The Vajra Ant colony was thriving in every measurable way.

Shen Cong turned his attention to the Treasure Bees next. The colony had been enjoying their share of pearl milk tea as well — though the Activity Lock that had been broken wasn't in the queen herself but in a queen-cell larva, one that had established a perceptual link with Shen Cong back when it was still an egg.

Without a perceptual link to the current Treasure Bee queen, her loyalty had always been a point of uncertainty. And for the colony's next generation to reach its potential, a new queen was needed. Once the queen-cell larva matured, the current queen's displacement was a matter of time.

Beyond that, the greenhouse had been substantially reorganized. Most of the Activity fruit cultivation had been wound down — no more self-propagation, just a seed reserve for each variety. The Activity Peach tree had been transplanted to Xinyi City camp and placed under Guo Shanni's care.

What remained in the greenhouse after that, beyond the Treasure Bees, was the Mechanical Vine — now sixty centimeters tall and still prone to muttering. It remained one of the things Shen Cong had never fully figured out. He intended to make a trip back to New Hefei eventually, find the Mechanical Vine's parent organism, and conduct a proper study of how it developed. In the meantime it occupied negligible space.

The greenhouse felt empty now.

With the Eastern Theater Command as a reliable trading partner, there was no longer any reason to pack Great Vajra full. Shen Cong needed to think about Great Vajra's long-term development — specifically the totem chariot conversion.

The vehicle design team from the Command was close to finalizing the conversion plans. He'd checked in with them during his Huai'an City trip two nights ago. They'd shown him the working blueprints: the three-core totem engine would be installed at the junction point between the cab and the main cabin.

A cylindrical gear-transmission power unit, two meters in diameter and five meters in length, mounted horizontally across the top of the cab-to-cabin connection…