After breakfast, Shen Cong went through the supply room and sorted his Activity cores.

Low-grade cores: feed to the Vajra Ant colony. High-grade cores: fabricate into bone-gold weapons. Symmetrical cores: designate as totem engine stator and rotor candidates. Mid-grade cores: package for trade.

Unused Activity cores degraded over time as their Activity dissipated. Shelf life was roughly a year — still a comfortable window, but they took up space. Better to move the surplus.

Shen Cong ran a tight inventory by principle. For resources he could reliably reacquire, there was no point in stockpiling beyond a reasonable working buffer — Activity meat, Activity fruit, Activity cores, all the same. Surplus was trade stock. The higher-vitality Activity fruit varieties were strategic reserves and not on the table yet.

At 2:50 in the afternoon, the drone feed showed the Tempest Hunting Company's tractor-wood cart approaching.

Five people. The same five jin people as before. Goods loaded in the back. No suspicious figures trailing them.

Shen Cong watched for ten minutes, then started Great Vajra and headed for Ping'an Town.

Five minutes later he arrived on National Highway 205. The moment Big Bear's group spotted Great Vajra, the visible tension in their posture released. They came forward quickly.

"Brother Wu — finally. We've been going in circles looking for you."

Shen Cong climbed down from the cab. "I had things to attend to. You have the currency and the Activity fruit?"

"All here." Big Bear turned to the others. "Bring the fruit up."

Then he reached into his coat and produced a thick oilpaper bundle, holding it out to Shen Cong.

"Brother Wu — the three Golden Fleece Goats sold, but without the Activity cores the price took a hit. Total came to twenty-three thousand five hundred greenbacks. Activity fruit is thin on the ground this time of year, so we sourced four varieties: a hundred jin of sea rice, fifty jin of loquat, fifty jin of mangosteen, and twenty jin of wild banana. That ran fifteen thousand, leaving eight thousand five hundred in change. Count it if you'd like."

Shen Cong took…