If you were made a mascot, you would become a legend in the police force.

The next morning, Li Tuantuan was still savoring the "solid wood bed leg feast" from the previous night, her burps still carrying the smell of sawdust, while the city bureau was already in complete chaos, like a pot of boiling eight-treasure porridge.

"Chief! It's blown up! Everything's blown up! Genting Garden, Golden Bay, and the entire commercial street area are all blacked out!"

"What is the power company doing? It's still not fixed?"

"It's beyond repair! The repair team said the main underground cable broke, and... the cut doesn't look like natural wear and tear, it looks like something chewed it like a spicy snack! The workers were scared back by the strange noises as soon as they went down, and now nobody dares to go down the well!"

Director Chen paced anxiously in his office; the mayor's phone call had nearly melted the landline. In this sweltering summer heat, without air conditioning, and with the traffic lights malfunctioning, the 110 emergency call center would be flooded with complaints within half a day.

The door was pushed open, and Lin Wan strode in, followed by a giant panda that was still sleepy-eyed and walked a little unsteadily.

"Director, I'll take Tuantuan to the scene." Lin Wan spoke very quickly, already carrying an equipment bag in her hand.

Director Chen glanced at Li Tuantuan, who was scratching his belly. Although he felt the situation was a bit off, he had no choice but to try anything: "Alright! This is a bit eerie. The power company said it's a high-voltage cable with steel armor; even a tiger would have two teeth knocked out if it went there. What on earth has such strong teeth?"

Upon hearing "good teeth," Li Tuantuan subconsciously licked the roots of her teeth.

Last night, after consuming that spirit stone, not only was his cervical spondylosis cured, but his teeth were also incredibly itchy, and he really wanted to find something hard to grind them down. However, he was a government employee; gnawing on the bed leg was "damaging public property," and gnawing on a high-voltage power line? That was "asking for death."

Half an hour later, at the construction site of the commercial street.

Outside the police cordon, a crowd of onlookers gathered. Several power company workers squatted by the roadside, smoking furiously, their faces pale with fear. A large hole had been dug in the middle of the road, revealing a dark, gaping sewer entrance, like a gaping mouth that hadn't brushed its teeth.

"Captain Lin, you've finally arrived!" The foreman tossed away his cigarette butt, his hand trembling as he pointed at the hole. "The smell down there is awful, and... it's definitely not the smell of dead rats! We just saw that the cable break was covered in sticky, stringy stuff; it made us want to vomit!"

Li Tuantuan shuffled to the cave entrance with her toes pointing inwards, and her nose twitched twice.

vomit--

A pungent stench assaulted his very senses. It was the mingled smell of fermenting rotting flesh and moldy garbage, mixed with an extremely acrid sulfurous and fishy odor. He recognized that smell! He'd smelled it by the dormitory window last night, only now the concentration was ten times greater—it was practically a biological weapon.

"Coal Ball, stop pretending to be a sculpture there, go down and take a look," Li Tuantuan mentally ordered the crow hanging on the street lamp.

"Alright, big brother."

The coal ball flapped its wings, circled in the low sky, skimmed over the well opening like a miniature reconnaissance plane, and then landed on the edge of the well cover, tilting its head to look inside.

"Brother, there's a demonic aura down there." Coal Ball's voice rang in Li Tuantuan's mind, tinged with disdain. "This smell is even worse than that stinky tofu vendor at the flower and bird market."

Lin Wan crouched down and looked at Li Tuantuan: "Tuantuan, did you find anything?"

Li Tuantuan didn't speak. He stretched out his paw and wiped the edge of the hole. A layer of transparent, viscous liquid, still stringy, adhered to his fingertip.

He brought it close to his nose and smelled it.

The smell... is a bit like a rat, but if it is a rat, then this rat probably grew up drinking nuclear wastewater. The smell carries a violent, hormonal odor.

"Mmm!" Li Tuantuan pointed to the sewer, then made a gesture of hugging something and munching on it, before rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue to play dead.

"You mean... there's something down there eating the cables? And it's not afraid of electricity?" Lin Wan immediately understood, then frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Has the insulator come to life?"

Li Tuantuan thought to herself: These days even pandas can cultivate immortality, so what's so special about rats becoming spirits?

Professor Wang wasn't lying; the "version update" from the Qinling Mountains had indeed spread to the city. The sewers, those dark, damp, and filthy places, are practically a five-star incubation base for mutated creatures. Because of the large number of them, even if the mutation probability is only one in ten thousand, the sheer number underground is enough to cause a major problem.

"Team Leader Lin! We've found something here!"

A young policeman shouted from the green belt not far away.

It was a heavy cast iron manhole cover, weighing several dozen kilograms, but now it lay flipped over like a beer bottle cap. There were several deep scratches on the edge of the manhole cover, as if it had been forcibly pried open from the inside out.

Lin Wan walked over and glanced at the horrific claw marks, her expression grave: "This power... if it rushed into a crowd, the consequences would be unimaginable."

She turned to Li Tuantuan, her eyes pleading, "Gungun, we have to go down and check. The SWAT team is behind us, but in this narrow terrain, only you..."

Li Tuantuan took a step back with a look of disgust.

Are you kidding me? I'm a deputy section chief! A national treasure! You want me to crawl into this stinking ditch? Don't I need to take care of my hair? Don't I need to maintain my image?

Just as he was about to give up, that familiar mechanical voice suddenly rang in his mind, like heavenly music:

[Ding! Source of urban anomaly detected.]

[Side quest triggered: Clean up the sewer saboteurs.]

[Task Reward: 3000 Merit Points, 500ml of System-Special Mutant Potted Milk (Note: Contains a high concentration of spiritual energy, has a silky smooth texture, and is an excellent tonic for cultivating immortality).]

Li Tuantuan instantly retracted her foot, and the disdain in her eyes quickly turned into determination.

What stinky ditch? That's called an "underground palace full of opportunities"!

Mutant rats? They're just walking experience packs!

For that magical bowl of milk, I'd go to any lengths, even the sewer or the septic tank... cough cough, never mind that.

Li Tuantuan snatched a high-powered flashlight from the waist of the young policeman next to her, tucked it into her own fat waist, and then grabbed a gas mask from Lin Wan's hand.

He tried putting the mask on his face—

its stuck.

My face is too big; it simply won't fit.

Li Tuantuan awkwardly hung the mask around her neck, treating it like a decorative necklace, then waved her paw with a triumphant air: "Hmm!" (Let's go! Dungeon!)

"Coal Ball, you keep an eye on things up there. Report it immediately if any other manhole cover moves."

"Alright, brother, walk slowly down here, don't get mistaken for a black and white dumpling and boiled by those big rats." Coal Ball flew up to a high place with a cheeky grin.

Lin Wan took a deep breath, and led several fully armed special police officers, following the round figure, as they climbed down the ladder into the bottomless darkness.

"Pfft."

As soon as she landed, Li Tuantuan felt her feet sink into a soft ground, as if she had stepped on a giant, rotting sponge. Thick mud covered her feet, and the surrounding walls were covered with damp moss, from which black water dripped.

"Attention all groups, turn on your tactical spotlights and maintain formation." Lin Wan lowered his voice, the echo sounding particularly eerie in the empty pipes.

Li Tuantuan walked at the front, his 300-pound weight making each step extremely steady.

He narrowed his eyes slightly in the darkness, a faint green light flashing deep within his pupils. With his enhanced senses fully activated, he could clearly feel countless greedy, crazed, and hungry eyes fixed on the intruders at the dark end of the pipe.

That was the look of a predator.

The nauseating, fishy stench grew stronger and stronger, as if it were waiting for them around the corner.