The wicked female is extremely fierce, but she's pampered by her seven beast husbands.

Chapter 351 Extra Chapter: Holding Hands
In the spring of the seventh year of the Wanshou era, Ling Chengen launched another campaign to conquer the south.

The spread of the purple plague forced the first southern campaign to be suspended. It took a long time for the people and army under the rule of the City of Ten Thousand Beasts to recover from the pain of this event.

The entire Northern Wilderness is isolated except for the southern region, which is a major hindrance to Ling Chengen.

The unification of the Northern Wilderness is imperative, and no one can stop this process.

The second southern expedition progressed more smoothly than Ling Chengen had anticipated.

Chang Tianchen's army was like a sharp knife.

Wherever they went, they killed gods and slew Buddhas.

They advanced triumphantly, unstoppable.

Ling Chengen was both surprised and unsurprised by this situation.

This purple plague swept across the entire Northern Wilderness, lasting for a year and a half and killing at least 300,000 people.

Orcs who died from the plague in the southern region accounted for 70% of the total deaths.

Because the western region is sparsely populated, even without a specific cure for the purpuric plague, the number of deaths from the disease has been kept to around 30,000.

The remaining areas are under the jurisdiction of the City of Ten Thousand Beasts, where the death toll exceeded 60,000, more than the total population of an affiliated city.

The situation was most severe in the southern region because the effective medicine for treating the purple plague was the last to reach there. Many small tribes were even wiped out by the purple plague. Those who were lucky enough to survive became wandering orcs. Some went to join the large tribes in the south, while many more tried to cross the Xuemu River and, after going through many screenings, finally joined the City of Ten Thousand Beasts.

Although the second southern expedition went smoothly at the beginning, it took two years to unify the entire southern region.

Some tribes are very closed off, extremely resistant to outsiders, and unwilling to communicate with orcs from the outside world.

These tribes had not done anything heinous, and some of them were even extremely rare natives of the Northern Wilderness. Ling Chengen did not want to exterminate them.

Therefore, she adopted a policy of appeasement towards these tribes, sending many talented individuals skilled in handling inter-tribal relations to provide support, gradually building trust, and then engaging in repeated negotiations...

In the cold winter of Wanhe 8, just before she stopped writing for the Spring Festival, she received the letter of submission from the last independent tribe in the southern region. When she saw the letter, her expression became much richer. She leaned back in her chair, let out a long sigh, and turned to look at the flying snow outside the window.

This year has been a mild winter, and the winter snow arrived later than usual.

In mid-December, the snow even stopped for seven or eight days, which was unusual, so the City of Ten Thousand Beasts was more lively than in previous years.

Most of the snow in the Beast City has been cleared out of the city, and the snow in the courtyard is only two feet thick.

After the window was opened, although a chill rushed into the room, it cleared my head, which had been warmed by the heating.

Ling Chengen placed the document on the table, picked up the seal on the corner of the table, and stamped it on the lower right corner of the document. After the bright red mark dried, she closed the document and put it in the drawer on her left.

Then, she got up and began to tidy up the somewhat messy desk.

Today is the last day of work. We will have a two-week holiday from now until January 9th next year, when we will resume work.

Ling Chengen put the seal on the table into a box, locked it in the wall cabinet in the study, picked up his coat, hat and gloves hanging on the coat rack, and prepared to leave the government affairs office.

After turning off the heating valve in the room, Ling Chengen opened the door and bumped into Yu Heng, who was standing outside.

Yuheng reached out and caught the glove that had fallen from her hand, took half a step back, and said with a smile, "Looks like I came at just the right time."

"Did you need something?" Ling Chengen turned around and locked the door, then looked back at him with a puzzled expression. "There shouldn't be anything urgent in the medical department lately, right? The emergency plan for the Spring Festival has been prepared in advance. Unless it's a major accident, we shouldn't need to work overtime..."

Yuheng stood to the side, gesturing for her to raise her hand.

Ling Chengen obediently did as she was told. Yu Heng helped her put on her gloves while smiling and saying, "Can't I come to see you if there's nothing wrong?"

"This is my last day of work this year. I'll pick you up and take you home together."

Ling Chengen raised his left eyebrow in surprise and joked, "It's rare for you to be so considerate. I'm a little flattered."

Yuheng reached out and straightened her tilted animal skin hat, looking at her bare neck: "I feel like you're pointing something at me. I haven't been good enough to you usually."

Where's your scarf?

Ling Chengen touched his neck, paused for a few seconds, and then said, "I forgot to bring it when I went out this morning."

Yuheng sighed softly, took off the smoky gray cashmere scarf from his neck, and wrapped it around her neck, covering half of her already small face.

Ling Chengen tilted his head uncomfortably, rubbing his mouth and nose with his hand. He exhaled a large cloud of white mist as soon as he opened his mouth: "It's not very comfortable to wear. I can feel the hot breath I exhale immediately condensing into small ice crystals on the scarf."

Yuheng took her right hand and carefully led her down the steps. They walked side by side outside, and Yuheng said with a smile, "I can't help with this problem either. It's better to have a scarf than not. Otherwise, if the cold wind gets into your neck, you'll catch a cold."

Ling Chengen squeezed his left hand, tilted his head to examine his profile, and said with a smile, "Then why did you give me the scarf? Aren't you more afraid of the cold?"

Yu Heng glanced down at her, his eyes full of meaning: "If you weren't my partner, do you think I would care about you?"

Ling Chengen chuckled and said, "What if you catch a cold?"

Yu Heng snorted coldly, "Then you take care of me. I'm the one who always takes care of you idiots. When I get sick, you should at least repay me, right? Otherwise, I won't care whether you live or die in the future."

Ling Chengen took his arm, amused by his reaction, and pressed her face against his arm, laughing so hard her eyes disappeared: "Okay, okay, I'll definitely take care of you, serve you your eating, drinking, toileting, and daily life... It's good to get used to old age sooner rather than later."

Yuheng's face instantly turned as black as the bottom of a pot. He pinched her delicate nose with his right hand and gritted his teeth, saying, "Who are you insulting? Even if I get old, I will never be unable to take care of myself. Don't think that just because you're a few years younger than me, you'll take care of me when I'm old. Maybe your health won't even be as good as mine by then!"

Ling Chengen dodged his hand and led him towards the newly opened hot pot restaurant on the food street: "Who can say what will happen in the future! It's too early to discuss these things now. I'm hungry and want to eat hot pot. Want to go?"

"Just the two of us?" Yuheng looked at her in surprise.

Ling Chengen nodded, her clear eyes gazing at him with a smile: "That's right, we haven't eaten out alone together yet, have we?"

Yu Heng chuckled, then said sarcastically, "You've eaten alone with several of the others quite a few times. It's been so many years, and you've finally remembered me, this unloved, marginalized person?"

Ling Chengen touched the tip of his nose a little guiltily and laughed awkwardly, "Isn't this the first time you've picked me up from get off work too? We've never run into each other before, so you can't entirely blame me, right? Usually, they're the ones who come to wait for me after get off work, and sometimes on a whim, we'll just grab a quick bite on the way."

Yuheng said thoughtfully, "So that's how it can be done? Then I'll come pick you up next time."

"But if we run into them, wouldn't that mean a large group of people would have to have a meal together?"

Ling Chengen chuckled and said, "That's fine too, I don't mind." "Actually, they don't come very often. After all, their jobs aren't easy either. When they're busy, they don't even get off work as early as I do."

Yuheng followed her into a narrow alley in the food street. Looking up, he saw a flag hanging above, with two large black characters on the red flag—Hot Pot.

There was a sign at the entrance of this newly opened hot pot restaurant, which listed the opening discounts and the duration of the discounts. The handwriting was a bit crooked, but it was not difficult to read.

The hot pot restaurant in the narrow alley has a small storefront, with only one double door.

Although the wooden door was open, a thick, warm curtain hung at the entrance, and white mist drifted out from the gaps, quickly dissipating into the chilly winter air.

Yu Heng, tall and slender, lifted the heavy curtain and stepped aside to let Ling Chengen enter first.

As soon as the two entered the house, they felt a wave of heat hitting them, and the rich aroma of hot pot broth immediately filled their noses.

Ling Chengen first took off his scarf, then his gloves and hat. Yu Heng casually took them and stuffed them into his storage space, pointing to a corner seat: "The new store is open, and it's quite crowded. There's an empty seat over there, shall we sit there?"

Ling Chengen had no objection to this. After the two of them took off their heavy coats, they began to look around the new store.

From the outside, although the storefront is small and the location is a bit out of the way, the interior space is really large.

There are three floors in total. The dining areas on the second and third floors are larger, while the dining area on the first floor only occupies half of the entire floor area. The rest is the kitchen... After glancing at it, Ling Chengen lost interest and focused only on the menu in front of him, wanting to eat dinner as soon as possible.

She likes spicy food, while Yuheng prefers milder flavors, so they ordered a hot pot with two broths.

While waiting for the hot pot broth and side dishes, Ling Chengen rested his chin on his hand, pointed to the wound on his eyebrow, and asked, "I was just about to ask you, what happened to that wound?"

Yu Heng rarely gets injured. Except when we first met, when his powers were sealed and he was tortured until he was covered in wounds and bleeding profusely, you could never see any external injuries on him.

Yu Heng reached out and touched the thin, red wound on his brow bone, his expression slightly grim as he said, "It was from a patient."

Ling Chengen exclaimed in shock, "Who's so powerful? How could they possibly hurt you?"

Yuheng stared at her speechlessly: "Shouldn't you be concerned about me right now? Why isn't this wound healing?"

"You have no heart; you just want to watch my misfortune unfold."

Ling Chengen: "Uh, it was just a subconscious reaction! So, why isn't your wound healing? It doesn't look serious..."

Yu Heng explained, "A rather special patient has arrived. Like me, he is a kind of plant-like beastman."

Ling Chengen asked in surprise, "Isn't the Fuqing Clan only left with you?"

Yu Heng shook his head and said, "It's not the Fuqing Clan, it's the Teng Clan."

"The Fuji clan is also a race from Nanbara, and like me, they come from Kamishōmori Valley."

"However, the Teng Clan was driven to the Northern Border long ago because the royal family of the Southern Plains had said that if they did not leave the Southern Plains, they would be exterminated. So the Teng Clan moved to the Northern Wilderness as a whole, but because they could not stand the environment there, their population dwindled and their clan grew smaller and smaller until they finally disappeared completely."

"I thought the Vine Clan was extinct, but I didn't expect to see a Vine Clan beastman who came from the eastern region today. His true form is a Blood Vine. This race's ability is extremely domineering. They can split off their parasitic vines and silently burrow into the body of their prey, draining its blood when the prey is completely unprepared."

"In fact, they can parasitize not only animals and beastmen, but also plants."

"When the parasitic vine burrows into the prey's body, the wound will heal quickly."

"But they have a kind of vine called blood vine. Once you are injured by this vine, the wound will bleed non-stop until the injured person or animal bleeds to death."

Ling Chengen raised his hand and touched his brow bone: "But the bleeding from your wound has stopped."

"How did you stop it?"

"Blood vine fruit".

Yuheng opened his left hand, and Jiaojiao popped its head out of his palm, twisting and turning to greet Ling Chengen. Then Jiaojiao began its imitation show.

"The Vine Clan is a large clan, and the Blood Vine Clan is just one branch of it. The Vine Clan's beastmen are actually quite similar to the exotic plants; they can grow new tusks, bloom flowers, and bear fruit..."

"The Bloodvine Clan bears fruit every year, and the fruit is blood-red, which is called Bloodvine Fruit. However, only a few are produced at a time, so they are quite precious. After grinding this fruit, it can be applied to wounds to quickly stop the bleeding."

"That Bloodvine Clan orc injured me and offered five fruits as an apology gift, so I went easy on him."

Ling Chengen paused for a few seconds, his expression subtle, and said, "You mean you went a little too easy on him when you beat him? Or did you not torture him enough when you treated him?"

Yuheng rested his chin on one hand, tilted his head slightly, and looked at her with a smile: "Can't they all be the same?"

Ling Chengen: "..."

It's just that the laws in the City of Ten Thousand Beasts are not yet sound enough, otherwise he would be sitting in the dock for eleven months of the year, being complained about by patients' families one after another!

Seeing her speechless expression of shock, Yuheng couldn't help but chuckle and said, "Don't worry, he won't complain about me."

Ling Chengen: "Aren't you afraid that after they're cured, they'll complain about you?"

"I'm not afraid of complaints!" Yu Heng said calmly, without feeling that he had done anything wrong. He said confidently, "If he's so capable, let him not come to me for help when he gets sick in the future."

Ling Chengen sighed and said, "Fine, whatever you want."

Even if he can't work as a doctor in the hospital anymore, he can come back and be a private doctor at home; she can support him.

After the two finished their hotpot meal and returned home, it was already dark.

With the Spring Festival approaching, the number of people on the streets was only 30% less than during the day, but some popular shops were still packed with people.

The two walked through the crowd and slowly strolled back.

Yuheng took her hand and put it in his coat pocket, then suddenly asked, "Do you want to stay at my place tonight?"

Ling Chengen tilted his head and teased, "Is this an attempt to curry favor?"

"It's an invitation."

"Don't use strange or unusual words."

“I have a reputation to uphold too, okay?” Yu Heng said with a blank face.