He picked up the mirror from the bedside table and looked at the gap where his front teeth had been.

His face went through several expressions, none of them good.

Blood around his mouth, blood on his hands, two blood-stained front teeth lying on the edge of the bed.

“I actually pulled out my own front teeth. What is happening to me.”

He bared what remained — the sight of himself toothless completely destroyed whatever dignity he was used to carrying. He spent most of his time encased in armor, which meant the opinions of others rarely registered. But he cared about his own appearance. Not vain, exactly — but presentable. Clean. Intact. Not gap-toothed.

After washing up and a period of forced self-composure, he managed to look at the gap without flinching.

And on reflection, the interpretation was clear enough: “I’m probably losing my teeth the same way children lose their milk teeth. First set out, second set in. Except the second set will be — different.” He recalled where the Activity had been accumulating through the bone transformation process. “This is the Activity remodeling my skeleton. The teeth go first because they’re the most exposed part of the skeletal system.”

The connection between waking life and dreams was also evident in retrospect. You dream about what you’ve been thinking — and also about what your body is experiencing physically. A full bladder produces dreams of searching for a bathroom. Cold feet produce dreams of standing in cold water. He’d spent days with his bones crawling and itching, had read both The Metamorphosis and seen District 9 recently, and had fallen asleep anxious about his own transformation. Of course he’d dreamed about becoming an insect, then a prawn, about carrying rotting apples he couldn’t shake off, about pulling off claws that turned out to be his own fingernails.

“But what if they don’t grow back?”

The worry surfaced immediately, and he acknowledged it honestly. He was a first case. No other iron person had entered the Lv1 era before him. He’d reasoned that this was tooth replacement — but reasoning and knowing were different things. If it was wrong, if the teeth simply didn’t return—

He was going to need gold caps. He was going to be a literal gold-toothed person in the post-apocalypse.

Eating breakfast was awkward. The gap left by two front teeth made biting into fruit strange and uncomfortable. When he talked to himself, which he did constantly, the air escaped around the gap and made his words slightly imprecise. Annoying.

The good news arrived after breakfast and bag work. He checked his own gums with the medical diagnostic equipment — and at the root positions of the missing teeth, there was something faintly silver. Metallic.

New teeth forming. Second set. Metal teeth.

“Milk teeth to permanent teeth was the first replacement. This is the second. These will be gold.” He gave a short, dry laugh. The pressure in his chest eased. As long as something was growing back, whether it was gold or silver didn’t matter much.

By seven o’clock, Zhao Zilong was on the walkie-talkie: “Colonel Chen. When can we leave?”

He looked at the camera feeds, chose his words carefully around the gap in his teeth, and said: “Now.”

He started Great Vajra’s engines, let them warm up for three minutes, then pushed the accelerator and engaged the dozer blade.

The vehicle moved ten meters.

He picked up the walkie-talkie again. “Snow layer too deep. Power consumption too high. We’re not moving.”

Four meters of accumulated snow, the bottom layers compressed to near-ice density by days of weight above. Great Vajra’s engines were capable but not exceptional — pushing through that much dense compacted snow was more than the drivetrain could sustain efficiently. And finding the road surface under four meters of snow without drifting onto broken stone was its own problem. Better to wait one more day. The post-storm sun was intense and the temperature was rising; it wasn’t deep winter yet, and significant melt was coming.

In the military jeep, four people received this news with visible gloom.

They needed to reach the Eastern Theater Command before the C1 ran out. The snow didn’t care about their timeline.

Shen Cong was having his own problem.

While running a hand through his hair, he found it coming out in clumps.

He’d shaved to a buzz cut at some point — looked like he was going back to bare. He ran his fingers over his scalp and watched hair fall away with each pass. By afternoon it was coming out on its own, no prompting needed. He stood at the washbasin watching patches of bare scalp spread across his head and finally, decisively, pulled the rest out himself and rinsed his head clean.

While washing, he noticed his eyebrows were going too. He pulled those out. Combined with the beard he always kept shaved, his face now had no hair on it whatsoever.

He lifted his shirt. Armpit hair — going.

Rolled up his trouser leg. Leg hair — going.

He reached into his trousers.

His expression hit an absolute floor.

Every hair on his body was gone. His teeth were progressively loosening — he could feel them shifting when he pressed them with his tongue. He worked his jaw and felt almost everything move. His expression went flat, then resolute.

“Ah—!”

He grabbed a canine tooth and pulled.

It came out with blood and a sharp pain. He stood there bleeding into the washbasin, not looking at the tooth, focusing on his breathing until the wave of sensation passed.

This was evolution forcing a complete renewal of everything. It would end. He just had to get through it.

But the fear was there regardless. Quiet and persistent.

What if it doesn’t grow back.

What if this is what becoming a monster looks like.

If I genuinely become a metal shell — can I accept that?

“Ah—!”

Second tooth. He pulled it before he could think about it further.

“Ah—!”

Third.

The taste of blood spread through his mouth, and under it something metallic — not quite rust, but close. He was starting to associate the smell of metal with decay. He was starting to dislike it. The irony of an iron person developing an aversion to the smell of metal was not lost on him.

By dinner, he was down to four molars. He didn’t look in the mirror. He swallowed his food without chewing.

That evening, his fingernails started.

The itching under each nail was specific and intense. He held out for a while. Then he couldn’t.

“Ah—!”

The index finger nail came off in one motion, taking a small piece of flesh with it.

The pain was sharp enough to cut through everything else and leave him momentarily clear-headed.

This is a specific period. A transition. It will end.

He called Blackhead over.

“Guard the nest. Stay alert.” A direct instruction, simply stated.

(End of Chapter 245)