Some children, even when wrapped in their mother's embrace, woke up in the morning with purple lips and stiff limbs.

At the edge of the Red Residence District, the fixed Fire-backed Turtle furnace stood firmly, with the sound of bubbling steam surging from under its heavy iron shell.

Several heat-gathering rings were embedded in the top of the turtle shell, dispersing heat flow to the ground day and night to ensure that the surrounding buildings wouldn't be frozen.

Even such a meticulous heating system was only enough to cover the core of the city and a limited number of communal houses.

In some of the resettlement areas farthest from the Fire-backed Turtle, the extreme cold finally started reaping lives.

It chose the most vulnerable—the frail elderly, the weak-lunged children, and the malnourished workers.

The first to fall was a mason in his sixties, who suffered sudden chest tightness while inspecting water pipes on a cold night and never woke up again.

Soon after, frostbite, necrosis, pneumonia... like a silent poisonous mist, pierced through cracks in stones and cotton quilts, sweeping across them.

The winter nights of the Red Tide had never been this heavy.

Lights shone brightly at the Red Tide medical station, packed with frostbite patients and weeping mothers inside.

Rough cloth garments were already soaked, and the children curled up in their arms, hands and feet turning blue.

Some children were on the brink of death as soon as they arrived, lips blackened, their chests barely rising and falling.

"Can he still be saved?"

"My little one has had a high fever for three days now, can he hold on?"

"I beg you, sir... can you give her some herbs?"

These voices, mingled with coughs and moans, seemed to weigh down on every healer's heart.

On the other side of the corridor, several bodies hurriedly wrapped in coarse fabric mats were carried out.

Thin children, bent-over elderly, and even some mothers dying next to their children, still clutching the little bodies with no breath in their arms.

Worse was the acute hypothermia pneumonia outbreak.

In one night, multiple refugee camps experienced mass high fevers and breathing difficulties, with as few as three to five dying, and as many as entire camps falling ill.

The medicines were far from enough, and the Red Rock Warehouse was depleted by more than half in a short period.

It was at this moment that the great Lord Louis's command swiftly reached, stopping this trap of death.

"Move the standby Fire-backed Turtle to the refugee camp's shelter and fill it with lava moss fuel, keeping it running all day." When his fingers dropped, it was as if a blade cutting through snow.

Hot cycle medical rooms centered on the Fire-backed Turtle immediately activated, with the help of lava moss as fuel, maintaining room temperatures at fifteen degrees above zero, becoming one of the warmest places in the Northern Territory.

But resources were limited and had to be rotated.

He ordered, "Each person can rotate in once a day, prioritizing sick children, craftsmen, transport soldiers, and mothers with newborns. No one is allowed to seize spots by force."

Meanwhile, the workshops in the Red Tide Territory remained lit throughout the night.

Mike led the craftsmen in the emergency development of the seventh-generation cold-proof cloak, using frost-beast skin mixed with refined cotton, with the outer layer coated in thermal oil.

The cloak hem also had small steam bag interfaces sewn in, which could connect to personal heaters.

Critically, this batch of cloaks was sewn by the refugees themselves.

"Work-for-relief, whoever does more will have their children wear it first."

Those mothers, who had already despaired, threw themselves into cutting and sewing with red eyes, no longer just waiting to die as refugees.

Within half a month, twenty thousand cloaks were dispatched to various shelters in batches. Each was seen as the continuation of life.

On the medical front, the medical support team led by Emily was also fully mobilized.

Pharmacists processed all the Frost Leaf Vines into highly effective soothing agents specifically for those with pneumonia and high fever.

The Red Rock Warehouse's herbal depot was also completely opened, releasing precious herbs that had been stockpiled for a long time.

"As long as we can survive, give them everything." This was the first thing Emily said to the pharmacists.

In the city square, a 'fire soup station' was quickly set up, operated with the assistance of the Red Tide Army, supplying pickled vegetable stews and bone soup day and night, ensuring everyone could drink at least a bowl of hot soup a day.

...

Noon was eleven years old this year.

When the insect plague arrived, he was still out in the village ditches catching a rabbit—that was his promise to his younger brother; catch a rabbit, and he'd make him a hot meat soup.

But when he got home, the entire street was gone.

The carcasses of insects had engulfed everything.

He didn't even have the chance to cry, he could only drag his brother and hide in the forest. Luckily, those insect carcasses didn't find them and were finally saved by the knights of the Red Tide Territory.

After arriving at the Red Tide Territory, someone assigned him work.

He was placed in the construction group, following a team led by an old craftsman named Cole, moving bricks, erecting wood, and building walls.

These heavy tasks were too much for an eleven-year-old child, but compared to freezing to death in the snow, or starving to death, he already felt very fortunate.

There was food here, bedding, and occasionally even soup with minced meat.

He thought life was finally going to get better.

But the real winter still came.

In one night, his brother's fever wouldn't go down, curled up in a tattered blanket shivering uncontrollably.

Noon panicked, carried him to the medical station, and waited in line all day before they were let in.

In less than two days, he too fell ill.

Body burning, teeth chattering, feeling light as if he might drift away at any moment.

He heard Cole sigh, "Alas, what a pity... come this far, yet couldn't pull through."

He wanted to retort, but didn't even have the strength to open his eyes.

Then, that day came.

He heard the rumbling sound, the sound of the Fire-backed Turtle operating, the heavy iron shell exuding scorching heat waves.

The originally cold medical station began to warm, one steam pipe after another connecting, with small stoves burning black fuel installed by each bedside.

Noon didn't shiver in the cold night for the first time, but instead slept deeply.

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