A New Day's Arrangements

The night passed without incident. Perhaps because he had been utterly exhausted, Zhou Xu had slept surprisingly soundly.

He was not awakened until the commotion outside the tent reached his ears.

Before he even opened his eyes, his starving stomach began to howl, jolting Zhou Xu fully awake.

Then, as if he suddenly remembered what had happened, he sprang upright so violently that he nearly hit his head on the top of the tent.

[Damn it, I actually slept like a log?!]

Although the tribespeople outside respected him as their leader and obeyed his every command, one had to remember that, at most, he had known them for less than a day.

The potential risks that might arise while he slept were enough to break him out in a cold sweat.

But Zhou Xu had to admit that he had truly been too tired yesterday. In fact, his head was still groggy now. Expecting him to remain vigilant all night had indeed been unrealistic.

When he stepped out of the tent, a woman was waiting nearby. The moment she saw him emerge, she hurriedly dropped to her knees.

Zhou Xu had originally intended to help her up and tell her not to kneel, but he was both hungry and sleepy, and his reaction was half a beat too slow. He failed to catch her in time.

"All right, get up. Why are you waiting here?"

"We didn't dare disturb the chief's rest, so we waited here for the chief to wake up and arrange our tasks."

Perhaps because of some of his actions yesterday, the tribespeople now did not dare act rashly without his orders.

He glanced up at the sky. It was not even fully light yet, so he guessed it was around five or six in the morning.

Still, they had gone to sleep as soon as it got dark yesterday, so they should have slept for nine or ten hours.

Standing outside the tent, Zhou Xu drew in a breath of the cold morning air, and his entire body immediately felt several degrees more alert.

"What's your name?"

"My name is Butterfly."

Zhou Xu nodded. He still had some impression of the woman called Butterfly.

"You were the one on the altar back then, weren't you?"

If he remembered correctly, it had been Butterfly, the woman before him, who had handed him the animal hide.

Butterfly obediently nodded in confirmation, a hint of nervousness on her face.

Zhou Xu, however, had only asked casually. Once he finished, he raised his head and walked toward the fire pit that was still burning.

"All right, none of you need to kneel."

Seeing the tribespeople along the way about to drop to their knees again, Zhou Xu felt a splitting headache and stopped them in time.

"From now on, when you see me, just do this, then lower your head. That will count as paying your respects."

As he spoke, Zhou Xu placed his left hand behind his waist and clenched his right hand against his chest. Then he leaned forward slightly and made a bowing motion with his head lowered.

He did not stop the tribespeople from showing their submission to him. After all, consolidating his rule was important to him as well.

But having them kneel every time they saw him was simply too troublesome, and it greatly affected efficiency.

Seeing this, the tribespeople all imitated him.

It was a little awkward at first, but the movement itself was not difficult. After doing it a few times, they basically grew accustomed to it and realized that this method was indeed much more convenient.

"What? After waking up, did none of you even drink water?"

Seeing several fruit-shell bowls filled to the brim beside the fire pit, Zhou Xu raised his head and looked at the surrounding tribespeople.

At the same time, he noticed that they were all gazing at him eagerly.

He soon realized that in a tribe like this, supplies were far too scarce. Even water had to wait for him, as the chief, to distribute it.

Without wasting words, Zhou Xu picked up a bowl of water and took a sip to moisten his throat.

"Fei Que, starting today, you'll be responsible for distributing water to everyone each morning. After it's distributed, keep boiling the water..."

While all the tribespeople gathered together to drink, he began assigning tasks to the thirty-one people under his command.

"Butterfly, the five of you will stay in the tribe today and continue weaving baskets and tree-bark ropes."

Considering the size of their tribe, eight baskets would never be enough no matter how he looked at it. If they wanted to obtain sufficient food, they would have to cast a wide net.

For that, they naturally needed more basket traps.

The five people including Butterfly were undoubtedly the five whose craftsmanship he had approved of yesterday.

"You two will be responsible for stripping tree bark and keeping an eye on the fire while boiling water."

Within the tribe, Zhou Xu counted heads as he issued his instructions.

"Dashan, the main task for the ten of you later will be gathering branches, stones, and insects. I'll tell you the specifics in a moment."

Gathering branches, collecting stones, and catching insects sounded like a short list, but in reality, the workload was anything but small.

Especially gathering branches.

At this stage, considering the matter of drinking water, branches—their primary fuel—had undoubtedly become the tribe's greatest consumable.

Under these circumstances, relying solely on their manpower to gather branches was not very efficient.

This meant they had to put more people into the task to ensure that the fire pit could keep burning and provide them with a steady stream of fresh water.

"Next is Fei Que. The eight of you will each take a basket and divide up the insect heads and innards we collected yesterday."

After saying this, he glanced at the tribespeople, who seemed eager to try something, and hurriedly added a reminder.

"I'm not telling you to eat them. These can't be eaten."

Knowing he was talking about them, the tribespeople unconsciously tensed up. The urge in their hearts to stuff those things into their mouths vanished at once.

In the past, their impulse when faced with food would definitely not have been so weak. But after eating those delicious roasted insects yesterday, then looking at these insect heads and innards...

By comparison, their appetite really was not that strong anymore.

"As for how to use them, we'll talk about it after we get there."

At that point, Zhou Xu's voice paused as he thought about whether there was anything else to arrange.

In truth, there were still many things to arrange, but many of them required him to supervise personally. Relying on the tribespeople alone, they would most likely fail to do them properly.

And he was only one person, after all.

Therefore, within the limited time available, he could only ensure that several necessary tasks were completed first.

Those tasks were not difficult in essence. As long as he spent some time teaching them, he would be able to move on to other matters afterward.

"You six will split into three teams of two and patrol around the tribe to ensure its safety. If anything happens, run to the Black Forest over there and notify us at once. All right, the rest of you, follow me."

As he spoke, Zhou Xu led the way toward the Black Forest not far away.

During that short stretch of road, Zhou Xu also kept sorting through his thoughts.

Before going to sleep yesterday, he had organized his overall plan. But he had been far too tired at the time, and his mind had been muddled, so he still had not worked out the specific arrangements for today very clearly.

Judging by the time they would take, he should have gone to set up the traps first. After all, waiting for prey required time.

But for that very reason, he needed to demonstrate the process of capturing prey with traps first, so the tribespeople would understand exactly what to do before he could leave to handle other matters.

With that as a prerequisite, what if the prey refused to show up? Wouldn't his arrangements be stuck there?

Thinking of this, Zhou Xu changed his plan out of caution. He first led the main force to sweep the outskirts of the Black Forest while gathering supplies.

An update has arrived. My computer ran into a problem, and after tinkering with it for a while, the update ended up being late. Thanks for the rewards from the readers "Lazy Sincere Smile," "Idle Man of the World," and "Strange and Wonderful de Names"!