Now that Gu Qing had activated the Blueprint, Zhao Chi’s territory could build one Rejuvenation Spring.

Soldiers and Craftsmen alike were all shouldering hoes and carrying tools, heading off to dig a pit for the hot spring.

Zhao Chi sat to the side.

He admired their graceful figures as they worked under the cover of night.

Now that their bodies had grown supple, even their movements as they worked were more enchanting and bewitching.

Zhao Chi watched for a moment before opening the system interface.

The system was flooded with new messages that had all appeared in a short amount of time.

They were all notifications of rising Loyalty.

Hundreds of them, in fact.

The system had already filtered and summarized them automatically.

The Loyalty of the other women had skyrocketed, all of them reaching 7 points—a level of confiding trust.

Meanwhile, Gu Qing and Tang Ruan were each a point higher than the others, both at 8 points.

[Your subordinate Gu Qing/Tang Ruan’s Loyalty has increased to 8: Wholehearted Devotion]

(Wholehearted Devotion: Deeply satisfied with the current situation. Will strive to execute commands to perfection. Her loyalty is frequently palpable. An exceptionally trustworthy subordinate.)

The system’s evaluation for 8-point Loyalty was quite high.

Wholehearted Devotion!

Those two words were the best possible assessment for this Level of Loyalty.

In addition to the women’s increased Loyalty, there was another, separate system notification.

[The initial Loyalty of your primary Race, the "Peach Blossom Human Race," has been raised to 6 points.]

This was something Zhao Chi hadn’t expected.

An increase in initial Loyalty meant that from now on, new women would start at 6 points—a level of genuine sincerity.

That really was great news.

If Morale represents enthusiasm...

...then Loyalty represents effort.

Morale is volatile; it can plummet in response to a person’s Mood, physical fatigue, or any number of other things.

But Loyalty is far more stable.

Even when in pain or low in spirits, they will still do their job properly.

To put it simply:

Morale determines the upper limit of their performance.

Loyalty determines the lower limit.

The women’s high Loyalty and Morale was best demonstrated by the fact that they were all working with ferocious enthusiasm.

His eyes flickered downward.

He saw that the messages in several group chats had blown up again.

Zhao Chi opened his class’s private group chat.

He saw that everyone was discussing the rebels and the issue with Magical Beast quotas.

It seemed the nobles had already contacted their respective families.

Beyond that, the most recent messages caught Zhao Chi’s attention.

Li Xun: FUCK! Did you guys see? You Yu is dead!

Kong Xiang: Who? You Yu?

Yin Lan: The girl from Class 2?

Sun Quan: Who says?

Li Xun: Yeah, You Yu from Class 2. Aren’t you reading the main grade chat? Everyone’s going crazy.

Yu Wang: I’ve been watching it. It’s so tragic.

Zhao Chi frowned and immediately opened the private group chat for his grade.

There was an overwhelming number of messages.

They were all discussing You Yu, but the information was so fragmented that it was hard to piece together what had happened.

Luckily, Li Xun had already started explaining in their class chat.

Shi Juan: The grade chat is too chaotic. Li Xun, can you explain?

Sun Quan: Yeah, I only caught a few snippets. Li Xun, can you just forward the info to us?

Li Xun:

Thousands of messages have already buried the original posts in the grade chat, and I’m too lazy to find them. I’ll just tell you guys directly.

You know how the nobles from Zone 7 sent people over today to search for resistance members? You all must have seen them, right?

Well, when those soldiers were conducting their search, their hands started to wander. They’d intentionally grope any woman they saw.

When they got to You Yu, she dodged a few times. This enraged the soldier, who then started groping her in a humiliating way.

You Yu couldn’t take it anymore. When she went to smack his hand away, she used too much force and ended up hitting the soldier in the face.

That was a huge mistake. To the soldier, it looked like she had slapped him across the face.

The noble nearby saw You Yu dare to strike a soldier and had her entire family arrested.

Pushed to the brink and left with no other choice, You Yu forcibly summoned the soldiers and Hero from her territory.

That noble immediately declared her actions an act of rebellion and had her executed on the spot...

Yang Xiong: FUCK!

Sun Quan: Executed on the spot?

Lu Yi: No way... You Yu was so talented. She died just like that?

Yin Lan: We thought she was talented. In the eyes of a noble, she was nothing but a weed.

Tan Wei: Dying like that is for the best. It’s much better than being captured by those nobles. At least it was a quick death, saved her from being tortured.

Lu Yi: The way you put it... Ugh, I agree with what you’re saying, but it still feels so... so fucking...!

Even Lu Yi couldn’t stop herself from cursing.

Not for You Yu, but because of the situation itself.

Yang Xiong: Dammit, You Yu from Class 2 was so strong. She was always on the leaderboard for this test. What a shame.

Kong Xiang: Yeah, and her family wasn’t well-off either. A commoner who worked so hard to get somewhere, just gone like that.

Zheng He: Couldn’t she just have endured it? It was just some groping. Is that more important than her life?

Yin Lan: There’s a limit to what a person can endure. And is this kind of thing really that uncommon?

Shi Juan: She was executed right there? In front of her parents? Her parents must have been devastated, right?

Li Xun: Devastated? Her parents were executed too.

Yang Xiong: FUCK!

Yu Wang: Motherfucker! FUCK!

Kong Xiang: What? FUCK!

Li Xun: Luckily, their family was independent. If they were part of a larger clan, the whole clan might have been implicated.

Shi Juan: Ugh, they always call the resistance members rioters, but I can totally understand them. I feel like rebelling myself.

Zhao Chi was stunned. ’Shi Juan actually said that?’

He immediately sent a voice message:

Zhao Chi: Shi Juan! Retract it, quick!

Lu Yi: Retract! Shi Juan, don’t say things like that in the group chat!

Yang Xiong: Be careful!

Cao Feng: Shi Juan, are you crazy? Fucking retract it now! 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

[Shi Juan has retracted a message]

Shi Juan: It should be fine, right? The nobles probably aren’t monitoring the group chat.

Cao Feng: Dammit, if someone takes a screenshot and reports you, you’re finished.

Shi Juan: No one in our class would do that, right?

Yang Xiong: It’s one thing to curse out the nobles, but showing sympathy for the resistance, let alone having rebellious thoughts yourself? You know what happens then, don’t you?

Shi Juan: Sigh, I know. Thanks, everyone.

Normally, complaining in the group chat, even cursing out the nobles, wasn’t a huge problem.

As long as you didn’t do it to their faces, the nobles couldn’t be bothered to care.

In fact, it even served a positive function by allowing the commoners to vent their resentment.

After all, once the commoners were done venting, they still had to get back to work and continue paying massive extra taxes.

But daring to associate with the rebellion was a much more serious matter.

The crime of rebellion was extremely grave.

It was basically a death sentence.

Zhao Chi went back to the main grade chat and scrolled for a while. He found that it was just as Li Xun had said: You Yu’s entire family had been killed.

The news came from several people from her own village.

It had to be true.

Actually, Shi Juan hadn’t been wrong.

Many of the things these nobles did truly made a person want to fight back.

But the nobles were simply too powerful.

It wasn’t just their personal power; the strength of their territories was even greater.

Of the vast number of Magical Beasts that invaded from beyond the walls, 70% were eliminated by those same nobles.

And yet, the nobles made up only about 5% of the total population.

Five percent of the population, eliminating seventy percent of the Magical Beasts.

Commoners had no way to resist that kind of power.

Besides, if the nobles were to disappear, who would deal with that 70% of the Magical Beast threat?

If no one could fill that gap, then everyone would probably die.

The commoners resented the nobles, but they were also forced to depend on them.

The whole situation... was completely fucked.

Zhao Chi didn’t know what to make of it.

In any case, he had only one path—and there would only ever be one path.

To make himself stronger.

To desperately increase his own power and the strength of his territory.

Everything else could be put on the back burner.