Unexpected Harvest

The Lumber Team had grown to eight people, and Xia Hong's mood had improved considerably.

Of course, his mood was secondary. More importantly, the danger had dropped drastically.

There was no need to mention the early days when he had been alone. Even after Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng joined him, and they learned that the Frost Beasts slept deeply at night, they still proceeded with caution at every turn, trying not to make loud noises and choosing locations farther from the Frost Beasts when chopping trees.

Now things were different. Xia Hong no longer walked across the snow with such trepidation.

Under the cold night sky, the outskirts of Redwood Ridge remained much the same.

Snowflakes drifted down incessantly, while cold wind occasionally swept past their ears.

Xia Hong led the team to the first Ice Vast Tree. Seeing that it was still bare and had not produced a single fruit, he frowned slightly.

"It's been more than two months, and it still hasn't grown back. Looks like the growth cycle of the Crystal Fruits is much longer than we expected!"

Xia Chuan was more meticulous. At once, he climbed the tree and inspected it for a long while before climbing down. "The stems left behind after we picked the fruit have only just begun sprouting. They're a little stronger than when we saw them a month ago, about the same as the other two trees. If nothing goes wrong, they should need another two months before they bear fruit."

Another two months before they bore fruit. In other words, they could produce three harvests a year, with roughly six thousand jin each time. That meant eighteen thousand jin from one tree, and fifty-four thousand jin from all three.

After calculating this figure in his mind, Xia Hong's brow furrowed even more deeply.

During this period, aside from hunting, the thing he had done most often was lead the team in constantly observing the growth of the three Ice Vast Trees.

The current Great Xia Camp naturally was not qualified to use Frost Beast Meat as food. It had to be admitted that the camp's main staple still consisted of Crystal Fruits.

Therefore, he had to figure out the growth cycle of the Crystal Fruits.

Each Crystal Fruit weighed roughly half a jin. For an ordinary person to stay fed for a day, they needed two. By that calculation, the annual yield of the three Ice Vast Trees could only support around one hundred and fifty people.

The camp already had one hundred and fifty-four people.

In other words, if anything happened to these three trees, the camp would very likely face a food shortage.

Clearly, Xia Hong was not the only one who had realized the shortfall in Crystal Fruits.

Xia Chuan pondered for a while before immediately asking, "How did Father and the others manage to support more than two hundred people before?"

Xia Hong had thought of that too. When Xia Ding was around, the camp's total population had exceeded two hundred and thirty. Even if the Crystal Fruit rations had not been as generous as the amount Xia Hong had stipulated now, these three trees could not possibly have kept so many people fed.

After thinking for a moment, Xia Hong first turned his gaze toward the depths of Redwood Ridge. Then he shook his head and looked west, toward Big Stone Camp's territory.

"Looks like Big Stone Camp wasn't the only one crossing the border. Father crossed it before too."

This conclusion was easy to reach. With Xia Ding and his people's strength, they certainly would not have dared venture deep into the inner parts of Redwood Ridge.

"I heard Big Stone Camp has more than three hundred people. If that's true, then they should have far more Ice Vast Trees than we do."

The moment Xia Chuan said this, Yuan Cheng immediately became interested.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go pick some from their side. They brought people here to steal our Crystal Fruits before, and they showed us no mercy."

Yue Feng, Lin Kai, and the others also nodded. They had heard about it too.

Xia Hong glanced toward the inner parts of Redwood Ridge. After thinking for a moment, he nodded as well.

They did not yet possess the strength to venture deep into Redwood Ridge, so they could only go and "borrow" some Crystal Fruits from the others.

Judging from how Xia Ding had been able to support so many people without any fierce conflict breaking out with Big Stone Camp, it was obvious that Big Stone Camp's Crystal Fruits must have been in surplus.

Besides, Big Stone Camp had "borrowed" their fruit first, so Xia Hong had even less reason to feel burdened by it.

"Let's go over now and take a look at the Ice Vast Trees on their side."

With Xia Hong's order, the seven others went with him.

Of course, he did not merely want to inspect the condition of the Ice Vast Trees there. Xia Hong also wanted to see whether they might run into people from Big Stone Camp.

Strangely enough, he had not seen anyone from Big Stone Camp around Redwood Ridge for more than a month.

Xia Hong still had doubts that his earlier bluff had frightened the other side into staying away from their territory for more than a month. Anyone capable of leading three or four hundred people to survive in such an environment for so long could not possibly be a fool.

Xia Hong even suspected that something had happened to them.

Could Big Stone Camp have been found by that strange monster too?

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

Xia Hong was deep in thought when Qiu Peng's shout interrupted him.

Everyone stopped and turned to look. Qiu Peng had taken off his straw sandal and was clutching his foot, hissing as he sucked in cold air.

Everyone quickly gathered around him and asked what had happened.

Qiu Peng moved his hand aside, and only then did they see that his sole had been cut by a wound roughly two inches long. Judging by the amount of blood, it was quite deep.

At the sight of the wound, everyone froze.

Although none of the eight had proper shoes and they all wore shoes woven from dried grass, they possessed Lumbering Realm cultivation, so their bodies were far stronger than ordinary people's. It was rare for them even to break the skin, let alone suffer such a deep cut.

"I don't know what I stepped on. It sliced so deep in one go. Hiss..."

At Qiu Peng's words, Xia Hong immediately lowered his head and began searching carefully around his feet.

The ground was covered in snow, and it was nighttime, making it difficult to see clearly. But Xia Hong drew his Stone Axe and scraped around for a while. Soon, he struck something hard.

After brushing away the snow, his expression suddenly went blank.

Lying on the ground was a gleaming Great Saber.

The blade was about as wide as a palm, and the weapon was roughly one and a half meters long.

"Isn't this Wang Ming's Great Saber from Big Stone Camp?"

Yuan Cheng cried out in alarm, recognizing the Great Saber at a glance.

Xia Chuan stood beside him without speaking, but he had clearly recognized it as well.

When Xia Hong gripped the Great Saber, a flash of wild delight appeared on his face. But he quickly calmed down and looked beneath it.

"There seems to be something underneath too."

Xia Hong first put away the Great Saber, then brushed aside another layer of snow. A corpse immediately appeared before their eyes.

"It's Wang Ming. The wound is on his head. He was punched to death. Split up and search around the area. See if there are any other corpses."

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

The others scattered, beginning to search the surrounding area with Xia Hong at the center.

"I found one here. The wound is between the eyebrows. There's a... red dot."

"There's another one nearby."

"Another one. Three fatal wounds, all red dots between the eyebrows."

Only Lin Kai, who had searched to the west of Wang Ming's corpse, found anything—and he found three corpses in succession.

Xia Hong examined all four corpses. Aside from Wang Ming, one of the other three was someone he had seen when Wang Ming had stolen Crystal Fruits before. Although he did not recognize the other two, their clothing was enough to determine that they were from Big Stone Camp.

"They're all people from Big Stone Camp. Something really did happen."

He had already wondered whether something had happened to Big Stone Camp after not seeing anyone from there for so long. He had never expected his guess to be right.

Not only had something happened to them, it had happened on Great Xia's territory.

"What did they run into? Were they killed by other people?"

"There are no signs of a Frost Beast attack. They should have been killed by other people."

"So that means, besides Big Stone Camp, people from another camp have also broken into our Great Xia territory?"

Xia Chuan, Yuan Cheng, and the others looked at the corpses on the ground and began making their guesses.

Listening to them, Xia Hong glanced at the Great Saber in his hand. His eyes narrowed slightly as he spoke in a low voice:

"Who says they must have been killed by people or Frost Beasts?"

Everyone's expressions changed at once.

If they had not been killed by people or Frost Beasts, then there was only...

"Come back with me first. We won't hunt or chop wood for the time being!"

After saying this, Xia Hong immediately led everyone back toward the camp.

However, just as they turned and left—

In the snowy ground more than a hundred meters west of where the corpses had been found, a corpse suddenly sat upright. It slowly turned its head and watched their retreating backs.