KPS2186 Ecological Ranger's Work Journal

In the spring of 2026, Ji Bei was still delivering takeout.

His master's thesis was on pressurized water reactor fuel management. He'd sent out seventy-three resumes, and the only reply was, "Thank you for your interest." Then a regular customer sent him an internal referral: large-animal transport, cafeteria included, permanent status up to you to earn.

He didn't ask what kind of animals.

On his first day, Sister Zhou told him: dragons aren't divine beasts, they're uranium enrichment facilities. The fission output of a mature dragon equals that of three nuclear power plants. Its pearl is a liquid-fuel reactor core, and its ability to summon wind and rain is a byproduct of cooling.

The dragon doesn't know it's fifteen hundred tons of highly enriched uranium.

You just need to know. Don't mention it in front of the dragon.

At the deep-water monitoring station on Qinghai Lake, the sonar buoy had been submerged for forty-three years.

Qing Yao had guarded this place for eight hundred years. She was a temp worker, with no housing fund and no retirement plan. Uranium ore dust that wouldn't wash off was lodged beneath her fingernails. She could hear the fission soundprints a hundred meters underwater: C major meant a juvenile, while B-flat meant something was off-key.

That young dragon had learned the song over three years, though no dragon had ever taught it.

They said dragons were totems.

They didn't know dragons got hungry, too.

They said dragons were nearly extinct.

They didn't know that 785 of the 832 dragons on file hadn't been seen in twenty-eight years. They weren't dead. They'd been forgotten.

The old dragon Gui had lived for 2,300 years. Its reactor was in the final stage of its fuel cycle, and it could go critical at any moment. At the hearing, it said: "I will not let you cut me open for my pearl. If it is to keep me alive, then take this battered old body of mine right now."

No one dared answer.

All descriptions in this book of dragon physiology, nuclear fuel metabolism cycles, and quantum tunneling effects in hidden paradises are supported by classified documents declassified between 1987 and 2026.