The queen cell larva, starved for a full day, finally gave in.

When Shen Cong pushed Activity into its body, the resistance stopped. It began adjusting its own Activity radiation frequency, working to align with his. But the attempt was labored — the larval stage apparently had less capacity for self-modification than an egg did. It tried repeatedly and failed each time. By the time it was clearly fading, Shen Cong abandoned the attempt, fed it a small amount of Royal Treasure Jelly to stabilize it, and noted the failure for future reference.

My own radiation frequency can’t be changed — the body has locked it in. But Great Vajra’s can. If I tune Great Vajra’s frequency to match the larva’s, would that create a temporary link?

He tried it immediately. Great Vajra’s Activity frequency was something he could guide and adjust with ease now — within about fifteen seconds, he had it aligned with the larva’s.

He attempted to establish a perceptual link through the vehicle.

Failure.

A mimicked frequency didn’t produce the same connection as a genuine one.

Not surprising, really. If it worked, I could use Great Vajra to communicate with any evolved beast. That’s too convenient to be real.

He shelved the experiment and moved on to other things.

The Mechanical Vine’s perceptual signal was running its usual background commentary — comfortable, not comfortable — with the same existential weightlessness it always had.

The Activity Peach seedling had broken soil and was establishing itself as a small plant. The Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans he’d recently planted showed no movement yet.

He closed the greenhouse door and was starting to think about dinner when a different signal arrived through the perceptual network — the Antgod, in a state of excited agitation.

He understood immediately. The Antgod was laying eggs.

Not a surprise. Since the wing-shedding, the growing abdomen — the timeline had been clear. What came next was the question.

Can I build a perceptual link with the Antgod’s eggs?

The egg she’d just laid was already approaching Blackhead’s own size. Shen Cong picked it up and pushed Activity into it experimentally.

The egg didn’t resist. It absorbed the Activity quickly — and transmitted something back. An impression, vague and indistinct, too formless to identify clearly.

But the nature of the connection was different from what he’d established with Blackhead and the Antgod. The egg didn’t have its own independent will. What he was sensing was a fragment of the Antgod’s will, extended into the egg — as though the egg was an appendage rather than a separate entity.

The Antgod, apparently sensing his confusion, transmitted a clarification: Control. Subjects.

“You’re saying you have absolute control over your own eggs?”

Affirmative signal.

He pressed further: “Will they follow my commands?”

The Antgod’s response came in pieces: Submit. Me. Submit. Father.

“…”

He worked out what she was expressing: her eggs would submit to her, and she submitted to Shen Cong. Therefore, through her, he had authority over the colony.

I’m not your father. Your actual father was probably just some ordinary male ant from before the apocalypse.

He thought it without transmitting it. Instead he reached out and tapped the Antgod’s large head, sending across a clear emotional signal of approval.

Good girl.

The Antgod understood — perceptual links transmitted emotion more reliably than language — and responded with immediate, enthusiastic celebration.

Blackhead, who had been hovering nearby waiting for an invitation to join whatever was happening, lit up as well for reasons she probably couldn’t have explained. She took the egg from Shen Cong’s hands and carried it carefully to the ant burrow’s corner, settling into the role of attentive worker with apparent satisfaction.

Leaving them to it, Shen Cong muttered to himself: “I prefer low-intelligence animals.”

Dinner: Sweet Orange Fruit, Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans, Giant Kiwifruit, Activity sweet potatoes, with Bee Treasure alongside. His approach to Activity fruit consumption was simple — eat until the body refused to absorb more, then eat again as soon as the resistance passed. Maximum pressure on every timeline he was trying to compress.

Great Vajra had reached 1.956H Activity Value. He was at 1.814H, fourteen-bull strength pushing toward fifteen.

The next day, the convoy didn’t go out. The recent intake of nearly five thousand new survivors had pushed the current Activity sweet potato harvest to its supply limit. The camp needed the next crop cycle — sweet potatoes and Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans both approaching maturity — before another large-scale survivor intake could be sustained.

The Research Institute’s vibration sensor arrived in Shen Cong’s hands that morning, produced overnight. In practice it was a compact seismograph: mechanical triggers responding to ground vibration, providing a rough directional reading. The construction was straightforward if not elegant.

He tested it. Effective detection radius: approximately fifty meters. Directional accuracy: imprecise — due east might read east-by-south or east-by-north, with meaningful variance. Not surgical, but functional.

“Sufficient. I just need a general bearing. The rest is manageable.”

He had the sensor but didn’t move immediately. A thread of logic needed following first.

The Research Institute’s assessment had placed the Tentacle Monster’s residence near Dongpu Reservoir — consistent with the star-nosed mole’s semi-aquatic habits, consistent with the water traces found at its emergence points. But the Qianshan Road subway station was more than two kilometers from the reservoir. Why would a creature living in rich, prey-dense wetlands travel two kilometers to attack a construction crew in a buried tunnel?

Unless the crew hadn’t drawn it there. Unless it had already been there.

The trigger had been uncovering the light rail cab.

Shen Cong recognized that particular pull. He’d felt it before.

He drove to the Qianshan Road station and dug out the buried entrance with the Condor Spade — the tool made that kind of work trivially fast. He moved into the station platform carefully, scanning.

The half-buried light rail cab was visible. Not far from it, a large hole in the tunnel wall — clearly the Tentacle Monster’s excavation.

No active threat detected. He extended Great Vajra’s winch cable, walked it to the cab section, and attached it.

He was almost at the vehicle before the sensation arrived — that pull from deep in his chest, the consuming desire rising toward the half-buried metal.

As I thought.

He controlled the feeling, returned to Great Vajra, and drove. The winch pulled the light rail cab section up through the debris and onto the surface.

He stood looking at it — battered, partially destroyed, radiating a clear Activity signature.

An iron beast.

The second one he’d encountered. The first had been Plastic Rabbit’s motorcycle.

The Tentacle Monster wasn’t guarding territory or responding to prey. It was guarding its bonded vehicle.

(End of Chapter 185)