Taishan Town — technically Taishan Subdistrict, the “town” designation having been officially retired long ago, though the old name persisted.
The Geiger counter showed elevated radiation outside the vehicle. Inside, with the lead-composite shielding, the readings were manageable.
He sent the DJI drone up for a quick sweep. No sign of additional rat-catching units in the area. Then he held it over Baguazhou.
At the island’s center: a wide, shallow circular depression. The detonation crater.
The warhead had been surface-detonated, which reduced the effective kill radius compared to an airburst, but the ground-level impact had been correspondingly brutal. Every surface of Baguazhou was scorched black rubble. Not a trace of green anywhere.
Beyond that, the scene was less dramatic than he’d imagined. Nuclear weapons killed primarily through blast wave and thermal radiation — the radioactive contamination was secondary. Blast and thermal effects were devastating on the surface and nearly irrelevant underground. And this had been a 25,000-ton warhead, not a city-buster, followed by months of weathering and several rainfall events.
He recorded the drone footage, then climbed out onto Great Vajra’s roof with binoculars.
The nuclear ruins came into sharp focus. He studied them until his curiosity was satisfied.
Then the Yangtze caught his attention, and he forgot about the ruins entirely.
The river — China’s mother river, one of the longest and highest-flow waterways on Earth — was running brown and turbid. The northern channel encircling Baguazhou showed visible signs of diminishing water level. Parts of it looked close to dry.
“The Yangtze is running dry?”
He found this genuinely difficult to believe. The Yellow River going dry he could accept — it had happened before historically, and its elevated channel made it vulnerable to levee failure or course changes in an extreme event. The Yellow River had changed course multiple times throughout Chinese history.
But the Yangtze was the third-longest river in the world by both length and discharge volume.
He recalled vague news from before the apocalypse — Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake, annual reports of shrinking surface area — but the main Yangtze channel had never approached anything like this. The glacial headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau fed it continuously.
“Is something wrong at the source on the Plateau? Or extreme regional drought from climate disruption?”
He had no way to know. His operational range was too limited, his information access too narrow. Beyond Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, he knew essentially nothing.
He looked at the river for a long moment, fixed the image in his memory, and went back inside.
He began the interrogations.
Yuan Changjiang was secured to the wall of the vehicle interior — bound, immobile, mouth sealed. The other surviving rat-catcher was the one the throwing knife had caught in the lower back. Possible kidney damage.
He started with the injured one. Didn’t want him dying before he’d been useful.
“Name.”
The man spat blood. “Go to hell. Killing your own kind — what kind of person are you?”
“Name.”
“Get—”
Slap. Hard across the face. One tooth less. “I dislike profanity. Be civil.”
The man tried again.
Slap. The other cheek. “Symmetrical now.” Shen Cong held up a small vial and turned it in the light. “This is something I call Pepper Water. Undignified name, I know. It’s extracted from a mutated stinging caterpillar — the limacodid moth larva, the kind that raised blisters if you grabbed one as a kid growing up in the countryside. You know the type.”
He uncapped the vial.
“The mutated version is thirty times more effective than the original. I’ve tested it. The memory stays with you.” He tilted the vial toward the man’s arm. “Shall we find out together?”
The man’s expression cycled through several things. As the first drop began to form at the lip of the bottle, he broke.
“Stop! Fine. You win. I hate those caterpillars. My name is Shi Huaiyang. Third Rat-Catching Squad, Black Blood Group.”
Not everyone had the backbone of a revolutionary martyr. Language was indeed a sophisticated discipline.
The man added, after a moment: “You’re Eastern Theater Command, aren’t you? I knew it. You were always going to come after us super humans eventually. Didn’t expect it this soon.”
Shen Cong neither confirmed nor denied it. “Pepper Water really is versatile. I have plenty. But let’s move on — Shi Huaiyang, Black Blood Group rat-catcher. Tell me about the death-eater organization structure. How many are there total?”
Shi Huaiyang’s expression shifted into something fatalistic. “Doesn’t matter anymore. C1 was never enough for everyone, constant arguments over allocation, the original military leadership got overthrown by their own people — we split apart. Six organizations now.”
He listed them.
Total death-eater count: approximately four hundred, with over ten thousand ordinary human base members. The original senior military figures who had first administered C1 had been deposed by internal revolt after the allocation disputes became irreconcilable.
The Black Blood Group — roughly seventy death-eaters. Primary income: capturing lymph-laggards, brainless, and ratmen in exchange for C1. Secondary income: goods trading. The most active of the factions externally.
The Trembling Brigade — about seventy death-eaters, composed mainly of former military personnel. They hunted evolved beasts to trade for C1. Retained some ethical constraints, by death-eater standards.
Lost Paradise — sixty-plus death-eaters, running entertainment, gambling, and producing a stimulant called G-powder and a substance called “Eight-Times-a-Night Oil,” both popular in death-eater circles.
The New Hope Laboratory — the former Radiation Laboratory, now operating as C1 Mutagen production and distribution for the other factions. Eighty-plus death-eaters.
The above four were all based in Yizheng City.
The Ghoul Collective — a loose association of fifty-odd death-eaters, subsisting on raiding the other factions. No fixed base, operating mainly around Yizheng.
Home of the Fearless — a mixed organization of some death-eaters alongside jin people and iron people, formerly subordinates of the military leadership before the internal uprising. After their commanders were killed, they relocated across the Yangtze to Zhenjiang City and had been farming and keeping to themselves since.
Shi Huaiyang’s blood loss was showing — his energy was flagging, but something manic had entered his expression.
“I’ve told you everything. Everything worth telling.” He laughed wetly. “I deserve where I ended up. Before all this I couldn’t even kill a chicken. Now look at me. Doesn’t matter. I’m done. But the rest of those bastards can come with me.” He fixed his eyes on Shen Cong. “When you come to clean out the super humans — talk to Zhao Zilong at the New Hope Laboratory first. They call her the Holy Mother.”
“Zhao Zilong? Explain.”
“That old bastard Zhao Yang who runs the Laboratory — black-hearted piece of work, got us all into this mess. But his daughter Zhao Zilong is the opposite. Opposes extracting anti-mutation fluid from lymph-laggards and the brainless, says she wants to atone, causes trouble for all of us. Even fell out with her own father over it.” He coughed and laughed at the same time. “Zhao Yang’s daughter working against Zhao Yang. That’s rich.”
He caught his breath and smiled with what was left of his teeth.
“Find her. She’ll show you the way in.”
(End of Chapter 224)