Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

With the lumber team increased to eight, Xia Hong's mood improved considerably.

Of course, his mood was secondary; the main thing was that the danger factor had greatly decreased.

Back when he was alone, there's no need to mention it. Even later, with Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng, knowing that the Frost Beasts slept very soundly at night, they were still cautious, trying not to make loud noises, and choosing to cut trees in locations farther away from the Frost Beasts.

Now it's different. Xia Hong no longer acted so timidly when walking on the snow.

Under the cold night, the outskirts of Redwood Ridge hadn't changed much.

Snowflakes continuously fell from the sky, and cold winds occasionally swept past his ears.

Xia Hong led the team to the location of the first Ice Shuo Tree. Seeing that the tree was still empty, without a single fruit, he frowned slightly.

"It's been more than two months, and it still hasn't grown. It seems the growth cycle of the crystal fruit is much longer than we anticipated!"

Xia Chuan was more meticulous. Hearing this, he immediately climbed the tree and examined it for a long time before coming down and saying, "The roots left from the previous fruit picking have just sprouted, which is a bit stronger than what we saw a month ago. It's about the same as the other two trees. If nothing unexpected happens, it should take another two months to bear fruit."

Another two months to bear fruit, which means three harvests a year, with a yield of about six thousand catties each time. One tree yields eighteen thousand catties, and three trees yield fifty-four thousand catties.

After Xia Hong calculated this number in his mind, he frowned even deeper.

During this period, besides hunting, the thing he did most was to lead the team to continuously observe the growth of the three Ice Shuo Trees.

Currently, the Great Xia Camp is naturally not qualified to use Frost Beast meat as food. It must be admitted that the camp's main food source is still the crystal fruit.

Therefore, he had to understand the growth cycle of the crystal fruit.

Each crystal fruit weighs about half a catty. A normal person needs two to maintain a full stomach for a day. According to this calculation, the annual yield of the three Ice Shuo Trees can only feed about one hundred and fifty people.

The camp now already has one hundred and fifty-four people.

That is to say, as long as any accident occurs with these three trees, the camp is very likely to experience a food shortage.

Obviously, Xia Hong was not the only one who realized the shortage of crystal fruit.

After thinking for a while, Xia Chuan immediately asked a question in return.

"How did Father and the others feed more than two hundred people in the past?"

Xia Hong also thought of this. When Xia Ding was around, the camp's total population was more than two hundred and thirty. Even if the crystal fruit quota was not as much as he stipulated now, it would not have been possible to feed so many people with these three trees alone.

After thinking for a while, Xia Hong first turned his gaze to the depths of Redwood Ridge, then shook his head, and then looked to the west, towards the territory of the Great Stone Camp.

"It seems that not only has the Great Stone Camp crossed the border, but Father also crossed the border in the past."

This conclusion is easy to reach. With the strength of Xia Ding's group, they certainly wouldn't dare to venture deep into the inner side of Redwood Ridge.

"The population of the Great Stone Camp is said to be more than three hundred. In that case, they should have many more Ice Shuo Trees than us."

As soon as Xia Chuan said this, Yuan Cheng immediately became interested.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's just go directly and pick from their side. They didn't show any mercy when they brought people to steal crystal fruit from our side before."

Yue Feng, Lin Kai, and others also nodded in agreement. They had also heard about this.

Xia Hong glanced at the inner side of Redwood Ridge, thought for a moment, and then nodded.

Currently, they don't have the strength to venture deep into Redwood Ridge, so they can only go and "borrow" some crystal fruit from others.

Judging from the fact that Xia Ding was able to feed so many people before, but didn't have any fierce conflicts with the Great Stone Camp, it is clear that the crystal fruit over there should be overflowing.

Moreover, the Great Stone Camp "borrowed" fruit first, so there is even less psychological burden.

"Let's go and see the situation of the Ice Shuo Trees over there now."

With Xia Hong's order, he led the seven people and walked over together.

In fact, it wasn't just to see the situation of the Ice Shuo Trees over there. Xia Hong also wanted to see if he could encounter people from the Great Stone Camp.

Strangely enough, he hadn't seen people from the Great Stone Camp in Redwood Ridge for more than a month.

Xia Hong was still skeptical that the last bluff could scare the other party away from their own territory for more than a month. It was impossible for them to be fools if they could survive in this environment for so long with three or four hundred people.

Xia Hong even suspected that something had happened to the other party.

Could it be that the Great Stone Camp had also been found by that strange creature?

"Ouch, there's something on the ground."

Xia Hong was interrupted by Qiu Peng's loud shout while he was thinking.

Everyone stopped and looked to the side, only to find that he had taken off his straw shoes and was covering his foot, hissing and sucking in cold air.

Everyone quickly gathered around him, asking what was going on.

Qiu Peng released his hand, and everyone then discovered that his foot had been cut with a wound about two inches long. Judging from the bleeding, the wound was still very deep.

When everyone saw the wound, their first reaction was to be stunned.

Although the eight of them didn't have proper shoes and were wearing shoes made of woven dry grass, they were, after all, at the Lumbering Realm, and their physical bodies were definitely much stronger than ordinary people. Not to mention cutting such a deep wound, even breaking the skin was rare.

"I don't know what I stepped on, it cut so deep all at once, hiss…"

Hearing Qiu Peng's words, Xia Hong immediately lowered his head and carefully searched around his feet.

The ground was covered with snow, and it was night, making it difficult to see clearly. However, Xia Hong pulled out his stone axe and scratched around on the ground for a while, quickly touching something hard.

After he swept away the snow on the ground, his expression suddenly froze.

Lying on the ground was a gleaming broadsword.

The blade was about the width of a palm, and the body of the sword was about one and a half meters long.

"Isn't this the broadsword of Wang Ming from the Great Stone Camp?"

Yuan Cheng exclaimed in surprise, recognizing the broadsword at a glance.

Xia Chuan next to him didn't say anything, but he obviously recognized it too.

When Xia Hong held the broadsword in his hand, a look of ecstasy suddenly appeared on his face, but he quickly calmed down and looked at the bottom of the broadsword.

"There seems to be something else below."

Xia Hong first put away the broadsword, and then peeled away a layer of snow. A corpse immediately came into everyone's view.

"It's Wang Ming. The wound is on his head. He was punched to death. You guys search separately on the side to see if there are any other corpses."

Xia Hong recognized Wang Ming at a glance. After examining the injuries on his body, his expression changed slightly, and he signaled everyone to search separately again.

Everyone scattered and began searching around with Xia Hong as the center.

"I have one here. The wound is between the eyebrows. It's a… red dot."

"There's another one next to it."

"There's also, three fatal wounds, all red dots between the eyebrows."

Only Lin Kai, who was searching in the west of Wang Ming's corpse, made a discovery, and he even found three corpses in a row.

Xia Hong checked the four corpses separately. Besides Wang Ming, one of the other three corpses was the one he had seen when Wang Ming stole crystal fruit before. Although he didn't recognize the other two, he could judge that they were from the Great Stone Camp from their clothes.

"They're all people from the Great Stone Camp. Something really happened."

He had been guessing before that something might have happened since he hadn't seen people from the Great Stone Camp for so long. He didn't expect that he was right.

Not only did something happen to the other party, but it also happened on Great Xia's territory.

"What did they encounter? Were they killed by someone else?"

"There are no traces of Frost Beast attacks. They should have been killed by other people."

"That is to say, besides Great Stone, there are people from other camps who have also broken into our Great Xia's territory?"

Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, and others looked at the corpses on the ground and speculated.

Xia Hong listened to their guesses, glanced at the broadsword in his hand, his eyes narrowed, and he said quietly:

"Who said they must have been killed by people or Frost Beasts."

Hearing this, everyone's expression suddenly changed.

Not killed by people, nor killed by Frost Beasts, then there is only…

"Go back with me first. We won't hunt or log during this period!"

After Xia Hong finished speaking, he immediately led everyone back towards the camp.

However, just as everyone turned to leave.

On the west side of the location where the corpse was just discovered, on the snow about a hundred meters away, a corpse suddenly sat up, slowly turning its head, looking at their backs.