Seventeen, eighteen trees — he counted as he approached. Every one of them bearing fruit.

He moved toward the grove carefully, scanning the surroundings as he went, paying particular attention to the canopy. Plenty of stories followed the same rule: wherever something valuable existed, something dangerous lived nearby to guard it.

After several minutes of observation, he found nothing threatening. He walked into the grove without incident.

Eighteen trees total, averaging five to six meters in height. The fruit load was modest — forty to fifty pears per tree, each roughly fist-sized. Considerably smaller than the Activity Peaches had been.

But the Activity radiation was real and strong. His sensitivity had developed to the point where touching the bark and holding still for a moment was enough — he felt out the tree’s data almost by feel, doing the calculation instinctively.

Lv0.492 / Activity Value 0.203H / Talent 0.413H.

The Man-eater Peach Tree had registered 0.201H. These pear trees were marginally richer.

He dug up the root system of one tree and examined it. No fibrous feeding roots — none of the hair-like structures that had marked the Man-eater Peach Tree as a carrion-feeder. Whatever these trees were drawing on, it wasn’t decomposing organic matter.

Not carnivorous. Good.

He started harvesting.

Forty to fifty pears per tree added up faster than he’d expected. Five trees filled a military carry pack completely. He hadn’t brought enough bags. He shouldered the first load, ran it back to Vajra, dumped everything inside, sorted out the smallest pear he could find, cut it in half, and left the piece for Blackhead and the old-mature larva.

Then he grabbed three more packs and jogged back to the grove.

He stripped every tree. This area was essentially uninhabited — no survivors within any likely range, no reason to leave fruit for evolved beasts or birds when he could use it himself. Anything the ants didn’t eat could serve as supplemental feed for them later.

He came back to Vajra with both hands full and a third pack around his neck.

Inside, Blackhead and the old-mature larva had already finished the half-pear. Completely — no residue, no fragment, nothing. Neither of them had gone unconscious the way he had after his first Activity Peach. They were moving around the compartment with obvious energy, and the moment Shen Cong opened the door, both transmitted the same clear signal through the bond:

More.

He was curious about the reaction, so he gave them the other half.

Blackhead showed no generosity this time — none of the worker-instinct deference from earlier. It ate most of the second piece before the larva could get at it. The larva managed a portion. Both finished and immediately transmitted more again.

He gave them another whole pear.

Then another.

Six pears total before the signal shifted from more to something quieter, and both ants settled into the corner of the compartment and went to sleep.

No toxic reaction. No distress. Just activity, appetite, and then rest.

Good enough. His turn.

He washed one, bit into it.

Crisp. Clean. Sweet without being heavy.

“Excellent.”

The Activity spread from his stomach in a slow, even diffusion — not the peach’s violent detonation, nothing like the sensation of being hammered from the inside. This was warmth moving outward through his limbs, gentle and continuous, each wave slightly strengthening something without announcing itself. His whole body felt like it was exhaling.

One pear finished. He sat quietly and took stock.

Warm through to the extremities. Mind slightly sharpened. A low-grade energy humming in his muscles — not agitation, more like readiness. The feeling of someone who’d slept well and eaten well and was ready to work.

“Gentle. That’s the word for it. Not like the peach at all.”

He opened the laptop and started building the entry.

Gentle Sand Pear — the fruit. Gentle Sand Pear Tree — the tree. Mutated pear-type plant, evolution class: evolved tree. Bark shows metallic gradation, dense and flexible. Fruit: oval, dark yellow, black-speckled surface, fist-sized. Activity content: gentle and diffuse rather than concentrated. Flavor: crisp and sweet. Root system: no fibrous feeding roots, non-carnivorous.

He paused, then added a line: Fruiting evolved trees may be classified as evolved fruit trees as a category. Their fruit: Activity fruit.

Clean terminology. He liked it.

He marked the grove’s location on the map and got moving.

Eight hundred-plus Activity fruit was more than he could consume before spoilage. There was no reason to stay in the outskirts any longer. He pulled onto County Road 022 heading north toward the Hechaohu Expressway, working through the logic as he drove.

The Gentle Sand Pears were already doing something the Activity Peaches hadn’t — distributing their effect smoothly enough that his body could absorb it without overflow. When he’d eaten the peaches, the Activity surge had been too much for his body to process cleanly, and Vajra had absorbed the excess through Exchange. That was the siphon mechanism running in reverse: body oversaturated, spill into vehicle.

These pears are mild enough that I might absorb everything without overflow. No involuntary transfer to Vajra.

Which meant he could eat steadily and strengthen himself without inadvertently pushing Vajra’s Activity Value ahead of his own again. The balance he was trying to maintain — both of them moving toward Lv1 together — was easier to manage when the inputs were gradual.

He kept one hand on the wheel and ate another pear while he thought.

Always work through the angles. The ones you miss are the ones that hurt you. Evolution is feeling your way across the river. One wrong step and you’re in the water.

Around dusk, County Road 022 connected to the Hechaohu Expressway. The interchange was close to what had once been Fushan Service Area — a highway rest stop with gas and convenience facilities. He pulled in on instinct.

The service area was rubble. No identifiable structures remaining — he couldn’t distinguish where the pumps had been from where the shop had stood.

But buried in the rubble: a bus. Mostly intact in terms of mass, heavily corroded. The engine compartment had rusted through entirely — not just surface oxidation, the metal had been eaten through in multiple places. Three months of exposure, and it looked like decades of weathering.

He’d been puzzling over this since the early weeks. Activity was supposed to be a metal-activating force — it drove the metallic gradation in evolved organisms, hardening bone toward steel, stiffening bark toward iron. It should be doing the opposite of corrosion.

And yet the bare metal left exposed since the apocalypse began was rusting faster than anything in the old world’s chemistry could explain.

The contradiction sat there unresolved.

Another question for Hefei.

He dragged the bus frame to the road surface and stepped back.

“That’s enough for today. Movie tonight, a few pears, back at it tomorrow.”

He dusted off his hands and went home.

(End of Chapter 93)