The armored vehicle hadn't lost its Activity signature. The iron person was alive somewhere.

Shen Cong examined the figure pinned in the door frame. A jin person — teeth were jin cores. Dead. The wounds were covered in white substance, already decomposing.

He checked the pockets for identification. Nothing. Only a photograph.

A woman in the photo. A beautiful woman.

On the back, in handwriting: "Li Xue'er, you are my everything. I'm going to marry you — and I keep my word."

A devoted man. An oddly sincere feeling moved through Shen Cong, not quite expressible. He tucked the photograph back into the breast pocket and looked over the vehicle interior. Nothing that established identity.

He righted the flipped vehicle with a single heave and checked the license plate.

033? His attention sharpened. The Eastern Theater Command had registered every vehicle — with fewer than five hundred iron people total, three-digit plates were more than sufficient. Plate assignment generally tracked to the iron person's service affiliation.

Zheng Shubian's iron-person driver: 001. Liu Yiwu's driver: 002. Bao Wenhui, who primarily handled escort duty for senior leadership, drove plate 008. Shen Cong's Great Vajra had been assigned 045 — anything in the 0-prefix range indicated official senior-level affiliation.

033 shouldn't belong to the 31st Group Army's commander or political commissar.

If I'm remembering correctly — 31st Army commander is 031, political commissar is 032. That puts 033 as the next person in seniority below them. Which would likely mean 004 Battalion. Which would mean Li Xicheng.

He pressed his hand against the armored vehicle and ran a perception check.

1.714H.

Li Xicheng's carrier vehicle. No question.

The cab was empty. Li Xicheng wasn't in it.

Shen Cong looked up at the clifftop, where the Four-Legged Dragon and Great Vajra waited in the fog, then followed the footprints leading into the treeline ahead.

Footprints and blood together. Li Xicheng's trail.

The marks were chaotic — east, then west, then back, staggering wide curves around a low earthen rise. Shen Cong tracked them over the rise and found what was on the other side.