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

At the edge of the Red Residence District, a firmly installed Fire-backed Turtle stove stands, with a heavy iron shell beneath which the sound of bubbling steam can be heard.

Several heat rings are embedded at the top of the turtle shell, emitting heat flows day and night to ensure the surrounding buildings are not frozen.

Even such a strict heating system only covers the core of the city and limited collective housing.

In some resettlement areas farthest from the Fire-backed Turtle, the extreme cold finally begins to claim lives.

It selects the most vulnerable—the frail elderly, children with weak lungs, malnourished workers.

The first to fall was a sixty-year-old mason who suddenly had chest pains while inspecting water pipes on a cold night and never woke up again.

Soon after, frostbite, necrosis, influenza... like a silent poisonous mist, it permeated stone cracks and cotton quilts, sweeping everywhere.

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

The Red Tide medical station is brightly lit, crowded with frostbite patients and weeping mothers inside.

Coarse cloth clothing has long been soaked, with children curled up in arms, their hands and feet turning blue.

Some children were already dying when they arrived, their lips black, their chests barely rising and falling.

"Can he still be saved?"

"My youngest has had a high fever for three days, can he still hold on?"

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

These voices, mixed with coughs and groans, seem to press on every medic's heart.

On the other side of the corridor, several bodies hastily wrapped in burlap mats were carried out.

Weak children, hunched old people, and even mothers died next to their children, still clutching the little bodies that had long since lost their warmth.

Worse still was the outbreak of acute low-temperature influenza.

Overnight, several refugee camps experienced group high fevers and shortness of breath, with as few as three or five dying or entire camps falling ill.

Medicines were far from enough; the Red Rock Warehouse had been depleted by more than half in a short time.

At this time, a swift command from the great Lord Louis halted the death trap.

"Move the reserve Fire-backed Turtle to the refugee camp shelter house, fill it thoroughly with lava moss fuel, and keep it burning all day." His hand fell like a sharp blade cutting through snow.

A high-temperature circulation medical room, centered on the Fire-backed Turtle, was immediately activated, and with lava moss as fuel, maintained room temperature at fifteen degrees Celsius above zero, becoming one of the warmest places in the Northern Territory.

But resources were limited and had to rotate.

He ordered: "Everyone can enter once a day by rotation, prioritizing sick children, craftsmen, transport soldiers, and mothers of newborns, and forbidding anyone from forcibly occupying."

Meanwhile, the workshops of the Red Tide Territory remained lit overnight.

Mike led the craftsmen in the urgent development of the seventh-generation anti-cold cloak, using Frost Beast fur mixed with refined cotton wadding and coated with heat-conductive grease.

The cloak's hem also had small steam pack interfaces sewn in, connecting to portable heating flasks.

More critically, these cloaks were sewn by the refugees themselves.

"Work for relief, whoever sews more, their children wear the cloaks first."

Those once desperate mothers, with red eyes, threw themselves into cutting and sewing, no longer just refugees waiting for death.

Within half a month, twenty thousand cloaks were sent in batches to various shelters, with each viewed as a continuation of life.

On the medical front, Emily led a comprehensive deployment of the medical support team.

Pharmacists concentrated all the Frost Leaf Vines, formulating them into highly effective soothing agents specifically for flu patients with high fever.

The dry herbal storage of the Red Rock Warehouse was also fully opened, releasing long-stored precious herbs.

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

A 'Fire Soup Station' was quickly set up in the city's square, operated with the assistance of the Red Tide Army, supplying pickled vegetable stew and bone broth day and night, with each person receiving at least a bowl of hot soup each day.

......

Noon was eleven years old this year.

When the insect plague came, he was outside the village catching a rabbit in a small ditch; he had promised his brother that if he caught a rabbit, he'd make him a hot meat soup.

But when he returned home, the whole street was gone.

The insect corpses had devoured everything.

He didn't even have the chance to cry, only pulling his brother to hide in the forest. Luckily, the insect corpses didn't find them and they were eventually rescued by the knights of the Red Tide Territory.

After arriving at the Red Tide Territory, he was assigned work.

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

This hard labor was too much for an eleven-year-old like him, but he considered himself fortunate rather than freezing or starving to death.

Here, he had food to eat, bedding, and occasionally could drink soup with bits of meat.

He originally thought life was finally going to get better.

But the true winter still came.

Overnight, his brother couldn't stop the high fever, shivering under a ragged blanket.

Noon panicked, carrying him on his back to the medical station, where he queued an entire day before getting in.

In less than two days, he went down too.

His body was burning, teeth chattering, feeling as light as if he could float away at any moment.

He heard Cole sigh: "Alas, what a pity... made it this far but couldn't hold on."

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

Then the day came.

He heard a rumbling sound, that was the sound of the Fire-backed Turtle running, with a heavy iron shell radiating scalding heat waves.

The once-cold medical station began to warm up, steam pipes connected, and each bedside was equipped with small stoves burning black fuel.

For the first time, Noon didn't shiver in the cold night, instead, he slept soundly.

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