Unexpected Joy

By dinnertime, with the tribe's population multiplying and some personnel being reassigned, they would normally have run into certain difficulties with food by now.

But Zhou Xu was far from operating under normal circumstances.

They had only killed a spider monster a few days ago, after all, and even today, there were still spider legs left. On top of that, the Black Moon Tribe had caught fish throughout the day.

As long as they only needed to ensure that everyone in the tribe had something to eat, it was still quite easy.

However, days like this could not last forever.

After all, that spider monster had only had eight legs...

Once the spider legs were gone, the pressure on their food supply would definitely rise.

As Zhou Xu saw it, the most direct and effective way to resolve the food shortage was to upgrade the fishing nets and improve their fishing efficiency.

In fact, he had already taught the tribal members here to start upgrading the fishing nets on the morning after he arrived at Black Moon Camp.

However, this was ultimately a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Finishing it in a short time was simply too difficult.

With that in mind, Zhuang Mengdie and the others' arrival could be said to have brought a tremendous boost to the labor force at Black Moon Camp.

But Zhou Xu had no intention of having Zhuang Mengdie and the others help weave fishing nets.

The reason was simple. While inspecting the surrounding environment that day, he had discovered some wild rabbits.

That made Zhou Xu quickly weigh the matter in his mind.

There was no need to say more about the idea of raising wild rabbits. From his perspective, the sooner they caught them, the better.

With that as the premise, even though the slow pace of upgrading the fishing nets would affect food distribution after the tribe's population grew, they still had the lousy fishing nets made by the previous chief.

The people at Black Moon Camp had survived until now by relying on those few lousy fishing nets. They could still make do with them for the time being.

At most, the increased population would cause food rations to decrease slightly in stages. It absolutely would not be enough to starve them to death.

Even compared with the experienced workers at Salt Lake Camp, Zhuang Mengdie's handiwork was incredibly efficient. As for the beginners at Black Moon Camp, she completely left them in the dust.

From the afternoon onward, after receiving Zhou Xu's order, Zhuang Mengdie had casually worked for a while before bed and had already woven three baskets of a size suitable for wild rabbits.

That even took into account the considerable time she had spent teaching three newcomers.

In any case, the matter of setting traps to catch wild rabbits could officially be put into practice tomorrow.

The next day, Zhou Xu rose early. After handing the work of plastering the furnace with mud over to the experienced workers transferred from Salt Lake Camp, he eagerly took the traps and hurried toward the rabbits' burrows.

Their arrival inevitably startled the rabbits hiding nearby.

Zhou Xu confirmed this the moment he activated Eye of Insight and quickly located the rabbit burrows.

Because of their arrival, several rabbits fled back into their burrows in panic.

But it did not matter. This was something that could not be avoided.

Ignoring the issue, Zhou Xu, having located the rabbit burrows, walked straight over and began setting up their rabbit traps. As he took out his tools, he explained the process to the members of the hunting squad beside him.

"Unlike when we catch rats, we don't actually have any good bait to lure these wild rabbits into the traps. But unlike rats, rabbits are large enough that they can usually knock down the branch supporting the trap themselves."

As he spoke, Zhou Xu began setting up traps around the rabbit burrow.

"So our strategy for setting the traps has to change as well. Against wild rabbits, our traps have to win through sheer numbers."

By the time he said this, Zhou Xu had already skillfully set up three basket-cover traps around the rabbit burrow.

This ensured that whenever the rabbits emerged from the burrow—or tried to return to it—there would be a decent chance they would trigger one of the traps.

Of course, he could not rule out the possibility that they might flee through other connected burrows.

If they had enough basket-cover traps, they could completely surround every rabbit burrow nearby with traps.

But with only a limited number of traps, they had to take a gamble on luck.

"You keep watch here."

After assigning one person to watch the rabbit burrow, Zhou Xu took the remaining traps and headed toward another burrow.

He was indeed full of enthusiasm about catching wild rabbits.

But as the tribe's chief, he ultimately had plenty of things waiting for him. Naturally, he could not waste a great deal of time crouching beside a single prey animal.

Therefore, according to his original plan, once he had taught the tribal members how to set up this trap, he would leave first.

Unexpectedly, the traps had only just been set up when an excited shout came from the other side...

"We caught one! We caught one!"

It all happened too suddenly. Not only was Zhou Xu just preparing to leave, even the tribal member who had personally watched the wild rabbit creep sneakily out of its burrow, knock down the supporting branch, and get covered by the basket could hardly believe his own eyes!

After being covered by the basket, the panicked wild rabbit was undoubtedly far more agile than a rat. It thrashed and leaped so fiercely that it nearly overturned the basket.

Fortunately, the members of their tribe's hunting squad were fairly experienced in this area. They rushed over and firmly pinned down the basket, completely cutting off the wild rabbit's hope of escaping.

They had successfully caught a wild rabbit in hardly any time at all. It truly came as an unexpected joy to Zhou Xu and gave the new day an excellent start.

After taking the wild rabbit out from under the basket and restraining the hand that had nearly instinctively twisted its neck, Zhou Xu, now carrying a wild rabbit on the way back, was positively beaming.

As the tribe's chief, he was undoubtedly the focus of the tribal members' attention.

They noticed him almost as soon as he returned.

No one had expected that their chief would leave one moment and come back the next carrying a wild rabbit.

This was especially true of the original members of Black Moon Camp.

Their previous chief—and they themselves, of course—had been completely helpless against the wild animals on the grasslands.

At that moment, they were utterly awestruck by their new chief.

The members of the Salt Lake Tribe, by contrast, were much calmer.

After all, in their eyes, this was merely their chief's basic routine.

Zhou Xu had originally planned to start making a rabbit cage after returning to camp. He had not expected to come back from the field carrying a rabbit.

He had no suitable cage on hand to contain it. With no other choice, he could only cover the wild rabbit with a basket for the moment and place a stone on top to keep it from pushing the basket away.

Afterward, Zhou Xu seized the time and got to work on the rabbit cage with Full Firepower.

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