Chapter 127: Abandonment

Third District.

Chen Ling pushed open the headquarters door and stepped out.

The thick fog had not dissipated, like a gloom hanging over everyone’s hearts. Figures carrying stretchers hurried past on the streets, carrying either cold, pale corpses or blood-stained, mutilated wounded. The once-bustling district was now filled with painful groans and worried whispers.

Chen Ling, wearing his black trench coat, stood on the steps of the headquarters for a while, then followed behind the stretchers toward the other side of the street.

Next to the Executor headquarters was the largest clinic in the Third District, but even calling it the largest, its scale was about the same as the health center Chen Ling had seen in the town in his previous life.

The clinic had two floors, and it was now packed with groaning patients. Countless red and white stretchers covered the floor, and the aisles where people could walk were only half an arm’s width wide. The few doctors were sweating profusely, shuttling between the patients.

"Doctor... Doctor! I beg you, please look at my child first! He seems to be losing his breath!"

"Doctor! We’re out of gauze and disinfectant! The blood in the blood bank is almost gone too!"

"It hurts... it really hurts..."

"There’s a wound infection here... we can't save it, prepare for amputation."

"Doctor! This patient no longer has vital signs..."

“……”

The rising and falling groans and cries echoed in the clinic. The stretchers outside had spread to the roadside, one after another, lined up from the beginning of the street to the end, and there was a constant stream of people being sent over.

How many patients were waiting for treatment? Two thousand? Three thousand? Chen Ling couldn't count them anymore.

He stood at the entrance of the clinic, the only patch of black amidst the white stretchers. His gaze swept over the scene, which was like a purgatory, with no expression on his face, quiet as a statue that no one cared about.

A doctor with blood on his hands walked out of the operating room. Several family members immediately rushed in, and upon seeing the cold corpse on the operating table, cries of pain erupted instantly.

The doctor stood in front of the operating room, looking at the hell inside the clinic, his eyes filled with endless sorrow and pity.

"We can't go on like this..." he muttered to himself.

"For all patients who are critically ill or have lost too much blood, give up on them."

As soon as these words were spoken, all the other doctors who were still busy were stunned. They looked at him, seemingly wanting to say something, but eventually fell into silence.

"Are we... going to watch them die?" a nurse asked hoarsely.

"We no longer have the time or resources to save them." The doctor closed his eyes. "And for those whose injuries aren't too serious, gather them together, tell them the correct methods for disinfection and bandaging, and let them find a way for themselves."

"...Understood."

The Executors maintaining order at the scene immediately took action, lifting the critically injured patients who were still breathing one by one and moving them outside the clinic, clearing space for patients with lighter injuries to enter.

Most of them were already delirious, and the remaining conscious ones knew they had been abandoned. Successive stretchers passed by Chen Ling, and he could 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 drawn. Humanity, this severely wounded beast, began to tear off its own rotting flesh in order to survive.

The clinic staff found an open space not far from the street and gathered the abandoned critically injured patients together. These blood-stained stretchers were spread out, and the delirious murmurs and painful groans sounded like the death-dream of the Grim Reaper.

They were waiting for death.

"What are you doing?! Why aren't you saving them?!"

"My dad was one of the first to be sent here! What right do you have not to save him?! What right!!"

"Those calamities couldn't kill my wife, and you’re just letting her wait for death? You’re no doctors! How are you any different from those calamities?!"

"You’re killing people!!"

“……”

The family members who had been waiting anxiously outside saw their loved ones being abandoned, and their eyes turned red instantly. They rushed into the clinic like madmen, pinning the doctors and nurses who were still treating others to the ground. The scene fell into chaos.

Xi Renjie, who happened to be patrolling there, rushed up quickly and blocked them with several Executors:

"What are you doing?!"

"What right do you have to decide other people’s life and death?" a family member roared.

"There are too many people here waiting for treatment. We don't have enough resources and time. If we go on like this, more people will die."

"Then why must it be them who die? We are all human, why should they be abandoned?!"

"Because their injuries are too severe."

"But that’s not their fault!"

Xi Renjie was stunned. He looked at the group of family members with red eyes and knew that nothing he said would matter anymore... He waved his hand, signaling the surrounding Executors to draw their guns and press them against their heads. Only then, out of fear, did they finally quiet down.

The Executors used their guns to disperse all these people away from the clinic, and only then did the clinic restore order.

Xi Renjie let out a long sigh. Seeing Chen Ling also standing at the entrance, he walked straight over.

"Are you injured too?"

"...No." Chen Ling shook his head. "I was just passing by to take a look."

"Why didn't you step in to maintain order when it was so chaotic just now?"

"I was thinking about something."

"What?"

Chen Ling didn't answer. His gaze fell on the blood-stained stretchers abandoned at the street corner. Everything that had happened in the past few days connected in his mind: the sudden withdrawal of raw materials, the halted factory, the vanished communications, the descent of the fog...

After a long while, he suddenly said something that made Xi Renjie’s hair stand on end:

"Is it possible that we are also the ones being abandoned?"

Xi Renjie was stunned for a long time. "You mean..."

"All of this is just a bit too coincidental." Chen Ling looked toward the direction of Aurora City. "I hope I’m just overthinking it."

Xi Renjie was lost in thought after what Chen Ling said. The two stood on the steps in front of the clinic, and the air suddenly went quiet.

After a long while, Xi Renjie whispered:

"No, that’s impossible... The seven major districts have hundreds of thousands of people, and the number of factories accounts for 70% of the entire realm. Without the production and supply of materials from the seven districts, Aurora City would be like a disabled person with severed arms... How could Aurora City abandon us? We’ll know once Brother Meng returns."

Chen Ling glanced at him.

"Do you think that if Aurora City is determined to abandon the Third District, Han Meng... will still be able to come back?"