When Shen Cong cleared the rubble layer, what emerged was half a wing section — and attached to it, an engine. Corroded, but not catastrophically so.

He recognized the form: a turbofan engine, the type that powered commercial aircraft. The forward fan blades were almost entirely broken off or eaten away by corrosion, but the core structure was intact. The external ducting had developed holes in places.

Boeing 737 — Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15? Or a C919's LEAP-X1C? Actually — the news that spring, before everything ended, was about the C919 making the domestic aviation mainstream. Could this be a CJ-1000A? He studied the external casing profile. Round barrel configuration. Not the oval JT8D-15 shape.

China's domestically developed C919 had become the backbone of domestic civil aviation in its final years before the catastrophe. The CJ-1000A turbofan had just reached the commercial market, replacing the LEAP-X1C in the newest production models.

The specific designation didn't matter anymore.

He grabbed the engine from the rubble and dragged it at a jog toward Great Vajra, securing it to the roof with cable. About five meters long, main body diameter around two meters — without the fan assembly it wasn't oversized for the roof. Getting it repaired and installed would be an entirely different problem, almost certainly beyond the Mingfa Camp's current technical capability. But having it was better than not having it.

An engine to restore to operation someday. For now: a future resource.

What he actually wanted was a fighter jet's turbofan — smaller, more powerful. But a civil aviation turbofan found opportunistically was better than the nothing he'd had before.

Engine secured, he continued toward the underground fuel depot location. The two-hour window was nearly exhausted when he finally reached it.

The underground tanks were corroded through. Thick structural steel, built to last decades — eaten and perforated by the same accelerated corrosion that had been destroying metal throughout the region. Earth had infiltrated the tanks through the holes. At the very bottom of each, a dark viscous residue of uncertain composition was all that remained of what had been…