Free Web NovelOutside the window, heavy snow fell and icy winds howled, as the Northern Territory had fully entered the coldest time of the year.
Snow and wind swirled through the high windows of the Red Tide Earthen Building, forming layers of white frost.
The streets were empty, save for Knights in crimson cloaks patrolling against the wind and snow, their fighting aura surging and transforming into a red glow that drove away the cold.
In the distance, a Fireback Turtle was fixed in place and sleeping, its back shell's furnace spewing out rolling steam, barely creating a patch of warmth in the blizzard.
This was winter in the Northern Territory, colder than an enemy, more brutal than a battlefield.
Yet, inside the Red Tide Castle's inner hall, the temperature was like spring.
Within the thick stone walls, geothermal pipes laid years ago were still operating.
Warmth surged from the castle floor, layers of insulation fabric hung on the walls, and the reddish-gray furnace core copper plates emitted a faint glow.
The teapot on the conference table was steaming with hot mist, and the tea's aroma carried the faint bittersweet taste of Frostleaf medicinal herbs.
In the center of the room, Louis Calvin sat silently in the main seat, clad in a military-issue black cloak, his elbows resting on the table, head bowed, staring at a stack of densely packed reports before him, his brows tightly furrowed.
Medical casualty statistics, frostbite cases among refugees, hot soup station operation records, Frostleaf medicine inventory balance—his expression was solemn, and he remained silent.
Just as he was deep in thought, staring at the medical report, a light, brisk footsteps suddenly sounded from outside the door.
Emily, wrapped in a thick cloak, hurried in, a rare, irrepressible smile on her face, her eyes shining with a light rarely seen in winter.
"Louis!" she said quickly, taking off her gloves, "Good news! Just came in, Lady Elena gave birth safely! I have a little brother!"
She stood before the table, exhaling white mist, her eyes full of joy.
Louis lifted his head, his gaze pausing slightly, but without much surprise.
Given Lady Elena's constitution and the scale of physicians in Frost Halberd City, a smooth delivery was only a matter of time.
But he did not spoil Emily's mood.
"Is that so?" he smiled faintly, nodding, "Then I must congratulate your father."
After speaking, he put down the report in his hand, his tone softening a few degrees, "When winter passes, we can go see them."
The smile in Emily's eyes deepened, like a warm lamp lit in a snowy night.
"I knew you'd say that." She sat down briskly beside him, her gaze sweeping over the dense files on the table, then her smile receded a bit, "But, judging by your expression—are you carrying some trouble you haven't told me about again?"
Louis did not answer immediately, merely picked up his teacup, blew away the foam, and took a sip of the slightly bitter warm tea.
"Just a small winter trouble," he answered softly, his tone calm.
Emily casually picked up a folded piece of paper from the table, quickly scanning it, her finger moving across the paragraphs.
Her originally warm expression quickly faded.
"...Frostbite patients have exceeded three thousand, varying in severity; spreading, suspected cases four hundred thirty-two, confirmed sixty-two; death toll—yesterday's count was one hundred seven."
She silently closed the paper.
The cold wind outside swept past, causing the window to tremble slightly. Emily did not utter comforting words like "it's already very good."
She knew, of course, that for a Northern Territory winter, such numbers were almost a miracle.
In other territories, places where supplies were scarce, lords had fled, and commoners were left to fend for themselves, tens of thousands could die without even being recorded.
She had personally seen refugees in other places freeze to death by the roadside, their bodies not even buried, left to pile in the snow, exposed to wind and rain.
But she also knew better that Louis was not comparing himself to others.
What he cared about was never "doing better than others," but "why can't I save more people?"
After a moment of silence, Emily walked to his side, bowed her head, and closed the report, her voice gentle and firm: "Since it's a small trouble, we'll solve it together."
Louis turned to look at her, the layer of solemnity in his eyes seemingly brushed away a little.
He did not say thank you, nor did he offer superfluous pleasantries, merely nodded, a faint but genuine smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"Mm," he responded.
He liked this about Emily: no nonsense, no pretense, no sweet talk to appease, and no fear in facing the cruelty of reality.
The two stood shoulder to shoulder before the conference table, facing the map and the list, reorganizing a set of winter crisis response directives.
This winter was earlier, harsher, and more unreasonable than previous years.
Outside the Red Tide Territory, snow and wind descended from the sky, surging like an angry ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) tide, ceaselessly, day and night.
In the refugee area outside the residential zone, the temperature had plummeted to below negative twenty degrees Celsius, the frozen ground cracking into icy patterns, even a horse's hooves clinking crisply when they landed.
Although there were no longer any crude tents exposed, the collective semi-underground houses still appeared oppressive and heavy.
These were winter shelters hastily built by Red Tide Territory's mobilized artisans before the first snow.
They consisted of sunken walls made of compacted frozen earth and stones, with roofs covered in charcoal ash and straw mats, ensuring a certain degree of warmth.
They were not comfortable homes, but in this Northern Territory gnawed by wind and snow, they were already a miracle.
People relied on geothermal heat, slept closely together, shared blankets, exchanging body warmth and the hope of survival.
The rooms were crowded, and the air often mixed with the smell of sweat, but it was always better than freezing to death in the wind.
Yet, even so, when the true bitter cold arrived, all defenses still seemed minuscule.
On the coldest nights, temperatures plummeted to below negative twenty degrees Celsius, wind and snow poured into exhaust gaps, condensing into frost, and the cold seeped into bones.
Some children, even wrapped in their mothers' arms, woke up in the morning with purple lips and stiff limbs.
At the edge of the Red Tide residential area, fixed Fireback Turtle furnaces stood steadily, and beneath their heavy iron shells came the gurgling sound of surging steam.
Several heat-gathering rings were embedded in the top of the turtle shells, radiating heat to the ground day and night, ensuring that surrounding buildings would not freeze.
Even such a meticulous heating system was only enough to cover the core of the urban area and a limited number of collective houses.
In some of the outermost resettlement areas, furthest from the Fireback Turtles, the extreme cold finally began to harvest lives.
It selected the weakest—frail elders, children with weak lungs, undernourished workers.
The first to fall was a sixty-something bricklayer, who suffered sudden chest tightness while inspecting water pipes on a cold night and never woke up again.
Subsequently, frostbite, necrosis, influenza—like silent poisonous mist, penetrated stone cracks and cotton quilts, sweeping across the area.
The winter night in Red Tide had never been so heavy. The Red Tide medical station was brightly lit, the rooms crowded with frostbite patients and weeping mothers.
Coarse cloth clothes were already soaked, and children huddled in their arms, their hands and feet turning blue.
Some children were already at their last breath upon arrival, their lips black, their chests barely rising and falling.
"Can he still be saved?"
"My little one has had a high fever for three days, can he still hold on?"
"Please, my lord—can you give her some herbs?"
These voices, mixed with coughs and groans, seemed to weigh heavily on the hearts of every healer.
On the other side of the corridor, several bodies, hastily wrapped in burlap and straw mats, were carried out.
Frail children, stooped elders, and even mothers who died beside their children, still tightly clutching the small, lifeless bodies.
Worse still was the outbreak of acute hypothermic influenza.
Overnight, multiple refugee camps experienced collective high fevers and difficulty breathing; in some cases, three to five people died, in others, entire camps became infected.
Medicine was far from enough; the Red Rock Warehouse had been largely emptied in a short time.
It was at this moment that the command of the great Red Tide Lord, Louis Calvin, was swiftly issued, preventing this death trap.
"Move the spare Fireback Turtles to the refugee camp shelters, fill them with Lava Moss fuel, and keep them burning all day and night," he said, his finger falling as if a sharp blade cutting through snow.
High-heat circulating medical rooms, centered around the Fireback Turtles, were immediately activated, with Lava Moss as a combustion aid, continuously maintaining the room temperature at fifteen degrees Celsius, becoming one of the warmest places in the Northern Territory.
But resources were limited, so rotation was necessary.
He ordered: "Everyone can rotate in once a day, prioritizing sick children, artisans, transporters, and new mothers. No one is allowed to forcibly occupy a spot."
At the same time, the workshops of the Red Tide Territory were lit all night.
Mike led the artisans in urgently developing the seventh-generation cold-proof cloak, using a mixture of bitter frost beast fur and refined cotton batting, with an outer layer coated with heat-conducting grease.
The hem of the cloak also had small steam packet interfaces, which could be connected to a portable warm water bottle.
More crucially, this batch of cloaks was sewn by the refugees themselves.
"Work for relief: whoever makes more, their children get to wear it first."
Those mothers, who had already despaired, threw themselves into cutting and sewing with red eyes, no longer just refugees waiting to die.
Within half a month, twenty thousand cloaks were sent in batches to various shelters. Each one was regarded as a continuation of life.
On the medical front, Emily's medical support team also mobilized fully.
Pharmacists concentrated all Frostleaf Vine for processing, formulating highly effective soothing agents specifically for those with high fever from influenza.
The Red Rock Warehouse's dried herb storage was also completely opened, releasing valuable herbs that had been stockpiled for a long time.
"Give them everything, as long as they can survive," was the first thing Emily said to the pharmacists.
A 'Hot Soup Station' was also quickly set up in the city square, operated with the assistance of the Red Tide Army, supplying pickled vegetable stew with potatoes and bone broth day and night, ensuring everyone could have at least one bowl of hot soup daily.
Nuon was eleven years old this year.
When the insect plague arrived, he was still catching a rabbit in a small ditch outside the village; he had promised his younger brother that once he caught the rabbit, he would make him a hot meat soup.
But when he returned home, the entire street was gone.
The insect corpses had swallowed everything.
He didn't even have a chance to cry; he could only drag his younger brother and hide in the forest.
Luckily, the insect corpses didn't find them, and they were eventually rescued by the Red Tide Knights.
After arriving in the Red Tide Territory, someone assigned him a job.
He was assigned to the construction team, following an old craftsman named Cole, moving bricks, erecting wood, and building walls.
These heavy tasks were too much for an eleven-year-old boy, but compared to freezing to death in the snow or starving, he already felt very fortunate.
Here, he had food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and occasionally even soup with meat bits.
He originally thought life was finally going to get better.
But the true deep winter still arrived.
Overnight, his younger brother developed a high fever that wouldn't break, shivering curled up in a tattered blanket.
Nuon panicked, carried him on his back, and ran to the medical station, waiting an entire day in line before they were finally let in.
In less than two days, he also collapsed.
His body was burning hot, his teeth chattering, and his body felt so light as if it would float away at any moment.
He heard Cole sigh, “Alas, what a pity—to have come this far, why couldn’t he just make it through?”
He wanted to retort, but he didn't even have the strength to open his eyes.
Then, that day came.
He heard a rumbling sound, the sound of the Fireback Turtle running, its thick iron shell emitting scorching heat waves.
The originally cold medical station began to warm up; steam pipes were connected, and small stoves burning black fuel were installed next to each bed.
For the first time, Nuon did not shiver in the cold night but slept soundly.
He didn't know what was burning in those stoves, only that they saved his and his brother's lives.
And that day, an “angel” he would never forget, along with a true “sun,” arrived in the ward.
The wind and snow were blocked outside the door, leaving only the gentle burning sound of the warm stoves inside.
The moment the door opened, it was as if light and heat poured in simultaneously.
Walking at the very front was a girl in a white cloak, holding bundles of thick blankets in her arms, her blue hair draped over her shoulders like a river in the night.
Her eyes were gentle, yet like the only light shining in a snowy night.
She was Miss Emily.
Beside her, a young man in a black cloak entered the ward.
He said nothing, only nodded slightly, signaling the soldiers behind him to carry in a large box of medicine and new Fireback Stoves.
This was the Red Tide Lord, Louis Calvin.
The two nobles, walking side by side into this ward filled with moldy smells and the scent of blood, without a hint of hesitation or disgust.
They did not appear in a dream, nor did they stand on a high tower overlooking their fate, but rather walked personally into their despair.
Emily knelt down, walked past each sickbed, and personally covered the children with blankets.
She softly asked, “Are you cold?” and “Hold on a little longer, it will get better soon.”
Each word was quiet, yet like a flame that could penetrate the wind and snow, gentle and real.
And Louis also stood between the sickbeds; he did not look down from above but rolled up his sleeves, personally twisted open medicine bottles, bent down to check the temperature of the stoves, confirming little by little whether every corner met the standard.
His expression remained calm, yet it was not the indifference and coldness seen in the eyes of nobles.
When he walked to a little girl trembling from a high fever, seeing the instinctive fear in her eyes, he merely bent down slightly and whispered, “Don't be afraid, I'm here.”
His tone was gentle, his voice not loud, yet it made the little girl instinctively reach out her small hand and tightly grasp his fingertips.
He did not pull away but simply squatted down, sitting with her for a moment.
When it was Nuon's turn, Emily knelt down and covered him with a blanket; it was new, with a hot temperature and the scent of herbs.
Someone whispered in his ear, “She is Miss Emily, the mistress of the Red Tide Territory.”
He instantly recalled his mother's appearance, and then his brother's hand clutching his sleeve when he had a fever.
But now, someone had grasped him.
Not a god, not a legend, but a young lady who smiled, knelt down, and personally brought medicine and blankets.
She had no wings, yet she was more dazzling than any holy image in the snowy night.
Emily patted his hand and said with a smile, “Hold on until spring, and you'll get better.”
Nuon opened his mouth but couldn't utter a single word, only tightly clutched the corner of the blanket, as if it wasn't just a piece of cloth, but a light that could pull him out of the darkness.
He choked up, his gaze sweeping towards Emily, and also towards Louis, who stood not far from her.
At this moment, he finally understood: she was the saint in the winter night, and he was the sun that ignited this darkness.
They truly saw him as a person, treating his life, like that of a weed, as a life worth saving.
At this moment, he deeply etched the faces of these two people into his heart.
That night, Nuon saw himself in a dream, draped in a Red Tide cloak, holding his brother's hand, walking in the snowy night.
In his dream, he said, “We will live.
When I grow up, I want to become a Red Tide Knight.”
He was not a noble, had no lineage, and no great intelligence.
But on this winter night, he gained the true dignity and hope of a human being.
Not just Nuon, in this frozen winter, the names of the two masters of the Red Tide Territory were no longer just names, but had become hope itself.
Refugees knelt in the snow and prayed, softly murmuring, “Sun of Red Tide, grant us a night of warm wind.”
People called Louis Calvin this: the Sun of the Northland.
Not a king, not a god, but the sun, a sun that could not be extinguished in the dark night, a sun that could burn in the ice and snow.
As for Emily, the most widely spread saying was: “She is the saint who weeps in the snowy night, the second mother of children.” freeweɓnovel.cøm
Women secretly wove white cloaks for her, saying they would give them to the saint in the snow.
Children drew her image on the walls of the shelters: a woman gently bending down, holding blankets in her arms, with a halo behind her.
Someone by the stove told stories to children: “A beautiful saint walked through the snow, unafraid of dirt, unafraid of cold, unafraid of sickness; she brought medicine and the taste of spring.”
The elders said, “They are the saviors of the Northland.”
However, not all people in the Northland were so fortunate.
Not everyone had a lord named Louis Calvin, and not every city was like the Red Tide Territory, with warm geothermal heating and an endless supply of Fireback Turtles.
Outside Red Tide, it was true hell.
Food was completely scarce.
Many minor nobles began to slaughter the sick, the weak, and prisoners; it was said that some were drying “human jerky” in their basements.
In the streets and alleys, crowds huddled around burning corpses for warmth, quietly gnawing on bones, fearing they would wake the noble guards.
The heating system had collapsed; everything was thrown into bonfires, and some elderly even self-immolated just to give their families a night of warmth.
Medical care? That was already an unfamiliar word.
Epidemics were out of control, without doctors or medicine; unburied bodies piled up in alleys, by wellheads, and in front of church doors, stinking to high heaven.
Yet, some refugees intentionally approached those piles of corpses for warmth.
Nobles and armies were no longer protectors but plunderers of food.
Relief supplies from the Governor's Mansion were withheld; inside the castle's high walls, lights blazed, but outside the walls was an icy cave like a ghost domain.
And the most terrifying thing was the collapse of human nature.
Many nobles simply sealed their gates and strongholds, abandoning their people, and even directly expelled all city residents to move south, leaving only empty cities and snow.
Some took their families and the last batch of grain, abandoning their posts in the dead of night; the common people woke up the next day to only see footprints left in the snow, without even hearing a shout.
And the most despairing were the messages coming from those “extreme places.”
A certain noble personally led a team to slaughter refugees, just to save firewood and medicine.
The people of a certain city had begun to cannibalize each other; what burned in the bonfires was not wood, but family banners with golden patterns.
This was the true portrayal of most territories in the Northland this winter.
The death rate from freezing reached 40%, riots spread, plagues raged, and order collapsed.
In contrast, the Red Tide Territory was like a single flame rising in the snow, not very bright, but the only one that had not been extinguished.
The gates of Red Tide were never closed, the Red Tide dining hall never ran out of fire, and the Red Tide medical tents never stopped operating.
Even during the coldest and most severe days of the winter night, there was still smoke from the “Warm Soup Station” in the sky.
Knights on night patrol, wrapped in red cloaks, walked past the refugee camps, and in the distance, atop the high tower, the red flag with the golden sun still fluttered.
But no matter what, as time slowly passed, this cold and long winter finally came to an end.
The snow began to melt, cracks appeared in the frozen ground, and new buds stirred on the withered branches.
When the first sunlight shone throughout the Northland, no one cheered; they just watched quietly, for a very, very long time.
Someone knelt on the snow, gently pressing their head to the ground, as if bidding farewell to the dead, and also as if welcoming some long-lost hope.
In this most despairing year for the Northland, they had thought spring would never come again.
But it still arrived.
