District Three.
Chen Yifei pushed open the door of the headquarters and stepped out.
The thick fog still lingered, like a shadow over everyone's heart. Figures carrying stretchers rushed through the streets, with either cold, pale bodies or bloody, injured people on them. The once bustling neighborhood was now filled with painful groans and worried whispers.
Chen Yifei, wearing a black windbreaker, stood on the steps of the headquarters for a moment before following those stretchers and walking to the other side of the street.
Next to the enforcer headquarters was the largest clinic in District Three, but even being called the largest, its scale was only comparable to the health center Chen Yifei had seen in his previous life's town.
The two-story clinic was now filled with groaning patients. Countless red and white stretchers covered the floor, leaving only a half-arm's width of passage for people to walk through. The few doctors were busy and sweating, rushing between these patients.
"Doctor... Doctor! I beg you, please take a look at my child first. He seems to be dying!"
"Doctor! We're out of gauze and disinfectant! The blood in the blood bank is almost gone!"
"It hurts... it really hurts..."
"This one has a wound infection... it's beyond saving. Prepare for amputation."
"Doctor! This patient has no vital signs..."
"..."
The rising and falling sounds of groaning and crying echoed in the clinic. The stretchers outside had been laid out to the roadside, one after another, from one end of the street to the other, with a constant stream of people being brought in.
How many patients were waiting for treatment? Two thousand? Three thousand? Chen Yifei had lost count.
He stood at the entrance of the clinic, the only dark figure among the white stretchers. His gaze swept across this scene resembling a hell, with no expression on his face, quiet like an unattended sculpture.
A doctor walked out of the operating room with bloodstained hands, and several family members immediately rushed in. Seeing the cold body on the operating table, they burst into tears.
The doctor stood in front of the operating room, looking at the hell inside the clinic, with endless sorrow and pity in his eyes.
"This can't go on..." he muttered.
"All critically ill and severely bleeding patients, we have to give up on them."
Upon hearing this, all the other doctors who were still busy froze, looking at him at the same time. They seemed to want to say something but ultimately fell into silence.
"Are we... going to watch them die?" a nurse asked in a raspy voice.
"We don't have the time or resources to save them anymore," the doctor closed his eyes. "And for those whose injuries are not too severe, gather them together and tell them the correct methods of disinfection and bandaging. Let them find a way themselves."
"...Understood."
The enforcers maintaining order on the scene immediately acted, lifting a large number of severely injured patients who were still alive out of the clinic to make space for those with lesser injuries to enter.
Most of them were already unconscious, and the remaining conscious ones also knew they had been given up on. Stretchers passed by Chen Yifei one after another. He could even clearly see the pain and struggle on their faces, as well as the despair for life in their hollow eyes.
In the chaos, the boundary between life and death was clearly delineated. This severely injured beast, humanity, began to actively tear off the rotten flesh on its body to survive.
The people from the clinic found an open space not far from the street and gathered the severely injured patients who had been given up on. These bloodstained stretchers were laid out, and the incoherent murmurs and painful groans seemed like the whispers of death.
They were waiting for death.
"What are you doing?! Why aren't you saving them?!"
"My dad was brought here first. Why aren't you saving him?! Why?!"
"Those disasters didn't kill my wife, and you're just letting her die? How can you be doctors? What's the difference between you and those disasters?!"
"You're killing people!!"
"..."
The family members who had been anxiously waiting outside saw their loved ones being given up on, and their eyes immediately turned red. They frantically rushed into the clinic, pushing the doctors and nurses who were still treating other patients to the ground, causing the scene to fall into chaos.
Xi Renjie, who was patrolling here, quickly rushed forward and stopped them with several enforcers:
"What are you doing?!"
"How dare you decide others' life and death?" a family member shouted angrily.
"There are too many people here waiting for treatment. We don't have enough resources and time. If we continue like this, more people will die."
"So why do they have to be the ones to die? We're all human. Why should they be given up on?"
"Because they're too severely injured."
"But it's not their fault!"
Xi Renjie was stunned. He looked at this group of family members with red eyes and knew that whatever he said would be useless... He waved his hand, signaling the surrounding enforcers to draw their guns and press them against their temples. Only after they were terrified did they finally quiet down.
The enforcers used their guns to disperse all these people outside the clinic, and order was restored.
Xi Renjie let out a long sigh and saw Chen Yifei standing at the entrance. He walked straight over.
"Are you also injured?"
"...No." Chen Yifei shook his head. "I just came here to take a look on the way."
"Why didn't you help maintain order when it was chaotic just now?"
"I was thinking about something."
"What?"
Chen Yifei didn't answer. His gaze fell on the abandoned bloody stretchers at the street corner. All the events that had happened in the past few days were connected in his mind. The sudden withdrawal of raw materials, the shutdown of factories, the disappearance of communication, the arrival of the mist...
After a long time, he suddenly said something that made Xi Renjie shudder:
"Is it possible that we're also the ones being given up on?"
Xi Renjie was stunned for a long time. "You mean..."
"All this is a bit too convenient," Chen Yifei looked in the direction of Aurora City. "I hope I'm just overthinking it."
After Chen Yifei said this, Xi Renjie frowned and fell into deep thought. The two stood on the steps of the clinic, and the air suddenly became quiet.
After a long time, Xi Renjie whispered softly:
"No, that's impossible... There are hundreds of thousands of people in the seven districts, and the number of factories accounts for 70% of the entire region. Without the material production and supply from the seven districts, Aurora City is like a disabled person with a broken arm... How could Aurora City give up? We'll know when Han Meng comes back."
Chen Yifei looked at him.
"Do you think if Aurora City is determined to give up on District Three, then Han Meng... will he be able to come back?"