Endless Winter: My Camp Infinite Upgrades

Chapter 30 An unexpected gain
The logging team increased to eight people, and Xia Hong's mood improved a lot.

Of course, mood is secondary. The main thing is that the risk factor has been greatly reduced.

Not to mention when they were alone in the early days, even after Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng joined them, and knowing that the cold beasts would sleep very soundly at night, they were still very careful everywhere, trying not to make loud noises, and when they cut down trees they would find a place farther away from the cold beasts.

It’s different now. Xia Hong is no longer so timid when walking on the snow.

On this cold night, not much has changed outside Redwood Ridge.

Snowflakes kept falling from the sky, and the cold wind blew past my ears from time to time.

Xia Hong led the team to the location of the first ice tree. Seeing that the tree was still empty and without any fruit, he frowned slightly.

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

Xia Chuan was more meticulous. Upon hearing this, he immediately climbed up the tree and inspected it for a long time before coming down and saying, "The rhizome left behind from picking the fruit has just sprouted. It's a little stronger than what we saw a month ago, and about the same as the other two. If nothing unexpected happens, it should take another two months for it to bear fruit."

It will take another two months to bear fruit, which means that there can be three harvests a year, with each harvest yielding about 6,000 kilograms. One tree will yield 18,000 kilograms, and three trees will yield 54,000 kilograms.

After Xia Hong came up with this number in his mind, his brows furrowed even deeper.

During this period, apart from hunting, what he did most was to lead the team to constantly observe the growth of the three ice trees.

The current Daxia camp is naturally not qualified to use cold beast meat as food. It must be admitted that the main food that the camp currently relies on is still crystal fruit.

Therefore, he must understand the growth cycle of the crystal fruit.

Each crystal fruit weighs about half a pound. A normal person needs two to maintain adequate food and clothing for a day. According to this calculation, the annual output of three ice trees can only feed about 150 people.

There are already 154 people in the camp now.

In other words, if anything unexpected happens to these three trees, there is a high probability that there will be a food shortage in the camp.

Apparently, Xia Hong was not the only one who realised the gap in crystal fruit.

After thinking for a while, Xia Chuan immediately asked back.

"How did father and his family support more than 200 people?"

Xia Hong also thought of this. When Xia Ding was there, the total population of the camp was more than 230. Even if the crystal fruit quota at that time was not as much as he stipulated now, it would be impossible to feed so many people relying on these three trees.

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

"It seems that not only the Dashi Camp has crossed the border, but my father has crossed the border before."

This conclusion is easy to draw. With the strength of Xia Ding and his gang, they definitely wouldn't dare to go deep into Redwood Ridge.

"I heard that the population of Dashi Camp is over 300. So, they should have many more Ice Trees than we do."

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

"Then what are we waiting for? Why don't we just go to their place and pick them? They brought people to our place to steal the crystal fruits before, and they showed no mercy at all."

Yue Feng, Lin Kai and others also nodded, they had also heard about this.

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

At present, they do not have the strength to go deep into Redwood Ridge, so they can only go to "borrow" some crystal fruits from others.

Judging from the fact that Xia Ding was able to feed so many people before but did not have any fierce conflicts with the Dashi camp, it was obvious that the crystal fruits there must have overflowed.

What's more, since Dashi had "borrowed" the fruit first, he had no psychological burden at all.

"Let's go over now and take a look at the situation of the Ice Tree over there."

Xia Hong gave an order and walked over with seven people.

In fact, Xia Hong not only wanted to see the situation of the Bingshuo tree over there, but also wanted to see if he could meet anyone from the Dashi camp.

Strangely enough, he hadn't seen anyone from the Big Stone Camp on Redwood Ridge for more than a month.

The last bluff was enough to scare the other party away from their territory for more than a month. Xia Hong is still skeptical now. It is impossible for someone to be a fool to survive in such an environment for so long with three or four hundred people.

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

Will the Dashi Camp also be found by that monster?
"Ouch, there's something on the ground."

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

Everyone stopped and looked sideways, and found that he had taken off his sandals and was covering his feet, hissing and sucking in cold air. Everyone quickly gathered around him and asked what was going on.

Qiu Peng let go of his hand, and everyone discovered that there was a two-inch cut on the sole of his foot, and judging by the bleeding, the wound was quite deep.

When everyone saw the wound, their first reaction was shock.

Although the eight of them did not have proper shoes and wore shoes woven from hay, they had the cultivation level of lumberjacks after all, and their bodies were definitely much stronger than ordinary people. Not to mention such deep wounds, even scratching the skin was rare.

"I don't know what I stepped on, it cut me so deep, hiss..."

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

The ground was covered with snow, and it was night, so it was difficult to see clearly, but Xia Hong pulled out a stone axe, scratched the ground for a while, and soon hit something hard.

After he swept away the snow on the ground, he was stunned.

All I saw lying on the ground was a shiny big knife.

The blade is about the width of a palm and the blade is about one and a half meters long.

"Isn't this Wang Ming's big knife from Dashi Camp?"

Yuan Cheng exclaimed in surprise and recognized the big knife at a glance.

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

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 underneath."

Xia Hong first put away the big knife, then pushed away a layer of snow, and a corpse suddenly came into everyone's sight.

"It's Wang Ming. He has a wound on his head. He was beaten to death. Split up and look around to see if there are other bodies."

Xia Hong recognized Wang Ming at a glance. After checking the injuries on his body, his face changed slightly and he signaled everyone to look for him separately.

Everyone scattered and began searching the surrounding area 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 nearby."

"Also, there are three fatal injuries, all of which are red dots between the eyebrows."

Only Lin Kai, who was searching to the west of Wang Ming's body, found anything, and he found three bodies in a row.

Xia Hong checked the four bodies separately. Except for Wang Ming, one of the other three bodies was someone he had seen when Wang Ming stole the crystal fruit before. Although he did not recognize the other two, he could tell from their clothes that they were Dashi's people.

"They are all from Dashi Camp. Something really happened."

He had been wondering before whether something had happened to the people in Dashi Camp since he hadn't seen them for such a long time. Unexpectedly, he guessed right.

Not only did something happen to the other side, but it also happened on Daxia’s territory.

"What happened to them? Were they killed by someone else?"

"There are no signs of a cold beast attacking. It must have been killed by someone else."

"That means, besides Dashi, people from other camps have also intruded into our Daxia territory?"

Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng and others looked at the corpse on the ground and began to speculate.

Xia Hong listened to their speculations, glanced at the big knife in his hand, his eyes slightly fixed, and said quietly:
"Who said that? He must have been killed by humans and cold beasts."

When everyone heard this, their expressions suddenly changed.

If he wasn't killed by a human, or a cold beast, then it could only be...

"Come back with me first. No hunting or logging during this period!"

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

However, just as everyone turned to leave.

To the west of where the body was found, over a hundred meters away on the snow, a corpse suddenly sat up, slowly turned its head, and looked at their backs.

(End of this chapter)