Chapter 357: Chapter 357 - 247: In the Winter Cold (Part 2)

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.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.Move the standby Fire-backed Turtle to the refugee camp's shelter and fill it with lava moss fuel, keeping it running all day."