I want to ride with them personally.”
Liu Qihang was already explaining. “Coal Lady, Colonel Hu’s capability is unmatched among human evolved people. Sixteen extra hearts of confidence wouldn’t be too many. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“What if he decides to keep what he’s carrying?”
“With respect, Coal Lady — the Mingfa Camp doesn’t lack for valuable materials. Look at Colonel Hu’s vehicle. The resources that went into that overhaul are beyond what you could estimate. Do you think we’d bother taking Coal City’s stores? Look at our convoy vehicles — all upgraded, all equipped. Our supplies are already richer than Coal City’s by orders of magnitude.”
That settled it.
Fifty minutes later the convoy moved south toward Hefei.
On the expressway — the surface clear and straight — Shen Cong switched Great Vajra to the newly completed autopilot system, set it at a steady 50 kilometers per hour, and walked back into the cabin.
He opened a sack of Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans and started with a small handful raw. The texture was dry and slightly harsh; his digestion could handle it but the flavor wasn’t worth enduring. He boiled a portion quickly, came back to the cab, and ate them one by one with a spoonful of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce alongside.
Better.
There’s the high-vitality Activity signature — the ‘more vital’ quality. No question why these can be cultivated. Enhancement effect is slightly below the Activity sweet potato… and the yield seems low. Possibly a soil nutrition issue in the barren zone. Grown in the abundant zone with richer Activity in the substrate, the yield and quality might both improve.
He worked through the other Activity fruit varieties the Coal City had stockpiled.
Beyond the Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans and Sweet Orange Fruit, there was one more — something the Coal City residents called Giant Kiwifruit. Strange flavor profile, but the enhancement effect was respectable.
Three new Activity fruit varieties from one trip. He did the arithmetic. Exchange them for points when we’re back, add the Activity sweet potato consumption until saturation, factor in what Great Vajra feeds back through the Exchange process — and I should be able to get my body to approximately 2.2H. Add what Bengbu and Fuyang might produce, and I’m looking at two weeks to reach Lv1 in my physical development.
Lv1. Both together — him and Great Vajra, crossing the threshold simultaneously.
The thought had been sitting at the center of everything for months. It was getting close enough to feel real.
(End of Chapter 183)