From a pure food chain perspective, Shen Cong and the four-legged snake were operating at roughly the same level.

Without the remnant scaffolding of pre-apocalypse civilization, humanity had already slipped from apex predator to prey. Which was why, watching what appeared to be a negotiation between Shen Cong and a forty-five-meter lizard, Xiao Bei had called it communication between higher lifeforms — because right now, humanity genuinely hadn't reclaimed the top of the food chain.

The four people in the military jeep sat in silence and waited.

Shen Cong walked to the regurgitated carcass without incident. Then he stopped. He met the four-legged snake's eyes directly, reached down, and took hold of the mucus-covered mass of dead animal with his hand.

The four-legged snake tilted its head. A low gurgling sound came from its throat.

He didn't know what the sound meant. He wasn't trying to decode it. He was executing his own judgment: he pulled the carcass toward Great Vajra.

The snake didn't intervene. Didn't threaten. The opposite — as Shen Cong dragged the offering toward the vehicle, the creature's behavior shifted visibly into something that looked like pleasure. It raised its head and called out twice, and the calls had a lighter, quicker quality than before.

He dragged the carcass to Great Vajra's front bumper, suppressing the physical discomfort of handling it.

The four-legged snake cried out again — enthusiastic, rapid calls — then turned sharply and began moving away toward an open slope. After several meters, it stopped and looked back at Shen Cong, calling once more.

Like it was asking him to follow.

He looked back at Great Vajra. At the military jeep behind it. He sat with the hesitation for a moment, then made his decision.

He activated the bouncing stilts and followed the creature.

The conclusion he'd reached was almost comical, but it fit: the four-legged snake wasn't offering food as courtship or submission. It was proposing a transaction.

Calling it a transaction with a lizard was absurd on its face. But the four-legged snake wasn't really "a lizard" in the sense that word…