Snow came in the first half of the night.

It started small — tiny flakes that dissolved on contact, leaving no trace. Then it built, and built, until it was falling in thick drifts.

Shen Cong stepped out onto Great Vajra’s roof and stood in it. The snow carried a surge of ambient Activity — rich, almost effervescent. The Eastern Theater Command called Activity “metal radiation.” Standing here in this snowfall, he understood why that framing made sense.

His meteorite fragment research had revealed it: the fragments emitted a specific radiation, not Activity itself, but something that catalyzed a reaction in metal — corroding it, reducing its mass, causing the lost mass to escape outward as Activity. “Metal radiation” was actually a reasonable description. Activity was mass departing from metal in radiant form.

The Golden Jiao Totem’s absorption efficiency climbed noticeably in the dense Activity of the snowfall. Great Vajra was pulling in ambient Activity at an elevated rate, and the enhancement feedback was coming through steadily — warm pulses of strengthening through the bond.

He pulled off his Jiao-hide gloves and held out a hand.

In darkness that blinded everyone else, he could see clearly. Snowflakes touched his palm and dissolved immediately — and then more, until his hand was wet. He closed his fist. Water pressed out between his fingers.

Winter. It’s actually here.

Then, two hundred meters out, he caught movement. Figures on stilts, advancing carefully through the snow.

A sharp flash of alarm. He was back inside Great Vajra in moments, walkie-talkie in hand.

“Don’t sleep. Death-eaters approaching. We’ve been found.”

He checked the radar display. The snowfall was degrading the signal — the incoming figures hadn’t registered at all.

Snow and rain compromise radar. Pay more attention in bad weather.

Zhao Zilong’s group, not yet asleep, scrambled at the warning. Shen Cong armed up fully, instructed Blackhead and Black One to hold the nest, and slipped out of Great Vajra quietly.

The bouncing stilts required care on snow — the footing was unpredictable, the compacted contact surface uncertain. But there was an advantage too: fresh snow absorbed sound. He moved like a shadow.

A few bounds and he was already behind the military jeep, standing at Zhao Zilong’s group’s backs.

“Is there another route from Nanjing, Yizheng, or Yangzhou into Laian County?”

Old Wei startled. “Colonel Chen — how did you get back here? No — impossible. Home of the Fearless has mapped all of this area. Every northbound road has been cut. No vehicle gets through. On foot the distance is considerable too, from any of those directions.”

“Do these death-eaters have vehicles?”

“No.”

“All on stilts?”

“Yes.”

“Is the sharkskin intact?”

Shen Cong frowned slightly. “Some damage visible.”

Zhao Zilong’s eyes moved. “Ghouls, probably.”

The Ghoul Collective — a splinter faction of death-eaters too erratic to be absorbed by any of the other organizations. Their behavior was unusual, their mental state clearly compromised. Drifting around the Yizheng area, they sustained themselves by raiding. They also held a belief that consuming lymph-laggards, brainless individuals, and ratmen directly — while less effective than C1 — still produced some enhancement. When raids for C1 came up empty, they hunted and ate living people.

“Ghouls.” He filed the information. Regardless of classification, they’d entered his perimeter. “Eliminate them.”

The ghouls crept toward Great Vajra through the snowfall and ran into an immediate counterattack.

Two went off their stilts on first contact, injured. The rest abandoned the stilts and spread out, rushing toward the vehicle from multiple angles.

Shen Cong moved through them — any ghoul that came within fifty meters of Great Vajra took one strike and didn’t get back up. These ghouls had better combat instincts than standard death-eaters and seemed to register pain differently — wounded ones kept attacking rather than retreating. But their physical conditioning was well below the death-eater officers he’d faced, and they had no stimulants.

Against his current level, it was easier than a straightforward training session. He didn’t need the Pepper Water.

A dozen ghouls down in sequence. The ones still standing broke — shrieking and scattering into the dark and snow.

Running away from strength, attacking weakness. That was the Ghoul Collective’s reputation accurately summarized.

He could have followed their tracks. He didn’t. The snow was building fast, reducing visibility further with every passing minute. The depth at ground level was already past his knees.

Old Wei was breathing hard — he’d chased one ghoul down personally, gotten a light slash on his arm in the process. He wore a half-suit of armor with sharkskin lining underneath; the wound was superficial.

Shen Cong crouched over one of the fallen ghouls and looked at the face.

It was genuinely disturbing. The skin was covered in cysts and masses — swollen growths of varying sizes clustered across the surface.

Zhao Zilong came to look. “The lymphatic anti-mutation patients’ immune systems resist Activity radiation. Without a mutation compound to neutralize and stimulate the system, any C1-derived effect is extremely weak and produces severe side effects. This is one of those side effects — systemic immune dysregulation.”

He used his blade tip to puncture one of the cysts. Thick yellow fluid ran out.

“Your father developed C1. How much do you actually know about Activity — about metal radiation?”

“Not much. He always showed me the positive aspects of his work. Never discussed C1 specifically. Before the nuclear detonation, I didn’t even know the anti-mutation fluid was being taken from human patients.”

“Do you know the C1 formula?”

“A lot of people know it. But without the specific preparation method, knowing the formula doesn’t help you produce it.” She shook her head.

Old Wei cut in: “Even I know it. The anti-mutation lymph fluid from lymph-laggards — they call it anti-lymph. The anti-mutation cerebrospinal fluid from the brainless — anti-spinal. Jin beast lymph fluid — mutation-lymph. Jin beast cerebrospinal fluid — mutation-spinal. And evergreen evolved tree sap — mutation-sap. Mix them together.”

Anti-mutation and mutation — the two categories mapped onto each other cleanly.

The terminology had a logic: anti-mutation fluid from lymph-laggards abbreviated to anti-lymph; from the brainless, anti-spinal; evolved beast lymph fluid, mutation-lymph; evolved beast cerebrospinal fluid, mutation-spinal; evolved tree sap, mutation-sap. Biological fluids from all mutation-bearing organisms had potential pharmacological value in some combination.

The formula was simple. The preparation method was not — only Zhao Yang knew it. Which was how a single university professor had been able to push an entire military command out of its home city and corrupt hundreds of its people.

The ghoul attack was an interlude. Shen Cong assigned Blackhead and Black One to watch through the remainder of the night and wake him if anything moved. The second half of the night was quiet — no second ghoul wave, no evolved beasts.

At first light he was already up.

The world outside was entirely white.

He climbed to the roof. Snow everywhere, still falling. Great Vajra’s undercarriage had been buried — over two meters of accumulation had come down overnight.

The military jeep nearby was visible because Zhao Zilong’s group was already shoveling it out.

(End of Chapter 238)