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.
In some of the resettlement areas farthest from the Fire-backed Turtle, the extreme cold finally started reaping lives.
It chose the most vulnerable—the frail elderly, the weak-lunged children, and the malnourished workers.
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.
