A vicious female is trapped in a beastly hell.

Chapter 331: Pretending to serve the public good for personal gain
[Ding! Congratulations, host! The Green Field City wall has been successfully completed. You are rewarded with one fortress core!]

[Ding! Congratulations, host, for completing the emergency side quest: Suppress the riot in Greenfield City, ensure the completion of Greenfield City's walls, and exceed the mission target by successfully recapturing the four neighboring cities. Reward: One Marrow Cleansing Pill, 500 points! An additional 500 points will be awarded!]

This great victory has boosted morale in all the cities under our command!

[Congratulations, host! Your Monarch Prestige has increased by 150!]

[Information on Qingchuan City, Yunshan City, Fengyuan City, and Pingchuan City has been loaded into the territory system and updated. Would you like to view it immediately?]

Shen Tang clicked to view the basic information of the four newly recaptured cities.

Qingchuan City (Mining-based City)

Total population: 7 million

Public sentiment: 10
Security: 10

Yunshan City (Mining-based City)

Total population: 7 million

Public sentiment: 15
Security: 10

Fengyuan City (An agricultural city)

Total population: 9 million

Public sentiment: 20
Security: 15

Pingchuan City (a commercial city)

Total population: 8 million

Public sentiment: 15
Security: 15

Shen Tang glanced at the absurdly low public morale and security levels, and felt a chill run down her spine! She suspected that if she personally led the expedition to appease the people, an assassin might suddenly jump out from the crowd and try to kill her!
Shen Tang contacted Xiao Jin and dispatched troops to garrison the four cities that had just experienced riots, strengthening security and preventing another riot from occurring.

At the same time, she also sent Lu Xiao with the air force to transport a large amount of supplies and food to the post-war area to appease the people.

[By the way, host, the walls of Greenfield City are complete. You can place this fortress core inside the walls, which will greatly enhance the walls' resilience, making them the most impregnable fortress in the world!]

Shen Tang was caught in a dilemma. She hadn't decided whether to place the core of the fortress in the Imperial City or Green Field City. The tragedy of the old Imperial City being breached by the rebels was still fresh in her mind. However, Green Field City was located on the southwestern border, close to the polluted area, and was the first line of defense against the polluted area, so it was equally important.

Just as Shen Tang was hesitating, the system suddenly issued a warning.

[This is bad, Host! Morale in the southern border cities has dropped to varying degrees!]

[The host's prestige has also been affected!]

Shen Tang's heart trembled. She followed Lu Xiao back to Green Field City and heard the terrible news.

Recently, many orcs have gone missing in border cities and surrounding tribes!

It started a few days ago, but at that time, riots broke out in various places, and people were busy with internal strife. Too many orcs were dying every day, so the higher-ups did not pay attention to the missing orcs.

It wasn't until Xiao Jin led his army to quell the war that people realized many civilians had mysteriously disappeared, and the number of missing persons was increasing daily, with no bodies found to date, causing widespread panic in all regions. Shen Tang frowned and asked, "Have any orcs gone missing in Green Field City?"

Shi Ye had already sorted out the missing persons in the city overnight and said with a heavy heart, "The situation in Green Field City is much better than in other cities, but more than twenty people have disappeared without a trace in the past half month. Fortunately, no new missing persons have appeared in the last two days since the city wall was completed."

Shen Tang stood at the city gate, gazing at the towering city walls that gleamed coldly in the sunlight, like a crouching giant beast, deterring any potential invasion.

The fact that Greenfield City suffered minimal damage in this crisis is likely largely due to the city walls.

Xiao Jin, Lu Xiao, Hu Yun, and their team investigated the matter.

A few days later, more bad news came: Hu Yun's team was wiped out!
Fortunately, Xiao Jin arrived halfway and saved him, but Hu Yun was seriously injured, unconscious, and in critical condition!
When Shen Tang rushed over with his men, Hu Yun's injuries had worsened significantly.

His body was pale and bluish-white, and he was spitting out a lot of black blood. What was most bizarre was that dark gray-green granulation tissue was growing from the boy's wounds, which was actually healing itself!
But his vitality was rapidly dissipating!

Shen Tang, Xiao Jin, and Lu Xiao exchanged glances, all seeing astonishment in each other's eyes.

The orcs of the Empire probably didn't know, because they had never seen a contaminated creature before. But having stayed in the contaminated area for so long, they could tell at a glance that it was a wound inflicted by a contaminated mutant, and that Hu Yun's body was undergoing a mutation!

The contaminated mutants and the batch of zombies that appeared in the old imperial city are similar in that they can reproduce rapidly by infecting external objects, but there are also significant differences between the two.

To put it bluntly, those zombies are just rotting pieces of corpses that can move and attack. They only have the instinct to fight and attack, and they do not inherit the special abilities and strength of living beings. They have a limited lifespan and will die when they are completely rotten.

These contaminated mutants possess a certain level of intelligence, can inherit the supernatural abilities of living beings, and can even become more powerful! They also have no lifespan limit, and once they spread, they will be even more terrifying!
The entire empire may face annihilation!
If those orcs that disappeared recently were all killed by the corrupted species, it's terrifying to think about!
Shen Tang's face turned pale. She was unwilling to believe this speculation. How could there be contaminated land on the border? In the original novel, the contaminated land expanded and invaded the empire several years later.

Why has the timeline been moved forward so much?!

"Ugh..." Hu Yun, lying on the ground, groaned in pain. His skin turned even paler and bluer, and his bones deformed and swelled, making a teeth-grinding cracking sound, as if he would turn into a mindless monster at any moment!

The beastmen present were so frightened by this scene that they retreated and turned pale.

Hu Yun's mother knelt on the ground, crying so hard her eyes were almost blind. "Waaah... my child... please, Your Majesty and the officials, save my child!"

Xiao Jin and Lu Xiao's expressions grew increasingly grim. A pang of reluctance flashed through their hearts, but for the time being, they had to eliminate Hu Yun before he completely mutated, otherwise it would only implicate more innocent people!

"Wait a minute, I have a way!" Shen Tang didn't have time to think, and quickly took out the anti-pollution serum from his space and injected it into Hu Yun's body.

This was a system reward she received when she did tasks in the past. Now that the system store has been upgraded, she can buy anti-pollutant serum, and she has plenty in stock.

Under the shocked gaze of everyone, Hu Yun's body stopped its strange transformation and returned to normal.

Shen Tang quickly used her healing abilities to help him heal.

A dozen minutes later, Hu Yun opened his eyes and touched his body blankly.

He is still alive!

Wasn't he bitten to death by those horrible monsters?!
Tiger Cloud's mother wept with joy, "My little one, it was His Majesty who saved you! Quickly thank His Majesty!"

Hu Yun snapped out of his daze and knelt down with a thud, tears welling in his eyes. "Thank you, Your Majesty, for saving me! From this day forward, my life belongs to Your Majesty. I am yours in life and in death, and I will follow you in the next life too—"

Xiao Jin quickly interrupted, "Alright, stop being so mushy, tell me what happened."

That brat is even abusing his power for personal gain!
(End of this chapter)