District Three.
Chen Ling pushed open the headquarters' doors and stepped outside.
The thick fog still hadn’t dissipated, hanging over everyone’s hearts like a pall. Figures hurried past carrying stretchers—some bearing pale, lifeless bodies, others holding bloodied, mutilated survivors. The once-bustling streets were now filled with pained moans and hushed, anxious whispers.
Clad in his black trench coat, Chen Ling stood on the headquarters' steps for a moment before following the stretchers toward the other end of the street.
Next to the enforcer headquarters stood District Three’s largest clinic—though "largest" only meant it was roughly the size of a small-town medical center from Chen Ling’s past life.
The two-story clinic was packed to the brim with groaning patients. Red and white stretchers covered the floor, leaving only narrow aisles barely wide enough to squeeze through. The handful of doctors still on their feet were drenched in sweat, weaving through the sea of suffering.
"Doctor… Doctor! Please, look at my child first—he’s not breathing!"
"Doctor! We’re out of gauze and disinfectant! The blood bank’s almost empty too!"
"It hurts… God, it hurts so much—"
"Doctor! This patient has no vital signs—"
Moans and sobs reverberated through the clinic. Outside, stretchers lined the sidewalks, stretching from one end of the street to the other, with more casualties arriving every minute.
How many were still waiting for treatment? Two thousand? Three? Chen Ling had lost count.
He stood at the clinic’s entrance, a solitary figure in black amidst the white stretchers. His gaze swept over the hellish scene, his face unreadable, silent as a forgotten statue.
A doctor emerged from the operating room, his hands stained red. Several family members immediately rushed inside—only for wails of grief to erupt at the sight of the cold corpse on the table.
The doctor stood in the doorway, his eyes filled with boundless sorrow as he surveyed the clinic-turned-inferno.
"This can’t go on…" he murmured.
Then, louder, "Abandon all critical patients. Focus on those who still have a chance."
The other doctors froze mid-motion, turning to stare at him. Some opened their mouths as if to protest—but in the end, silence prevailed.
"We’re… just letting them die?" a nurse rasped.
"We don’t have the time or resources to save them." The doctor closed his eyes. "As for the less severely injured, gather them up. Teach them basic wound care and let them fend for themselves."
"...Understood."
The enforcers maintaining order sprang into action, hauling out stretcher after stretcher of gasping, half-dead patients to clear space for those with lighter injuries.
Most were already unconscious. Those still lucid understood what being carried outside meant.
As the procession of stretchers passed Chen Ling, he could see every twitch of agony on their faces, every spark of despair fading from their hollow eyes.
Amid the chaos, the line between life and death had been drawn with brutal clarity. Like a gravely wounded beast, humanity was now gnawing off its own rotting flesh to survive.
The clinic staff cleared a patch of ground further down the street, depositing the abandoned patients there. The bloodstained stretchers formed a grim mosaic, their occupants’ delirious mutters and pained cries rising like the whispers of Death himself.
They were waiting to die.
"What the hell are you doing?! Why aren’t you treating them?!"
"My father was one of the first brought here! How dare you give up on him?!"
"Those Calamities couldn’t kill my wife, but you’re just leaving her to die?! What kind of doctors are you?! You’re no better than the monsters!"
"This is murder!"
The families who’d been waiting outside erupted. Eyes bloodshot with rage, they charged the clinic, tackling doctors and nurses to the ground. The scene descended into bedlam.
Xi Renjie, who happened to be patrolling nearby, rushed over with a squad of enforcers to restrain them:
"What do you think you’re doing?!"
"Who gave you the right to decide who lives or dies?!" a relative screamed.
"Too many need treatment. We don’t have enough supplies or time—if this continues, more will die."
"Then why does it have to be them?! We’re all human! Why abandon them?!"
"Because their injuries are too severe."
"That wasn’t their fault!"
Xi Renjie faltered. Staring at the red-eyed crowd, he knew further words were useless. With a tired wave, he signaled the enforcers—who promptly drew their guns, pressing barrels to foreheads until terrified silence returned.
The enforcers herded the protesters outside at gunpoint, restoring a fragile order.
Sighing deeply, Xi Renjie spotted Chen Ling by the entrance and approached.
"You injured?"
"...No." Chen Ling shook his head. "Just passing by."
"Why didn’t you help control the riot earlier?"
"I was thinking."
"About what?"
Chen Ling didn’t answer. His gaze lingered on the bloodied stretchers at the street corner. The events of recent days connected in his mind—the sudden material shortages, the factory shutdowns, the severed communications, the encroaching fog…
After a long pause, he uttered words that sent chills down Xi Renjie’s spine, "What if… we’re the ones being abandoned?"
Xi Renjie stared blankly. "You mean—"
"It’s all too coincidental." Chen Ling looked toward Aurora City. "Hopefully, I’m overthinking it."
The suggestion left Xi Renjie frowning in thought. The two stood silent on the clinic steps, the air suddenly heavy.
Finally, Xi Renjie murmured, "No… Impossible. The seven districts have hundreds of thousands of people. Our factories produce seventy percent of the domain’s supplies. Without us, Aurora City would be crippled… Why would they abandon us? We’ll know when Brother Meng returns."
Chen Ling glanced at him.
"And if Aurora City has truly decided to discard District Three… do you really think Han Meng will make it back?"