Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 750 - 418: Flowers Blooming in the Mire

The steel flood of Louis has already moved away.

What remains in the canyon is not the cheer of victory, but a fear that hasn’t yet cooled.

Refugees kneel in the mud, their hands still tainted with flour.

Some clutch their injured legs, biting on cloth to silence their cries, while others stare dazedly at the distant flames, as if still not awakened from the madness.

They originally thought they would be abandoned here.

But before long, a second wave of people entered from the canyon entrance.

They were not cavalry there to harvest, nor phalanxes to clear the field.

They were the logistics and medical team.

Hundreds of soldiers carried bulging march bags, their steps steady and quick.

Their uniforms were uniformly colored, a glaring grey-white, as if designed to stand out in the mud and gore.

Their faces were concealed by bird-beak masks and layers of gauze, revealing only pairs of weary but alert eyes.

On their arms, the sun armband was particularly eye-catching in the cold light after the rain.

Dozens of alchemy glow sticks were planted into the ground, their ghostly white light unraveling the darkness of the canyon into a straight corridor. Chaos was forcibly cut through.

The refugees instinctively wanted to shrink back, yet the team did not pounce on them.

They pitched tents first, then established quarantine lines, and set up cooking pots.

Only then did someone stand at a high point.

She wore light armor of the Red Tide Standard, rainwater cascading off her shoulder guards.

Behind her was a greatsword almost as tall as she was, its handle wrapped in dark leather.

When she removed her faceplate, it revealed an excessively youthful face, with a faint scar left by an old wound on her forehead.

Mia, the team leader of the third logistics brigade of the Red Tide Knight Order.

Her voice cut through the damp chill after the rain: “Don’t push! Line up according to color! Red Tide will not abandon anyone who follows orders!”

She didn’t need to explain what following orders meant.

The earlier steel flood had already drilled the answer into everyone’s bones.

Mia raised her hand, pointing to the colored flags planted in the mud.

“Red zone, the injured. Yellow zone, those with fevers and coughs. Green zone, those who can walk, go get porridge!”

She paused, her eyes sweeping over those who had just crawled out from the stampede: “Anyone defecating indiscriminately will have their rations canceled.”

The order was as cold and hard as iron.

Yet it was this rhythm that made the crowd, having just escaped from madness, instinctively begin to comply.

Martha knelt in the muddy water, her child in her arms too weak to cry.

In the recent scramble, she had barely managed to grab a handful of raw flour, but now only despair remained.

She mixed the flour with dirty water, her hands trembling as she brought it to the child’s mouth.

“Eat a little… please, eat a little…”

The child’s face was turning blue, his breathing almost imperceptible.

Mia was maintaining order from on high, but caught sight of this scene from the corner of her eye.

In that moment, her steps halted.

The sound of the rain, the shouting, the echoes of metallic loudspeakers, all seemed to distant.

An untimely image flashed through her mind.

The ruins of White Stone Village, snow falling as if trying to crush the sky.

A man knelt inside a broken house, clutching a young girl unconscious with fever, his lips pale, crying as if trying to cough up his lungs.

Eight years had passed, yet that despair hadn’t changed.

Mia leapt down the dirt slope, splashing through the mud and water towards them.

Martha was just about to shove that lump of raw dough into the child’s mouth.

A hand clad in an iron glove suddenly clamped onto her wrist.

“Stop!” Mia shouted, “Do you want to kill him?”

Martha trembled, looking up at the greatsword, thinking she had encountered the Northern Territory demon from the knights’ tales.

Her lips trembled: “My lady… I didn’t…”

“Eat raw flour and dirty water after starving for a long time, and the stomach will explode,” Mia spoke quickly, as if racing against time, “Give him to me.”

She bent down, her movements unexpectedly gentle, the child as light as a kitten, his forehead burning, his breathing thin as a thread.

Mia held the child steady and shouted towards the crowd: “Medical squad! Grade one critical! Life Potion! Steam tent!”

Several masked medics immediately rushed over, a stretcher trailing behind them, their movements as though perfectly rehearsed.

Martha reached out to grab her child, but Mia gently nudged her away with her shoulder.

“Follow me.” Mia said in a low voice, her tone softened a bit from before, “Don’t wander around. If you fall, he won’t survive long either.”

Martha numbly rose and stumbled along behind.

The medical tent was warm, unlike the outside world. Steam pipes hissed in the corner, the air tinged with the scent of medicine.

The child was placed on a clean white sheet, and the medics took over.

As the needle pierced the tiny vein, Martha let out a shriek, throwing herself forward.

Mia held her shoulder down, not with great force, but steady as a nail.

“Watch.” She locked eyes with Martha, “That’s the water of life.”

The pale golden medicine dripped slowly.

The child’s bluish complexion began to lighten, his chest rising and falling more evenly.

A few minutes later, he frowned slightly, letting out a faint hum from his throat.

Martha collapsed as if emptied of bones, sobbing breathlessly, “Thank you… thank you, my lady… thank you, Goddess…”

“I’m no goddess.” Mia crouched down, handing her a bowl of steaming minced meat porridge.

The bowl was hot, causing Martha’s hand to shake, nearly dropping it.

Mia didn’t let her kneel: “Drink first. You’re on the verge of collapsing yourself.”

Martha looked up, choked with emotion, catching sight of Mia’s face after she removed her helmet.

That wasn’t the refined coldness of a noble lady, nor the superior arrogance of a knight lord.

It was a face shaped by training and good nourishment, healthy and firm, with a sense of determination in the eyes.

“Eight years ago,” Mia suddenly spoke, as if to Martha, or to herself, “I was like him, almost dying in the snow.”

“My father back then… was the same as you, grabbing whatever he could, shoving anything into my mouth.”

She paused, a shallow curve at the corner of her mouth.

“Then someone picked me up. He said the knights of the Red Tide were here to save people.”

Martha was stunned: “You… you’re also…”

“Yes,” Mia nodded, “I used to be a refugee, now I am also a knight of the Red Tide.”

She pointed to the sun badge on her light armor: “In the Red Tide, as long as one survives and is willing to work, there’s food to eat. Later on, learn to read, learn the sword. Even a mud-stained can wear armor.”

……

Outside the tent, the order of the logistics camp was unfolding inch by inch.

Getting porridge wasn’t about snatching.

Everyone had to go through a narrow passage first.

The pungent smell of lime water mixed with alchemy disinfectant mist wafted over.

The knight shouted: “Wash your hands! Rub ten times! No washing thoroughly, no eating!”

Some gritted their teeth and complied, others tried to slip through, only to be pushed to the back of the line.

Those showing symptoms of fever or coughing were immediately taken out of the crowd and sent to the quarantine area.

Only then did it come time to eat.

Everyone received the same wooden bowl.

What boiled in the pot wasn’t just clear water, but salted minced meat and cooked oatmeal, thick and warm.

An old farmer held the bowl of porridge, his hands trembling greatly, the steam hitting his face, with tears falling into the bowl.

He had lived sixty years, never had any lord cared whether his hands were dirty, nor cut up meat to cook for him.

The feeling of being treated as a human stunned him, not knowing how to respond.

Not far away, the sappers were dealing with bodies.

Those dead in a stampede, or killed by the overseers, were neatly laid together, sprinkled with fuel and alchemy powder.

“There will surely be a plague after the rain,” the Red Tide knight explained briefly, “For the living, they must be cremated.”

When the flames rose, the refugees stood afar watching.

……

Mia’s news quickly spread within the camp.

“That female officer saving lives… was once a refugee.”

“Really? She said it?”

“The child she carried away with her own hands was nearly gone.”

The crowd’s view of Mia changed.

The previous awe remained, an instinctual fear of steel and guns.

But beneath the fear, something else began to grow.

Aspiration.

If she could crawl up from the mud, could their children too?

When dawn broke, the rain finally stopped.

Black Stone Canyon no longer looked like a devouring deep well, but rather an emergency field hospital rapidly set up.

White tents formed a continuous line, with smoke rising slowly in the cold morning air.

Martha sat by the tent, the child in her arms sleeping deeply, now with a rosy complexion.

She’s wrapped in a dry blanket, holding a half-bowl of unconsumed meat broth.

Mia walked past the tents swiftly, yet paused briefly before Martha: “He will survive.”

Martha’s throat choked up, only squeezing out words after a long while: “I… what can I do for you?”

Mia nodded towards another part of the camp: “Go over there. The logistics team needs people to move boxes, the medical team needs bandages washed, we pay daily wage and food.”

Martha looked down at the child in her arms, then towards those queuing in the camp.

She wiped her face, stood up, rolled up her sleeves.

“Ma’am… I can mend clothes.”

“I’m able to work.”

Soon, more people stood up.

Hand after hand raised, trembling in the morning light, yet firm.

At the camp’s furthest edge, a hastily erected wooden board held simple, nearly crude rules written in charcoal.

No cutting in line. No hoarding food. No beating others. No hiding illnesses.

Below were additional rules in slightly heavier writing:

Violators, food rations cut off, forced labor, until recovery or departure.

These words held no elegant rhetoric, yet were as nails, firmly embedded in everyone’s eyes.

Red Tide soldiers didn’t maintain order by repeated yelling, they relied on certainty.

Every violation brought clear consequences, every compliance exchanged for predictable rewards.

When a strong man trying to take an extra bowl was dragged out of line, had his bowl taken, and was pushed to the dirtiest and most exhausting loading area, there was no commotion, but rather a calming silence among the crowd.

When a young man hiding a high fever and trying to sneak into the green zone was caught, sent directly to the quarantine tent, yet really received medicine and hot water two hours later, suspicion was also quelled.

There was no indebtedness here, only system.

No forgiveness based on mood, nor privilege based on identity.

It was precisely this cold and nearly ruthless handling that made the crowd, just freed from insanity, start to understand the Red Tide wasn’t sustained by goodwill.

Unlike the nobles who casually distributed porridge, it relied on a set of rules that wouldn’t waver because someone cried or shouted louder.

And the Red Tide’s porridge was to keep the system running.

Once people realized this, obedience was no longer just forced but a rational choice.