The field hospital’s nursery.

A nurse was attending to Xiao Li Du — just past his first month. He’d grown considerably more appealing since birth. Both parents were gone, but he’d become the ward’s most visited patient, receiving regular calls from Zhao Weiliang, Zhu Li, and much of the senior leadership.

Today’s visitor was different: a figure in full armor. Colonel Hu Ge, Edge of Evolution.

“Colonel Hu.” The nurse came to attention immediately, visibly nervous.

The nervousness wasn’t purely about rank. Shen Cong’s pressure aura had real physical presence now — not just evolved beasts with low Activity Values responding to it, but ordinary humans as well, feeling it as a nameless tension in the air around him.

He gave both nurses a brief nod. “I’m here to see Xiao Li Du.”

“Of course — please come in.”

The other nurse moved to pour water. “Colonel Hu, some water—”

“Not thirsty.” He never accepted food or drink from others. Everything he consumed was something he’d prepared himself.

He looked at the infant in the small bed.

Xiao Li Du looked back.

The Half-Activated Armor had been refined since its early form — evolved beast materials worked into the detail sections, improving ergonomics, the overall profile cleaned up. Shen Cong had aesthetic preferences, and they’d had time to develop.

“Gah gah gah.”

The baby laughed at him. Not startled, not disturbed — genuinely amused. Whatever pressure aura the nurses were feeling registered not at all on Xiao Li Du.

The bolder nurse offered: “He likes you, Colonel Hu.”

Shen Cong didn’t respond to her. He examined Xiao Li Du’s Activity cores — the four canines had grown more pronounced since the last observation, longer and larger. Activity Value had increased to 0.057H. The infant was physically larger than a normal one-month-old by a visible margin, and the eyes had a brightness that suggested cognitive development running ahead of schedule.

He removed his Jiao-hide glove and touched Xiao Li Du’s face.

The baby immediately clamped his gums — and the four canines — down on his finger.

“Careful, Colonel Hu — he loves biting people. He bites really hard.”

“It’s fine.” His body, relative to the force he was capable of generating, was comparatively fragile — but not relative to an infant. Ordinary blades and blunt instruments struggled to mark his skin. “Bring me his observation record.”

The nurse retrieved it from the cabinet.

As humanity’s first second-generation evolved person, Xiao Li Du would remain the only one for at least four months. Du Yafang had been the only surviving pregnant woman from before the apocalypse. The earliest post-apocalypse couples who’d conceived were five months along at most — another four to five months of gestation before the second of the second generation arrived.

So every detail of Xiao Li Du’s development was being tracked daily: food intake, elimination, respiration, heart rate, length, weight, Activity core development.

He read through it, returned it, decided he was done.

From his pocket he produced a large pendant — shaped like a fang. The Swiftclaw Leopard’s canine tooth, from his collection of trophies. He pressed it into Xiao Li Du’s hands, turned, and left.

After he was gone, the two nurses exhaled.

“He’s so… much,” one of them said. “Standing next to him I couldn’t breathe normally.”

“Other evolved people don’t do that. Only him.”

“That’s just what real power feels like.”

“I wonder what he looks like under the helmet.”

“Probably very handsome.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because real handsomeness isn’t about looks — it’s about capability.”

“That’s actually reasonable.” A pause. “It’s just that Colonel Hu’s…” She tapped her temple carefully. “…mental state seems a little…”

“Shh. Do you not know we’re not supposed to talk about that? There’s a standing order.”

Shen Cong was aware that he appeared strange to many people.

He didn’t particularly care. The strangeness was the world’s, not his.

He left the hospital and went to the Automotive Lab. The aircraft engine was still there, and still mysterious to everyone including himself. The Automotive Lab’s engineers were exceptional with vehicle mechanics; jet turbine architecture was outside their experience entirely. They couldn’t confidently identify the function of each component, let alone attempt repairs.

He couldn’t repair it either. The technical documentation didn’t exist in accessible form — proprietary to the manufacturer.

And the engine was too large and heavy to transport.

“Leave it here. A thousand points to maintain it with regular servicing.” He’d return for it someday, perhaps. “Maybe there’s a reason to come back to the Mingfa Camp eventually.”

His points had reached over 8,000 after the Swiftclaw Leopard bounty. The camp no longer had anything worth spending that many points on.

From Big-Fly Brother’s coal-hauling truck — now fully inactivated — he took the primary metal sections. Great Vajra had hit its Talent absorption ceiling, but he was holding onto the possibility that the ceiling might eventually break. The primary metal was insurance for that day.

The Tentacle Monster and its light rail cab he left behind. The camp could have them.

Standing on the isolated platform, he ran a mental inventory of loose ends.

There weren’t many.

When the Life-Saving Yellow Soybeans mature — that’s when I go.

The soybeans were flowering. One more week to maturity. He set his departure for seven days out.

The following days were spent on the roof.

He was converting Great Vajra’s rooftop into a deployable solar array — an expanded system that could unfold like a pair of wings to maximize collection area, feeding into the vehicle’s electric drive system as a supplementary power source alongside the diesel engines. A second battery array went into the cabin to expand storage capacity.

All of it against the eventual fuel crisis that was coming regardless of what decisions were made in the meantime.

He called the new solar array the Wings of Light — photovoltaic panels arranged like a satellite’s solar wings, folding flat to approximately fifty centimeters of depth against the roof when stowed, extending laterally on both sides when deployed, eight layered photovoltaic panels per wing, dramatically increasing solar-to-electric conversion efficiency.

The camp had also begun scaling up solar panel installation since Grease had freed iron person productive capacity. Pre-apocalypse solar panels had been widespread by 2022, and the photovoltaic materials — crystalline silicon and tempered glass — corroded slowly enough that a substantial proportion of installed panels had remained functional.

He pressed the control.

Click.

The Wings of Light deployed — panels extending outward from both sides of the roof in a smooth automated sequence, spreading like something preparing for flight, reflecting the afternoon light in overlapping planes.

Brilliant in the sun.

(End of Chapter 194)